The Bible says concerning how we overcame in this way:
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”
Revelation 12:11 NKJV
Our confession in the overcoming faith of the blood of Jesus and the testimony of Jesus, reveals how we are standing in the victory that Christ had given us. We must be doing this relentlessly, unyieldingly and without loving our lives to the point of death. That’s what the scripture text above says.
The declaration of the gospel and our confession of faith makes us a terror to the enemy, as we are standing up against him victoriously. Jesus had already conquered and publicly humiliated the devil.
This is the victory upon which the Christian’s confession of faith stands. A Christian who is not able to declare this victory of Christ, will be easily run over by the devil.
This victory with the testimony of Jesus in our lives, has to be proclaimed in the demonstration of the power of the word and the Spirit of God. Our enemy and his cohorts hates the declaration of the testimony of Jesus in our lives. It makes them to tremble and flee, as they are terrified by what we are confessing with the mouth; that God:
“having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”
Colossians 2:14-15 NKJV
This is the glorious beauty in our victory with the declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus triumphed over the devil, and He had handed the victory to us. That’s why we can reign on earth with Him.
The Prophet Isaiah said:
“How beautiful upon the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who proclaims peace, Who brings glad tidings of good things, Who proclaims salvation, Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!””
Isaiah 52:7 NKJV
It’s the declaration of the victory of Jesus Christ that has made our feet beautiful. We proclaim the peace of God and His salvation.
Our readiness in declaring the gospel has to be firm and stable, against the wicked spirits and the powers of darkness in this world. If you are not standing strong in declaring Christ’s victory over the devil, you will not be able to stand at all with your testimonies of salvation, healing and deliverance. The evil one is doing everything possible to stop you from standing strong with those testimonies.
And there is nothing that Jesus can do about him anymore, because He had already surrendered all authority in Heaven and on the earth to you (Matthew 28:18).
You are the one who has to enforce the victory of Jesus on the earth over the enemy. If you are not using your authority to stand in this victory which is already yours through your personal testimony, then you do have yourself to blame for it.
The promptness and readiness to go with the feet everywhere with the testimony of Jesus was what Paul pointed out clearly for us, when he said:
“And having shod your feet in preparation [to face the enemy with the firm-footed stability, the promptness, and the readiness produced by the good news] of the Gospel of peace.”
Ephesians 6:15 AMPC
Your promptness and the readiness in declaring the testimony of Jesus, is connected with how firmly you are standing spiritually.
In order to be able to stand strong in facing the enemy, you must be prompt and ready to obey the Lord with your feet. Promptness and readiness with your feet means being ready to go wherever He sends you, and to act in doing as He says.
And we had all failed in one way or another to be prompt and ready before Him. The Lord of course knows and understands that we do have the flesh to deal with. That’s why you can always turn around in obedience to Him, as soon as you realize where you had faltered.
The enemy does not want you to obey God. And if the preparedness of your feet is not prompt and ready to walk in obedience to the Lord, you won’t be able to stand at all in confronting him.
The Passion Translation of the Bible puts the same scripture text above like this:
“Stand on your feet alert, then you’ll always be ready to share the blessings of peace.”
Ephesians 6:15 TPT
There is a blessing of peace that follows every declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you are not spiritually alert, you can’t be physically alert in declaring that blessing of peace.
The promptness and readiness with your feet to go in obedience to the Lord, as you declare the gospel of peace has to be aligned with the state of your spirit man. There has to be a witness from within your heart, that comes out of your personal encounter with Jesus.
You can’t go and be effective in declaring His testimony without being sent (Romans 10:15). There also has to be a personal conviction from the heart, which is based on a personal testimony of Jesus.
John described that personal encounter which will cause you to go with the testimony of Jesus in this way:
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
John 1:12-13 NKJV
Your going has nothing to do with being born into a Christian home. Your personal relationship with people who know the Lord can’t get you there. You must had personally encountered Jesus. This is the basis of your personal testimony of Jesus.
You were born of God to serve
And that’s why you must be born of the Spirit of the Lord. Every born again child of God has been called and commissioned by Jesus Christ, to go everywhere with His testimony (Mark 16:15-18).
From the moment you got saved the Spirit of the Lord, Who got you saved has also called you to serve in His Kingdom. Paul explained this to Timothy in this way:
“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began,”
II Timothy 1:8-9 NKJV
A personal encounter with Jesus gives birth to that eagerness within you to serve Him. The Lord has an eternal purpose for saving you from this world of sin. And every child of God must discover that purpose, by sharing their personal testimonies with those who are lost in their sins. That’s why you are alive on the earth today.
As Paul told Timothy above, you don’t have to be ashamed of your testimony of salvation. Your past had been washed away by the blood of Jesus Christ. The shame of your past is no more there. It’s completely gone.
The enemy will exploit your inability to testify about the saving, healing and delivering works of Jesus in your life, to make the shame of your past linger on your mind. But the moment you begin to testify about the goodness of the Lord to you, the shameful past won’t disturb you anymore. It won’t ever bother you again, because you know that it’s completely gone.
