Changed Forever Inwardly, ED

I was raised by a Christian mother, and was a faithful churchgoer ever since I could remember. As a child, I learned to revere God and tried to be good to please Him. When I reached adulthood, God became so remote to me that I considered myself a non-believer.

In 1989, my seemingly “good” life was in distress. I also moved to a new neighborhood. One day, my new neighbor came knocking on my door. At the end of her visit, she invited me to join her in the weekly sisters' meeting a few days later. It was through this meeting, my life was changed forever, not outwardly, but inwardly!

The meeting was a gathering of around fifteen people, some of them older believers. We sang a few hymns and then the brothers and sisters in the Lord shared freely about their personal experience of God. Something about their sharing touched me: God is not just in the heavens, far away from us, but right in the middle of us. Or, I should say, God was within each of the believers I met that day, and was so real and so dear to them.

After I was baptized, a Recovery Version of the New Testament was given to me as a gift. As I started to read this Bible, following the footnotes, the Bible became an open book to me. I realized that my God is not only a God of love, He is also a God of righteousness. Most of all, my God has an eternal economy (the desire of His heart) concerning me. He wants me to eat and enjoy Him as the Tree of Life through His words and the life-giving Spirit, and be constituted with His life (the eternal life) so that I can become a living member of His corporate body for His expression and representation. When I was regenerated, I became a son of God. But I still , have to experience the steps of His “organic salvation” (John 6:57, 63; 1 Corinthians 15:45; Ephesians 4:12-13, 1:22-23) to be like Him (1 John 3:2). Then, I'll be prepared to be part of the bride of Christ at the end of this age.

How glorious it is to be a Christian! This is the gospel I am burdened to witness, even to the remotest part of the earth!