Someone once said the Bible is the autobiography of the Triune God, and the marvel is that this wonderful One comes into every one of His believers to be their life, daily life-supply, and eventually their everything. I must have believed and received the Lord when I was a little girl after learning of Christ in Sunday school and daily vacation Bible schools held during the summers. But I got the assurance of my salvation when I was twenty-one years old. That surely was a memorable experience of joy and knowing. From that day I began to enjoy the reading of the Bible on my own and taking correspondence courses and reading Christian literature.
Later on I took a three year course at the Philadelphia School of the Bible. I am still grateful to the Lord for the teachings of the Brethren and other men of God, who so faithfully presented Christ as the Savior and Lord of all who would believe. Consequently, I felt to try to share all this good news with people in a foreign land. Therefore I went with the North Africa Mission to serve as a missionary nurse in North Africa for ten years in the countries of Algeria and Morocco.
I am just as grateful to the Lord for leading me to the writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, these two dear slaves of the Lord who sought the Lord, studied the Scriptures, and shared what they saw from the Bible concerning Christ and the church. How good to know we can know Christ not solely in a doctrinal way but in a way of experience and enjoyment which bring the growth in the divine life that the Lord so wants to see in all of His children. He does want us to mature. He said in 1 Timothy 2:4 that He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” He also said in John 17:3 that “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God....” Again I say this knowing is not a knowing of mere doctrine and creeds but a knowing that saves, brings in the joy of salvation, and enables us as believers to fulfill God's plan, which is that He could save us from sin and everything negative and then come into us to be our life so that we can live Him as the apostle Paul said, “For me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21).
Martha Ball
(Anaheim, USA)