Week 4
Start Writing Your Testimony
Note: If you do not plan on getting baptized this year, you do not have to do this but, it may be a good exercise in case you change your mind.
Step 1: Spend Time in Thought Preparation
There are a few things to consider before you start writing your testimony. Think about your life before you met the Lord. What was going on in your life leading up to your conversion? What problems or needs were you facing at the time? How did your life change after that?
Step 2: Start with a Simple 3-Point Outline
A three-point approach is very effective in communicating your personal testimony. The outline focuses on; 1) before you trusted Christ, 2) how you surrendered to him, and 3) the difference since you’ve been walking with him.
- 1) Before
- Simply tell what your life was like before you surrendered to Christ. What were you searching for before coming to know Christ? What was the key problem, emotion, situation, or attitude you were dealing with? What motivated you? What were your actions? How did you try to satisfy your inner needs? (Examples of inner needs are loneliness, fear of death, and insecurity. Possible ways to fill those needs include work, money, drugs, relationships, sports, and sex.)
- Catechism Q&A
- Ch1: The Condition of Man Before the Fall
- 1. What was man’s condition in Paradise?
It was glorious and highly blessed. - Genesis 1:28-31
- 2. Was man created good?
Yes. God made man upright. He created man in his own image, after his own likeness. - Ecclesiastes 7:29, Genesis 1:27
- 3. In what way does man’s likeness relate to God?
Man was created after God’s righteousness and true holiness. - Ephesians 4:24
- 4. Did Adam and Eve continue in their blessed condition?
No. They sinned and fell away from God – they and all their descendants. - Romans 5:12-19
- I. The Fall of Man
- 5. What sin against God did our first parents commit?
In disobedience to God’s command, they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God had forbidden when he said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” - Genesis 2:17, Genesis 3:3
- 6. What induced them to commit this sin?
An evil spirit, called the serpent deceived them? - Genesis 3:5,13
- 7. Who is this evil spirit?
He is called the Devil, and Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning and does not hold to the truth. - Revelation 12:9, John 8:44
- 8. How did Satan beguile Eve?
He said, “You will not surely die – you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” - Genesis 3:4-5
- 9. Why did they so readily believe?
They filled with a desire to become wise and like God. - Genesis 3:6
- II. The Results of the Fall
- 10. What were the results of Adam’s disobedience?
Sin and death came into the world. - Romans 5:12
- 11. What do we understand by this death, which came over Adam and his descendants?
The death of soul and body; the body must die and return to the ground, and man, prone to do evil, has become guilty of eternal condemnation. - Genesis 3:19, Psalm 14:3, Romans 5:16
- 12. How did sin reveal itself in Adam’s descendants?
All flesh had corrupted their way on the earth, so that the Lord had to destroy them from the earth. - Genesis 6:12-13
- 13. Is there anyone on earth without sin?
No. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. No one is without sin, except the Son of God, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit. - John 3:6, Luke 1:35, Hebrews 7:26
- 14. What should this teach us?
From this we should learn that by nature we are prone to evil and are children of wrath; and realizing our sinful condition, we should seek forgiveness through the grace and mercy of God. - Ephesians 2:2-3
- II. The Law, a Schoolmaster unto Christ
- 10. By what means did God control the people of Israel before the advent of Christ?
He gave them the law of Moses, especially the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, written upon two tablets of stone. - Exodus 20:1-17
- 11. What are the Ten Commandments?
And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” - Exodus 20:1-2
- First Table
1. You shall have no other gods before me. - 2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, or serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, and showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me, and keep my commandments.
- 3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
- 4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your
gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. - Second Table
5. Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. - 6. You shall not murder.
- 7. You shall not commit adultery.
- 8. You shall not steal.
- 9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house, you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.- 12. What is the sum and substance of these Ten Commandments?
The first table commands us to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind. And the second table is like it, you shall love your neighbour as yourself. - Matthew 22:37-39, Romans 13:10
- 13. Has the law respect only to actions?
No. It has special respect to the inward movings or desires of the heart. - 1 Timothy 1:5, Matthew 15:19
- 14. Does the law forbid secret lusts?
By all means. For it is written, “You shall not covet.” - Exodus 20:17, Romans 7:7, Colossians 3:5
- 15. Has anyone ever fully kept the law?
No. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. - Romans 3:9-19, James 2:10
- 16. For what purpose was the law given?
The law was our guardian until Christ came and that man might have a knowledge of sin. - Galatians 3:24, Romans 3:20