To be given an opportunity to be trained is a blessing and a mercy from God, which is why I am very thankful to the Lord that I am one of those who were given such an opportunity. In the training, we are trained in the aspects of life, truth, character, service and even in practical matters. But I am most thankful because in the training I have seen clearly the economy of God.

God’s economy ties the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. God’s desire is to have a corporate man to express Him and to represent Him. This is possible only through the dispensing of Himself. When man fell, the Son…came to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law through His death for our redemption. And He resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit to impart the divine life for our salvation. Now we are those redeemed and saved people, the church, which is the Body of Christ. And the church is expressed in many localities as local churches. The local church is not the goal of God. It is the means of God to accomplish His eternal economy. God desires that we as a corporate man be built up as His Body. This will consummate the New Jerusalem in the coming age as the ultimate consummation of God’s economy.

Brothers and sisters, God’s economy depends upon God’s dispensing of Himself into us. And by His dispensing, we experience, we enjoy, and we gain Christ. Therefore, praise the Lord for the training because this gives us the oppor-tunity to experience, gain and enjoy Christ much more. Indeed, the training is an intensified church life. Saints who have been trained, we need to remember that all of what we have enjoyed, have gained, and have experienced are not for our own personal spirituality. These are for building. This is our work as trained ones. We need to minister the Christ we have enjoyed to the saints.

In the training, I also marveled at the high and rich truths…. In the training we are taught to pursue…have these truths constituted into us. I also saw that although we hold high and rich truths, if our character is not proper, these truths would be in vain. Thus, we need to be open to the Lord’s correction so that we might be broken and trans-formed in order to build up a character that is suited for our serving Him.

In serving the Lord, each is given his own measure and ability. But our abilities are entirely natural. God does not want us to work or serve according to our natural abilities. These abilities must be brought to death first and be raised in resurrection, just as Moses’. Thus, there is a great difference between a person who had been trained and the un-trained. I am not belittling those untrained. But if the Lord has given us an opportunity to be trained, we must grab it. If we are trained, we would be very useful to God’s economy.

To the brothers and sisters [who would be graduating from the training], to the Nazarites who would return home to their local churches and who will continue with their studies, even to the full-timers who would take a job or serve in the local churches, we need to go on in enjoying the Lord. In the local churches that we would be returning to, we need to coordinate with the leading ones and we need to keep the proper fellowship with God and even with the brothers and sisters. We need to be limited by the principle of the Body. In serving the churches, we could not avoid problems. These problems are only normal because we are still in the process of transformation. But we need to see the principle of our service. We need to take Christ as the center of our service…and our content. We need to have the full knowl-edge of Christ and be filled with Christ. We must realize this matter. And we need to lead the brothers and sisters in the church to enjoy and be filled with Christ.

May everything we do in the church life be an opportunity to have more of God in us because this is God’s econ-omy. This is what God desires… that He would be built in us and we would be built together corporately. May we re-main faithful to the function that God has given us until His return. Amen.

Francis Salmazan
Church in Tarlac

 

Thank the Lord that He has been merciful to me and I also was one of those who were trained as a Nazarite. Time seems to go by so fast. When I joined it was the 24th term. It is now the 39th term. I remember when I was a new trainee here—after two days I already wanted to go home. I was walking near the garage and I came across a co-worker brother… He said, “How are you?” I replied, “Fine. I want to go home. My co-trainees are all very young, and they all speak very well… whereas I can’t since I am just new.” He said, “Don’t worry about it. Just enjoy the Lord.”

We were baptized on May 1998 and I immediately joined the training on June. I really did not know anything but thank the Lord for His mercy, I always prayed for Him to teach me how to speak. What we speak is really different. There is a great difference between the religion from which I came and the Lord’s recovery. Here, the teachings are very high. It is not like this in the religion from which I came…. The enjoyment that I experience here in the recovery is dif-ferent.

In the training, I learned a lot, and experienced a lot…. In one of our classes, I studied very hard for our exam that I held on to my notebook even while falling in line for my meal…. When the exam came—oh, I failed! Our teacher said, “Because you were negligent, and you did not study, ask forgiveness from the Lord.” I said, “Lord, I studied. It’s just that my memory has become so poor….”

And so I will say to the young ones who are here today, take every opportunity while you are still young. Spend yourselves for the Lord. Do not think that training is your loss…. You [who were recovered young] are fortunate in that you no longer wasted any time… we had wasted much time. Nevertheless, I still thank the Lord that He brought us here. I was able to finish four months of trainig as a Nazarite. After my training, my husband, Brother Eddie, followed and was trained for four years. My only child whom the Lord has given me, I in turn offered to Him...asking only that she would be trained. Thank the Lord, she had been trained and her spouse, too. Now they serve in the church in Ca-loocan.

For the parents who are here, our children were only entrusted to us by the Lord. Hence it is is only right that we offer them to the Lord….We should not say they need to help us after they finish studying. Help from our children is limited. But the help from the Lord is unending and all-sufficient. The life-study of Exodus says we should not be anx-ious because we have Jehovah, the great I Am. He knows all our needs… hence we must not be anxious. Thank the Lord.

After my training…I was involved in the propagation work in Navotas. Because of the charge, we are now serving in the church in Navotas…. It is delightful to serve the Lord because He whom we serve is the King of kings…. May the Lord preserve us in this service. Amen.

Cely Calanog
Church in Navotas