Beyond Personal Testimony

Many more believed because of His word. (John 4:41)

Yesterday I spent some time thinking about the effectiveness of a person's testimony who has encountered Jesus like this woman at the well did. The results of her extremely short presentation upon returning to town were astounding at the least. The Bible says that many people believed on Jesus because of her testimony. Many of us crave to have that kind of influence with others, to be able to speak and act and have an atmosphere around us that will create that kind of interest and magnetism for Jesus.

But there is much more in this passage that is so important on this point. It notes that when these many came out to the well to check out this amazing man who could apparently read minds and hearts as this woman had testified and who potentially might be the Messiah of the world, they were evidently impressed enough that they invited Him to spend some extended time with them. They wanted to know for themselves if the implications of this woman's testimony was true or not. And indeed they found out that He was much more than they might have expected.

But this verse tells me something very significant about the contrast between my witness about Jesus, as important as that is in God's plan, and the testimonies that come directly from Jesus Himself about what God is really like and what His desires for me are. According to this verse, not only did those who initially believed from the woman's testimony enter into a much deeper level of belief after being exposed directly to Jesus for themselves, but many more who had not yet believed entered into belief as well.

I find the implications of this fact very compelling and instructive. For one thing, it in no way deters from the importance of our need to share with others what God has done for us personally and is doing right now. God does not intend to cut us out of the loop when it comes to spreading salvation to others by our testimonies. That is very clear all throughout the Scriptures. Yet as powerful and compelling as our witness may be to attract even thousands of people to come to know Jesus, there is simply no substitute for the vital need of each person to have their own personal encounter with Jesus individually and to spend time getting to know Him for themselves.

This is too often overlooked in evangelism today. Oh, we talk about coming to know Jesus or believe in Him, but as I have watched the methods and the focus of most evangelistic programs it seems to always take the track of teaching people to know facts about the Bible or to instruct them more along the line of a set of doctrines than it does to train people to learn how to listen to and daily encounter Jesus for themselves. As a result I have seen many people come to join a church believing that this was all that was necessary to be a Christian and be saved – unless it might be to try to clean up their life a bit more and conform to the social expectations of the subculture they have now joined.

Very sadly, it seems that with all of our talk about coming to know Jesus we have substituted converting to a set of beliefs as the definition behind that phrase. This becomes apparent when people find themselves trying to figure out why they even joined the church in the first place after attending for a few months. They initially were very excited by the discovery of new truths and facts about the Bible and were convicted that they needed to adjust their belief system accordingly. But then as life happens and they find that they are still ill-equipped to deal with the habits and emotions that still handicap or trip them up, they begin to look around for reasons why they still don't feel real peace and an abiding joy in the Christian life.

Most of popular Christianity is based on either a system of facts and doctrines carefully hammered out by predecessors from some group of people or denomination, or it is based on a number of emotionally-charged activities that make us feel good inside while we are together with other Christians but leaves us feeling vulnerable when we are alone and facing temptations. Either way we are tempted to doubt the validity of this whole idea of being a vibrant Christian and either give up and go back to our old ways of living or begin to subscribe to all sorts of programs, seminars, self-improvement concepts and discipline-inducing regimens.

I am not saying there is no place for many of these things. I have benefited greatly from the deeply ingrained habits of daily devotions that were instilled into me from childhood by my parents. I have been kept out of a great deal of trouble and misery by the stringent rules under which I grew up and the restrictions imposed on me by those in authority.

But it was not until many years later that I began to realize that even with all the trappings of Christianity firmly in place in my life that made me a good-looking conservative to all those who knew me, that I really had no clue as to what it meant to actually know Jesus for myself. As I occasionally heard people who did know Him (precious few people I am sad to say) speak of Him with endearing terms like they would someone they had truly fallen in love with or like a loving Daddy, I was left feeling both desperate and confused. From my upbringing on the conservative side of Christianity emotions had never been allowed to be much of a part of my religion. Emotions were viewed mostly with suspicion, as something dangerous. So to be a good religious person most of my attention was focused on learning all the right answers and filling my mind with truths – which was almost exclusively intellectual truth alone.

