Testimony!

My home is decorated with family photos, capturing a moment in time. I look at one from 1976, of a very young couple. She is visibly with child, their first. Yes, I remember the setting of that picture 4 decades later! We memorialize special moments, don’t we?  At family gathering we re-tell our stories, laughing, perhaps crying, building our sense of belonging, connected by heritage, understanding who we are in part because we know from where we came. Our stories are the testimony of what it means to belong to the Scott clan.

When Christians gather they celebrate a ritual meal and when the Cup and Bread are shared it is, as Jesus said, “in remembrance of Me.”  When go back, for a moment, to the Cross and His love. Hopefully we also recall the joy we knew when we accepted His gift of life and renew our hope.  It is important for us to tell our own faith stories, too.   

Can you tell the story of your own faith-awakening, concisely, and in a way that presents Christ to those who do not yet know His love?  We used to call that our ‘testimony.’  However we refer to it, we need to be able to tell The Story of Jesus and how He has changed our life.

When Joshua led the people of God into the Promised Land, it is worth noting that before they started the campaign of conquest, they built a memorial! After God stopped the Jordan River so that they could cross on dry land, here is what he did.  "On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan.

He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the LORD your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The LORD your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful and so that you might always fear the LORD your God.” (Joshua 4:19-24, NIV)  The stones told the story. They were a testimonial to the faithfulness of God.

Theology and doctrine are of critical importance but those truths live through real people, you and me. Paul says that our lives, when changed by the Truth of Christ, are to “reflect^ the Lord’s glory” as we are “being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory.” (2 Corinthians 3)  Our children, our extended family, our friends need to ‘see’ the Gospel even more than they need to hear it.

One of the ways they see it is in the work of the Spirit happening in us in the ordinary days, when we tell our testimony. When we walk with Jesus, we need not be self-conscious about talking of our Friend. We must not invent fanciful tales. We just tell the stories of His grace and love.  These stories are the ‘memorial stones’ that cause others to “might know that the hand of the LORD is powerful.”

I love to hear those authentic stories of His grace, that is often found in our failure.  My faith finds refreshing in the testimony of a Believer who knows her God personally. Do you know Him?

In John 9, there is a story of a man whose sight was restored by Jesus’ touch. His exuberance in telling the story caused the religious authorities to haul him in for questioning, insisting that he must be making it up, that it could not be true. They badgered the man and his parents. "They asked them, “Is this your son? Was he born blind? If so, how can he see?”(John 9:19, NLT) "So for the second time they called in the man who had been blind and told him, “Give glory to God by telling the truth, because we know Jesus is a sinner.” (John 9:24, NLT)

I love his response to this, and take the word from the Word for us today from his conclusion. “I don’t know whether he is a sinner,” the man replied. “But I know this: I was blind, and now I can see!” (John 9:25, NLT)

Can you say the same, that Jesus has taken away your spiritual blindness, given you eyes that see the goodness of God?  What’s your testimony about His grace and goodness?

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My Testimony

 I saw Satan fall like lightning

I saw darkness run for cover

But the miracle that I just can't get over

My name is registered in heaven

 

I believe in signs and wonders

I have resurrection power

Still the miracle that I just can't get over

My name is registered in heaven

My praise belongs to You forever

 

This is my testimony from death to life

'Cause grace rewrote my story I'll testify

By Jesus Christ the Righteous I'm justified

This is my testimony (oh I'm alive)

(This is my testimony)

 

Come together sons and daughters

Bought with blood and washed in water

Sing the praises of the Spirit Son and Father

Our God will finish what He started

Our God will finish what He started

 

If I'm not dead You're not done

Greater things are still to come

Oh I believe

 

Brandon Lake | Chris Brown | Steven Furtick | Tiffany Hammer

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