The Church in Spokane
TestimoniesBorn of the Spirit to Walk by the SpiritThe gospel of Jesus Christ reached me through my mother, who became a Christian in the 1950’s on the island of Taiwan. She and hundreds of thousands of others were saved at that time by the prevailing gospel preaching of brother Witness Lee and some faithful believers meeting as local churches on that island. At age 14, I also prayed to receive the Lord as my Savior and was baptized in meeting hall #2 of the church in Taipei. Tears of joy ran down my face as I confessed out loud, “Lord Jesus, I believe You!…” It felt like a heavy weight was lifted from my inner being, and I knew Jesus came into me. Later on I realized more clearly that the heaviness I sensed was the burden of sin on my conscience. When I turned my heart to the Lord and called on Him, my sins, along with the guilt in my conscience, were washed away by the precious blood of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:16, John 1:29; Hebrews 9:14). I had peace with God. For the first time in my life, my spirit contacted God the Spirit, and the two became one (1 Corinthians 6:17)! Soon after I received the Lord, I thought, “Since I am now a Christian, I will start being a good person and do some things I never could do before, such as reading the Bible from cover to cover, and being patient with friends and family members.” These noble ideas seemed to help improve my living at first, but after a while, my old self surfaced again. Repeated failures in attempting to do good caused me to question if Bible teachings could ever be realized in my practical daily walk. In 1973, I came to the United States for graduate study. By the Lord’s sovereign mercy, I was kept in the local churches, firstly meeting with the church in Chicago during graduate school, then with the church in Spokane after graduation. Through the years, Christian brothers and sisters in the local church cared for my personal well-being and walked me through critical turns. They showed me how to partake of the Spirit in the Word as my life and life supply (John 6:57, 63). My love for the Lord grew steadily, and quite unconsciously, things of the world gradually lost their appeal to me. By observing the daily lives of many dear brothers and sisters around me, I soon became convinced that all believers can experience Christ practically in their daily walk. The secret, I learned, is to know your human spirit, where the Holy Spirit dwells. A dear brother testified many times, “The human spirit is the greatest discovery of the twentieth century!” This discovery does not refer to a doctrinal understanding, but a subjective revelation. Thank the Lord that I came to this realization personally when reading through the book, The Economy of God by brother Witness Lee. As the Word of God divides my soul from my spirit (Hebrews 4:12), I can clearly discern, by paying attention to the inner sense of life, the difference between living in my soul and living in my spirit. All the Bible teachings can only be realized in my practical daily walk when I live in my human spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14)! My attempts to do good resulted in failures because I unknowingly turned away from the Lord Himself in my spirit to the works of my “self-made laws,” which induced soulish efforts instead of living faith (Galatians 3:1-3). By turning to live by the Spirit in my spirit, my experiences now testify of what brother Witness Lee described in The Knowledge of Life (page 106): “If we touch the inner sense in a practical way and live in fellowship, we will automatically be able: (1) to be freed from sin, (2) to do the good works which we are unable to do, (3) to fulfill the law of God, and (4) to live out the life of God.” Rachel Wang |