How God Gave Me New Life through His Son Jesus Christ

J. Aubrey Zhang

I was born into a loving family in a village located in northeast China. Both of my parents worked in a state-own farm. Thanks to my caring and loving parents and two elder brothers, my childhood was full of love despite the weakness of my body.

As I dimly remembered and later on was told by my parents, I was constantly under the attack of different flu viruses for the most of my childhood. The heaviest blow to my body was encephalitis when I was only four years old. For this I was hospitalized for several months. But amazingly, I survived it and did not have any sequelae of the disease that appeared unavoidable. I did not know that it was God who carried me throughout the process until I became a child of Him.

After I had gone to school, all the weakness signs of my body vanished. I successfully finished every stage of my education, from primary to graduate schools.

In the last year of my college education in Harbin, Heilongjiang, P.R. China, we had a Christian professor teaching us a senior science course. As a Christian, he suffered severe torture including physical abuse (broken spine) and a destroyed family (his wife went insane and daughter idiotic) during the years of the Cultural Revolution started by Mao. Having gone through all this and having to face the cruel reality, he still showed his sincere love and care for others in class and everyday life. I was amazed by this graceful manner and thought that there must be something special in the religion he believed in.

Unfortunately, I did not continue to explore this -- not even ask him about Christianity -- but was drawn towards Communism, the world view which was considered at that time as being superior to any other world views and religions.

In 1988, I came to Canada to pursue my graduate study in chemistry at the University of Calgary. Being curious in all aspects of Canadian culture, I went to church and Bible study and met many Christian friends. Being led by one of these friends, Rev. David Linden, I even made a trip, with a group of young Christians, to the US for two weeks and later on to a Bible Camp for a week. But my heart remained shut to Jesus Christ, as being strongly influenced by atheism, the existence of God was totally inconceivable to me at that time. Besides, as a scientist, I believed strongly that human's knowledge in natural and social sciences could eventually solve all human's problems. It was this stubborn belief that kept me away from God's Way for five more years.

Another factor that kept my attention away from God was that, being totally disappointed in Communism, I became interested in the democratic system that appeared to make the western countries to prosper faster than the Third World countries. Again I was disappointed as the system itself did not seem to give answers to many fundamental issues such as the meaning of life and death. Later on, I learned that the democratic system itself was just a by-product of Christianity and God's kingdom in heaven is the best system of all those on the earth. However, I did not personally experienced God's salvation until I came to the end of my ways. During this time, God demonstrated through my rebelious actions that I was not only sinful and blind in inside, but also condemnable in behavior -- even my conscience convicted me as a sinner. Seeing the moment was right, God sent His servant to preach Gospel again to me.

On April 2, 1994, through the introduction of a friend, I met a Christian who was studying in a seminary school. For the whole day we discussed the meaning of life and death. During the discussion, she revealed to me God's complete salvation plan for human beings. I was amazed by this plan at that time, perhaps not just because it was so perfect to me, but also because it touched my heart so much harder than it did before.

At the end of that day, I returned and shut myself into the room and read the Bible. For the first time I felt I needed the heavenly food so much, like a man having been hungry for days. And for the first time I felt Jesus Christ was so precious for me as "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (Cor. 5:21) and "in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace" (Eph. 1:7).

That night I knelt down for the first time in front of God to repent my sins and asked His Son Jesus Christ to enter my heart and to be my personal Savior and Lord. And I sensed strongly His accepting me as His child through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It was such a sweet experience and I had never experienced before. Since then, my life had greatly changed and most of the previous problems and issues that strangled my soul and heart had vanished in the light of God's Word as His Word provided all the answers.

I remembered clearly that, about two weeks after my repentance, I experienced God's love like a fire in my heart for three days and the only thing I wanted to do was to read the Bible.

I experienced another wonder when I had one of my wisdom teeth extracted on June 20, 1994. After the surgery, I was told by the doctor that the bleeding would stop within three hours. But, in fact, it did not stop until thirteen hours later when every effort failed but reading the Bible. This was the first time I experienced the healing power of God's Word.

God's guidance and care did not stop there. He continued to lead me until I have fully realized that my personal relationship with God only is far more superior to any other relations in the whole universe. I also realized that the old self was trying hard to pull me back and must be crucified with Christ as He said: "... If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and pick up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will find it" (Matt. 16:24-25). On August 20, 1994, I was baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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Revised: 2000/1/17