By Stewart Holloway
Everyone has a story. No one’s story is perfect.
We’ve all faced disappointments, made bad decisions, struggled with sin, and more. The difference for Christians is we have welcomed God into our story. We have come to a point in our lives where we repented of our sins and received Jesus Christ as our Savior and surrendered to Him as our Lord.
Our stories before we met God can run the gamut from G-rated ones of being raised in church and then finally realizing that just church was not enough to R-rated stories with plenty of sin and bad decisions before coming to faith in Christ. Some of us, even after welcoming God into our story, run astray or drift away from Him for awhile, and then turn back. Others are fortunate to begin their God-story early in life but only later discover a deeper relationship with Him that goes beyond a distant God of Sunday School posters and flannel-graphs.
Whatever a person’s story with God, it is powerful and needs to be shared. No one can argue with your God-story. When brought before King Agrippa, in Acts 25-26, Paul shared his story. Having broken no Roman law about which he needed to make a defense, Paul used the audience with the king and the surrounding people to tell his God-story. The result was Paul planted gospel-seeds in the hearts of everyone present, lived to see another day, and traveled to Rome where he preached at the center of world power until his death.
Yesterday, I encouraged the members of our congregation to do two things: write down their story and share it with someone in a gospel conversation this week. I also requested that they send their story to me because I love hearing people’s stories. I’ve already received a few of those stories by email and have been encouraged by them. They are all quite different because we are all different. But the stories are all powerful – no matter how simple they may seem.
If you have a God-story, I encourage you to do the same: write it down and share it with someone this week in a gospel conversation. If you’ve never welcomed God into your story or need to turn back to Him, I’d love to help you do that! Shoot me an email (sholloway@fbcpineville.net) and let’s set up a time to talk!
Stewart Holloway is pastor of First Baptist Church in Pineville. This editorial first appeared on his Facebook page.
