(I made minor updates to the ‘Echoes of Love” from 12/25 last year)
I would like each of you who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus to (re)write your personal salvation testimony. Please submit it to me by June of this year. If this is a challenging task to you, let me know and I can help you. We can talk together and organize the format and contents of your testimony. If you have trouble writing it, describe it to me in spoken words then I could try to write it down for you as well.
There may be some of you who think that a “salvation testimony” is a very big and overbearing/heavy-banded task. However, this is not the case. Each person develops their faith in God and in the gospel in different ways. While some may get to believe in God through a dramatic experience or climactic journey, others could just come to believe “naturally.” What's important is not “how dramatically one gets to believe in God,” but rather “getting to know the substance of what I believe and how I am reacting to it .” In other words, what's important is “knowing the gospel that I have decided to believe, and how it is impacting my day to day life.”
There are multiple ways people can find tasty food. Although some may go through a dramatic search to find the perfect restaurant, others could just randomly walk in to have discovered this treat. The process by which we find the restaurant is not important. What’s important is eating the food being served and realizing, “This is so delicious, how did I not know of this before?” We don’t even need to know the ingredients of the food as long as we can say, “You have to try this, it’s literally so delicious.” So I’ll call this testimony the “Mm, delicious” testimony from now on.
Such “Mm, delicious” testimonies are also known as “Personalized Gospels.” It is the story of “what I am believing in,” “how I came to believe this,” and “how this faith has been changing me throughout my life.” The gospel that theologists describe is the general faith that can be applied to everyone. The gospel becomes a “Personalized Gospel” once I explain how it has touched me personally.
People tend to be more interested in hearing these “Personalized Gospels.” Once you prepare your own “Mm, Delicious” testimony, then you will be able to talk about Jesus to the ones you love close to you at any given time. Then, they will start listening to your “Mm, delicious” story. Next year, I ask all of you to set a goal to write a “Mm, delicious” testimony of your own.
I am praying that these testimonies can be heard often at Sunday worship services. As fellow companions in the walk of faith for many years, a lot of us already know about each other’s testimonies. However, I still want all of you to share your testimonies with each other. I will provide a time and place for this during Sunday service. I pray that many will volunteer to share.
Following the shepherd…
Pastor Jiwon Choi