My Testimony

[aron]

Originally Posted by Freedom

You may have noticed that my screen name is “Freedom”. I chose that name because in coming here, I want to free myself from anything that is keeping me from the Lord. Unfortunately this has just been the system of the LC itself. Though I am still in the LC, I look forward to the freedom that I will eventually realize.

Remember that Christ bought your freedom on the cross. It is yours. It is a gift from the Father of us all. He loved us and sent His Son. Now we are free. The worst thing you could do is struggle to leave the LCs. Just realize that you are free and one day you will see the open door the Father has placed for you. Don't try to create your own door. Trust the Father.

The only practical advice I would give is that "Christianity", long the shibboleth of the LCs (shibboleth = foil, or "other") actually offers much blessing for the seeking believer. The LC mantra was that all blessing had been extracted by the "ministry", so that Living Streamers could simultaneously claim a "rich heritage" from Christianity yet avoid it, calling it deformed, degraded, and so forth.

But let me recast the idea: the great East-West schism occurred in 1054. The Roman Catholic Church subsequently lost much of its heritage. Then the Reformation occurred 500 years later, and the Protestants lost more of their heritage. When John Calvin et al came back to the text, now shorn of much interpretive power, they had little more than their own logic. And with that they fashioned a theology and went on.

My point is that there is a lot of revelatory source material out there. It begins in the first centuries after the apostles, and lies in plain sight, but it today (I write as a 21st century Protestant Evangelical) it's largely forgotten or ignored. The Bible has revelation beyond our feeble capacities, and certainly beyond Nee and Lee's interpretive power. They were trying to build and establish a "church", so you got "Christ and the Church in the Psalms" and so forth. You got the interpretation they wanted at the time to keep their flock in line.

Today, when I look at their writings I believe that they barely even skimmed the surface. If you display some curiosity regarding your Christian heritage God will take you deeper than you could have dreamed. God will take you into His own dream, focused on a person, Jesus Christ the Nazarene, displayed in the words of scripture in more breadth and depth and power (i.e. 'reality') than Nee and Lee could ever have managed (admittedly they were busy with other things).

My point is that if you seek you will find. "You will seek Me, and find Me/if you search for Me with all your heart." Don't try to leave the LCs, and don't think that you must reinvent the wheel. Look where that approach got Watchman Nee! No, but rather seek the God's Christ and the Spirit will lead you where It wills. The text will subsequently open to you, and speak to you, with you, in you, and through you, and you'll be satisfied, because you'll be approaching God's satisfaction and delight, which is none other than His Beloved Son.

Let me put it this way. As you approach the Son, you simultaneously approach the Father's throne, because the Son is there. He is variously portrayed seated at the right hand, standing by the throne, and working in front of the throne, among the flock.

Believe me that as your awareness begins to awaken of God's Obedient Son there at the Father's throne, you won't be concerned with dry recitals of HWMR. You'll be occupied with more interesting things (all of which doesn't assume your own obedience and approval, but who can obey, lest they first see and hear, and believe[Rom.10:14]?).

I leave you with a spiritual view of freedom.

"I run in the pathways of your command/for you have set my heart free."