Lord Jesus, I Love You

So let’s start in middle school. Before middle school, I was most definitely saved through my mom asking me one night whether I believed in Jesus. I think it was mainly motivated by her fear of me perishing forever, but regardless, I, with the help and encouragement from her, told the Lord that I believe Him, that He is real, that He died on the cross for my sins, and that I receive Him to live in my heart. Praise the Lord!

So throughout my elementary school years, mainly from first grade onwards, when we moved to Maryland, I grew up in children’s meeting, first in Maryland (maybe it was the church in College Park), then in Groton, Connecticut (not sure which locality), and then in third through fifth grade in Irving, Texas! Because we moved so much before third grade, when we actually settled down in our first house in Flower Mound, Texas around July of 2001, I didn’t think that was going to be permanent. I thought that perhaps it would just be temporary, but by the Lord’s sovereignty, that’s where we’ve stayed ever since, where my sister was born and is growing up, where I spent most of elementary school, all of middle school, and high school, and where my family is still living.

Ok, so back to middle school. It was the end of sixth grade, the summer after, and although I had been in children’s meeting for so long (in Irving, it was great by the way!), I feel like it wasn’t until then that I had deep experiences of the Lord. Before then, I just knew the Lord in a shallow superficial way, but during that summer, I really touched my human spirit. So as a background, my parents asked me if I wanted to go to a thing called Truth School, and I didn’t know what it was. Well, my first instinct was to ask if anyone else I knew was going, and sure enough, they said that my other friend was going, so I said sure. That week was the start of my new life. That was where I was touched by the Lord and consecrated my entire life to Him for the first time, praise the Lord! That was where I was completely gained by the Lord for His purpose. The subject of the Truth School was God’s Full Salvation, and man, it was rich. We touched the matter of God going through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and how He became the life-giving Spirit to get into our spirit so that our two spirits could be mingled as one, and that when we call “O Lord Jesus!” His Spirit comes into our spirit and fills us! It was great.

And then I remember on the last day it being announced that there was going to be a conference in Oklahoma City and to ask our parents if we could go. I remember asking another brother, DV, what we would do there, and of course he said something funny that I forgot that was completely wrong, but I decided to go, and that was the second part of my life-changing experience. So we went home, and then next week, we went and just thoroughly enjoyed that time, the rich outpouring of the messages, and learning about the Spirit (maybe? I don’t remember), but it was sooooooo enjoyable. I just completely consecrated my being and whole life to the Lord and did not care about anything else. Also, that may have been the first time I experienced pray-reading together. We would just stand up in groups and declare, yelling at the top of our lungs, parts of verses and enjoyed them to the uttermost. We also called on the Lord and said, "O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah" at the top of our lungs too. One of the songs that we enjoyed so much that we got tired of was 406:

“Now the Lord is the Spirit that’s how,

He can get inside of you right now,

It’s so easy to be filled with Him,

He’s made it really simple.

One, two, three, that’s how easy it can be.

O Lord, Amen, that’s the way to let Him in.

Hallelujah, I love to hear it.

He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit!!!!!!!”

Soooo enjoyable. That was also when I heard about the watermelon example (the Father = watermelon, Son = watermelon slices, Spirit = watermelon juice), and just so much got imparted into us, praise the Lord! I feel like the Lord really blessed that time and deposited something rich into us and some vision into us during that time, and many of the brothers and sisters there are still standing strong in the church life today, with that as their definite start. Thank You, Lord, for those brothers who shared with us and served and were burdened for us, I believe they have a rich reward in the heavens!

Anyways, so after I went home, I just remember looking on the bookshelves in my house and seeing so many spiritual books that I never noticed before, especially the New Believers’ Series, The Normal Christian Faith, God’s Economy, testimonies of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, and so much more, so I just read through all of them, and even tried to practice what was in them. Immediately, I encountered my first problem. I was alone and although I enjoyed reading through them, I was alone and without the Body for much of the time. I had touched the Body at the conference, touched something real and high, and then right afterward, maybe for a few days, I could maintain the level of enjoyment, try to mimic the environment, try to enjoy Christ as I did before, but it was unsustainable by myself.

