If you were to ask many people who claim to be followers of Jesus today to share their testimony, most likely you will get story of their conversion. For some, that was many, many years ago. They will tell you that they were a child, teen, young adult, or middle adult and someone shared the gospel with them. Maybe it was at work, during a personal visit, or during a church service that they heard the gospel. God convicted their heart of their need to recognize and surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They turned their backs on their sin and embraced the good news that Jesus came to live out the righteousness they would need to see God and died the death they deserved that would prevent them from seeing God. They stepped that day from death to life, from being an enemy of God to a child of God, and they went from hell-bound to heavenbound. (If they do not share something like that scenario, they may not realize what it takes to be saved and need to be!)
But when we give our testimony, most people are not necessarily looking to hear about something that happened to us 50, 20, or 5 years ago. They want to know what difference Jesus is making in your life today because they want something to make a difference in their lives as well. That begs the question. What have you done with the salvation you have been given?
In Galatians 5, Paul told the Galatians:
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
(Galatians 5:1)
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.”
(Galatians 5:6)
“For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
(Galatians 5:13)
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”
(Galatians 5:16)
“If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
(Galatians 5:25)
What was Paul saying and how does that apply to a discussion about our testimony? Simply this. We have been saved from a past that we are not to repeat. Why would we want to go back to the filth from which we have been cleansed? The Galatians were tempted to go back to the Law to please God because someone told them that they should. While most of us are not Jewish and did not come from the Law, we were living life our own way and trying to justify ourselves through our actions, values and ingenuity. We have been saved FROM that! Don’t go back.
But we have also been saved to live a life of faith. That means that we have opportunities everyday to live for God and to choose Him above the competing values of this world. When we do so, we discover that He is sufficient. He has filled in the empty spots of our hearts. We find Him to be enough and that is what many people are looking so desperately for.
As we live daily and find Him to be enough, we must be careful that we do not fall back into old behaviors, but we must also be careful not to move forward into new sins and values that contradict our claims to be followers of Jesus. When we give in to the flesh and follow those desires instead of His plans, we hurt our testimony and people realize that Jesus does not make much of a difference for us and difference is what they are looking for (whether they realize it or not).
When we share Jesus with people, we need to be able to the difference He has made in the past, the difference He is making in our present, and the difference He will make with our future.