15 years ago two Kent State students invited me to church. It was the best invitation I have ever accepted! After studying the Bible and seeing that my life didn’t match up with what God commanded, I repented and made Jesus my Lord at the International Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio.
I thank God for sending those two students. Because of Jesus I can imitate him and “seek and save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10). I have been granted 37 ½ years of marriage in spite of being on the verge of termination; he hates divorce. (Malachi 2:16). Every morning he enables me to “put on the full armor of God” through his word so that I can stand against Satan’s schemes. (Ephesians 6:10-18). He teaches me to “love each other” as he loved me. (John 15:12-14). Delighting in him always brings me the desires of my heart. (Psalm 37:4).
He revealed a world of cultures and economic backgrounds through the members of his kingdom. There are so many friends in this spiritual family that I would never have known if those two students didn’t speak to me, a woman who was more than twice their age. This “body of Christ” (I Corinthians 12:12-30) is a source of daily encouragement so that I won’t “be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13).
I can’t imagine ever leaving God’s church and returning to that world where I grazed on lust, greed, anger, hate, envy, despair and loneliness. Here is where I stay, right where God needs me for his purpose – to be with him eternally.
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. . . Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” 2 Corinthians 5: 1 and 5.
(NIV translation)
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