About Us
My name is Arturo Perez
I grew up in the church and learned about the bible, but for years I forgot about the gospel, and how I am a beloved of the Lord.
Here is my testimony of Christian faith.
Despite having had a happy childhood with my family, from an early age I was troubled by the idea that death is inevitable. This worried me a lot and I suffered it secretly.
My grandparents and relatives, who advised my mother, recommended her to keep me busy and entertained. So I traveled, played musical instruments, played sports, and was very applied in my school studies like any other normal child.
Eventually as a teenager I was invited to an evangelical church in Santo Domingo (IBSJ) where I was convinced that I am a sinner, I cannot save myself, and the good news of the gospel invited me to trust Jesus Christ for salvation.
I was part of that local church for almost 25 years in which I grew up being trained in the study of the Bible, original languages, theology, and other subjects. However, even though I had a lot of knowledge and was preaching the gospel, I didn't understand the gospel.
That gospel that surprised me in my first months in the faith was something that I implicitly began to forget and to think that somehow that gospel message was only for unbelievers, and now I needed to learn deeper and more advanced things.
Forgetting the gospel, I stopped looking at Christ and His perfect work for me, to focus my efforts on myself and my imperfect work toward Him. This situation led me to doubt my faith because the more I studied Scripture, the further I was from its demands.
I stayed that way for many years until I was relocated to the United States. At the time I was already a mature believer in the faith but I continued with these existential concerns because I could not understand how being a Christian I had to be struggling with sinful thoughts. I mistakenly doubted whether I was not a Christian because I understood that with the maturity I had I should perceive more holiness in my heart.
Looking back, I think what happened to me was that in my eagerness to please God in my own strength, I left Christ behind. I was trusting in my own righteousness that is according to the law instead of trusting in the righteousness of Christ which is by faith.
Later, upon finding a church near where I live in South Florida, I was struck by God’s grace through the preaching of the gospel at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale. It wasn’t anything dramatic like a scandalous sin, a personal crisis, or anything out of the ordinary.
God used the preaching of the gospel to remind me of the good news of God’s grace that I had forgotten and probably never understood in this dimension. As soon as I was reminded of the gospel, that message struck fibers of my being that had not been treated since my childhood. All my fears, anxieties, and existential doubts were dispelled the first time I heard it.
Everything I had been taught from my youth made sense to me so that I could now connect those dots that I knew from Scripture but had not been able to connect with the gospel of God's righteousness for my life. The gospel vivified me.
As I recalled the gospel, I also remembered that the Christian life is not about the imperfect work of the redeemed, but about the perfect work of the Redeemer. The joy and peace I felt in that moment when I came out of my spiritual amnesia, when I remembered that Jesus is my righteousness, and that I am the object of His love, that reminded me of who I am: I am a beloved of the Lord, not by virtue of my imperfect obedience, but by virtue of Jesus’ perfect obedience in my place.
The same gospel that brought me into the kingdom of heaven is the same gospel that continues to give me freedom, healing, and transformation. The Lord never ceases to amaze me with His grace every day.
As Luther said,
“The law of God discovered my sickness; the gospel of God gave me the remedy.”
His mercies are new every morning, so to Him I commend myself by His grace not by trusting in my own imperfect righteousness, but in the perfect righteousness of Jesus. May the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ be upon you as you hear His gospel. Amen.