How Current Is Your Testimony

Acts 8:6, “And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.”
As I write these daily devotionals I sometimes have to stop and take stock about what God is speaking to me about. This one is no exception. When I asked the question, “how current is your testimony” I had to look at mine. I hear people all the time say, “I don’t really have a testimony.” You don’t did Jesus die for you save you from a devils hell write your name in the Lambs book of life? Sounds like a pretty good testimony to me. Did He change your heart and life? If so then you DO have a testimony.
This is the typical sequence of an effective (or conversely ineffective) witness: people hear what you say; they look for the signs of God which are evidenced in your life based on what you have done and what you are doing; they then decide whether or not to pay attention to what you say. In Phillips case -- after they saw what he did, they all paid close attention to what he said.
If I and a six time Pro Bowl running back or quarterback were to come to speak at a football clinic about the techniques of professional football who would you pay close attention to the professionals or a Baptist preacher? That’s a no brainer. You would listen to those with the experience. I on the other hand may know a lot about the game but I have never performed at the professional level. So whose opinion would you trust if we three disagreed on football techniques? Whose opinion would you trust the most? The answer is clear. You would trust the pros because they have both the credentials and experience. Their words would have so much more impact and importance than mine because of what they have done and are doing (they live the game, while I on the other hand have not played football since high school).

The same is true for us as we witness to others. Some big questions we need to ask ourselves are these: Are people going to "pay attention" to what we say if the substance of what God has done or is doing in our lives is not evident? How effective will our words be if the last evidence or miracle we witnessed in our life was back in "high school" (in other words, a really long time ago)? When was the last time you gave someone the gospel and saw them receive Christ into their heart? You have done that right?
If God has done something in your life and you were excited about it did you tell someone about it? The Bible tells us to sing God’s praises. To tell the world the glorious story of how Christ died for us and how we were saved and born into the family of God for all eternity. We all have a story to tell about how we came to know the Lord. It does not matter if it was in the midst of combat or on a quite Sunday morning it still was something great. It happened to us and we should want to tell others about how God touched us. I feel sometimes we get caught up in the need to have an emotion grabbing earth shaking experience before we can tell anyone about it. Guess what when you got saved and Jesus came into your heart your experience was much better than any earth shaking event. Yours was a life changing event and worth telling everyone about. You became a child of God and joint heir with Jesus Christ how much bigger can it get?

How current is your testimony? How big is your testimony? How big is the God who saved you? Was your life change if so then that is a big deal and worth shouting from the roof tops.
Are you a witness to a miracle that happened years ago, or one that happened yesterday? Are you allowing God to express himself through your witness and experience right now? Why or why not? What needs to change? How will you change?