Full-Time Training - Testimonies

My Life--A Quest to Know Him, Anna Johnsen

I graduated on May 17, 1999 from the University of Pennsylvania with a BSE in materials science engineering and a minor in mathematics. My senior year was tremendously busy as I juggled classes, events, friends, the formidable senior design project, and the rapidly approaching future. While my fellow engineers were enveloped in a frenzy of graduatae school applications, resumés and interviews, I was seeking to know God's will for me and staying at a safe distance from all that anxious activity. I toyed with the idea of law school or a job in my field, but found no real peace in either option. Finally, during the break before my final semester, I was before the Lord in prayer, and I just saw nothing but Christ (Matthew 17:8). I saw that He not only redeemed me, took care of my past, but was my present life as well, and even my very future. Since I realized that my future was just Christ, I also realized that I had better get to know this One who is my future. This is why I decided to come to the Full-Time Training in Anaheim (FTTA).

The central focus of the Training is Christ. The center of every class, every reading assignment, and every service is just the wonderful Person of Christ Himself. The goal and purpose of this Training is to lead us to know Christ, to be filled and constituted with Him as our life, and to satisfy His heart. Here we are determined to gain the honor of being well pleasing to Him (2 Corinthians 5:9).

One thing I appreciate about this Training is its solid foundation in the Word of God. John 1:1 reveals that the Word is God, and verse 14 of the same chapter shows that this Word is the very Jesus who was incarnated to dwell among us. Since Jesus was the living embodiment of the Word of God, surely it is through this Word that we can come to know Him. In our classes, we are not presented with fanciful imaginations or humanly manufactured doctrines, but the divine revelation of the Holy Scriptures. We are never asked to accept anything blindly, but always pointed to that item's source in the Bible. The class outlines, the speaking of the trainers and the reading assignments are saturated with references and quotations from the Bible. Because of this solid basis in the Word, I am not tossed by waves or carried by any winds of teaching, but holding to the truth with my fellow trainees, I am growing up together with them into Christ our Head (Ephesians 4:14-15). I can be one with all my brothers and sisters not only by virtue of sharing the same life, but also through the sanctifying Word of God. What a glorious experience to be here with over 200 others who share one goal and one pursuit, holding to the revelation in the unique Bible, and together loving, praising, worshipping, and enjoying our lovely Christ!

I praise and thank the Lord that my two years here have not been a time of merely filling my head with facts and doctrines; rather it has been two years of beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18), being filled in spirit (Ephesians 5:18), and being directed into the love of God and the endurance of Christ (2 Thessalonians 3:5). I have received a vision that I hope will change my life; that I would not be weighed down by the anxieties of life (Luke 21:34; Matthew 13:22), entangled with the affairs of this life (2 Timothy 2:4), or encumbered in any way (Hebrews 12:1). I wish to flee all these things (1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 2:22) and pursue Christ (Philippians 3:7-14). I have been captured by the vision of the living Person of Christ, and it is my earnest desire and prayer to continue to know Him (Philippians 3:10) and to live Him (Romans 14:8; 2 Corinthians 5:15). Hallelujah, I have a glorious future: CHRIST!

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