The story of your life
I love hearing about what God has been doing in the lives of Christians. It was great to hear on Sunday from Chris Stonehouse, wasn’t it. It is true to say that we can know people for years without actually finding out how they became a Christian and so, in some sense, we don’t really know the most important thing about them at all. And testimony is not just good for encouraging other Christians: everyone loves a good story and so our story can be one of our most powerful tools in trying to tell people how great God is and what a wonderful Saviour we have in Jesus. Because we think it is so important we are going to try to get members of the church family up regularly to tell us how they became a Christian and something of what God is doing in their lives now. You’ll be pleased to know that all the members of the PCC have volunteered so we have a good long list! We hope, too, that as we hear from different members of the church family, the rest of us will begin to think about our own story and think about how we might tell someone else.
The apostle Paul gives his testimony twice in the book of Acts (you can read it in Acts 22 and Acts 26). It is fairly simple: Paul tells people what a good Jew he was and how he hated everything to do with Jesus (Acts 26:1-11); then he explains how he met Jesus, who turned his life upside down (26:12-21); and that God is now with him to help him (26:22). Crucially, he drops in that Jesus died and came back to life (26:23) and that we can be forgiven through Jesus (26:18). What were you like before you understood what Jesus had done for you? How did you meet Jesus? What is he doing in your life? Who could you tell?