TESTIFY

Revelation 12:11a They defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony

Testimony = a spoken or written statement that something is true

Life is filled with ups and downs, mountains and valleys, failures and victories, laughter, and tears, and all of these experiences and emotions have a story that goes along with them. As we go through these aspects of life, the key for all of us to understand is that God means for us to share these things via testimonies to help others who feel they cannot make it.

Throughout the Bible, there are examples of this being done, and in this blog, I am going to share two of them. The first found in John 4 shares the story of the Samaritan woman whom Jesus met at Jacob’s well while his disciples went into the village of Sychar to purchase him something to eat. Unlike the women in her town who came to get water in the morning, this nameless woman came to the well around noon. It is believed her questionable reputation caused her to be scorned by the women in her village, so she was there alone.

Being thirsty, Jesus asked her to get him some water to drink. This, however, surprised the woman because Jewish men usually did not speak to Samaritan women, and drinking from her utensil would deem him ceremonially unclean. From that point on, Jesus revealed He was the awaited Messiah the Samaritans were expecting, the Living Water she needed, and also revealed he knew her marital status. This encounter was so impactful the woman left Jesus and her waterpot, went into the village, and said to the men, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”

In response to the woman’s testimony, the men came and met Jesus for themselves. After spending two days with Jesus and at His departure from them, they confessed, “We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the savior of the world.”

My second example is the man who was for a long time possessed with a legion of demons encounter with Jesus in the country of the Gadarenes. This naked man was tormented, had unusual strength to break chains off of himself, and lived in the burial grounds of the dead. After fearlessly speaking with this man, Jesus, in His authority, cast the demons out of the man. The unclean spirits that were in him entered into a nearby herd of swine and caused them to run into the lake and drown.

When the townspeople heard what had happened and saw the newly delivered man sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, fear overtook them, and they asked Jesus to leave the area. As Jesus was departing, the man asked Jesus’ permission to accompany him, but Jesus told him, “Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee.” Happily, and being a living example of the power of Jesus to deliver the man went and testified throughout Decapolis his life-changing experience with Jesus.

In the first example, I shared the woman’s testimony was about being freed and saved from her notorious past. In the second example, the man’s testimony was about being delivered and restored emotionally, mentally, and physically. Both of these testimonies have lived on and are still inspiring lives, and as they did then, your testimony to a troubled world can do the same now.