Have you ever felt like you don't have a testimony worth sharing?
I admit that I have felt that way in the past. My life has not been super intense or dramatic or controversial. By God's grace, my life has been simple. I had heard stories of people coming to Jesus after being in a gang and finding themselves in prison. I heard stories of people who slept around and were hard into drugs and alcohol and then came to Jesus.
I thought my story wasn't worth telling because I grew up going to church and going to youth group and Sunday School. I have always known who Jesus was. I have always been told who Jesus is. This is a blessing, not something to be ashamed of. Everyone has a different story, but the beautiful part of every story is the subject of the story - God. No testimony is without God's action. God is the primary character in every salvation story.
This means that however you feel about your testimony is, here is the truth - there is no such thing as a basic or boring salvation story. Salvation, by definition, is a dramatic, miraculous event in the life of every disciple of Jesus.
Salvation is a resurrection.
Salvation is a death leading to life and new creation. Salvation is a throwing off of our old selves and a putting on of our new selves provided by Jesus. Salvation is not about making you a good person, but about raising your dead life to life. It is a resurrection story, not a boring tale about growing up in the church and you now know that Jesus is Lord and Messiah and the Savior of your life.
Your story of coming to Jesus is just as important and impactful as someone with a really intense and dramatic story. Whether you came from a life of drugs, promiscuity, prison, gangs, or a life of attending church, youth group, and Sunday School; the fact that you know that Jesus is King is an unbelievable thing that happened only because God allowed your mind to understand who Jesus is.
You were once dead in the sins in which you once walked. You were once dead.
You were not made into a good person, you were resurrected.
You were slaves to the devil and are now slaves to Christ.
If you know Jesus is God and trust Him with your whole life, Jesus died your death for you so that ultimate death will never find you. You do not have to fear death. You do not have to fear eternity. Your eternal security was paid for by the blood of our Jesus, our Savior and our sacrificial Lamb.
In Christ we are no longer alone in our sorrow or dead in our sins. We are no longer lost without hope. We are orphans no more. We are no longer bound in chains. We are no longer indebted.
We are free, free, forever amen. When death was arrested our new lives began.
Scripture
---
Luke 19:10
“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Romans 4:15
But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.
Ephesians 2:1-8
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Comments