Complimentary Story
March 2026Quick! Name a personal testimony that you remember. For me it is Enos Guill’s near death story of being hit by a massive electric shock while working on a high-tension transformer back in 1956. Enos knew the story best because he was medically dead, then raised to new life by God’s power.
And why do I remember Enos’s story? Because Enos should have been dead from the voltage, yet he was alive. Because it was a story of God’s power and love for Enos and his family. Because it caused Enos to repent and accept Jesus’ salvation, producing a tremendous change in his life as well as the lives of several young Christians whom I knew.
Because of those reasons, Enos Guill’s story of a fatal electrical jolt knocking him off his work ladder, and his living to tell of God’s resurrecting power was big enough to convince hundreds of Chicagoans to repent of their sins and follow Jesus.
And it is for similar reasons that personal testimonies of both famous and not-so-famous believers have continued to turn skeptics into born-again believers. John Wesley (the founder of Methodism) told crowds of 18th century Englishmen and Americans of the Holy Spirit’s power. Recalling his own conversion in May of 1736, Wesley said, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I did trust in Christ alone for salvation. He took away my sins and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Evangelist Billy Graham frequently described his own decision to follow Jesus after hearing Baptist preacher Mordecai Ham preach on both hell and God’s love in November of 1934. Sixteen-year-old Billy was so struck with Ham’s message that he walked forward to meet the reverend at the end of the service and asked Jesus to be his Savior that night.
Boston lawyer and Richard Nixon appointee Charles Colson recounted his conversion moment while imprisoned for Watergate Conspiracy crimes in 1974 when he confessed his personal and public sins and asked Jesus for forgiveness. Colson began living the new, abundant life that Jesus promised him as an effective witness and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
More recently, country/rap singer “Jelly Roll” (Jason Deford) surprised the Grammy Award audience on February 1, 2026 as he told the story of how he had become a Christian: “…there was a moment in my life where all I had was a small Bible and a small radio in my 6x8-foot jail cell, and I believed that God had the power to change my life, which He did.” After being struck down physically and spiritually, Jesus is now raising Jelly Roll to a new and transformed life.
What is it about a personal testimony that hits us hard and means so much for building new faith in Jesus as our Lord and Savior?
First, it is personal and we identify with the person telling the story. We know that what they are saying is true to life. If it happened to him, then it can happen to me, and to many other people. While the story of conversion happened to the one testifying, that same type of conversion — the start of a new life — can also happen for me.
Second, we trust the testimony to be a true and authoritative story because the witness is going public with their story in verbal or written fashion. They are not just writing a private journal entry. They are staking a factual claim to their public story of conversion.
Third, recognize the testimony as a life-changing story of a conversion that did more than just make them feel good. This testimony marks the beginning of the new and abundant life that Jesus promised each new convert.
In chapter 9, verses 24-25 of the Gospel of John, a man born blind is healed by Jesus, demonstrating a powerful example of effective testimony. The man who now has new sight and new eternal life is questioned by the Pharisees because they believe Jesus to be a sinner. The healed man’s response is simple and strangely disarming: “All I can tell you is that once I was blind but now I can see.” What a great way to answer skeptics!
You may still be asking “Why should I, or anyone, care about a story of great personal life change, when most people never make those kinds of great changes at all?”
We are all born as sinners and continue to live with that sin nature infecting our lives. Many people hear the plan of salvation and continue to reject it as the pattern they need to adopt for new and abundant life in Jesus Christ (John 10:10). And therein lies the reason and power of personal testimony. A personal testimony takes biblical truth and makes salvation real, alive and available to every person.
Just as Jesus healed the man born blind in John 9, so the true story of a person’s conversion is a real-life miracle unfolding before an audience, small or large. As that story is spoken, written or performed, it continues to do its transforming work in the lives of skeptics and seekers alike.
Realize that you (like every believer) have a testimony. That’s right! If you are a Christian, there was a time, place and specific set of circumstances that allowed Jesus to enter your heart as Lord and Savior. Though that moment may not seem as dramatic as in other people’s testimonies, it is nevertheless your very own life-changing moment. Remember it, write it out, and tell people around you the details (the who, what, when, where and why) along with the forever change that Jesus made in your life’s direction. Include the new joy you felt, and the exciting mission that God gave you. Remember who you were before you were saved and who you have now become resulting from the Savior’s powerful work.
Take that testimony (written, verbal and memorized) and form it into a realistic 2-3 minute piece that tells people what God has done in your life. Do not try to be spiritual or grandiose. Just tell people how Jesus reached down to bring you His salvation, and how they can have that same abundant life. Realize that people you speak to may find their own path to salvation that sounds a bit different than your own. But your testimony will still be the starting point that awakens other people to Jesus. Begin your public testimony now and be ready for friends to ask you what makes your attitude and approach to life so different.
Help other Christian believers to work on their testimonies as well! Some believers are naturally great at talking about their faith. But they will still need your help in answering the important questions that anchor their belief through real-life challenges. Other Christians will be quiet (yet determined) in telling the truth of how their life was changed by Jesus. Urge them to be real and find good ways to invite people to Jesus through their own conversion stories.
Act now to insert your personal testimony into worship, teaching and conversations of all sorts. As you tell and repeat your testimony, its impact will widen and its spiritual power will grow.
The once-blind beggar of John 9 never had the opportunity to study reading or writing, let alone preaching. He simply spoke the truth of what he knew had happened to him. “All I can tell you is that once I was blind but now I can see.” Keep your testimony simple, truthful and direct. Call sinners to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and they will be saved.
Roger Johnson is an evangelist, writer and teacher from Kenosha. He served for nearly 40 years as an urban evangelist in Chicago. A graduate of Wheaton College and North Park Seminary, he completed the M.A. in Evangelism & Leadership at Wheaton Grad School in 2012.
