● Sharing of the extension training

Before attending this perfecting training, I had some doubts.  

I worried about school work and wasn't sure how to be perfected by the training.  But I still prayed to the Lord.  I prayed that the Lord will give me these five days for  Him.  I asked that He would renew and transform me.  

In these five days the deepest impression I had was that I woke up early at 6 am. Even though it was much earlier than my habit but around the same time the Lord would wake me up. Then I washed up and went to the meeting hall with the saints praying  all the way..

I felt my tiredness had been taken away by calling on the Lord loudly. And then I felt the joy and excitement which I never felt before. Amen! my spirit had been enlivened.

This is the christian that God had been looking for.  It is one that rises with the sun and revives.  I felt through the loud prayers all my worries had been taken away.  And I am burning.  This is what I was touched the most during this training.

I want to be a saint that is revived every morning and collaborate with the Lord.             -- Y. Deng 

                                                                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                                                                    

● The Memorial Day Conference on May 25-28, Bellevue, WA

The Memorial Day Conference on May 25-28 was centered on three crucial keys for the fulfillment of God's eternal economy.

(1) The oneness of the Body of Christ is the oneness in the Triune God; (2) By seeing the vision of the age and holding the teaching of the apostles, we can practice the proper one accord being in one spirit with one soul, having one mind, will, mouth, heart, way, and one scale, to voice, trumpet, and teach the same thing; and (3) The Lord's move is to bring us into a new revival to recover the priesthood of the gospel; the direction of the Lord's move is to build up the organic Body of Christ, to prepare the Bride, and to bring in the kingdom of God. 
                                            

The saints were refreshed and touched with the vision of the tabernacle with its materials of gold and acacia wood and its structure of 48 boards with uniting bars passing through the rings on the boards, signifying the experience of the crossing and uniting Spirit for the building up of all the members into one Body. The Body must grow by the increase of God, to mature in life and become the beautiful Bride, and to let Christ as the seed of life spread in us until the full harvest, which is the manifestation of the kingdom, the establishment of God's dominion over the entire earth. (Bro. V. S.)

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The second aspect of the oneness is seen in the overlaying of the boards with gold. Surely we all have the gold in us when we believe into the Lord. But the question we need to ask ourselves today is “Are we in the gold?” How much are we in the gold? When others contact us, do they see us or do they see the gold? In our experience, we may only be in a thin film of gold. The apostle Paul desires to be found in Christ by all who observed him. He aspired to have his whole being immersed in and saturated with Christ that all who observed him might find him fully in Christ. Our natural human nature (signified by the acacias wood), regardless of how good it is, cannot build up the Body of Christ. Only by being in the gold, only by being in the processed Triune God, can the Body of Christ be built up. The oneness of the boards was not in the acacia wood but in the gold that overlaid the wood. Therefore, we need much more gold to be laid upon us. May we be those who “sink deeply into the Triune God” until we are fully overlaid with gold. (Bro. F. W.)                                                                                                                 ************ I enjoyed the message on the oneness of the Body of Christ, the oneness in the Triune God typified by the tabernacle. Our brother shared the three aspects of the oneness in the Triune God. First, we see the three gold rings (the receptacles for the uniting bars), which signify the initial Spirit, the regenerating and sealing Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit of the Triune God in resurrection for the uniting of the believers. Second, we see the overlaying of the boards (signifying the believers with the human nature) with gold (signifying God with the divine nature). The more we are overlaid with gold, the more oneness we will have; and the more we have God, the stronger our oneness is. Today the Lord needs this genuine oneness, because if we do not have this oneness, we will not be able to go on in the Lord’s recovery! The only way to be kept in this solid and real oneness is to have an adequate amount of experience of God in our daily life. The third aspect of the oneness in the Triune God is seen with the uniting bars, which held the forty-eight boards together and brought them into oneness; these uniting bars signify the initial Spirit becoming the uniting Spirit to join all the members of Christ into one Body. The oneness of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself. To keep the oneness of the Spirit is to keep the life-giving Spirit. If we act apart from the Spirit, we are divisive, and lose the oneness. If we stay in the life-giving Spirit, we keep the oneness of the Spirit. May the Lord gain us more each day and be built up together in oneness. (Bro. R. L.)                                                                      ************ This weekend we went to the memorial day conference at Bellevue. There were many saints from all over the world.  I was especially impressed by the speaking of certain brother regarding the churches in Ukraine. There were around 60 churches in Ukraine with close to two thousand saints.  I also enjoyed the main topic of the conference which is about oneness,  talking about how we should keep the oneness and one accord. During the last meeting, I went to the front to prophesy. There were more than 2000 saints present.  I talked about how we should bring in the kingdom and we as the greatest ever generation will bring in the kingdom and allot land to everyone from past present and future. It was a good weekend in Washington state.  (Bro. J. Y.)

