No One Can Deny the Personal Love of Christ

I came to UCLA thinking I would gain an excellent education, which I have thus far. But in addition to that, I have gained something so much more precious. Something eternal.  I can honestly say that CHRIST working through Christian Students this past year has changed my life.

I have been a Christian since I was a little kid, yet somehow in all those years I had been missing out on experiencing the Lord in a real and living way, and I didn’t even know it. In retrospect, I now realize just how far away from God I really was. Coming to college I did truly desire to pursue the Lord. So my freshman year was spent trying out five different Christian groups, moving from one to the other. I did not grow. I started going to personal Bible studies with one other sister from Christian Students, but I was not fully receptive at the time due to false rumors I had heard about the club. Finally, by the Lord’s grace, during my second year in college I started attending the weekly home dinners and fellowship, where my heart was completely captured. I began to taste and see for myself.

Every Friday night I would go (along with other UCLA Christian students) to one of the homes of the many Christian families around campus. I remember those Friday nights being some of the most enjoyable times of my week. There is something incredibly special and sweet about fellowshipping with people who have such a heart for the Lord. We shared experiences, sang, and ate delicious home-cooked meals like one big, happy family. There were many different ways I could have spent my free time at UCLA, especially on Friday nights. However, the homes were the one place at the time that I could go and receive LIFE! After home meetings with Christian Students, I remember walking back to my dorm room full of encouragement, glowing because I was simply saturated with God’s love and light. Throughout the year everyone was just so genuinely caring and shepherded one another so much. One of the best things about it was that it was Christ’s love that they were breathing and dispensing into one another, and it was just impossible for me to deny such a love. Who can, really?  

Before, I had always had a distant God, and I didn’t really know how to enjoy Him. However, each week, with encouragement from everyone, I began to finally experience the Lord Jesus as the life-giving Spirit, as a living Person inside of me! I began to breathe Him, His name, His love, His word, and His life! Christ became my reality, meaning, and First Love. For the first time in my life, I began to really read the Bible, not only as doctrine and knowledge, but as life and nourishment. Prayer and personal appointments as well as studying the Bible with companions helped me develop such a sweet relationship with the Lord, and I began to take Him in as my daily supply. Gradually I also began attending some of the many other wonderful things Christian Students had to offer (conferences, church, weekly prayer times, Saturday night gatherings, Bible studies), which all proved to be crucial and practical ways to grow in Him.

Being in Christian Students has allowed me to constantly be surrounded by Christ and all that He is and has to offer. I now realize that the things we do, the people we are around, and the stuff that we allow in makes up our very constitution, the person we become. This is why I have become a different person in the Lord. This is why I now have the kind of living God desires of me. Even after a year I am still sometimes overwhelmed with tears of joy. I could never thank the Lord Jesus enough for placing me among fellow Christians who pursue and express Him to the uttermost.

A. M.