Lord’s Library contributor Jared Helms offers views from the branch on using your testimony to tell His story and edify others. Check out Jared’s YouTube channel and two blogs: A Light in the Darkness and Blind Faith Examples, or send him a reader response email. Lord’s Library’s Ministry Leaders Series is a collection of contributed articles written by ministry leaders on key Christian topics.
If you were asked to share your testimony what would say? Most of us are conditioned to respond with the account of our moment of conversion from death to life in Christ by grace through faith. Some of us are rather sheepish in our retelling because that moment was not as dramatic as Saul of Tarsus on Damascus Road. We think a good testimony is one where a life of outrageous sin, tremendous struggle, or severe deprivation gives way to the wonderous splendor of God’s abounding love in an instant.
Such stories highlight for us the impact of grace. Such stories easily captivate.
Yet not everyone has such a story, and to think such stories better than others is to cast some doubt upon the One who authored the stories; God Himself. In finding our own stories inadequate we find God inadequate. That’s a double blow we can not easily sustain. Yet many of us have sustained it as dramatic conversion stories are paraded before us, while our own story goes untold.
On Using Your Testimony to Tell His Story
The word of God features many testimonies including the aforementioned story of Saul of Tarsus. That particular story gets retold several times with a notable instance in Galatians 1:11-2:21. Reading this account, particularly the portion ending in Galatians 2:10, we learn much about testimonies.
I wish you all to know and to begin to understand that some mistakes have been made when it comes to testimonies. First, we have missed the point. Secondly, we have made the scope too narrow. The first error has led to the second, and the second error is feeding the first. I am not sure how any of it got started, and I am not certain who is to blame. I can say with certainty that many well-meaning people have contributed to the misunderstanding of whom I am the doubtless one.
However, errors can be corrected, and we can easily set both these mistakes straight today.
The point of sharing a testimony is to glorify God by revealing what He did in a particular life. God has done a lot for all of us. Certainly saving us from the tyranny of sin, and from its penalty of eternal death is chief among the blessings, but it is far from the only one.
God has also kept all of His promises to us, and seen us through many trials. God has taught us and grown us up towards the fullness of Himself in Christ. He has numbered all of our days, and in all of them and through all of them has written a testament to His perfect character and attributes. The purpose of testimony is not to rely on the glory of God in a single action but in all of life. You see we had a portion of the true purpose, but not the fullness in sharing only our conversion.
I suppose my second point is rather obvious now, but please humor me as I unpack it. Our testimonies include the full scope of our lives. There is not one part to a testimony, but three. There is “life” before Christ, receiving Christ, and walking with Christ. For some the first part is more expansive than the others, and for some (this writer included) the latter part is larger. Each part and each person contributes something of value to the grand purpose of glorifying God.
We see this in every instance of Paul sharing his story, and we see it in all the other outstanding characters of the Scriptures.
Now we might also think that there is nothing in any portion of the story big enough to bother with. Yet experience is not objective, but subjective. From the smallest to the largest whatever tests us and proves God, glorifies God. If it is a trifle it shows that God cares for us to take notice of even our trifling matters, and if something is life-altering it shows nothing is too great for Him to handle.
Ah, but let us also remember this in reality none of us has anything large to contend with in comparison to the invincible power of the Almighty. As with Paul’s confrontation with Peter (Cephas) as told to the Galatians, some episodes in our lives are particularly relevant to specific circumstances we encounter later.
There is one more thing we should consider about testimonies, they ought always to be delivered in humility, and received in humility. This is so because they are part of God’s story, and are themselves stories penned by His own hand. Let us heed the wisdom of Isaiah 45:9, and accept what God does as good and perfect: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?”
Let us share unashamedly, but contritely. Let us be open to sharing our own weakness a failing as God’s power is made perfectly evident by them. Aside from Jesus, the characters of the Scriptures are openly flawed, and they did not shy from telling it. We are all sinners saved by the amazing grace of God. The stories of our lives are the stories of what He has done in us and through us. The most important aspect of any testimony is that it has God as its hero.
What has God done for you? That is the question we must be able to answer, and the answer in narrative form is our testimony. I believe this is by divine design so that it would not be difficult for us to give a reason for the hope that is in us, or witness to others about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We might not know all the facts of redemptive history off the top of our heads, or have a supreme grasp of soteriology (the study of salvation), but we have been acquainted with it in our own lives for some time. So, we have had a front-row seat to some portion of God’s working of redemption. We have tasted to see that the Lord is good.
We have what Paul had: a story to tell.
And we notice that Paul could do a lot with that story. In Galatians, he uses both to defend himself against false accusations and to admonish the churches. In Philippians 3 he uses some of his stories to encourage that church, and again he uses a very short form of the story to encourage Timothy in ministry. Testimonies also warn, correct, and explain. As we also see in the letter to the Galatians; testimony opens the way for pure doctrine. When we tell our stories we can bring in scriptures and expound them with our stories helping to illustrate and apply.
Beloved God has a story to tell, one that is uniquely given to you to steward for His glory. I love to read of the great deeds God accomplishes through His saints, and wish we had more records of those deeds that escaped the notice of human histories. You have a story to tell, and I pray you will tell it to the glory of God.
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- Views From the Branch: On Using Your Testimony to Tell His Story - November 30, 2024
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