ATTRACTED BY A BOOK

When I was nine years old, one of my aunts, a Roman Catholic nun, gave my elder brother a Good News Bible. My brother was not interested in it; I was. Seeing that it was an English book containing many pictures, I thought it would be a great way for me to learn English. It worked.

Besides just picking up English, I came to learn that there was a God called Jesus. He was very powerful and loved children. I told myself that I was going to worship this God when I grew up.

A few years later, when the same aunt realized that I was still interested in the book, she gave me a Catholic Bible. Unlike the earlier one, this Bible had only words. Lots of words! I didn’t know where to start reading. Through the index, I found the Ten Commandments, so I started with that.

I was stumped when I came to the commandment that baldly stated that we must not worship man-made idols. I saw many hand-made statues whenever I entered a Catholic chapel. Worse, I was taught that I could worship the true God by praying through these statues. So who was right? This nagging doubt deterred me from getting baptized in the Catholic Church.

INVITED BY A FRIEND

Years later, I graduated from university and began working as an auditor. In June 1999, I went to a company to carry out an audit assignment. During our lunch break, the secretary of one of the company directors asked me whether I had any religious affiliation. I told her that I read the Bible on my own but did not attend any church because I didn’t know which one was the true church. In reply, she invited me to go to her church, which, she said with full conviction, was the true church.

I accepted her invitation and went to her church—the True Jesus Church—on the following Saturday. Everything seemed pretty normal when I stepped into the church. Then, a loud and strange sound suddenly came over the public announcement system. It sounded like human voices, but they were quite unlike anything I had heard before.

I could feel my whole face turn white in fear. The sister who invited me must have seen my shock. Quickly, she explained that it was just the sound of people praying and that there was no need to be alarmed.

We then went up to the second floor and entered the chapel. The service began. When the congregation knelt down for the first prayer, I was still very frightened, but I didn’t want to leave after being there for barely half an hour.

Remembering how powerful Jesus was, I knelt down too and prayed to Him in my heart. I told the Lord I did not know where I had brought myself and what I had gotten myself into; I asked Him to come and save me quickly! However, when the preacher started to deliver his sermon, my fear subsided somewhat because I noticed that he quoted often from the Bible.

REASSURED BY A VISION

I continued to attend services at True Jesus Church. One Sabbath in December 1999, a special fasting and prayer session was scheduled. The aim was to seek God’s guidance and abidance for the annual year-end Spiritual Meeting that was going to be held one week later.

This prayer was to be held after the afternoon Sabbath service. I had intended to sneak away, but before I could get very far, the wife of Preacher Chang Kuo Ching, the resident preacher then, invited me to join them in prayer. Not exactly keen to stay, I gave her the excuse that I had not fasted. She replied that I need not worry about that since God looks at our heart.

My brain couldn’t work up another excuse fast enough, so I reluctantly agreed to stay. The prayer was longer than the normal prayers. It wasn’t long before I started to feel my whole body ache with fatigue. I kept wondering, “Why is the preacher not ringing the bell to stop the prayer yet?”

Even as I wondered, another thought crossed my mind, “Why are these people praying so hard?” As I asked myself this question, I saw a cross in the distance. A figure hung on the cross. The whole vision was very dark, and there was light only around the cross.

Tears started to flow down my cheeks. Things I had only read about before in the Bible were now shown directly to me … amazing love, how could it be, that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus died for me. He died for all of us.

It was grace indeed that sinful man could be reconciled to Him. And prayer was the way that we could communicate directly with Him. I no longer dared, no longer wanted, to wonder why the preacher was not ringing the bell to end the prayer.

The following week, I attended the Spiritual Convocation at Adam Road Church. At the end of the first service, anyone who wanted to pray for the Holy Spirit and to experience God was invited to pray at the front of the chapel. The sister who brought me to True Jesus Church encouraged me to go to the front. So, I went.

At that time, I was still not baptized. I dared not pray for the Holy Spirit, as I felt unworthy. In my prayer, I merely asked God to tell me if this was His true church.

Suddenly, my surroundings became brighter and brighter. Words fail to capture this wonderful light—so very powerful, yet so extremely gentle and comforting that it was not glaring at all. The thought flashed into my mind, “My father on earth may not love me, but my Father in heaven loves me dearly.”

My tears flowed freely again. The Lord Jesus had not answered my question directly. Somehow, I knew He wanted me to find the answer myself, and He reassured me that I could find Him in True Jesus Church.

CLEANSED BY THE BLOOD

On June 11, 2000, I received baptism. After we returned to the church, all of the newly baptized were told to go to the front for the laying on of hands.

A few minutes into the prayer, I still had not received the Holy Spirit. I then told God in my heart, “Lord Jesus, I have just been baptized, and I am at my cleanest now. Please give me the Holy Spirit. If not, I will sin again once I step out of the church, and I will no longer be as clean as I am now.”

As I was making this simple plea, my heart started to open up. Indeed, I could feel it blossom as a flower does. Although I did not receive the Holy Spirit in that prayer, the feeling of being sinless was very real and left a lasting impression on me.

A FLASHBACK TO MOPS

Some time after my baptism, I finally realized how the Lord had answered my question on whether I had come to the true church.

One afternoon in late 1998, before I had heard anything about True Jesus Church, I was on a bus when it stopped at a bus stop opposite a church. What caught my eye was the “arrogant” name “True Jesus Church.” Although I was not attending any church at that time, I was quite offended by the sign. I thought to myself, “Hey, do you think that only your Jesus is true? My Jesus is also true!”

But the name also intrigued me. So after passing True Jesus Church that afternoon, in my infrequent prayers, I would ask the Lord Jesus to guide me to His true church.

One night I had a dream. In that dream, I came to a place where I felt great peace and joy. Somehow, I knew that I had come to the house of God. When I woke, I couldn’t remember much about what the place looked like, but I distinctly recalled there was a fence on the premises, and there was a row of mops hanging on the fence.

Much later, after I had started to attend True Jesus Church, I went to the Adam Road church for the first time. The occasion was a truth-seekers’ gathering; we had a tea reception in the dining area. As I strolled by the side of the dining area, I suddenly gasped—there was a row of mops hanging on the fence exactly as it had appeared it my dream! So through a most interesting channel, the good Lord had already shown His true church.

Today, the Lord Jesus continues to guide me and bless me in many ways. Each time I look back at how He has gently called me and brought me back to Him, to His Truth and His church, I can only repeat to myself—indeed, my Father loves me dearly.

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Author: Pik Sin Choo

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