Cheryl Lim | Christ Evangelical Reformed Church (CERC)
Cheryl Lim
I grew up in a non-Christian family, where my whole family are Buddhist. I came to know about Christianity through Ci Jie. We dated during our high school time. He is a Christian, but I wasn’t. He invited me to his church, but I was quite reluctant during that time because I have no idea why I should be going to church, and my parents don’t like me going to church. I went for once or twice and stopped going after that because I don’t see a point of going as I can see that the things they taught are the things that I already know, which are mostly moralistic where I can learn from school as well. The gospel that was preached to me that time was ‘Jesus is the free ticket to heaven, you need to believe in Jesus and become a Christian because you are sinful’. I was offended by this statement when Ci Jie first told me this, as I don’t think I am sinful, I have never done anything illegal, and I think by myself I can go to heaven because I am a good person. So, even more, I refused to listen or talk about Christianity after that. The point where I started to want to know more about this God and Christianity is when I saw that Ci Jie rather spends his weekends at church, but also not wanting to spend time with me. I was quite frustrated and angry but the only thing he told me is that ‘God is bigger than me, I can’t and will never be the first in his list’. That is what made me interested and started to wonder who this God really is, and why is it so different from my God. Therefore, I started to ask questions about God, about Christianity overall and I agreed to follow him to visit CERC when we are in KL to study. During my first visit to CERC, I was shocked by how the people here took God so seriously that they typed down notes during sermon, and was shocked by how friendly the people are. But sadly, I couldn’t understand much from the sermon because of language and I couldn’t communicate much with people because of language as well. During that period, I did not take the gospel seriously and even rejected the gospel a few times when Jia Ying was trying to preach to me. It was until Ci Jie broke up with me that I started to question and wonder again who this God really is, how can someone just give up a 5-year relationship for God? That is what kept me coming to church despite the breakup. Hui Chuin read the bible with me, she showed me what the bible is and covered Romans with me and also during that time I started to attend UCSI SOLIDD. It is through that 1-on-1 that I started to truly understand that the bible is not just merely a book but the word of God that gives life. That is also the time that I started to see sin clearly and finally see how rebellious I am before God, not wanting to treat God as God, not wanting to worship this God with my life. I finally see that this life comes with a purpose, and this purpose is defined by God – my King and my creator who gives life to me. Christianity shows me the true meaning of life and how life should be under God. Thanks be to God that I became a Christian after that. Life is no longer a life without purpose, my life is ought to be to be a life-long service to God and His church.