Right after the conference, however, not but a few days later, things would plummet, like going from the top of a mountain to the bottom of a valley. I was fervent for the Lord. I loved the Lord, and I touched the Lord to the point that I even wanted to drop school to enjoy Him and love Him all the time, but immediately the enemy came in: I tried to mimic. I was frustrated from genuinely reaching the Lord. I tried to mimic what we did during the conference. I thought that my life should always be like what the conference was like, but it didn’t work. And that basically describes my life from 7^th grade to about 9^th or 10^th grade. A life from conference to conference. I went to junior high meetings, I went to high school meetings, Lord’s day meetings, Friday night home meetings, and I realize now that many times, I was trying to mimic outwardly the feeling of what the conferences were like, and that is completely wrong. By the Lord's mercy, He has saved me so many times from this. In the conferences, we touched Christ as the reality, as the highest life, the transcendent one, but the mistake I made was that I tried to be high, tried to always be in the sky, tried to be super-spiritual, etc. Actually, in the beginning, I did try to just enjoy the Lord, but eventually it became into just trying to sustain a feeling, and not keeping in contact with a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Through many experiences the Lord gave me, the Lord turned me from seeking a feeling, from loving a feeling, to loving Himself.

I learned through another conference while in high school (Arlington maybe), that Christ is always there. All we need to do is just open to Him. There is like a door to our heart, and He’s just like a mass of water just sitting on the door, waiting to flow in. Throughout my high school years, I learned that He didn't want us to seek some feeling or follow some practices, but simply to talk to this One as a living person, as a real and living person living in me, so sweet, so loving, so gentle, just waiting for me to turn to Him, just like this song says:

“...He’s just waiting for you to say,

Lord Jesus, my wandering heart, I give to Thee.

So why not open up and call His name, O Lord?

Find your spirit where His grace has been outpoured.

Call His name, taste His grace, exercise before His face.

He’s longing and yearning,

He’s hoping and waiting,

He’s ever desiring for you,

to turn to Him.”

So one thing I remember at my last junior high conference is the brother drawing a graph, a downward sloping graph relating the number of young people in the conferences and meetings and in the church life and their grade level. And it just touched me. I was touched through the brothers’ sharing to pray, “Lord, just preserve me, preserve us throughout our high school years, we just give You our lives, Lord. Do whatever You want through us. Don’t let us drift away and stray from You. Keep us faithful to You.” Actually I realize now what a mercy it was for the Lord to put us through so many ups and downs, from conference to normal daily life back to conference and to normal daily life again. I feel like I really could feel a contrast between the two, and when I came to the conference, every time, regardless, I could touch the Lord in such a deep way, and the Lord would gain so much from me, and I would gain so much from the Lord, and through the ups and downs, the Lord could solidify something of Himself into me. However, just the cycle from burning for the Lord to weary, daily life, back and forth, back and forth, it got to the point where after conferences, I didn’t even want to go home, fearful of what was to come. But I remember a brother shared one time that we are not living a conference to conference life, but a daily life of enjoying and experiencing the Lord, a daily living. Maybe in the morning, you call on the Lord, you tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” Start every morning by telling the Lord that You love Him. And that really helped me, although eventually I began to drift off, no matter what, each time. I realize now that it was because of lack of companions. The brothers even encouraged us to have some companions, and to pray for this if we didn't have some already.

So I prayed for a companion in 9^th grade, desperately, and faithfully, the Lord provided someone all the way from Korea just to be my companion. Yet doubts from the enemy arose in me, actually not even doubts. I was just paralyzed, not being able to build up a proper relationship with this one, but the Lord gave this one to me for a reason, and I feel like I completely failed in the Lord, not praying to Him, asking Him how to take this on.

Also, before this, one other quick thing I want to share is my attitude towards the Lord and His work. One time, I just felt like I needed to give up everything, be a monk, even rearrange my room, to read the Life-studies and Bible like a religious person, but thank the Lord, my mom stopped me immediately. I was so mad at the Lord, I just went outside for so long that my parents started worrying about me. But thank the Lord, the Lord really saved me from becoming a religious monk. From this experience, I see now that He didn't want me to religiously serve Him, but He wanted me to turn to Him as the reality and as the life, the real Way. He didn't want me to just religiously read ministry books or the Bible, nor to serve Him out of my own religious thoughts and concepts but to turn to Him. Praise the Lord!

Anyways, the main experience I want to share is starting with the end of sophomore year of high school. There’s just so much to say, and I hope, by the Lord’s mercy and grace, that I can get all of it out. What can I say? I was weak. By the Lord’s mercy, I was strengthened for a time, grouped with some brothers, DV and CO, and we were to share a gospel message, in front of saints and gospel friends not just from our locality, but from almost the entire metroplex. Praise the Lord, through our coordination, the Lord was able to speak through us, and some were even baptized. Praise the Lord for that experience.

