“If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not [a]true.
John 5:31, NKJV
Narcissism is pervasively infiltrating the believer ranks. More and more Christians are turning inward for the truth they seek. The endless pursuit to improve ourselves and advance our position is diluting the gospel. God desires to recapture the heart of His people. He is nudging our testimonies to point outward and not inward. He longs for us to escape the self-actualization rat race we find ourselves in.
If your testimony endears people to you, you’re doing it wrong. It’s not about you. It’s all about Him. Where in the Bible do we see Jesus going from town to town telling people how God used Him yesterday? Let me save you some time. It’s not there. He was more concerned about people gaining a testimony than He was about sharing His own. When Jesus testified, He said, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” Even John the Baptist “came as a witness to testify about the light” (John 1:7) although “He himself was not the light.” (John 1:8)
Did you catch that? He came to bear witness of someone other than Himself.
We have the best intentions but we often miss the mark when we testify. Often our testimony looks like this: “God is amazing because of me me me.”