Fellowship with Trainees

The past week five trainees have come and I got to fellowship with them. Some of them just finished their two years of training and others just completed their first year. Each of these dear ones is called by the Lord to prepare their vessels. Each of them has a different situation and burden concerning what they intend to do after their training. I am glad that at this age, the Lord could gain our young saints to consecrated themselves at least for two years to be trained as an anti-testimony to the world against the present evil age.

I had some specific and detailed fellowship with two of the brothers who come to fellowship. A brother who had just finished his two years of training was not very clear as to what he should do next. He seemed to have been guided by the family's needs, mostly physical and financial. At the same time, brothers who were shepherding him fellowshipped with him to continue to serve the campus students. He was not very clear as to how he should go on. The Lord gave me a burden to share with him from my experiences when I was in a similar situation many years ago.

God's Presence: I testified of how the Lord has been leading me from the time I got save, and more specifically, from the time I came to serve the Lord full-time answering His call. I narrated how the Lord led me in many practical details, meeting all my financial needs though I never had a worldly source of income. My unique source has always been God and God Himself only. At length, as encouragement and fellowship, I testified to the brother how the presence of the Lord has been leading me in every minute detail of my life. The Lord's presence has always been my life map! And I encouraged him to learned to look to the Lord only and follow Him faithfully and absolutely. In the presence of God, there is everything that we need, spiritually, psychologically, and physically, in addition to the joy and peace of the Lord. It really does not matter whether we serve the Lord "full-time" or "with a job", the presence of God is all that one needs. My brother was so encouraged and supplied by the fellowship, and then we prayed together.

With another brother, there have been some issues with his person, character, and living in the past one-year s of his training. In fact, the training center serving one had briefed us about certain incidents and "failures" this brother has and some points he needs to improve upon. After listening to his experiences on both the positive and negative sides, the Lord gave me a strong burden to fellowship with him with some practical points.

Grace: The first and foremost thing to enjoy in a training, or for that matter, in our Christian life, is o take Christ as grace. The enjoyment of God in Chirs as the Spirit is grace. Grace supplies and grace preserves us in Christ. The many regulations cannot be kept and many troubles can be avoided only if one enjoys grace day by day, especially with a young brother whose temper needs to be tempered. His temper has been an issue in coordination in the training. With this enjoyment of grace, I also fellowshipped on some other practical matters for him to seriously consider.

No Choice, No Opinion, and No Attitude: By nature, everyone has his choice in everything, even in spiritual things. But blessed us those who learn to give up his choice and take the Lord's choice as his choice. This entails self-denial. This lesson can be learned only if one enjoys grace. Everyone has his opinion too and affects his attitude towards others, especially towards fellow believers. But the only way to deal with one's opinion or attitude is to enjoy Christ as grace. I testified to him of how the Lord taught and trained me to deny my choices, opinions, and attitude, all by taking Christ as grace and how I used to pray every day for the Lord's grace to lead me through in the two years of training. And the Lord was faithful to grace me through the two years of training. 

Slave of Christ: Finally, I also shared about our status as a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a Christian and a serving one, not merely in name but in reality. To have the constant realization that we are simply the slaves of the Lord is a great salvation. A slave has no right of his own. A slave is nothing and nobody. Therefore, with this status as a slave in our Christian living, no one can offend us or hurt us in any way, because we are slaves. We deserve all the ill-treatment meted out, even the worst. Because we are slaves! This is a big and important lesson in Christian life. 

I shared all the points not merely for the brother to pass through the remaining one more year of training, but also for his whole lifetime. 

These fellowships, though intended for the trainees who came for fellowship, I felt the fresh anointing of the Lord and as I fellowshipped with them, I was deeply convinced it was for me as well. In supplying others I myself was greatly supplied. 

Praise the Lord for the fellowship! I am also still a lifetime trainee. Lord, grace me and continue to train me.