A Word of testimony

Psalms 107:1-3 Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. 2 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy, 3 And gathered out of the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.

Colossians 1:12-13 Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

In the eight or so years that I have been converted I have been amongst many professing Christians in many different churches. In that time, I have come to see the importance of a personal testimony of salvation. Rev 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.

What I have found astonishing is that many, dare I say most, who profess Christianity do not have one. And if we include testimonies like those along the lines of, “A great peace came over me and then the phone rang and it was my son I hadn’t talked to in 12 years so I know something must have happened.” I would say the percentage of credible testimonies of salvation to be around 10 percent.

One of the practices that I believe a church should practice in admitting a person for church membership is to require the people to give their testimony to the assembled church. What I have found when I have asked people to do this is quite interesting. I will write more on that in another post.

When hearing a person’s testimony of salvation, I find it more than the norm for people to immediately begin speaking about the pastor. When so and so was the pastor I got saved. When pastor so and so came to the church we did too… Amazing how many people tie their conversion experience to a man who prayed with them and often fail to mention anything about conviction of sin, repentance, belief, faith or even Jesus Christ, God or the Holy Spirit. Call me old fashioned but I believe a person’s salvation testimony of when they were converted ought to include a reference to Jesus Christ.
And so I continue to re-state what, interestingly enough, was said in the message that God used to convert me: “Sombody's lost, in these churches!”