Holding to Truth, Love Prevails, and Loving God with the First Love (2023 NACT testimony)

The NACT (North American College Training 2023) this year was a great experience for me, in which I had many enjoyments. As always week-long conferences such as the WST (Winter School of Truth) expose my worldly living and NACT did not fail to do the same.

I personally struggle with upholding a consistent good Christian life, but conferences and trainings like this make me feel so pure and free from the world. The only problem is that these conferences and trainings do not last forever.

As a result, I’ve realised that my Christian living is very inconsistent and that I only reach spiritual highs when at conferences but then when I get back to my normal life, it’s like I almost forget about God.

This is something that I realised quite a while ago and I hoped would not happen again after NACT. Unfortunately, it did happen and the worldly things just got the better of me, but something was different this time.

That is that I was so much more conscious of what I was doing, and even though I still gave in to the world there was a thought in the back of my head saying “This is not what God wants”. During those moments I would deny my conscience and carry on with what I was doing.

However, it eventually caught up to me as the more I knowingly gave in to the world the more more conscience would fight against me, which led me to realise that this battle happening with myself in my mind is happening because I know the truth, the truth is a person who is Jesus, our reality.

Holding to the truth was one of the main topics at NACT. At the time of listening to the messages of holding to truth, I thought they were really good but I did question the importance of this topic and how there could be six entire messages on this topic.

But through these recent experiences I’ve had, knowing the truth and then holding to the truth is probably one of the most important things in someone’s Christian life as the truth is in the word which gives us life.

When you come to realise the truth, you will also come to realise the satanic lies you have been told, which are all worldly things. As we know the truth we need to hold to this truth and then walk in this truth becoming an expression of god in the world where we can share this truth to others.

I also really enjoyed the other topic which was ‘LOVE PREVAILS’. Throughout the messages on this topic it not only reinforced my love for the lord and make me appreciate how much Jesus loves us (He loves us eternally), it also made me want to become a person who can develop and express this love outwardly to others.

We should all aim to become people who can express the Lord’s love to others.

Many, including myself, may think that it is impossible for us to have such love in our being but Ephesians 3:17 says “ that Christ may make his home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love“.

All we have to do is allow Christ to enter into us to gain such a love.

This is definitely easier said than done as we all are constantly being brought down by external factors, for me it is my school, I feel that being there pulls me away from the Lord and distorts this righteous love in me.

That is why I hope when the new term starts I am able to open up to the lord while being at school as this is not something I should or need to overcome by myself, but by putting faith in Jesus I should be able to become better.

This is how we all should overcome the obstacles that pull us away from the Lord, He does not want to see us go through these things by ourselves, He loves us too much to do so.

Another point that really touched me in the love prevails messages is that we need to make God our first love.

This touched me because I also really love to play basketball, to the point where many times I put basketball over God. This affected me in the week of the training as during the recreation time I would go to play basketball with the brothers.

Despite it not being completely serious, it was still competitive as many brothers do not like to lose, including myself. I played pretty well the first couple of days but then there was one day I played really bad and when I play badly I tend to get stuck in my thoughts for hours on how I could’ve played better and how I could improve to not make the same mistakes.

But at the training, you have no time to be stuck in thought on anything other than God as there were group times soon after and the evening message on love prevails.

So when listening to the message it made me realise that as much I love basketball it can only supply me with temporary happiness, it is something that cannot even love me back and my love for it is out of my human love, but if I choose to the lord and put him as my first love then I can be happy and be at peace with myself.

Isaiah 49:15-16 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, / that she would not have compassion on the son of her womb? / Even though they may forget, / yet I will not forget you. Indeed, I have engraved you upon the palms of My hand; / your walls are continually before Me.“

Sharing by Alan B. (London, UK) from his enjoyment in the 2023 NACT. If you were at this event and want to share your top enjoyment, email it to [email protected].