Preparing your testimony- Consider these points:
First write down some key points about your relationship with Christ. This practice will help you prepare a simple synopsis of your personal story to share with people. Then in the next step, write an actually testimony or faith story!
1. What is my story? What do you believe? Know why and whom you believe. Write the simple facts.
2. What was my life like before Christ? Analyze your attitude, your disposition, and your lifestyle.
3. What change occurred afterwards? Was there
satisfaction? Was there joy? Was there a difference?
4. How has it affected my family? My work? Did they acknowledge a positive change in you? Are you happier? Are you at peace?
5. What is my involvement in church? Are you actively involved in church? Are you excited to learn the Bible? Do you display Christian love to others?
6. Compare worldly joy verses Christian joy. Write some noticeable differences between the old ways and the new.
7. Compare worldly goals verses eternal life. What is the focus? What are your goals as you live out the new path that Christ has set before you?
8. Compare worldly contentment verses spiritual contentment. Describe how life takes on a new meaning.
9. Compare the comfort the Holy Spirit brings verses human comfort.
Write down your experience of the promised Holy Spirit. How has the Holy Spirit enabled you to get through some tough circumstances?
10. Share newly formed friendships. Have you noticed a difference in the warmth and friendliness in people since your transformation?
What about yourself? How do you show God’s love?
11. If you were raised as a Christian, share how God has been faithful to you over the years. Has God helped you and honored your prayers?
12. Think about some of the temptations in life and how
you overcame them. Did you call on God? Did you believe that He heard you? How did He answer?
13. What encouragement have you received? Are fellow Christians encouraging? Has anyone shared their faith with you?
14. Is there a spiritual mentor in your Christian life? Is there someone that stands out to you that expresses trust and faith in God? Is there someone who deliberately encourages you?
15. What has kept you faithful to God? What keeps you interested in discovering more of God? Have you developed a good Bible study habit?
Now write out your faith story using your thoughts you have taken from this study.
Excerpt taken from my book, “A Journey to the Heart of Evangelism.”
Learning To Follow -
Have you ever asked yourself that question? In the very beginning of my journey with the Lord I struggled with those thoughts. “How can God possibly use me to benefit His Kingdom?” I began to study and reflect upon various stories in the Bible. Matthew chapter 4 gives a vivid description of the first disciples to be called by Jesus. Imagine yourself and a friend out fishing on a lake having a relaxing time and suddening when you reach back to the shore, you hear Jesus calling out to you saying, “Come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Wow! Do you stand there frozen with the fishing gear still in your hand in awe of ‘who ‘ just called you? Or would you hastilly leave everything behind to join the Master?
Imagine what Simon and Andrew must have been thinking after they had walked a few miles and turned to see the shore in a far distance. They dropped everything to follow Jesus. Their gear may have been visible still. Fish may still be jumping in their buckets on the rocky shore. Do you suppose it was their last glimpse as life as they knew it? Perhaps it was.
Their lives were completely encompassed in the safe keeping of their Master. Life had taken on a new meaning and purpose for them. They travelled, they learned from their great teacher, and they shared with everyone the good news of eternal life. They were mission bound! It wasn’t all glory and dance though. The Gospels record many hardships and trials Jesus and the disciples and followers faced. There was one particular occasion along the journey where they stopped and wondered if the mission was too difficult for them to continue. Some complained that Jesus’ teachings were too difficult. Consequently, some departed.
Is that how Christians feel today? Has your life changed for the Gospel mission? Did you join the force wholeheartedly knowing that there would be some hardships? Did you look back with the yearning to go back? Did you hesitate along with the doubters who found the teachings too difficult to comprehend?
There was plenty of fish left to be caught, but not by the disciples. They had nothing to worry about, their catch was now men. They had a new path set before them. But it was with Jesus, the One who chose them to be the future spokesmen for the sake of the Kingdom of God. I believe they held firmly to the Gospel truth. Their faith proved worthy of all that Jesus had promised them.
May we never forget God’s promises of provision, protection, and guidance as we stand our ground for Him. May we firmly grasp His truths so that we will never be tempted to walk back to where we once were. But to continue in Him holding firmly to His hand. In this way, God will effectively use us to be His partner and friend in mission until the day of completion as He has declared!
Allow Him to use you for His glory!
Copyright Jan Keats
Evangelism – Following in Obedience
The disciples asked, “What must we do to do the work God requires?” Jesus answered, “ The work of God is this: To believe in the One He has sent.”
(John 6:28,29)
Let’s look at willingness as a requirement –
Do you remember when one of your parents asked you to run an errand and you didn’t feel like at the time? Perhaps you were having too much fun with your friends, or you were about to play basketball or hang out at the mall. I’m sure that you complied out of respect and obedience, and then ran off in haste afterwards. I remember my kids doing just that!
Is willingness a prerequisite to believing? Is an unwilling working heart a deterrent to believing? What work does God expect us to do anyway? In His answer to the disciples, He said, it is to believe in God. Perhaps He could have continued in dialogue and asked, “ Are you willing to do my work?”
Then the disciples asked, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’
Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” (John 6:30-33)
SO, there’s the difference… Allow me to pose the question this way; do you believe that God gives life to the world? Are you willing to believe that God is the true bread of life that came to give life to the world? If the willingness is there, then there must be motivation to carry out His will! There must have been a starting line!
When the disciples finally believed that Jesus was speaking the truth, they asked for the TRUE bread of life. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” At that moment He gave the invitation to come and dine with Him. “…whoever comes to me I will never drive away.” (John 6:37b)
To do the work God requires is, to believe in the true God, be willing to follow the true God, and accept the invitation to dine with the true God…from start to finish!
“For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day!” (John 6:40)
ã Jan Keats
What is the Believers Commitment?
Okay then, let’s do it, let’s explore how it’s done.
“Therefore since Christ suffered in His body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin!. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.” (1 Peter 4:1,2)
Sounds like a plan. God’s plan is for His children to be like Christ. We are done with sinning, and now living out the will of God for the rest of our earthly lives! Isn’t that the believers commitment?
The Samaritan woman who met Jesus at the well had just come to know Him and as a result of her testimony many of the Samaritans from that town became believers. You see, Christians are to be good news before they share the good news.
Jesus stayed two days with the people there and many more became believers. They said to this woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:40-42)
As people everywhere share the good news of Christ, many people place their faith in Jesus and become believers. The royal officials son was so close to death when he asked Jesus to come to him before he died. Jesus told him that his son would live, so the man took Jesus at his word and left. As a result his entire household believed. (John 4: 49,50)
Jesus gave an open invitation to come to Him. It was at the last and greatest day of the feast. “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink, whoever believes in me as the Scriptures has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:37,38)
The believer must remain in the stream of God’s Will. The believer must allow the Holy Spirit to flow from within him. The believer must read and heed the Scriptures to discover more of God. The believer is to dwell in the promises and blessings of the Almighty God. Isn’t that a privilege?