Again, it is extremely important to have one's experience with God based on truthful facts about God, about the Bible and about how life is supposed to work. But the real problem is that an intellectual religion based on facts alone is helpless when facing temptations designed to exploit the emptiness of the soul and take advantage of emotions that clamor for satisfaction that cannot be suppressed. It does little good to try to repress the God-instilled emotions that are supposed to be a part of our experience because they appear to be a liability to looking like a good Christian. Emotions are simply indicators of what is going on at a much deeper level and to ignore them or repress them is very hazardous at best.

Because of this unbalanced approach to spirituality I found myself ill-equipped to meet many situations and made many mistakes as a result. Scars have been incurred from these experiences that now create problems of their own and I have to trust God do deal with all of this mess. But the most important thing for me was the awakening of my mind and heart to realize that unless I came to know and follow Jesus personally above anyone else's authority in my life that everything I did and believed in was pointless and powerless to save me.

It is a very long story that I will not go into now. But I thank God that He began to speak to my heart directly as I was reading a book about the life of Christ during my devotions. He began to challenge me to listen to what He had to say about Himself through His Spirit that contradicted many things that I had assumed about Him based on my previous training. It became a crisis of belief and identity for me and I had to make a conscious decision to let go of my grip on all of my past to give permission for God to introduce Himself to me His way. I finally chose to give Him that permission, to reveal Himself to me even if it meant losing everything I thought about religion from the past that made up my sense of identity, and He has been faithful ever since to keep showing me more and more about Himself at the personal level.

My life has been deeply influenced at times by the testimonies of others who have encountered Jesus personally and have been radically transformed by His love. That has been and still is an important part of my experience and I thank God for all of those testimonies. But I also realize that I cannot receive the vital life that my soul needs by just receiving it vicariously through the experiences of others. No matter how electrifying someone's testimony may be or even how exciting some worship service may make me feel, unless I have my own personal on-going connection with Jesus and remain accountable to the convictions of His Spirit within me, no amount of religious appearances will be of any real value in my life. They will only tend to deceive me into thinking I am something that I am actually not.

I enjoy very much the inspiration that comes from hearing the testimonies of those whose lives have been changed by the power of God in their lives. My own heart resonates many times with stories of their experiences and God's Spirit often uses things they say to bring more light or conviction to me as well. But unless I am willing to keep moving and growing in my own personal, intimate relationship with Jesus that continuously invades deeper and deeper into the painful recesses of my own memories and brings healing to the parts of me beyond my intellect and logic, I do not have a religion that is authentic as far as heaven is concerned. And even more importantly, if my religion does not cause me to relinquish selfishness, die to self and become filled with God's passionate love in service to others, then my religion is mainly a mirage.

Listening to the testimonies of others can indeed produce belief in Jesus. This story brings that out very clearly. I want my own testimonies to be part of that dynamic in this world. But much more than that, I want to spend time every day getting to know Jesus for myself and being transformed by that encounter. I also want to be better at helping others come to realize the vital importance of doing the same for themselves. Many people sense that there is something much deeper needed in their Christian life than what they currently have but they don't know how to do it. They have never been trained to think for themselves in religion because they have only been taught to reflect what others have told them to believe.

If the people from the town in this story had only based their beliefs about Jesus on the testimony of this woman the story would have ended quite differently. If their experience had been based on the interactions they may have had with Jesus' disciples when they passed through town to buy food even less would have happened. But they chose to invite Him home themselves and to get to know Him personally. Someone's compelling personal testimony jump-started this whole chain of events, but unless they had come to know Him for themselves many would not have truly believed in Him like they needed to in order to experience salvation.

Father, teach us how to know You personally, intimately, passionately, vulnerably. Invade our hearts with You love, Your compassion, Your grace and kindness and presence. Show us Your face today where we can see all the things we need to know about You and Your feelings for us. Reveal Yourself to our hearts in a radically new way today and bind us to Your heart.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (Romans 8:14 NRSV)