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Chinese Christian testimony
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| Chinese Christian testimony | | 2007-09-13 | | |
When most people talk about the word Christianity, they will relate it to something irrational, unreasonable, illogical, and would only be believed by someone who has lost touch to the real world. Moreover, it has to be about your morality, as God will only let those good people through the Pearly Gate. However, I came to know Christ because it is rational, reasonable, logical, and not about being a good person.
I grow up in a farely christianised family. My parents attend church sometimes, but are not Christians themselves. I was a good boy when I was young - at least that is what I thought about myself. I have high standard of morality, and sometimes I am even quite legalistic. The need for God has never occured in my mind. Even there is a God, I thought I would have no problem meeting his standard.
In 1994 which was the last year of my high school, my dad decided to bring me to a local Chinese church on the Gold Coast, so that I can meet some new friends instead of sitting in the front of computers whole day. Besides regular church service on Sunday morning, I also joined their Saturday youth group, which was led by some university students from Malaysia at that time. After attending the youth group for 6 months, I gradually understand who Jesus is, what did he do, and what does his death and resurrection mean to me. It is also a shock to me that we are all guilty in front of this God, and he has demanded a response from everyone. It occured to me that maybe I won’t meet his standard of “righteousness”.
6 months later in October 1994, in an afternoon after we had the Bible study in the pastor’s house, the youth group leader, Richard, challenged me with this question - ‘Are you willing to accept Jesus as your personal saviour?’ The actual content of the Bible study has escaped my memory, however I answered ‘Yes’ to the question Richard asked. To me it was a logical choice. Through the Bible studies I learnt all the evidence of God as the creator of the universe, and how God paved the way of salvation of each individual in this world through the death and resurrection of this person Jesus Christ. If God is really our creator, and the resurrection and coming judgement is true, then submitting to him in repentance and obeying his word becomes the logical implication to me. So I became a Christian.
The verse that I’ve learnt on that day has great implication for me. The youth group gave me this Chinese Bible, and they quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17 behind the cover page. It says “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old has gone, the new has come!”. This verse tells me that, hey, I am a whole new person when I belong to Christ. I can have a brand new start, and my relationship with God can be perfect again. However, it also reminds me that I need to leave my past behind, for Christ did not rescue me to live my dirty old life again.
Since God accepted me as His child, I became more conscious about what I do and the kind of language I use everyday. It was not a sudden change, and I did not think I was acting particularly sinful back then. However, after a few years when I looked back, I did make quite a few changes to my lives. Holy Spirit is working in me gradually to transform myself to what God pleases.
A few months later after I became a Christian on the Gold Coast, I came to Sydney to study, and the first thing I did during the orientation week was to find a church. It was in God’s plan that I came to FOCUS, and over the last few years I’ve learnt much about God’s word and how to minister His people. Because someone was willing to share the gospel with me a few years ago, I am able to be saved by this gospel. The challenge to me now is, how can I also use my opportunities to share this saving good news with the people around me.
Tagged in Christianity | Fri, 27 June 2003 9:53 pm
I am a Chinese in Wuhan city,China. I have believed in Jesus Christ since 1978 when I was 16 years-old. I came to know of Him by listening to the oversea Christian radio station when I was a student in Wuhan the Third Municipal Secondary School. Listening to the radio station day after day helped my faith in Jesus Christ grow which filled my heart with great joy.
In 1982, I heard that Hankou Glory Church had been reopened in 1981. I started attending the church services there. In 1983, I was baptized at the Glory Church. After that I went to Nanjing to attend the Nanjing Theological College in Nanjing, China. I believed Evangelical and Pastoral work is the most important and the most valuable work in the world.
In February 1986, I felt rather poor in spirit. I read a book written by Andrew Murry, The Blessing of Pentecost. The book mentioned that Christians should seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit by devoting themselves to prayer. So I began to devote myself to prayer. On the evening of March 6, 1986, when I was praying, I felt I had a lot of sins in my life and that I was on the edge of Hell. I was filled with much fear. Then I heard a sound saying to me, “Repent.” I was moved by the Holy Spirit and repented every sin I had committed one by one. I prayed: “Lord Jesus, may your body on the cross bear my sins, and your blood wash away my sins.” While I was praying I saw Jesus being crucified on the cross in front of me. God make me cross time and space to put me under the cross of Jesus. I saw and felt that Jesus was bearing all my sins on the cross. His blood was flowing onto me, and washing away all my sins. I was deeply moved by the great love of Jesus. Also Jesus’ blood made me die with him, be buried with Him and raised to a new life with Him. I was filled with the new life and with the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ.
Another time when I was praying I saw a vision. In the vision I was climbing mountains, wading waters and mud for Evangelical work and felt very tired. Thinking of the great love of Jesus to me I offered myself to God and He accepted me at once. At that time I supposed, according to the vision, I would become an evangelist, traveling to many places, climbing mountains, wading water and mud and preaching the gospel.
In 1987, after I graduated from the college and I began to work at Hankou Salvation Church in Wuhan. I taught hymns, preached sermons and led services and sacraments in Salvation Church and several other churches in suburban areas of Wuhan. In 1987, there were only about 200 members in Salvation Church, but now there are about 3,000 members.
Since August 1998, I have worked in Wuchang Church, Wuhan,China. It was a WMCA before 1950. It was reopened as the Church since 1984 with 100 members. But now there are 4,000 members in our Church. Every year 200 people are baptized in my church 。
Thank you for sharing your testimony. It is useful to know the background of those who register on this forum. Usually conversion stories and testimonies are used to bring others to conversion or spiritual awakening. In Orthodox Christianity, there are converts from evangelical Christianity, me being one of them. Now if someone ask me to share my testimony to the Christian Faith, it's focus is not upon Jesus blood washing away my sin, which is how I was taught to share my faith when I was a former evangelical, but my evangelical days where just a beginning piece of my spiritual pilgrimage to knowing Christ and what He has given for the salvation of the world, not just what He did historically on the Cross, which of course is foundational in addition to His Incarnation in the flesh, but also in the sacraments of the Church since apostolic times to transform us into God's Image and Likeness (theosis).
St Peter gives a good summary which I never understood during my Protestant days, but started to make sense when the Orthodox Church showed me the sacramental perspective of what St Peter is saying:
Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Pt 1:4 KJV)
In your testimony you mentioned the success of the number of believers being Baptized. In Orthodoxy, Baptism is just a step in the life long process of repentance. The Church also provides the sacrament of Confession, Confirmation, Holy Eucharist, Marriage, Holy Orders, Unction, and the many other lesser channels of Grace that Christ has given the Church to provide to the Faithful to work out their salvation). In Orthodoxy, success is not the numerical success of membership attracting more people to what you or I believe, but the transformation of my own heart, mind and soul into what God originally intend us to be by Grace what He is by Nature. St Mark best summed it up inwhen we attempt to measure our life by worldly means: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" (Mk 8:36 KJV)
All I can say is that my journey is one of more failures, bad temper, procrastination, etc. than success as I am succumbed to the matters of this world, instead of on Christ. Lord have mercy on me a sinner!
Even so there is hope for everyone. The testimony of the success of this process is the testimony of the Saints, some of which who are known by name which the Church has glorified in her liturgical calendar, and whom we commemorate when the Orthodox together to worship and communion, and by their intercessions they serve as witness that we are all in this journey together, both in heaven and on earth.
-Mitrophan
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