But not long after, the enemy came in through some of the publications of LSM, Affirmation and Critique, through some of the elders’ sharing, and the Internet and exposed me to some accusations about the Lord’s recovery and the local churches. Actually, the elders had already inoculated us before I saw the things on the Internet, but being who I was, I looked more deeply into the accusations on forums and websites without having much defense. I was poisoned.

I tried to just ignore the accusations, and I tried to take the brothers’ word as defense against them, but they were just so strong, saying that families were being ripped apart, that this was a crazy cult making people do crazy things, and I was really strongly affected. However, by the Lord’s mercy, I remained open. I still went to the meetings, but with a more cautious attitude.

Even this was the Lord’s sovereign arrangement. So my attitude became cautious, not only towards the church, however, but also towards the accusations, so by the Lord’s mercy, I remained open. I remained open by still going to the meetings, kind of with an observant attitude, but at the same time, I didn’t just completely accept the accusations. However, during this time, my function was limited to just being there, kind of as a passive observer. Actually, by the Lord's sovereign arrangement, the poison just led to another stage. This led me to some deeper, fundamental, questionings. I had been in the church almost all my life. How did I know that the church was the only reality and way out there? What if I’d been taking the wrong way? How could I be sure that the Lord’s Recovery was the right way? I either wanted to be completely absolute to this way or not take this way at all. Having heard the experiences of others who found the church life and said that the world is vanity, I decided that I needed to test to see if that was really the case. Before I did, however, I asked to Lord to preserve me. I told the Lord, “If You are the reality, the one true reality in this universe, then I know, even if I go out into the world and try many different things, You will lead me back to You. Just protect me and guard me. I just wish to be open.”

So like Solomon, “I set my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.” (Eccl. 1:13) I searched in education. I tried listening to the music my worldly friends listened to. I played their games. “I tested out pleasure, so taste enjoyment… I searched with my heart how to cheer my flesh, … and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the children of men to do under the heavens the few days of their lives.” (Eccl. 2:1, 3) (I actually didn’t realize that this is what I was doing until I came to UT, while on the way back home from Freshmen Connect, the Lord touched me to read Ecclesiastes in the car.)

Anyways, I went into the world (this was when I went to TAMS, another school in a different city, Denton). I just remember one night, having been a while since I had told the Lord that I would go out, everything felt like a dream. Nothing felt real. I even told my friends that I had made out there, “I feel like I’m in a dream. Nothing seems real.”

But anyways, I did not constrain my heart (of course the Lord guarded me in what I tested out). I did not constrain myself in pursuing education, in pursuing worldly pleasures, worldly friendships, worldly activities, but eventually, “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and indeed, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.” (Eccl. 1:14) By the Lord’s mercy, the Lord did not let me pursue too far before He led me back to my normal high school life back in old town Flower Mound, and for the remainder of my time there, the Lord just helped me to adjust and prepare for the life that I have now, all through the remainder of my junior year and my entire senior year, which is just a normal, daily living by the life of Christ which is within us, taking Christ as our source and walking and pursuing together with other members of the Body of Christ. And now, because of this experience, how much the more I appreciate the church life, the Body of Christ, our daily living in Christ. This is what the Lord desires, not for us to be super-spiritual, neither for us to live in the world to pursue worldly ambitions and pleasures, but to take Him as our everything to live and magnify Him in our daily lives, taking Him as our pattern, pursuing Him as our goal, to gain Him to the uttermost. This is the normal Christian life. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

And now today, regardless of our past experiences, successes and failures, we’re just living Christ (Phil 1), taking Him as our pattern (Phil 2), stretching forward and pursuing Him as our goal (Phil 3), by Himself as our power and secret (Phil 4) that He could spread into all our being, to make His home in our hearts (Eph 3:17), making us the same as He is in life and nature (2 Cor 3:18), conforming us to Himself, so that we could be His full expression on the earth today, casting out Satan that the earth could be fully recovered, He could come in to reign with His kingdom, gain His Bride, His masterpiece, which ultimately consummates in the New Jerusalem (Rev 21-22)!!! Hallelujah!!!

Lord, I just thank You for everything You’ve done in me throughout all these years. Just keep me faithful to You. Keep us all faithful, diligent, running the race towards You by You, with You, through You, to gain You as our ultimate prize with those who call on Your name out of a pure heart. Lord, strengthen us today to redeem the time that You may gain Your Bride, Your kingdom, Your Body, Your masterpiece, Your heart’s desire and intention on the earth today. Thank You, Lord! Praise the Lord!!!!!!