Christ—The Abundant Life in the Local Church

At the age of fifteen I sat in a gospel meeting in which the speaker was sharing how God gave His own Son to die for the whole world. These words had become so familiar to me as I heard them numerous times over the years in Sunday school that they usually meant nothing to me. However that evening, these same words touched my deepest being. The words in Romans 3, "There is none righteous, not even one...For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," seemed to be directed specifically at me. It was as if a veil over my eyes was lifted. God's Word convicted me that I was a sinner, that my own righteousness was but filthy rags, that I needed to be justified, to be made righteous through faith in Jesus Christ. That evening I received this free gift of Christ's redemption and experienced the joy of being born again.

Not long after that, the initial euphoria which followed my wonderful salvation experience faded. I went to college, majoring in Physics, a subject which I loved, and filled my leisure time with art, music and activities. College life was a new experience, and outwardly I was successful and happy. However, deep within me there was an emptiness that the outward fun and success simply could not fill. I longed for something more, but what? What was the meaning of the human life? It was a question I had no answer to. I knew the answer was not in the Sunday services which I attended week after week. They were nothing but ceremonies and sermons that were not too different from the philosophy classes I was taking. Although I could not deny the genuineness of my salvation experience, I could not see how being saved from perishing had any relevance to human life.

My inward search went on. How I thank the Lord that in my junior year I came in contact with a group of Christians in the church in San Francisco to whom I was immediately attracted. They had the joy, the peace, the assurance and freedom that I had experienced so fleetingly as a new Christian. Through their ministry to me, I came to realize a marvelous fact: that God came to be life to man. In John 10:10 Jesus says, "I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly." For the first time I saw that God's primary concern for man was not saving him from sin, but giving him the divine life. John 3:15 says, "that everyone who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life." This eternal life is the divine life, the life of God.

I realized then what had taken place on the evening of my salvation: that by admitting that I was a sinner, I had accepted the substitutional death of Christ and was justified before God. The problem of my sin was solved once for all on that evening; I was reborn with the life of God within me. I didn't need to wait until I died to receive this eternal life; this life came into me at the time of my rebirth. However, the matter of having God's life in me had yet to become my everyday experience. This realization that God's life is for me to experience revolutionized my living. How I thank the Lord that since that time my search has ended. Now, in the local church in Berkeley, day by day I am drawing from the well of salvation (Isaiah 12:3) and Christ has become sweeter, more enjoyable and more real to me. He has proven to me that indeed He came that I may have life, and may have life abundantly.

Y.T.

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