Experiencing the New Man, John Long

I grew up in a Christian family. From my youth, my father had been taking my siblings and me to attend the children's meetings. Until I left home to attend college, I attended the meetings in the local church in Kaoshiung. I sincerely thank my father, my siblings, and the brothers and sisters in the local church, who planted the seeds of the divine life into me, and tenderly watered them. During my junior high and high school years, I was influenced by my friends to indulge myself in worldly pleasure. There was much turmoil within my heart. I was living a dual life. While I was at home and in the church, I was a good child; but while I was with my friends, I acted differently. This became a test to truth that had been deposited into me while I was young. Thank the Lord, He is a living Person living inside of me. When I was 18, the Lord was shining in me intensely. Eventually I consecrated myself to Him.

While I was in college, the Lord took me to Taichung. Through the support and the supply of the church in Taichung, I moved into the brothers' house. For four years in the sanctified environment in the brothers' house, I was living together, studying together, and pursuing together with those brothers who love the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Timothy.2:22). I was hungry to know God's word, and I read much spiritual literature. Among the many books, Watchman Nee and Witness Lee's literature greatly helped me. Thus I began attending the bi-annual ten-day Life-study conferences. This laid a good foundation for my knowledge of the Bible.

After my graduation, I was led by the Lord to attend the Full-Time training for one year. In the training center, we were equipped in the truth, supplied in the spiritual life; we also learned and practiced to serve in coordination in the church service, and we received much revelation from the word and ministry. This was the beginning of my serving the Lord and the church. During this period of time, the support, encouragement, and the covering of the churches in Taipei and Taichung caused me to grow in the Lord while I was in the training. Three years after the training, at the time of my military commitment I came to the church in Jin-Hu-Jeng on the island of Jin-Men, and to the church in Wan-Tan. Although the number of believers in those churches was small, they were still the lampstands of the Lord shining brightly. The brothers and sisters mutually loved and supported one another; it was truly a sweet family life. Such a union and building in love caused me to rejoicingly pass through the two years of mundane military service.

In 1993, by the Lord's leading, my wife and I came to Houston, Texas. We came to a foreign country where we did not have any relatives or friends, but we did not feel foreign at all. In the church in Houston, we saw, realized, and experienced the universal new man (Ephesians 2:15). There are no distinctions in race, nationality, culture, and class, but Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11). In the past while I read about the Body of Christ, it remained just an abstract term. But through the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, I saw that this new man is what God is longing for, and that today, on this earth the Lord is building up the unique Body of Christ. Now I not only have this vision, but I also am experiencing and enjoying the Body life through the practices of the churches in different localities. Now we have two children, and our whole family is consecrated to the Lord, for the building up of His Body, and for the consummation of the New Jerusalem.