A friend of mine on the Faroes once told me of his daughter´s wedding.  The sociable Faroese people just love big celebrations, and there were 200 or more guests taking part.  There were a lot of speeches too, and I´m sure that the majority of speakers stuck to the unwritten rule not to speak more than two minutes – or may-be three,  if the speech be unusually good.  A gentleman stood up, however, and said, “I don´t know the bride nor the groom, so I want to say something about myself!”  And he went on for 20 minutes!  He probably didn´t know what a bore he was.

But don´t go to the other extreme by never saying anything about yourself or about your life with the Lord as long as it glorifies the grace of God and lifts up Christ. But see to it that you keep a proper balance controlled by the Holy Spirit.  The psalmist says, “Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what He has done for my soul!”  (Psa. 66:16).  The epistles of the apostle Paul are full of personal testimonies of the grace of Christ unfolded  in a weak body and in tough circumstances.

In our Wednesday morning group for men here in Clovis where 2 Corinthians are being studied, we among other things just listened to the precious words, “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”  Jars of clay we are all right and often we feel how fragile these “jars” are.  Paul did too and he often shared with his co-believers how powerful the Lord was in his weak body .

So be bold about the grace of God in your life as long as it is real.  “The testimony, the testimony my son, is the most powerful proof of the truth of the gospel” were some of the dying words of John Wesley´s father.  Yes, let this be our watchword too before a watching world!

-jn-

March 26, 2010