The Local Church

The Faithful and Sovereign God Who Always Leads His Chosen Ones Into the Pasture with the Hope of Saving Them to the Uttermost

I am a native of Nigeria. Although I was born into a Christian family and I experienced Christian discipline and upbringing, I did not experience being a Christian until I got saved in the summer of 1984.

In 1985, I arrived in the United States. My top priority was to find fellowship in the Lord Jesus. One Sunday, while I was still searching, I attended a Christian Church in Dallas, TX. At the end of the service, as I was getting ready to get into my car and leave, I saw the pastor who presided over the meeting that morning smoking a cigarette in one hand and shaking hands of members of the congregation. At this point, I became frustrated and disappointed. I said to myself, ``No way! This can't be!'' Even though I perceived the United States to be the number one Christian country in the world, I was convinced that there were no genuine ``born again Christians'' in the United States. I even remember writing to some of my friends back home that the United States was full of church goers and had no bonafide Christians.

One day, a friend of mine, who happened to be my former roommate, came to my apartment to inform me that some Christians had come over to his apartment and preached the gospel to him and also had baptized him. Immediately I told him to ask the group to come and visit me. To my surprise, my friend never arranged this. On another occasion this same friend of mine and I got into an argument at a Kroger store in Irving, TX. As I walked away from him, I noticed that he turned around and was talking to someone. Something within me perceived that the person might be one of the group that had visited him and baptized him. I seized this opportunity to make contact myself. As soon as they parted, I ran to this man and asked him if he could visit me and give me the address of his church. I didn't have the patience to receive the first visit. Instead, I showed up at the meeting the following Sunday. Well, it has been 12 years now and I have been meeting with the local church since then. I must tell you, I cannot fully express how much I've enjoyed, experienced, and gained Christ in these past 12 years. Here in the local churches the availability of God's riches helps me to gain Christ. Thank the Lord for blessing me with life, light, and truth. When God's life is imparted into me, this Life becomes the light that shines within me to reveal the truth to me.

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to a song, and the first line of the chorus of the song says ``The Triune God has now become our all.'' The Divine Trinity which we often refer to as the Triune God wants to be our all. The reason why we have the Trinity, or the purpose of God being Triune, is not that we will only be redeemed and saved from going to hell, but also that we will be saved to the uttermost--to the point that God becomes our all. Rom. 5:10 says ``For if we, being enemies, were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, MUCH MORE WE WILL BE SAVED IN HIS LIFE....'' So not only does God want to redeem, reconcile and justify us, He also wants to regenerate us, sanctify us, transform us, renew us, conform us, and ultimately glorify us (Rom. 8:30). These are the MUCH MORE SALVATION revealed in Rom. 5:10.

Our God's desire is to impart Himself into me to the point that He becomes my all and to make me just like Him in life, nature, and expression, but not in the God-head. Although I will never have a share or part in being the God-head, I will be fully one with God for eternity. Hallelujah!

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