Tips on Sharing Your Testimony
TIPS ON SHARING YOUR TESTIMONY
Someone wrote me some questions today on sharing their testimony and I felt quickened to share this with you all as wisdom.
It is good to try to define the boundaries for your sharing your testimony, since the Lord is wanting you to share more. The Lord has told me that LOVE is always the standard. To always cover others. At my forum, I rarely allow names unless they are positive things about public figures, or unless they are a regular writer at the forum and I refer to them.
I always try to stay positive in my examples and focus on the good and not the demonic. So it has to be a really powerful example or encouragement for me to share about warfare or something negative. The purpose is to build people’s faith, hope and love. When I wrote my book on Angels and Demons, I copied all of my experiences from my journals and then pasted them every other one. So that one was an angel experience, the next was a demonic one. It brought a healthy balance that didn’t focus so much on the demonic, and the demonic ones were only the ones where they actually had good endings that taught something and encouraged people. The other demonic ones I deleted from my journals and will rarely if ever tell.
As far as sharing about myself in a transparent way, I heard the Lord tell me that He had given me the power and right to give or withhold any part of my testimony and use it as I felt it was best to be used in the situation. He would never “make” me share unwillingly. It is our gift of love and sacrifice to Him and for those who need to hear it. There are some things in my life that the public will never know and there are things that someone would have to be a really serious reader to find since they might be mentioned so rarely. It has to do with focus and what the message is and what the purpose is in using personal examples. Sometimes it really encourages a reader to identify with the person in the example.
But one of the worst sins in leaders who have an anointing, is drawing people to themselves in order to be worshipped and it takes the focus and worship off God. I have watched this for years and understand the balance of sharing to avoid that. God has a way of bonding parents with their children, in the same way Paul spoke of so often about those he was mentoring. It is very right and encouraging to feel that strong bond of support. But when hearing the mentor share is displacing faith in God, or leaning upon Him and hearing Him speak, then something has gotten off. And so I walk in fear and trembling of that in my writings.
Water naturally runs downhill and as long as you are moving forward in the Lord, you will find your natural course in sharing. He will help you find your purpose in each thing you share, and how to present it so that people can hear God and be built up. In return, God will favor you with love and honor that goes with being His servant and leader. When favor is missing, so is your metron. As your favor increases, it will open doors for you and you will know it is time to step into a place of increase.
When you make a bold decision to be transparent about something, let peace be your guide. If it causes you to be afraid about anything, then it leaves an open door for you to be attacked in that area, and it also says that you are not ready to share it. You need to walk in the shoes of peace in every thing you share. You will feel the drawing of the Lord, and the joy in sharing and partnering with Him as you find ways to express the message He has given you. I find writing one of my greatest joys of expression. And I know with Him calling you to begin this journey, that you too will find the His best expression for the gifts He gives you.
1 Cor 2:1-5 NKJV
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Rev 19:10 NKJV
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.”
