Testimony Sunday

Every few months we like to give our Gathering over to a Testimony Sunday in which all are free to share what God is doing in their lives. I taught into this on Wednesday and then encouraged everyone to make an effort to be there and to step out in faith as they share what the Lord is doing.

Wow what a time we had!  At 9:40 I sent out an SMS telling guys to hurry up if they wanted a seat because we were filling up with visitors. Praise God!

We began our Gathering by looking briefly at the reaction of two different groups of lepers in the bible and how their responses to what God did in their lives sets a good example for us.

In 1 Kings 7:3-10 we see the four lepers who are in a perilous situation and death is looking pretty certain, so they decide to chance their luck with the Aramean army. However when they get to their camp they find the Aramean army has fled and so they begin to gorge themselves on food and squirrel away a bit of treasure. Thankfully in v9 they have a revelation and one of them says "What we're doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace". These lepers had nothing to gain but they shared the good news anyway.

In Luke 17:11-19 we find a group of ten lepers who called out to Jesus as he was passing. Long story short; Jesus healed them and sent them to the priests but as they were going one (in v15) returned to Jesus "One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice".

Both of these stories show us clearly that our response to the good news of what God is doing in our lives is to tell others and to give thanks to him, and so this formed the basis our our Gathering this morning.

As Paula posted on Facebook: There was so much victory as people made themselves vulnerable and brought their stories of God's grace, goodness and kindness. I loved to hear about one new guy's journey home to God and away from addiction as he found "the church at the garage". All was topped off by a walk-in visitor lingering at the end to say how touched he had been and how he will definitely be back this week to hear and experience more.

More of this please Lord!

Praying with Paula after she shared a testimony