Benefit I have received from Witness Lee's Ministry
I have received much spiritual benefit from the ministry of Witness Lee. His ministry has not only brought me to believe in the Lord and get saved, but has also nourished me to grow in the Lord and to love the Lord Jesus to the uttermost. There are two specific times in which his ministry has had a direct impact on my spiritual life. Both times were from the reading of the Recovery Version Study Bible, which contains footnotes taken from the writings of Witness Lee.
In college, I was very seeking to answer the seemingly unanswerable questions 'Why am I here?', 'Is there an absolute truth?', etc. I am a Physics major, and at that time the only thing I would have confidence to be true were theories backed by experiment. I was agnostic, not knowing if there was a God or not. I believed that human's belief in God was only a mental exercise. I would seize every opportunity to argue with anyone who does believe in God and try overthrow their beliefs. During my last year in college, I came in contact with a Christian who got me to read the Bible. She gave me a Recovery Version Study Bible. My original attention in reading it was to find contradictions and flaws in the Bible in order to show her that the Bible was written by men, not by God. As I began to read the Bible with the footnotes, I found myself being attracted to this wonderful person, Jesus Christ. I began to realize that this person is more than just a man, but is God himself. This realization was triggered by on short sentence in the footnotes which says, "With darkness is falsehood, the opposite of truth" (John 8:44 note 3). I realized that the reason I questioned whether there was an absolute truth was because I was in darkness. The Lord Jesus Himself is the Light who unveils that He being God is the only absolute truth in this universe. This realization lead me, after a week of inward struggles, to open my heart and receive the Lord Jesus into me. I began a new life. I will remember that short sentence from the footnote for eternity.
Another time that Witness Lee's ministry helped my spiritual life in a very direct way was to bring me to the realization that I needed to be baptized. After I received the Lord, I began to read and study the Bible. In the beginning of my christian life, I had the concept that I didn't need to get baptized. My concept was that baptism was merely some religious practice. I held to this concept quite strongly until I read the footnotes in the Recovery Version Study Bible. One particular footnote of Matthew 28:19 convicted me concerning baptism. It states that baptism has two aspects: the visible aspect by water and the invisible aspect by the Holy Spirit. "Without the invisible baptism by the Spirit, the visible baptism by water is vain, and without the visible baptism by water, the invisible baptism by the Spirit is abstract and impractical." (note 3) I realized there needs to be an outward confirmation to the inward reality of my salvation. A few weeks later I got baptized. That was a big step forward in my christian life.
These are two examples of the spiritual benefit I got from Witness Lee's ministry. I praise the Lord for the gifts He has given to the church, His Body. I will be forever grateful for Witness Lee's ministry.
