Hello, reader and fellow member at Rooted church!
If you have attended Rooted for any amount of time you know this church family is passionate about what the Lord has done in the life of our members. We make a point to share our "testimonies," consistently throughout the year. These testimonies are really just our stories that act as a declaration of praise for what the Lord has done in our lives.
We desire to share and rejoice and our testimonies because:
1) Sharing our Testimonies reminds us our stories are not written by us.
So often, it is tempting to think that we are the ones who ultimately decided when we would become saved. In our human nature, we often want to take credit for the story of "accepting Christ" into our lives as if that makes us the one in charge--even if we so not mean for it to. When we tell others of our testimonies, it should be an echoing, lingering reminder of the fact that it is God who saved us by His own will and of His own grace.
An Article written by John Piper on Desiring God in 2008 talks about the role of John as a witness of Jesus (1). Piper shares just how accurate John when he said "He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30,ESV). Our testimonies glorify God by making much of Him, less of us, and thereby giving Him all the glory He is worthy of.
2) Sharing our Testimonies Encourages our Hearts and Minds to Look at What God has Done to Help us Remember He is Faithful.
Jesus told his disciples "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (John 16:33, NIV)." Because we are disciples of Christ, we are guaranteed that there will be struggles. We live in a world that is still broken. But recalling who Christ is and what He has done should cause us to rest in His faithfulness in overcoming the world. Sharing with each other what God has done in our lives is one way to do that.
3) Sharing our Testimonies should cause us to rejoice with each other in order to magnify the name of the Lord.
In Philippians, we read Paul's writing commanding us to "Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, Rejoice (Phil. 4:4)."
While Paul does not use this in context of sharing our testimonies, it is still a command to rejoice in the Lord! And we can use the story of how the Lord has worked in our lives to give others reasons to rejoice and praise His Name.
On these premises, we are excited to share that we will be doing a project centered around these faith declarations from members of our church in order to record them, read them with each other, and pray for each other as we continue these faith journeys. Most importantly, we are recording and documenting them in order to glorify the Lord through what He is doing here at Rooted church.
Starting this week, we will be posting our members' testimonies two times a week to remind, encourage, and rejoice with you about the stories of what the Lord has done in our church!
Resources
(1) https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/john-was-not-the-light-but-a-witness-to-the-light
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