christopher yuan testimony

December 5, 2010

Last Monday, I watched a real powerful and moving testimony by Christopher Yuan, a current Moody Bible Institute professor.

The Chinese version (includes the testimonies of his parents in Chinese): http://www.smyxy.org/avsource/videoplayer.php?id=10

The English version (just his story): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivcfw2vJF1M

I watched the Chinese version. It's real amazing the way God worked through the entire family, and how passionate they are for God. The testimony is about how basically through the incessant prayers of his parents (esp his mother), he went from being a quite wealthy homosexual drug seller/druggie to a common criminal sitting in prison, who then found out he was HIV+ , to knowing God's love, and finally to being a seminary student and now a Bible professor at Moody. Pretty darn amazing and spectacular how God really does work out all things for His glory and His purposes. I really recommend watching his testimony.

I had many thoughts after that testimony.

1. Prayer- Listening to the testimony reminded me again of just how powerful prayer is. Prayer, I feel, is often an undervalued and underestimated spiritual weapon of ours. Listening to how Christopher's mother prayed daily, consistently, faithfully, and full of hope in the midst of what seemed to be a hopeless situation for her son was so very encouraging. I forget how long she prayed for him, but it was quite a long time, with honestly not even the slightest hint of a 'result' during that time. She even once fasted for him for 39 days, praying that he'd come to know Christ and come home, both in the spiritual and earthly sense of the word. Prayer is so powerful, and it is through prayer that we're inviting God to work in our lives as well as others. It is through prayer that we combat against the evil spiritual forces, and it is through prayer that God reveals Himself to us in the midst of troubling times.

I'm reminded of two things we/I often do with prayer. One, prayer is our 'last' option. Yeah, we'll pray for our decisions, our goals, etc., but it is a 'last' resort kind of a thing because we'd rather mull over the issues in our own heads and try to make our own solutions than really, honestly rely and trust in God with these things that are out of our control. I do this. I want to trust in God, and I pray, but I'll often catch myself trying to figure out the issues in my head, trying to make a way for myself somehow. Why? Because I guess waiting in prayer is one of the hardest things to do, especially when God seemingly gives no answer. But God always gives an answer, but it must be in his timing. Second, our prayers are half-hearted and not consistent. It's easy to give up in prayer. We only pray for so long, before we forget/give up. Sometimes, we pray and we don't quite believe either that God will work. The testimony really encouraged me to genuinely believe that God can do anything, in all types of situations, if it only be His will. With consistent and faithful prayer, God's ultimate plan will be seen, and when it is shown, we'll be amazed at how God allowed us to partner with Him in his great plan through our prayers.

2. Bible Reading- Christopher talks about how he found a Bible in prison, and he only started to read it to pass time. But he said something that really struck me. In regards to him just wanting to pass the time by reading the Bible merely for fun:

But as we know, those words in our Bibles are not just ink on paper, it is the very breath of God, and it began to convict me and change me.

I think we sometimes forget that the words in our Bibles are the very breath of God. (2 Timothy 3:16) We don't read it quite as much as we should, neither do we desire or value it as much as we would if we really believed that these words really are not merely ink on paper, but living words for our soul. I always hear of these testimonies of people who become Christians, and who are filled with SUCH a passion and thirst for the Word that they seemingly devour it into their souls that first year of their relationship with Christ. It's amazing, and it is my constant hope and prayer that we all could have such a passion and thirst for the living Word of God, that we'd find it to be a wondrous joy to meditate upon God's words day and night, and that our souls would just constantly yearn to be filled up by His Word. If we want to glorify God and have our entire lives become increasingly Christlike, how can we do so if we do not have His Words in our hearts, in our minds, saturating and consuming our very being?

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.(Psalm 1:2)

3. Our days are limited- It wasn't until Christopher realized he was HIV+ that he fully realized how numbered his days were. But he reminds us that we all are like him, our days are also numbered. We just don't realize it because we don't have some form of disease or are at some old age. That really stuck out to me. I'm just 22, and so my peers and I, we don't think much about our days being numbered. It seems like we still have all the time in the world to figure out everything, to do what we want, to get our degrees, to get married, to have kids, and then, to really focus on God. But all of us are just like stage 3/4 cancer patients, or HIV+ people, our days are numbered. No one's 'tomorrow' is ever 100% guaranteed. And if we'd only realize this, we'd see that we really must live our days storing up for what is eternal. I liked this quote from the article I posted a few blog posts ago:

"Nothing at all is assured in life," he told them. "We have to know that it can end very quickly. I was 21, and was sure I had years left to live and play baseball. There is no assurance of that. We have to ask ourselves, 'What is pertinent in life? What is important, relevant?' We need to get rid of the things in our daily lives that side-track us."

This is so very true. We must live for what is relevant, for what lasts eternally, for what we were created to be. We must constantly be living our lives for Christ, for His glory, and for His purposes. We must live with a sense of urgency for our days are numbered and are not guaranteed.

4. The opposite of sin is holiness- Christopher addresses the touchy subject of homosexuality as well. I liked what he said. He talked about how homosexuality is a sin, and how for any homosexual Christian, the goal is not heterosexuality, but holiness. I believe this can apply to any sin. When dealing with anger issues, the goal is not to just not be angry, but it is ever-increasing holiness. Same with lust; it's not just about getting rid of lust (seems to be quite difficult), but our goal in dealing with this sin, and any other sin is this: holiness. For God has called us to be holy just as He is holy. We want our lives to be continually transformed and continually renewed by the spirit of God, that we may be holy just as he is holy. It's not about going through our long list of sins and trying to get rid of them one at a time. Holiness, that is our goal, and it is in this pursuit of holiness, that we realize that we are helpless and it is God alone who can do this great work in our lives. So we are ever increasingly pursuing the emptying of ourselves and the continual filling of God.

for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:16)

As can be seen, I really enjoyed the testimony and I highly recommend people hear it and also be encouraged as well as reminded of how great our God is and how valuable of an opportunity we've been given to be able to live this life for Him.