My Testimony
In
October of 1989, I was powerfully and gloriously saved
into Christ
and the fulfillment of His Heart’s
deepest longing, the church (Ephesians 5:25). Despite
years of desperate seeking to “find myself” through
Eastern religion and the New Age movement, I never did
until the day the Lord Jesus Christ, in response to my
invitation, entered into my heart. It was after taking
the full step of salvation, by calling on His name and
being baptized, that He, as the life-giving Spirit entered
into my human spirit and showed me “my self.” Under
the healing and exposing of His brilliant light, I found
a “self” much different from the one I had
envisioned and sought. Through three days of crying and
confession, my whole life with all it’s trespasses
and failures were brought into the light and cast upon
Jesus, who broke the bands of their yoke upon me and
fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law by bearing
their judgment in my place.
At
the end of this time, I was the blind man who could see,
the lame
man who could leap, the captive set free
from years of excruciating bondage. In my first steps outside,
I found the whole creation fresh, alive and brilliant with
glory. I heard the whole heavenly host of angels singing
in jubilant victory, exultation and praise. I found my
experience confirmed later in Luke 15:7, where the Lord
says, “I tell you in the same way there will be more
joy in heaven over one sinner repenting than over 99 righteous
persons who have no need of repentance.”
From
that time forward, 2 Corinthians 5:17 became my heralded
cry of
praise, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation, the old things have passed away, behold they
have become new.” The life of the one, true and living
God had irrefutably entered into me to end my years of
desperate searching and fill the painful void of longing
in my soul. I had arrived. I had sought and I had finally
found. I had opened the door and The King of glory had
come in.
The
last several years, meeting in the local churches, have
been full of unspeakable and glorified joy not void of
hardships,
but
free from the senseless, vain suffering of before. Trials
and faith testing times have been given by my Father, not
as any kind of punishment but rather as a gift that I may
be brought by Him to share in His victory over every negative
thing.
Never
before had I heard or imagined that the church was anything
other than a building with a steeple. Now I have
found that all the God-filled believers are the church.
And as the Church, we are becoming the fulfillment of God’s
deepest heart’s desire.
Andrea Benoit
