How God Became Real to Me, M.C.

I grew up in a Christian family that met with the local church. I was saved and baptized when I was eleven years old. I was always a pretty good kid, obeying my parents and following them to go to the meetings on Sundays. When I got to junior high I started going to meetings for the young people and started to know the Lord more. Through high school, I still mainly felt that my going to the meetings was just obeying my parents.

I went off to college at UCLA, about 350 miles away from home. My parents were not close by to encourage me to go to the meetings. I had to make a choice: would I go to the meetings of the local church or not? At first, I just went to the meetings because I knew that I was supposed to. Then one day it dawned on me that nobody was telling me to go. I just wanted to go. That was when I would have to say that my Christian life really began. God became my God, and I began to know God in a personal way.

It was also around that time that I realized that I wanted to give my whole life to the Lord to serve Him. I began serving in children's meeting, ushering, and other church services. By serving in the church, I began to interact with more of the members, and I began to realize some things about the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is just the gathering of all the believers in Christ, serving, fellowshipping, and enjoying Christ together. Psalm 133 became real to me: Behold how good and how pleasant it is, for brethren to dwell together in unity! That was how God became real to me.

To Know Him....(Phil 3:10a)

The writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee have shown me what God's purpose in the Bible is for man. God does not just want to save man so that eventually when man dies, he can go to heaven. God wants an expression of Himself through mankind on the earth today. The purpose and goal of my Christian life is to express God in my daily living. I have not been very successful in this matter but I have been encouraged by the ministry Watchman Nee and Witness Lee to go on pursuing the Lord regardless of my past failures.

Because their writings are grounded in the Scriptures, I have been helped to know the Bible in an accurate way. Each message is full of cited verses from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It is only through the Word of God that God can be revealed to man. The writings of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee have helped me to know God and His heart's desire in a deeper way. My lifelong pursuit is to know the God whom I love and serve more and more.