And you are now a new creation in Christ Jesus. That person with the sinful past is dead in you. The new man in the image of Christ is now living in you (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The testimony about what Jesus did for you is your spiritual weapon, in silencing the enemy for ever over your life. The more you are testifying about Jesus, the more it’s going to be hard for the enemy to tempt you in going back to that shameful past.
That’s why your feet has to be prepared always, ready and prompt to share your personal testimony to the lost people of this world, who are still living in their sins.
Oftentimes many Christians do not realize that they have been called by God to serve Him. The absence of this realization in their lives often creates a lot of confusion for them, especially if they are not yet filled with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit helps us to be praying as we are stirring up the gifts, so as to be able to step into that calling in our lives. It’s not something that makes sense to the human mind. The promptness and readiness to serve the Lord comes from the heart, that is born of the Spirit of God.
It comes as you are committed to praying and interceding in the spirit (tongues) and by the Spirit. It comes by the Spirit of the Lord, because He is the One Who distributes the gifts and the calling to everyone in His Body.
And until you get filled with the Holy Spirit, you can’t really stand firmly with your spiritual gifts and your calling. The gifts and the calling are there in your life. But you will have to stir them up.
That calling came upon you from the moment when you gave your life to Jesus. And He has no plan to change it, no matter what your situation may be right now:
“For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
Romans 11:29 NKJV
The gifts and the calling of God are upon your life. And it does matter a lot what you are doing with them every day.
There are certain Christians who do think that they will need some special training, to be able to testify about what Jesus had done for them. And the devil is using this lie and deception to prevent them from testifying, about the goodness of the Lord in their lives.
The Church that was given birth to on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2) was full of unlearned men and women. None of them went through any special training apart from being with Jesus. They never received a special certificate or diploma before going to the end of the earth. But they went everywhere testifying about what they had heard and seen about Jesus. That was their only qualification – they had been with Jesus.
And if you are born again you do have the testimony of your salvation, to share with those who do not know Jesus. You don’t need to be a trained orator or speaker to witness for Christ. All you need is your personal testimony of Jesus.
That’s where everything begins from. And the Lord will work with that particular testimony, that you do have in your life. The Lord will work with anything that any Christian surrenders to Him.
You may not even know a lot of Bible scriptures, but your personal testimony about what Jesus had done for you matters. Are you always prepared to share it with the unsaved world?
Don’t be ashamed of Christ
There are so many Christians with the testimony of Jesus, who are not sharing it to the lost world around them. They had experienced the power of God in their lives. But they are not stirring up the gifts and the calling of the Lord in their lives by sharing it. And the enemy has effectively shut them down with the lie, that they don’t need to be talking about Jesus to anybody.
As an example it’s not rare for you to meet any Church goer on any given Monday morning, who had experienced the power of God to be healed on the day before, during the Sunday church service. He or she may talk with you about everything else going on in this world, which are being orchestrated by the devil, to stop them from testifying about what Jesus had just done for them on that day before Monday.
They are depriving themselves of the ability to stand strong with their healing testimonies. They are depriving themselves of the opportunity to glory Jesus with their testimonies of healing.
That’s why they often will start wondering why they have lost, what they had recently received from Jesus. The devil has stolen their victory away from them, because of their inability to release the testimonies of Jesus about their healing with the mouth, to those who do really need to hear it.
And sometimes it’s because their testimonies has not been igniting the fire of God in their lives. They will talk about every worldly things that they had recently done, but they can’t testify about what Christ has done for them.
They are either ashamed of their Christian experience. Or their encounter with the Lord had been based on religious rituals, instead of the real power of God. They are not really being truthful about their spiritual encounter with Jesus.
Paul once said:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.”
Romans 1:16 NKJV
Paul was never ashamed of his past. He had persecuted Christians in several cities before encountering Jesus. He had beaten many Christians and had bond them in chains for the jailers before. But on the road to Damascus he had encountered Jesus (Acts 9). He met the very same Jesus, Who he had been unknowingly persecuting.
He got saved and immediately started sharing his personal testimony, with the very people that he had traveled to Damascus to bond with chains for the prison. The persecutor of Jesus became a fanatic of Jesus. The known world of his time heard his testimony of salvation and deliverance. The famous persecutor of Christians became a preacher of the gospel that he had once opposed. The power of God changed him and gave him a new message to the lost world.
The power of God to save, heal and deliver others is in your personal testimony also. Don’t ever be ashamed of it. The people you are seeing daily needs to hear about that testimony of Jesus in your life.
What is shameful to you about testifying concerning the love of God?
If you had been genuinely saved, healed and delivered; then you do have a testimony that those who are seeking, what you do have can be encouraged with.
Release it with your mouth and step out into your calling and gifts with it.
You can begin doing it today. The whole world is waiting to hear you. And most importantly Jesus is waiting on you. The Holy Spirit is ready to release power, as you are testifying about Jesus. God the Father with the host of Heaven have their eyes on you also.
Something is about to happen as you are testifying. People will not only hear about the same Jesus Who had saved, healed and delivered you. They will put their faith in Him also for salvation, healing and deliverance. And you will be giving all the glory and honor to Jesus in making the world a better place to live in.
Don’t join the bandwagon of whinners and complainers. You are a world changer, and Jesus is counting on you to change the world for Him.
