What Drives Your Christian Testimony?

I have a confession. For much of my Christian walk I have shared the Gospel for the wrong reasons. Driven by internal motives, I shared what was written on the pages of the Bible or what was written in whatever track I had on hand. In doing so I found that something was missing. Yes, I could pat myself on the back for being out there doing what I thought was God’s work but the end results were nothing to brag about.

When I first became a Christian I was zealous when it came to sharing, doing so out of a desire to fit in with a group on campus. This group of Christians set aside time once per week to go out and evangelize. Not wanting to be left out I tagged along, looking forward to the opportunity to show that I was one of them. Over time my desire to fit in became my message as I focused on how great it would be if everyone was one of us. That’s not the Gospel nor was it an effective way to have a positive impact on those around me. I’m sure God used some of what was said to touch lives but He and I both knew my heart was not in the right place.

After graduation I took on an even weaker message. Having moved from the immaturity of college life to the maturity of having a job, I began to share because I thought I had found the fix for life’s problems. I suspect the message I shared sounded as if I was saying, “My life was fixed in the church and we can fix you too.” My motive back then was to fill the pews and to personally get people right. The intent of that message was good but my words were way off target. Eventually God sidelined me while He worked to align my desire to share with His goals in having me share. In effect He took me off the road so that He could complete a number of repairs.

“My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness And Your salvation all the day, For I do not know their limits.”
Psalm 71:15

This sounds like someone who is driven to tell others about God. In fact, this sounds like the passion for sharing about the Lord that I have heard about so often in my years of following Christ. That passion is driven by the fact that David did not know the limits of God’s righteousness or of God’s salvation. He was driven by God’s nature to share, asking for the strength to continue sharing into his old age in order to declare God to a younger generation (Psalm 71:18). David wanted to tell others about the Lord because he was blown away by the awesomeness of God. God himself was David’s motivation for his version of what we now call our Christian witness.

What drives you to share your testimony with others? Are you driven by fear or by a desire to make clones of yourself for your church or Bible study group? Is sharing your testimony just something you do, embedded deep in the culture of your church? Are you driven (or perhaps not so driven) by some reason that is human-centered or are you driven by your love for God and your feelings of awe for His nature? Like David, let your sharing be driven by the fact that God is beyond what the human mind can comprehend.