Proclaiming how much Jesus has done for you
To give a testimony is to bear witness to something that you have seen or heard. Testimony allows us to speak to the truth or to the falsehood of something based upon what we have experienced personally. When it is a matter of proving some incident as true or false, testimony becomes very important. Courts of law, for example, must hear the testimony of those who were witnesses to a crime or to the circumstances surrounding a crime. Most of our daily conversations involve, in an informal way, giving testimony to things that we’ve seen or heard of family, friends, co-workers, strangers, pets, or things we’ve experienced when alone.
To proclaim the gospel is to give testimony (see Mt 24:14). When the twelve Apostles brought the gospel to the nations, they bore witness to the events surrounding the person of Jesus. They proclaimed Jesus Christ as someone they knew personally, who they saw crucified and buried, risen from the grave, and ascended to the right hand of the Father (see 1 Jn 1:1-4; Acts 2:22-24, 32-35).[1] When Saint Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles preached the gospel, he too gave a testimony. He knew that Jesus was alive and reigning over the universe, not just from what he had heard preached by Christians, but from personal experience. He spoke from a personal encounter with Christ, from when the Lord Jesus appeared to him in power on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-9, 22:6-11, 26:12-18; 1 Cor 15:8; Gal 1:11-16).
All Christians, in fact, must share the gospel from what they have personally experienced of Jesus Christ. We are considered more trustworthy and our words are more compelling, when it is evident that we really know this living Lord and King whom we profess to follow. As important as they are, we cannot just repeat the words about Jesus that we’ve heard from others or read in the Bible, but we need to speak about Our Blessed Lord, the One with whom we have an intimate friendship (see Jn 4:39-42). The bond that we have to our God is not established on “a written code but in the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:6, NAB). We are united to Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, and so we know Jesus personally — in our prayer, the sacraments, and through the events of our lives (seen with the eyes of faith). We proclaim the One whom we know and love. We too, give testimony.
If to proclaim the gospel is to give testimony to Jesus, what then is “personal testimony”? Personal testimony is an essential tool for proclaiming the gospel effectively. A personal testimony is a special way of giving testimony to Jesus, unique to each individual. By our personal testimonies, we show people how the true story of Jesus Christ intersects with the true stories of our own lives. A great example of personal testimony in the gospel comes from the Gospel of Mark. In it, Our Lord encountered a man tormented by many demons, living in a cemetery. The man lived a miserable life, crying out day and night, and bruising himself with rocks. After Jesus healed him, He said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mk 5:19). At that, the man proceeded to travel throughout ten nearby cities, proclaiming “how much Jesus had done for him” (Mk 5:20). Can you imagine it? A hopeless situation, turned around in a matter of minutes: what a powerful story to tell!
Like the man who had been freed from the demons, when you give a personal testimony, you proclaim how the Lord has been present to you and working to save you. It might be the story of how knowing the love of God helped you conquer self-hatred or excessive anger. It might be the story of how prayer and the Sacred Scriptures helped you to overcome a sinful addiction. It might be the story of how the Catholic faith helped you raise your children well. By telling such stories, we can show people that the teachings of Our Lord Jesus are true, and that He is alive right now and active in the world. We show them that Jesus is truly risen from the dead to die no more, and that He is ready and willing to break into their lives and give them the forgiveness and grace that they long for. What a wonderful tool of evangelization!
Your initial conversion story is important
Among the various kinds of personal testimonies that you might tell, there is one most important kind: the story of your initial or major conversion. This is the story of how it was that you came to reject self-reliance, worldly desires, and sin to personally embrace Jesus Christ with faith. It is also the story of how you came to be incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church. How was it that you came to be baptized? When did you experience God calling you to become a committed disciple, and embrace Him as the Lord of your life? How have His promises been confirmed in your life? In answering these and other similar questions, your personal testimony bears witness that ordinary people can receive the grace of God and become a new creation.[2]
A well-prepared personal testimony can be a very powerful story. By giving an example of what a conversion to Christ really looks like, it can remove barriers to belief by knocking down prejudices and false presuppositions. Many people, for example, have been led to believe that Christians are by-and-large hypocrites who don’t really believe what they profess to believe. They need to see the authenticity and honesty of a true Christian. Others think that Christians don’t have good reasons for embracing the faith. They need to know how it is that intelligent, critical-thinking people become convinced of the faith and commit themselves to God wholeheartedly. Still others think that they are too weak and sinful to ever change their lives. They need to know that the grace of God overcomes great obstacles of sin in the lives of those who submit to it. With the help of God’s grace, a good personal testimony shatters false ideas and softens hardened hearts, and says, “If God did it for me, he will do it for you!”
[1] These twelve were chosen by the Lord personally, when He was in the flesh (Mk 3:14-19). Among them, the Lord Jesus chose Judas, knowing that he would fall away (see Jn 6:64). After Judas betrayed the Lord and perished, the remaining eleven apostles asked the guidance of the Holy Spirit and chose Matthias to replace him (see Acts 1:21-26). The Twelve were among the first to proclaim the gospel, but Saint Mary Magdalene was in fact the very first person to do so (see Mk 16:9-10; Jn 20:1).
[2] Initial/major conversion stories vary greatly. On the one end, there are people who are converted from a life of grave sin to a life of grace. (Many of these are baptized at the time of their conversion, and others were baptized long before their conversion. In both cases, baptism is an important part of their story.) On the other end, there are people who are raised in the faith and never reject or fall away from it in significant ways. These, too, have a kind of major conversion story to tell — the story of how they first received the faith and the grace of God in baptism, and how also, at a later time, they had a significant, “stand out” encounter with the Lord which called them to a more intentional, more faithful, or more intimate relationship with the Lord.