Captured by the Lord, Kevin Chu

If natural disposition were the primary prerequisite for one's salvation, my stubbornness and aversion to anything not logical would certainly have prevented me from accepting the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior. However, the fact is that the Lord chose me; I didn't choose Him (John 15:16). Therefore my salvation was a result not of my doing, but of the Lord's doing. Since the logical thing for a Christian to do is to meet together with other believers, I also felt the impulse to meet with other believers when I began to pursue the Lord in earnest. In my search for a church, I also realized the Lord is sovereign. The church that I was looking for was the church that I was already passively with¯my parents' church!

Growing up in my parents' church, I found it to be unlike anything out there in the world. Everything was different in the church; the people, the way we worshipped, the way we spoke, the way we congregated, even the way we sang was different from anything else I'd experienced. The fact that this place was different from the world did not bother me, but what irked me was that all the Christians there seemed to believe in a doctrine that was too high, and that their similar belief caused them to behave in a very particular way (Titus 2:14). The idea of conformity was repulsive to me. Therefore, early on I let this become a hindrance in my gaining of the Lord. Although I continued to meet with my parents' church, I generally rejected their doctrine and really did not have much involvement outside of the Sunday morning services and young people meetings.

When I got to college, I was free; I was on my own. I began to try to gain my own individual spirituality. Needless to say, I got nowhere and was soon just like everyone else in the world. I can't say that I didn't enjoy my first year of college. I certainly had a lot of “fun”, but I felt that during that time the Lord was infinitely far from me. About halfway through my freshman year, some of my old acquaintances in my parents' church started to contact me, inviting me to meet with them. Their persistence won out, and I relented. I started to meet with them regularly to get into the Word. Having my parents' shackles removed, I found that I was more receptive to their fellowship when it was out of my own consent. I was amazed at the amount of truth that these people knew and that the way they met together was actually quite enjoyable. Gradually, my parents' church became my church.

After my freshman year, I was completely captured by the Lord (Ephesians 4:8) and became a regular, functioning member in the church. It seems that I was just conforming outwardly to a way of meeting, but I found that my change was something inward. I changed not because anything was forced on me; I changed because I really saw something. What I saw in the church was worthy of giving up my previous preoccupations to jump fully in without reserve. I saw Christ in the church. What is more beautiful to behold than Christ? I am thankful that the Lord has shown Himself to me in the church, and I can say happily that I will be here for the rest of my life, pursuing after Christ, not as an individual Christian, but as a member of the Body of Christ.