● The 14th Truth Perfecting training

Approximately 30 people, including a few gospel friends who desire to search and enter into the truth, joined the 14^th term of the Truth Perfecting training for Chinese-speaking believers. This training has led many new believers to love and serve the Lord and has been under the Lord’s blessing for more than 7 years.

 The 14th Truth Perfecting training class

 The 14th Truth Perfecting training class

 The 14th Truth Perfecting training class

 The 14th Truth Perfecting training class

 The 14th Truth Perfecting training class

[Week 1]

Question: “It’s okay just to believe in the Lord; you do not necessarily have to be baptized.” Is this kind of speaking correct?

Answer: Not correct. Mark 16:16 says, “He who believes and is baptized shall be saved.” This shows us that to be saved, we not only have to believe, but also be baptized. After baptism, our salvation is complete. Believing takes half a step; baptism makes one complete step.  –Sister Zhang

Question: Based on the Bible, our salvation should be followed by dealing with the past. What items should be dealt with? Do you have such testimonies?

Answer: Unrighteous matters, wrongful matters, evil and unclean matters, and old manner of life. For example, after being baptized, my husband has changed his tone of speaking to our children from rough and loud to gentle and fine. I have gained more growth in life and recently, I desire to contact the Lord more and get rid of my bad habits.  – Sister Liu

[Week 2]

Question: What do you gain from living by calling on the Lord’s name?

(1)  Calling on the Lord’s name is the way to enjoy the Lord. It is to pray with the spirit, our spiritual breathing. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He is rich to all who call upon Him. He saves us. No matter how far we are from Him, by calling He is near. Whenever I call upon His name, my heavy load becomes lighter. We are filled with joy, rest, and strength.  – Sister Zhou

(2)  Calling on the Lord’s name is not just for our salvation, but also for enjoying the Lord and all His riches. In resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit, the living water for us to drink. The way to eat and drink of the Lord is to call on His name. When we call Lord Jesus, we are in the spirit. (1 Cor. 12:3) By calling on Him, he becomes our peace, rest, comfort, and solution in any kind of situation.  – Sister Li

(3)  The living of calling on the Lord’s name gives us life and peace. In resurrection, the Lord became the life-giving Spirit. When we call on His name, He comes into our spirit to give us life, to be the fountain and spring to supply us, and gives us the peace that surpasses all human understanding. So when we call on the Lord’s name, we find peace in our heart, and we do not feel anxious anymore. If we commit ourselves to the Lord, He will take us where we need to go. A living of calling on the Lord’s name is a living full of life and peace. – Brother Deng

(4)  Each time we call on the Lord’s name, we feel He is right before our very eyes. We feel sweet, joyful, satisfied, and comfortable. By calling on the Lord’s name, we are drawing water out of the wells of salvation, enjoying the riches of the Lord, and being filled by the Lord. This is our spiritual breathing, so we must do it every day, every moment.  – Sister Wang

(5)  We can enjoy the Lord in our spirit by calling on the Lord’s name. Whenever we call on the Lord’s name from the depths of our being, we spontaneously cause our spirit to function, and then we enjoy the riches of Christ. By calling on the Lord, we defeat all the negative things in us. The best way to enjoy the Lord is to call on Him, and by this we touch Him. By calling on Him, under whatever circumstances, He becomes our peace, rest, comfort, and solution.  – Sister Chen

● Sharing at the conclusion of the English speaking saints perfecting training

At the Lord's Day meeting on December 11, 2011, saints who attended either  the English or Chinese perfecting class had their respective prophesying time to testify of their enjoyment of the Lord's grace and their companions' help. They also consecrated themselves to the Lord as a response to His love. Those who showed excellence in attendance, homework, daily spiritual exercises, and functioning in class were rewarded with Bibles or spiritual books as incentives.
May the Lord further perfect them for their continuous pursuit of His riches and practice of the church life. 

Prophesy from the trainees

       During the past 6 weeks of perfecting training, brothers prepared 6 basic but crucial topics for our Christian’s life. I particular touched on the topic of preaching the gospel and pursuing the Truth. Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age.

