My Personal Walk for His Corporate Body, C.C.

I was raised in a Christian home in Southern California. I received the Lord as a child due to my mother's faithfulness to sing hymns to me and to read me Bible stories. When I was 14, I made the decision to be baptized, and then I gave my life to the Lord. Soon afterwards, I began to read and appreciate the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I also became very involved with the local church, first in Long Beach and then in Los Angeles when I went to college at The University of California at Los Angeles.

This ministry taught me to seek to know the Lord first and live by His leading directly rather than living under any outward law or regulation. This is possible because Christ is a person within me (Romans 8:10) and because He is my life (Colossians 3:4)! This ministry also stirred up in me a love for the Word of God, which causes me to grow (1 Peter 2:2), and a longing to come to the full knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

My Christian life has not just been developing an individual relationship with the Lord, but also learning how to be built up with the other members of the Body of Christ. It is only with all the believers that we are able to “apprehend...what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ” (Ephesians 3:18b-19a). I have definitely experienced how the other members of the Body strengthen and encourage and fill up my lack.

One thing I really appreciate about the members of the local churches is that they endeavor “to keep the oneness of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3). The Lord Jesus, before He was crucified, prayed to the Father in the garden of Gethsemane “that they [the believers] all may be one...that the world may believe...” (John 17:21). At a time when divisions among Christians are so prevalent I appreciate a ministry that leads me to receive every genuine believer in Christ, regardless of his doctrinal opinions, “for God has received him” (Romans 14:3). Thus I am very much in debt to this ministry for the wealth of help it has rendered me in both the individual and corporate aspects of my Christian life.