We have a tendency to dramatize our conversion testimonies to keep them from being boring. But the reality is, we were all dead in sin and doomed to hell—every single one of us—and by God’s grace, he saved us. You can’t get any more dramatic than that. The truth of the gospel is the most captivating, unbelievable story known to mankind. It applies to each and every testimony, and there is no dramatization that could embellish it any further. There is no competition, no reward, for the most dramatic testimony. The real prize is being brought from death to life. In this video, David Platt calls out the unhealthy tendency of Christians to dramatize testimonies and discusses why this is a problem in the Church.
- Dramatizing Testimonies
- Comparing Testimonies
- All Testimonies Lead to the Gospel
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There’s a tendency, I think unhealthy, sometimes in the church to try and dramatize a conversion testimony by talking about how bad our circumstances were before we came to Christ. About how we were addicted to drugs and this and that and engrossed in all these things. And if that’s your testimony, that’s certainly not bad. That’s your story. But what is not healthy is when other people begin to think their testimonies are boring because they didn’t do all that stuff. We almost have this idea like, well, the deeper we went into the sin, the more we realize about grace. And there’s a sense in which that’s true. But at the core, the reality is we are all on the same plane here.
Your Testimony and God’s Grace
We were all dead in sin, doomed to hell, every single one of us, and by God’s grace, He saved us, and brought us to life. Now, you can’t get any more dramatic than that. You were in a casket spiritually. And in regards to whether you were eight or 18 or 80 years old, you had nothing in you that called out to God. You were destined to be separated from Him forever. He reached out His hand into your heart, opened up your eyes, and transformed your life so that now you are free from sin and alive to God forever. There is nothing boring about that.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
