Put Off the Old Man: Why Your Testimony Should Point to Christ Not Your Past
Put Off the Old Man: Why Your Testimony Should Point to Christ, Not Your Past
By Michele Bryant·Arise and Build Ministries·UNSHAKEN Ministry
There is a moment that most of us recognize — even if we have never put a name to it.
Someone stands up to share their testimony and for the first several minutes, maybe ten or fifteen, the room is deep in the details of who they used to be. The addiction. The relationships. The years spent in darkness. The things they did and the things that were done to them. And then, somewhere near the end, there is a brief mention of God. Of salvation. Of how things changed.
And something in you wants to lean forward — because that last part is the part you needed. But the time is up. The testimony is over. And Christ was the last page of a very long book.
You have probably sat in rooms like that. You may have even stood up in rooms like that. And if you have, there is something the Holy Spirit may want to say to you today.
What Does “Put Off the Old Man” Actually Mean?
In Ephesians 4:22–24, the Apostle Paul writes:
“That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.”
Ephesians 4:22–24 (KJV)
In the King James Version, the word “conversation” does not simply mean speech. It means your entire manner of life — the way you conducted yourself, the identity you lived out of, the person you presented to the world. When Paul commands believers to put off the former conversation of the old man, he is saying: stop presenting yourself according to who you were before Christ.
The word “put off” in the Greek carries the image of removing a garment. Deliberate. Active. Intentional. You do not accidentally put off the old man. You make a choice. You lay him aside. You stop wearing him.
The old man is put off — but he is not put out. He does not reign anymore. But he gets louder when he is given a platform. When he is rehearsed. When he is re-presented. When the room spends more time with him than with the One who defeated him.
The Testimony Problem Nobody Talks About
Here is something that may be uncomfortable to sit with: it is possible to tell your story and still be living in the former conversation.
Not because you are dishonest. Not because your past did not happen. Not because your pain was not real. But because when the majority of the testimony is the old man — his behaviors, his history, his seasons of darkness described in detail — what is being put on, not put off. The room follows the story. And when the story is primarily the old man, the attention moves away from the Holy Spirit’s present work and toward the past.
What was meant to point people to Christ can, if we are not intentional, become a detailed introduction to someone the cross was supposed to bury.
Paul understood this. Which is why he made a deliberate, pre-decided choice when he stepped into ministry:
“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
1 Corinthians 2:2 (KJV)
Paul had an extraordinary story. Raised a Pharisee. Educated under Gamaliel. A persecutor of the church. Encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He had every reason to make his past the centerpiece of every room he walked into. And he made a decision in advance that he would not.
Because the moment the speaker becomes the subject, the power shifts. And the power was never supposed to live in the story. It was always supposed to live in the One the story points to.
“That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”—1 Corinthians 2:5 (KJV)
Twelve Words. The Perfect Testimony.
In John 9, a man born blind has his sight restored by Jesus. The Pharisees press him, cross-examine him, try to get him to deny what Christ did. And his response is one of the most powerful testimonies in all of Scripture. Twelve words:
“Whereas I was blind, now I see.”
John 9:25 (KJV)
He did not describe what it was like to be blind. He did not recount the years of darkness in detail. He did not walk anyone through the full biography of his blindness. He pointed entirely to the change. The before. The after. And the One who made the after possible.
That is the stent of a testimony. Not the full autobiography of the blindness. The irreversible announcement of the sight.
The question every testimony must answer is not “what was your old man like?” It is: “what did Christ do — and how is He operating in you now?” That is the testimony that overcomes. Not the detailed history of the wound — but the declared power of the Healer.
“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”—Revelation 12:11 (KJV)
The testimony that overcomes is inseparable from the blood of the Lamb. It is not the word of my history. It is the word of what His blood accomplished in my history. Those are two very different things.
What This Means for You
Your story is real. Your pain was real. What you came through was real. And none of that is being dismissed here.
But here is the question worth sitting with: when you talk about yourself, who is the subject? When you share what God has done, how much of the room does the old man take up? And when Christ appears in the story — is He the center, or is He the closing line?
Healing and freedom — true healing, lasting freedom — does not just change what you have been through. It changes how you carry it. The woman who has been genuinely transformed by the power of God does not need to re-wear the old man to prove the miracle. The miracle speaks for itself. Her life speaks. Her freedom speaks. The way she walks into a room speaks.
When we keep rehearsing who we were, something subtle happens: we give the old man more airtime than the new man. We invite the room to know our history more deeply than they know our Savior. And for the women in that room who are desperate for someone to show them that the new man is real and livable and worth it — what they need most is not a detailed account of what the old man did. They need to see someone who has genuinely put him off.
Put off the former conversation. Put on the new man. Not because your past does not matter. But because the new man matters more. And the room needs to see him.
This Is What UNSHAKEN Is About
At UNSHAKEN, we believe in naming what is in the garden of your heart — the wounds, the ungodly beliefs, the generational chains, the agreements made in pain. We name what is there because you cannot address what you have never acknowledged.
But we also believe that the naming is for the purpose of removal — not for rehearsal. You do not name the rock to carry it longer. You name it so that the authority of Jesus Christ — who is seated far above every name that is named (Ephesians 1:21, KJV) — can be exercised over it. You name it to renounce it. To hand it to the righteous Judge. To walk out free.
The goal of UNSHAKEN is not that you finish four sessions with a better understanding of your pain. The goal is that you finish knowing how to walk with the Holy Spirit in ongoing freedom — as the new man, renewed in the spirit of your mind, created in righteousness and true holiness.
That is who you were always made to be. And that is the only version of you worth introducing to the room.
Whereas I was blind — now I see.
That is enough. That is everything. And that is the testimony that changes the room.
Ready to Put Off the Old Man for Good?
If something stirred in you as you read this — that is not an accident. That is the Holy Spirit marking a place He is ready to go with you.
UNSHAKEN is a four-session healing and freedom journey for women who are ready to stop managing their pain and start walking in real, lasting freedom. We go to the root. We name what is there. We bring it before the One who is already seated above it. And we walk out different than we walked in.
If you are ready to take the next step, visit us at ariseandbuild.onekingdomethos.com to learn more and fill out a form to get started. The new man is waiting. It is time to put him on.
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