Judges 8:18-9:21
Luke 23:44-24:12
Psalm 99:1-9
Proverbs 14:9-10
Luke 24:9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.
They had just received the good news of Jesus resurrection and ran to tell the others. Tell the other followers of Jesus what they had just experienced. I just got back from a praise and worship service at my camp church. People were welcomed to share their testimony. One of the local pastors was there and he shared his testimony and he spoke to the need to get back to doing that in church. It used to be a common thing in churches. Just think if we shared our testimonies in church it would make it easier to share it outside church. Kind of like practice. When the women went and told the others what they had seen that was the first time but imagine how many people they told after that who didn't know Jesus. Not only is it practice for us but it's a way God can save the lost. He will put the right persons in the pew at the right time to hear the testimony of the right person speaking. Get your testimony ready and tell it. Start with the body of Christ and see what He does with it.
I remember in discipleship training class we talked about what is your testimony? Every believer has one and every one is different. Pastor Amy encourages everyone to take time to write out your testimony. Which we also did in DT. Then we shared them with each other. It's easy to do. Write down who you were and what your life was like before you gave your life to Jesus, then write down how you came to give your life to Jesus. Then write down what happened after. How were you changed by Jesus. It's not possible to belong to Jesus and be the same person you were before so there will be changes. If you don't see a change in your life then maybe you want Jesus as Savior but not as Lord. To truly give your life to Jesus He needs to be the Lord of your life.
I grew up going to church as I have written about recently on April 24th. I knew who Jesus was and I wanted that gift of salvation but I had not made Him Lord. My testimony starts with that and the morally corrupt life that I lived in spite of all that Jesus had done for me and all the time I spent in church. And as I said on the 24th I accepted Him as the Lord of my life in Sunday school when I started taking my kids to church. He began to teach me and convict me of the things in my life that needed to change and the first thing that changed for me was my thoughts about right and wrong and who's opinion mattered. The old me would have thought, how do I feel about this? I'm not hurting anyone with what I'm doing so it's okay. Everyone else is doing it so it must be good. The new thought was, what does God say about this? I am grateful that He did not convict me of everything that needed to be changed at once. I still mess up and fall into sin, but I am not the same person I was before that. And as I had grown He used that obvious difference in me that my unbelieving husband saw and recognized to save my marriage and my husband. Years later He had convicted me of a need to confess something in my past to my husband that would devastate him and could have ended my marriage. When I told him, it did devastate him, but it didn't end my marriage. He said, "You aren't the same person now that you were then". I don't know if he gave any thought to the difference being because of God in my life but he knew I was different. That is why he was able to forgive. God even used that devastation to bring him to a place of surrender in his life and accept Jesus as his savior as well. And He gave me the blessing of being the one who prayed the sinner's prayer with Him.
There is power in the good news of Jesus so get your testimony ready and start sharing it and look out for all the cool ways God will use it.
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