A Living Testimony, K.G.

There were three instances while I was growing up in which the Lord Jesus came to me. The first time He began to reveal Himself to me was when I was ten years old. I was going to a Sunday school class, and the brother who was teaching it would give all of us boys 50 cents each week to come to Sunday school. But to get the 50 cents we had to memorize a different verse from God's Word each week. So I started memorizing verses from the Bible. At that time of my life I did not realize what was going on, but now that I look back on that, I see that Christ was imparting Himself into me and preparing me for another time to accept Him as my Lord and Savior.

Well, the years went by and a lot of things happened to me, many of them I cannot explain. Like being in three car accidents, in one of which the doctors told my parents that I would not live through the night; in another, I rolled the car over three times and walked away without one scratch; and then there was the time I coasted backwards down a hill and hit a tree at 50 mph with a full tank of gas, all the while sitting in the car laughing about it. In all this, Christ was preserving me so that He could eventually be real to me in a time that He was to choose.

Then, one day in Tucson, Arizona, where I was living at that time, the land-lady of my apartment, who was a born-again Christian, asked me if I had ever accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I said no, so she asked me to come to a Sunday school meeting with her to talk to a brother that she knew; and I did. Well, this brother was different than any one else I had known. He shared with me this wonderful Christ who came into his life--who died for him and took away all of his sins and gave him a new life to live. He asked me if I wanted the same thing, and I said, “Yes I do.” So I confessed that day and asked the Lord to forgive me and come into me to be my life. I can't describe the tears of joy of that day! I remember walking away with a sense of peace and happiness. That was in the year of 1970. I was 25.

But the Lord was not through with me. From that time I knew that I was saved and that I was born again, but I did not really know just what that was. I would not find that out until 1979 when I contacted the church in San Diego.

Meanwhile, between 1970 and 1979 I got married and had three children (two of which were twins). My wife also received Christ while listening to a radio broadcast. When we moved to San Diego, California we went looking for a church. We found a small Baptist place where the people were friendly. We stayed there for about five years. By 1978 we realized that there was something wrong. At the quarterly business meetings there began to be more and more argument and bickering over how to spend the money collected in offerings. At the same time the young sisters in the church, even those who were married, began to be more and more loose in what they would wear. I knew in my heart that the offering was God's money and that there should not be any bickering over such a thing, but how do you tell a leading one or a pastor that you don't bicker over God's money?

So my wife and I decided to look for a place that did not have these kinds of things. For one year we visited other churches. We tried the Pentecostal church, the Lutheran church, a free church, and many others, but could find no place where everyone was just one with each other. So eventually we ended up right back where we started, mainly because we knew everyone and my wife and I liked singing in the choir.

Well, one Wednesday evening at choir practice, a brother named Bill gave me a message booklet from Witness Lee. At that time I did not know who he was, but I read the message and even read it again to my wife. I could not believe what I was reading; it was so good. I had never read anything like it before! It was like the Bible had been “2-D” before, and suddenly it was “3-D”. I went back to Bill and asked him where he got this thing. He told me he got it at a meeting that he had gone to and asked me if I wanted to come to one. He wanted my thoughts on what was going on there. So I went. This was all God's leading and mercy to bring me to the local church.

At the meeting, which was a meeting of the church in San Diego, I noticed there was something different. Here were some people that gathered together, calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, enjoying God. I had never seen this before and it was strange to me. After the meeting I asked someone about the message booklets that they had. He took me to the bookroom, and I bought about a dozen of them. When I started to read them I found that I could not put them down. They were so good. At that time I did not know what was happening, but Christ was speaking in my spirit. Within my being I knew that I was touching something of reality.

I was so overjoyed that I spontaneously wanted to share this truth and good news with others. So at the next choir practice I passed these messages to the other members of the choir. Before long the pastor got hold of one of the messages and called my wife and I into his office and started accusing us of trying to steal his congregation away from him. When we walked out of his office, my wife and I were in shock; we did not know what to think. We decided to go back to the church where we obtained the booklets, to see if what was conveyed in the messages was being practiced or not.

At that time, the church in San Diego was meeting about four or five times per week. I would go to most of them except those on Sunday. But finally one Lord's Day I decided to go to the Lord's Table meeting of the church in San Diego. Before that time, I had never enjoyed Christ in such a way or to such an extent. But at that meeting I enjoyed Christ to the uttermost! From that moment I knew within me that I was in a place where God was dwelling. At that time I also came to know in my experience that God was dwelling in me, within my spirit.

That was 1979--when I began to meet with the church in San Diego. From that time the Lord Jesus has revealed much to me and taken more veils away from my eyes. For one thing, what I had sensed within me already when I beheld the discord among the denominations, He showed me clearly how Christ has only one Body on this earth to express Him, and that the Church of God is one. There is one Body, one Spirit, one Lord over all (Ephesians 4:4-6), and He wants to be one with you and me. When we are one with Him in our spirit mingled with His, there can not and will not be any bickering over God's money and other such trite things. Now I know what God wants for us. He wants us to be one with Him in everything we do. The way this comes about is that you and I believe that He put all of our transgressions on Himself and died and on the cross (1 Peter 2:24). This makes the way for Him to come into us as the life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45) to give our spirit life and peace and enjoyment, so that you and I can be one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17)!

May the Lord Jesus be with your spirit!