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 (Manna 23: The Household of God)
God's Grace upon Our Firstborn

I grew up in a Christian family. My parents are church members of a certain denomination in Taiwan. My wife Helen had also received baptism more than 10 years ago in another church. When we were attending our respective churches, we had never heard of any testimonies of visions, dreams and miracles. Moreover, we had very little knowledge with regards to the Holy Spirit, let alone experience of it. This changed after we were led to the True Jesus Church. By the grace of God, we started to experience wonderful things. At first, we thought these to be very personal, not something to talk about. Later on, a minister told us that we should share our experiences with others to testify for the Lord, to encourage truth-seekers in their search for God, and to strengthen the faith of others.

One of the experiences is as follows:

Andrew is our firstborn. When he was four, he started having chronic nosebleeds because of an allergy. Bleeding could occur at any moment, even when he was asleep. It worsened over the years. In the spring of 1993, it became very serious because of the high pollen count in the Bay Area. It was very painful for him. At school, his nose was always stuffed, his eyes red, and his face swollen. He had difficulty sleeping because he felt like he was being choked to death. He would fuss all night and cry a lot. We tried all kinds of medicine but found no cure for him.

One night, after Andrew had finally fallen asleep at two in the morning, my wife and I could not sleep. We were deeply worried about Andrew's coming years. In great sadness, we knelt down to pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, asking Him to take care of our son and heal his illness. When we went back to sleep, I had a dream. In the dream, our Lord was holding Andrew compassionately in His arms. When I related this to my wife Helen the next morning, we both felt sure that Andrew would be healed of his severe chronic allergy. True enough, a couple of days later, his nose started to clear and he began to breathe normally. God had indeed listened to our prayers, and had shown mercy to our son and us.

On December 25, 1993, my whole family attended a spiritual convocation at San Jose church. During one afternoon's prayer session, Andrew saw a vision while he was praying. He saw our Lord Jesus dressed in a shining white garment, His head bright and glorious. Jesus walked among the church members and laid His hand on several people, including Andrew. When Andrew saw our Lord leaving, he quietly said, "Pass me not, Lord!" And our Lord Jesus gently replied, "I am here." Then a dove flew out and landed on Andrew's shoulder. Andrew received the Holy Spirit and started praying in tongues. He was in tears but felt very peaceful and cleansed.

The following morning, when Andrew was praying with us, he saw the vision of our Lord Jesus again. Our Lord came before him and looked at him. Andrew was moved to tears. When Jesus left, a dove with a glorious star on its head flew to Andrew. It was holding a golden gift box with its feet. The dove dropped the gift box before Andrew, and it landed on his shoulder again. The dove flew away when the prayer ended. When Andrew told us his vision the previous night, we did not know what it all meant. But when he related this second vision, we realized Andrew had received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Our Lord has had mercy on our family and blessed us greatly with his abundant grace. We had always worried about Andrew and had always prayed for him. We had asked for our Lord's guidance to bring him up as a child of God. Our Lord answered our prayers with the greatest gift of all—He gave Andrew His Holy Spirit.

Thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ whose abundant love and grace have given us many edifying experiences. Praise, glory and honor be to our God forever and ever. Amen!

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Publisher: True Jesus Church
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