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I Love the Church.Believe me when I say that I am a blessed person. I cannot deny it. The Lord has blessed me through the local church. I would like to tell you how it has helped me and nourished me to be the person I am today. My parents started meeting with the church in Toronto, Canada, a short time before I was born twenty-three years ago. They moved there from a small town near Niagara Falls after months of driving down for the weekend. Why did they decide to move? They decided to move because they had touched Jesus Christ, and were beginning to experience Him in a joyful way day after day. Until they moved, the brothers and sisters in the local church in Toronto gladly put them up every weekend. I was saved at the age of eight, in London, Canada. Every year, there was a week-long “children's training” to bring us together and teach us Bible stories. One night I prayed by myself to receive the Lord. I do not know how I knew what to do, but I wanted to be saved. I had heard people use the term “saved” and I knew that my parents enjoyed something special that I knew nothing about. I wanted what they had. From then on, the Lord became undeniably real and precious to me. In junior high and high school, I was just a normal teenager with all of the insecurity and rebellion that makes that time of life so difficult. The thing that kept me was the fact that I had started to build up a habit of spending time with the Lord in the morning. Some of the ones who served with the young people would call me to pray or read the Bible over the phone. Also, we had conferences and summer camps that allowed me to get to know other girls in the local church from other cities close by. These two things really established me in my Christian life. No matter how much time I spent with my school friends who weren't Christians, I knew how much more the sisters who called me in the morning loved me and I knew that the friendships I had in the church were deeper and more lasting. Later, I went to the University of Western Ontario (in London, Canada) to study English. Although I struggled very much and slipped back into the world, I never stopped loving the brothers and sisters in the Lord. They tried to take care of me, to invite me over for dinner, to get me to help with the high school students, even when my heart was dry and cold. Eventually, after three years of living on my own, I accepted an invitation to move in with a family I knew from the meetings. This was a real blessing to me. I also allowed my heart to be watered and warmed up. Now I can say with assurance that I love the local church not only because it is my extended home and family, but because I rely on it for my very existence as a believer. Christ--Our Unique Overcomer & All-Inclusive Lord The most important thing for me to experience as a Christian is Christ. If I take away the day by day experience of Christ, there is nothing left but an empty shell. That is why I appreciate the writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee so much. It is so easy to be distracted by insignificant details when I come to the Bible or to bask (or wallow) in my subjective experiences. Their fellowship refocuses me on what really matters--Christ! In Watchman Nee's The Overcoming Life I was impressed to see that because we have been identified with the death of Jesus Christ, the Lord considers us dead and buried (Gal 2:20). In a sense I knew that already, but many times I still try to please God with my good deeds or effort. He already knows that in our old man we are good for nothing--that's why he had us crucified! I felt such relief after reading this. It is only when we recognize that we are good for nothing that we can truly walk in the resurrection life. Christ is the only One that can be an overcomer in this universe. The All-inclusive Christ, a book by Witness Lee, was very easy to read yet it ushered me to Christ and Christ alone. And not only is everything backed up by the Word but you can taste the flavor of his personal enjoyment in every line. I saw in this book that God's purpose is not just that we enjoy Christ a little, but that He should be the all-inclusive One to us. Look at this verse: “As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him” (Col 2:6). Christ is a sphere, a realm for us to walk in. He is not merely food and water to us, but a realm, a land wherein we can walk. Doesn't that sound like somewhere you'd like to be? Esther MacVicar | Back to List |
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