Not My Story

5 min read

36  “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37  And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38  nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent.”

John 5:36-38

All of Scripture is understood only in the context of Jesus Christ—who He is, what He came to do, what He will do when He returns. Jesus is the lens through which we must interpret the Scriptures. If we do not look at the Scriptures through the lens of Jesus Christ, we will misinterpret it.

The mistake that most people make when they read the Scriptures is to read it through the lens of themselves. For sure, to a certain degree, that cannot be helped. If we are to understand what God is doing in our lives at all, we must consider the circumstances of our lives when we read the Scriptures.

But there is a very huge difference between “applying the word of God to my life” versus “applying my life to the word of God.” When people apply the word of God to their lives, they make their lives the main story, and they force the word of God to fit into the story of their lives.

Instead, we should apply our lives to the word of God. Jesus Christ—who lived a perfect life, died a sinner’s death, was resurrected to eternal glory, and will return to judge the living and the dead—is the main story. And our lives need to fit into His story.

If our lives do not fit into the story of Jesus Christ, even if we might be saved (albeit by the skin of our teeth), we risk the lives of people around us who need Jesus.

If the testimony of our lives is always about me-myself-and-I, Jesus is reduced to a genie in a bottle who exists only to please me-myself-and-I. In that case, we are not bearing witness to Christ at all. We are bearing witness to a genie in the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

But when we apply our lives to the word of God, we begin to understand how desperately we need Jesus. And that is our testimony.

Without Christ, we have no life, no breath, no thoughts, no hands or feet, no story that amount to anything meaningful.

With Christ, we bear witness to the only story that matters in the end, and we invite others to participate in His story with us.

We lose nothing when we fit our lives into the story of Christ. Of course, when we are in Christ’s story, we might struggle because we find ourselves trying to write ourselves out of His story. Our flesh wants to make ourselves the main character of our lives.

But as we learn to apply our lives to His story fully, we also begin to experience the true meaning of love, joy, peace, blessing, purpose, grace, happiness.

Father, I thank You for saving me. From the first day I was saved, I have tasted that You are indeed good. I long for more of Your goodness and the power of Your Spirit in me. Help me fully surrender my story to Your story. In Jesus’s name. Amen.