My Enjoyment of Christ in the Local Church, Carlos Cortes

My name is Carlos Cortés. I received the Lord in the Roman Catholic Church. I continued to meet there for more than forty years from the time I was born. Later the Lord led me to meet with Christian denominations. I began to meet with Baptist believers in Monterrey, Mexico. While I remained with the Baptists I also met with Methodist and Pentecostal believers. Then one day, on October 5, 1984, a brother in the Lord shared the Word with me for five minutes. By listening to his sharing I was able to see what I needed: the enjoyment of Christ in the Word. This was what I was looking for.

Now I am sixty years old but I live as if I were seventeen because I have not lost my enjoyment and that enjoyment has grown even more since the first time I visited the local church in Monterrey. By the Lord’s mercy I found what I could not find while meeting with the other groups—enjoyment! Seeing all the believers who meet with the local church functioning to build the Body (Ephesians 4:12, 16), whether children, young ones, or adults, has kept my family and I enjoying the Lord. Truly, what is seen in the local church is Christ manifested in His believers.

I am thankful to the Lord because through the writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee I have been able to see that I need to love and pray for all the people redeemed by the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ including the ones I have met and even more for those I have not met.

Through this ministry and the life in the local church, I have also appreciated the need to be trained and constituted with the Word to build up the Body of Christ. For this reason, I have always wanted to attend trainings held for couples or brothers for further spiritual edification. Also since January of 2001, I along with other believers meeting with the church in Santa Ana, have been praying for some to attend the Full-Time Training in Anaheim (FTTA), a two year Bible school. The Lord responded to our prayers in such a mysterious way. By God’s will and His mercy, two attended the Training. Praise the Lord! Now we are enjoying the Full-Time Training in Anaheim!