Reflections: Day 5 - Reflecting on Our Testimonies

This 7-day devotional series will reveal how to spend this time in quarantine reflecting and examining your life through God‘s eyes, so that you can redeem your thoughts towards your past, be present with Him and boldly enter the post-COVID world in the center of His perfect will in this season of our lives and the next.

In previous devotionals in this series, I have talked about mostly what not to do during your time of reflection - resisting from turning to old ways and reviewing your past from a negative perspective and not God’s perspective.

But there are things in our past that are worth reflecting on and things God actually insists meditating and reflecting on:

Testimonies

I love testimonies. I love thinking about my own and love hearing about others even more. (Definitely expect testimonies in future blog posts).

Testimonies are faith builders. They prophesy God’s will over our lives. They are the evidence of God’s existence, His power, His love. It also fulfills the checklist of qualifying thoughts the Bible says we should be meditating on.

Testimonies can:

Defeat the enemy

Prophesy

Win Souls

Build your Faith

Honestly, meditating on testimonies has pulled me back into faith in the face of overwhelming doubt and unbelief, which is kryptonite to our faith walk with God.

The most difficult season of doubt I’ve ever had was my junior year in college. I began entertaining thoughts about whether Jesus was truly the way, the only way?

Is my faith just a factor of me being born in a Christian home in a Christian nation?

Wouldn’t I be just as devote and faithful to Islam if born and raised in an Islamic home and nation?

And what if all religion is BS anyway?

I would watch debates and listen to atheist arguments and seriously consider their point of view. I would question passages in the Bible and became increasingly angry at prayers that weren’t being answered. Was there a God even there to listen?

I tried confiding in the few Christian friends I had, but to no fault of their own, were insufficient in aiding me. I had to do what David did. He encouraged himself in the Lord. I looked over my life and the experiences I had with God that I just could not deny.

Hearing His voice, feeling His presence, seeing Him heal and deliver.

Any truly intimate relationship will have experiences and encounters that are without question real. That is the type of relationship God wants with His children. My faith is strong today because it is built on His word coming alive in tangible ways and being experiential. As I reflected on the testimonies in my life, the doubt dissipated. I came out of that season of doubt stronger because I reflected on His testimonies in my life.

I don’t think I can overstate how important testimonies are - for our spiritual wellness and as a tool to witness and win others to Christ. God even commands that we hold on to His testimonies to remember and to pass down to current and future generations.

So in this time of reflection, as news continues to remind us of the worsening conditions of the outbreak, racial injustice and now killer bees, spending time on what God has done, what He can do and will do again is a perfect remedy for any situation but especially these days.

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Scriptures to Read:

Revelation 12:11

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Revelation 19:10

And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

Psalm 119 2-3

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways!

Joshua 4:5-7

...and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”

1 Samuel 30:6

And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.

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Application:

1. Take a pen and paper (or digital device) and write down as many testimonies where God showed up and showed out that you absolutely can’t deny. Take time to reflect and relive the moments.

2. Find someone who needs a breakthrough in one of the areas you have had breakthrough from your testimony list. Then reach out to them to share your testimony and prophesy over them what God did for you.

Prayer:

Thank you Jesus for being the author and finisher of my faith. Thank you for all that you have done for me. I have so much to be thankful for. Bring to remembrance the times you have been a blessing in my life that I might have forgotten. Renew my mind to think of your testimonies first before I have a chance to complain. Give me boldness to share my testimonies with others. Highlight to me those who need to hear the amazing wonders you have done in my life. I will pass along my testimonies to my children and grandchildren to strengthen their faith and serve you all of their lives. Your testimonies will always be before me and in my thoughts. Thank you for the greatest testimony of all: dying for me that I may have eternal life with you and all my sins washed away. Amen