My name is Christopher, and I’m a pastor of a house church in the Philippines. In 1987, I was baptized and returned to the Lord Jesus and then by the Lord’s grace, in 1996 I became a pastor in a local church. At that time, I was not only working and preaching in many places around the Philippines, but I was also preaching in places such as Hong Kong and Malaysia. Through the work and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I felt that I had inexhaustible energy in my work for the Lord and endless inspiration for my sermons. I would often offer support to brothers and sisters who were feeling negative and weak. Sometimes when their nonbeliever family members were unfriendly toward me, I was still able to be tolerant and patient; I didn’t lose faith in the Lord and believed that the Lord could change them. So, I felt like I had changed a great deal since becoming a believer. However, starting in 2011, I was no longer able to feel the work of the Holy Spirit as strongly as before. I gradually lost new enlightenment for my sermons and lacked the strength to break free from living in sin. I could not help losing my temper with my wife and daughter when I saw them doing things I didn’t like and scolded them out of anger. I knew that this was not in keeping with the will of the Lord, but often I could not help myself. This was particularly distressing for me. In order to free myself from a life of sinning and then confessing, I put more effort into reading the Bible, fasting and praying, and looked everywhere for spiritual pastors so we could seek and explore this together. But all of my efforts came to naught; there was no change to my life of sin and the darkness within my soul.