        Here we see that we all have been commissioned by the Lord to preach the gospel, baptize these ones into the Triune God and teach them the Truth as the Lord has revealed in the Bible. We all need to desperate to bear new ones as remaining fruit. Gospel preaching should not be something we do and detached from our living. Rather, our living should be the gospel, gospel should be our living. In other words, what we do and say should be the manifestations of Christ and we should preach the gospel on regular basis, not once a year. Also, we need to be constituted with the divine truth and we must first enjoy the Lord before we can preach the gospel to others.


        If we are not equipped with the truth, we will run out of words to say very quickly and our gospel will be weak. In addition, we must exercise our spirit so we are filled with the Holy Spirit and pray with much persistence for our gospel contacts. Because we are all branches in the vine, without the Lord, we cannot do anything. May we all encourage one another in pursuing the truth with our spiritual companions for the furtherance of the gospel in all the places we go. Amen.
                                                                                                                                           - Alice Hsing      
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        At the beginning before I signed up for the English training I was hoping to perfect my English in pursuing the Lord to be able to preach the Gospel in English and pray in English. And I thought it shouldn’t be as intense as compared to New Jersey’s training where we were required to be at the meeting early in the morning and throughout the day until 9pm at night. It turned out to be a wonderful experience after all.

        In the New Jersey training, I was surrounded by saints literally 24-7, I was able to touch the Lord in a very deep way with much help by many testimonies and saints exercising together. We would pray many times in a day together, eat together, enjoy the Lord together, receive message together the whole 7 days. However because the English training is only on Lord’s day for 6 weeks, so after the training, I was back to my own daily life. The 6 weeks of English perfecting I found was more challenging than the 1 week perfecting training in New Jersey. I realized that I can not just exercise my spirit only in meetings, at trainings, or by Lord’s table, but I need to exercise my spirit in and through my daily life. And this is what I found more challenging than the NJ training.


        So, I really appreciate in the training material where it says the whole environment around us does not help us to exercise our spirit. It has an intention to keep us down. The whole situation does not help us to go on to labor. It helps us to be lazy; it helps us to be backsliding. It is a downhill current. The downhill current helps us go down. The current is carrying us downwards. But if you try to go upwards, you have to exercise, and you have to struggle. Actually, to exercise of our spirit comprises and implies all of the following words: labor, toil, struggle, wrestle, and fight. But what are we fighting for?? We are fighting against our natural being that is keeping us away from the Lord. Our spirit is where the Lord lives. In order to touch the Lord we need to exercise our spirit! We not only need to exercise our spirit but also fan our spirit into flame.

        The Lord says through Paul in 2 Timothy verse 6 to 7: For which cause I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God. For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sober mindedness. Our spirit is a gift by God which we must fan into flame to let our spirit take the lead in our whole being. This helps our mind to be set on the spirit and with the Lord and to not wander in vanity. This also helps us to have a clear conscience and a sober mind to discern spirit and soul, because the enemy’s strategy is always trying to mix our spirit up with our soul and whenever such mixing is there, the spirit loses and the soul wins.

        Galatians 5:25 says If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. The Christian walk is a walk according to the spirit, which is our spirit mingled with the Holy Spirit. It is easy to do things by our soul and flesh but we must learn this practice: whatever happens to us, we must turn ourselves to the Lord. This means to turn to the spirit. On the one hand, I deny my natural and independent mind, emotion, and will, which is my self. On the other hand, I learn to sense the spirit. I only do things when I sense that I have the inner life and peace. To do this is to exercise the spirit. Praise the Lord that we all have this gift in us which is the spirit. Our spirit need to be exercised
                                                                                                                                                 - Eric H

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          I appreciate the opportunity to be trained even though I could attend a half of the training sessions. The training is an essential to practice the normal Christian life. It sounds easy to keep doing the normal things every day. Indeed it is not.

          First, we need to know what the normal Christian life is. Second, we need to make certain things, such as reading the Word, the morning revival, to be a habit or be a part of daily life. To be a Christian, we not only enjoying Christ but also contribute the purpose of God. We have to be a functional member of the Body.

           During the training, I learned (1) Exercising spirit, (2) The knowledge and pursuit of the truth, and (3) Prophesying-its meaning and purpose. All subjects are not new, but, I realized my shortages. Moreover, the training forces us to practice the normal Christian life. That helps us to experience the Load during the training period.

            The training is not a onetime event.  We need to be trained constantly until be confirmed and glorified. I pray many brothers and sisters will have opportunities to be trained.

-Brother  Koichi Kato