Tell Your Story
In today's Bible Reading Paul is arrested by the Jews because they thought he was teaching people to not follow the law, which of course he was not doing. He actually went out of his way to do just the opposite. He took four men who had made vows and purified himself along with them. Paul's part in sponsoring these men would include paying part or all of the expenses of the sacrifices, which in this case was eight pigeons and four lambs. (Num. 6:9-12) and going to the temple to notify the priest when their days of purification would be fulfilled so the priests would be prepared to sacrifice their offerings. (Notes from the NIV Study Bible). He was seen at the temple, the Jews stirred up the crowd and they seized him. There was such a ruckus that the Roman troops came running and took Paul into custody.
When they reached the barracks, Paul asked permission to speak to the crowd. He stood on the steps of the barracks and simply gave his testimony. He told them who he was, where he came from, his training in the law, and how he had been zealous in persecuting Christians. Then he told his experience of Jesus speaking to him on the road to Damascus and his conversion, and how it had changed his life. The crowd listened but when he told them the Lord had commissioned him to preach to the Gentiles they became angry again. Paul didn't preach a fancy sermon, he just gave a factual testimony of what had happened in his life. Each of us has a testimony and it is something we can share with people very simply without becoming preachy. Your testimony is something people can't argue with. You are just telling them your story. And it can have a great impact on the lives of people who need the Lord.
I would like to share my testimony. I always say my testimony actually begins with the testimony of my parents. My mother was born to a single mom in a time when it was totally not acceptable (1917). She was raised in anything but a Christian home. Her grandmother took her to church a few times but there was no regular church attendance. When she was about 8-9 her mother married and her step-father began to work as an itinerant crop picker. They traveled from place to place, never in one place for more than a few months. For some reason Mom would find a Sunday School to go to wherever they were. She was not taken, she went by herself. When she was a young teenager the family moved to a homestead in Wyoming where she met my Dad. They were married at a country dance when she was 17. Shortly after they were married both her family and my Dad's family moved to the State of Washington. One time they were invited to a Full Gospel church, so they dressed up in their "dance finery" and went to the service, only to sit in the back and make fun.
Mom became pregnant, but had a miscarriage and began hemorrhaging. She was taken to Harborview Hospital in Seattle and placed in the maternity ward. The doctors couldn't get her hemorrhaging stopped and she lay for days in the hospital. One by one the other mothers in the ward went home with their babies and she was left all alone. She remembered a song she had heard while attending Sunday School when she would go by herself, and she began singing it. "Yes, he understands. All his ways are best. Hear, he calls to you, 'Come to me and rest.' Leave the unknown future in the Master's hand. Whether sad or joyful, Jesus understands." She prayed right there in the hospital room and gave her heart to the Lord. My Dad went to a mission in Seattle at the same time and gave his life to the Lord. He came to the hospital, signed Mom's release against doctors orders, carried her out of the hospital and took her home. She gradually got better and when she was well enough they went to church and publicly gave their lives to the Lord.
So two years later was born into a Christian home. All because a little girl heard about Jesus in a Sunday School and heard a song that she remembered. My earliest memories are of church. I don't know exactly when I gave my heart to the Lord, but I remember a time when I was about five years old kneeling at the end of a church service and crying my eyes out. I was baptized in water when I was about 10 and baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues when I was 12. I began teaching Sunday School when I was 12 and played the piano for church (the pianist had moved and I was the only one who could play anything!!!) My Dad became a pastor when I was in my teens and I played the piano for church there, taught Sunday School and led a teen group. I never strayed from the Lord all during high school and after graduation when to Bible College for two years. My husband, Ted, came from Holland to attend the Bible College after I had graduated. We met at the church and were married a year later. After he graduated we helped in my Dad's church. We had been married abut two years when we were asked to go to Odessa in Eastern Washington to pastor a church there. That began a life of ministry in one form or other to the present day.
When i was younger I used to think I didn't have a testimony. I had never lived in the world or been involved in sin, couldn't testify that the Lord delivered me from drugs, alcohol or prostitution. But as I observed the lives of kids I had gone to school with and the the destructive lifestyles they had chosen, I began to realize that the keeping power of the Holy Spirit is just as great as His redemptive power. The fact that I didn't stray from the Lord was not because I was so good, but because God is so good. Through the years of ministry the Lord met us over and over and supplied our needs, often in miraculous ways. He has never failed me.
That's my testimony. No one can tell me that God is not real and does not relate to us in our time, because I have proved Him real. Your testimony is much different than mine, but every testimony is powerful and relevant and can touch the lives of other people when shared. Follow Paul's example and tell you story.
2 comments:
Naomi, what a powerful reminder of God's grace. His grace is just as needed to refrain from all of those things as it is to be forgiven of them. Thank you for this blog.
Such a timely message to for the season of Thanksgiving. We all have a story of God's grace and this is the time to shout it out.
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