Searching for a Church to Satisfy Her Spiritual Needs
MANY sincere persons who are desirous of pleasing God and satisfying their spiritual needs have turned to the churches of Christendom for help. Eventually, though, they notice that the churches seem to be more concerned with money than with satisfying the spiritual needs of their parishioners. A woman who came to recognize this fact about her church began searching for something better. She related her experience at a circuit assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses held in Seymour, Indiana, in December of 1969:
“I was about thirteen years of age when I had completed communion classes in the Presbyterian Church and was baptized into it. However, I did not really derive any true spiritual satisfaction from this religion. They discredited the Bible, saying that the flood in Noah’s day did not really cover the entire earth. I could easily see that the church was more interested in money than in its members.
“My parents were not very strict about religion, so they allowed me to attend other churches with my friends. I started looking for something better than the Presbyterian religion, yes, a religion that was more interested in people than in their money.
“For a while I thought that the Roman Catholic Church had something to offer. But it did not take too long for me to realize that we are not to pray to lifeless idols, and that the mediator between God and men is not the pope at Rome. (1 Tim. 2:5) So I kept looking. I suppose that I personally investigated a dozen or more different religions: Jewish, Mohammedan, Methodist, Lutheran and Hindu to name a few. I even dabbled in spiritism, with its ESP and ‘Ouija’ boards, looking for something. I did not know just what.
“One of my girl friends tried to ‘save’ me in the Baptist religion, but I did not receive any spiritual satisfaction from going to this church either. Nevertheless, I kept going there despite the fact that they told me that I would go to a burning hellfire if I did not give one tenth of my money to them. I went along with the Baptist faith to some extent until Mardi Gras in 1969. My ‘saved’ girl friend did not act so saved during these festivities. She used the excuse ‘once saved always saved,’ as the Baptist religion teaches. The Baptists always advocated that I should read my Bible, which I did. But it struck me as very strange that there were many of their teachings that I could not find there in its pages.
“By the time I had returned to Cincinnati in May, I had more or less cultivated an agnostic view, and I was not really interested in studying the Bible. But then two young men who are Jehovah’s witnesses came to my home offering a little book that explained the Bible. I accept it along with their offer to come to my home for an hour each week to help me learn the Bible. Yet I was skeptical about what they were trying to teach me. Even when I agreed to attend one of their meetings at the local Kingdom Hall, I was not too thrilled about the prospect, that is, until I arrived there.
“One of the first things that I noticed immediately was that the Witnesses were interested in me, not my money. They taught me right from the Bible even at their meetings. They had something that I had never felt before and I wanted to be a part of it. Yes, I wanted to go out and tell other people about it and, eventually, I did.
“It has not been easy, because Satan the Devil has used many things to try to stop me from serving Jehovah God in the true manner. He brought my friends, my family and my associates against me. Nonetheless, I have found the true religion, and my spiritual needs are being satisfied. With Jehovah’s help I have come this far, for tomorrow morning it will be my happy experience to symbolize my dedication to him by being baptized in water.”
The following morning this woman was baptized, and today she rejoices to be among the happy throngs serving the true God, Jehovah. Have you found your church to be no source of spiritual satisfaction? Has it pained you to notice their interest in your money and not in your spiritual welfare? Then why not look up Jehovah’s witnesses and ask them your Bible questions? Joyful spiritual satisfaction awaits you!