Have You Step on Your Pilgrimage?

Huhu, long time didn't update my blog, even though now is holiday >.< , but anyway I said before that I will only post something once in a blue moon. However I would like to apologise to those who still come to visit my blog, if there are, because people rarely put comments so I hardly know who is reading my blog. Anyway, let us go straight to the main topic.

My two-weeks winter holiday is coming to an end (still got 3 days left only T.T). Some people might ask what I did during the holiday, since I didn't go anywhere. Well, I slept quite a lot, hehe, but I read a book named "Growing Your Faith: How to Mature in Christ" by Jerry Bridges.

"Growing Your Faith: How to Mature in Christ"
by Jerry Bridges.

He is a great author, who has also written books such as "Discipline by Grace", "Trusting God: Even When Life is Hurt", and the best-selling "The Pursuit of Holiness". Although John Piper is also a great author, but I prefered Jerry Brigdes's writting more because somehow his ideas are more easily to grasp than John Piper's, and he also used many good analogies or illustrations to explain his points, e.g. the bookends analogy, analogy of many zeros, etc. This is a good book and I recomment it for those who wants to mature in Christ.

Another interesting thing I would like to share is that I also listen to the audio version of "The Pilgrim's Progress", a great book by John Bunyan. Let us see how Wikipedia describes it.

"The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilgrim's_Progress

Pilgrim's Progress (First Edition 1678)
by John Bunyan.

Basically it is about a person called Christian who steps on his pilgramage to the Celestial City, and on the way he met many different kinds of people and places. The most interesting about this book is that the names of the character and place are literally the description of that character or place. E.g. there are people named Evangelist, Help, Goodwill, Hypocrisy, Watchful, Talkative, Envy, Faithful, Atheist, Hopeful, etc; and there are places called Slough of Despond, Hill Difficulty, Danger, Valley of Humiliation, Vanity Fair, River of the Water of Life. And of cause another interesting thing is that the author quote many verse from the Bible and he also use many illustration from the Bible, e.g. Valley of the Shadow of Death (Psalm 23:4), Mount Sinai (Exodus), Mount Zion, Demas, Moses, Adam the First, Apollyon, Lot's wife, Beelzebub.

In this book, you can see how christians' life is, how they are justified, what kinds of challenge and persecution that they will face, how they will fall into temptation or diverted away from the truth, how they are saved, etc.

This map shows the places and people that Christians met
when he travels from City of Destruction to Celestial City

[SPOILER]

One of the most interesting part is when the author tried to emphasizes the importance of fellowship together with each other. When Christian and Hopeful are walking through the Enchanted Ground, Hopeful feels so drowsy and wants to sleep, but Christian reminds him by quoting "Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober." (1 Thessalonians 5:6), because if they should sleep at the Enchanted Ground, they will never wake up again from their sleep. Hopeful realises his mistake and said "Two are better than one." (Ecclesiastes 4:9)*. So they decided to have a discussion to keep them awake. Later Chrisitan sings a song,

When saints do sleepy grow, let them come hither,
And hear how these two pilgrims talk together;
Yea, let them learn of them in any wise,
Thus to keep ope their drowsy, slumb’ring eyes.
Saints’ fellowship, if it be managed well,
Keeps them awake, and that in spite of hell.

* I think it is good to qoute out Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 for all of us to read:
"Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?"

This part of the story reminds me how important for brothers and sisters to come togther to fellowship, and these two verses came to my mind.

"Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:25)

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17).

So you can how important it is for brothers and sisters to fellowship with each other, to encourage and sharpen each others' faith, to help when other falls down, to keep each other warm.

[SPOILER ENDS]

For those interested in reading this book, here are some links for you.
Pilgrim's Progress (actual text)
Pilgrim's Progress (condensed and illustrated)
Pilgrim's Progress (audio version)

The Heavenly Man 天上人

Today I just finished reading a book entitled "The Heavenly Man" (天上人). It is a remarkable true story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun (云弟兄).


The title comes from the name by which Brother Yun was known amongst the house church networks. He gained that name from one night of interrogation when he would only answer "I am a heavenly man!", instead of revealing his true name, in order to protect other Christians from the police. This book is co-written and translated by Paul Hattaway and published by Monarch Publications. This book was awarded the Christian Book of the Year in 2003.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Yun

My friend described this book as the modern-day version of the Book of Acts in the Bible. Indeed, it is like the Book of Acts. Brother Yun came from the Henan Province in China and came to Christ and start to preach the gospel in the age of 16. Through out the book we can see how he and other christians in China suffered from persecutions in China. During that time China is ruled by Communist Party, under the leadership of Mao Zedong. So to say "I believe in Jesus Christ" or "Praise to our Lord" is like suicide. Christians in China are considered as counter-revolutionists and will be thrown into jail. All the Bibles are confiscated, all foreign missionaries are not allowed.

But in spite of all the persecutions, Brother Yun still eagerly preaches the gospel throughout China and leads many people to Christ. The persecutions force the christians to run from towns to towns in order to escape the pursue from authorities, but when they run from towns to towns, the gospel also spreads from towns to towns. Christians who are in prisons also bring the good news about Jesus Christ to other prisoners and lead them to Christ. Ironically, under such persecutions and harsh conditions, the gospel spreads quickly to many areas in China.

Not only so, through out the book we can see how God works in Brother Yun's and other christians' life. We can see how God performs miracles through Brother Yun, we see how Brother Yun received his first Bible, we see many people were healed, we see how Brother Yun fasted for 74 days without food and water, we see how he miraculously escaped from the prison, like what happen to Apostle Peter, and we see how God brings him to Germany.

After read this book, I appreciate all the things that given by God. Compared to Brother Yun, my life is so peaceful. He prayed for three months to get his first Bible, but my first Bible was given to me, even though I never demand it from God. I can bravely proclaim the name of Christ without entering the prison, but just because of Christ's name, Brother Yun was thrown into the prisons for many times and was tortured by the authorities. Now only I fully realised that how blessed I am, because I need not to go through what Brother Yun went through.

But everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12). I can feel that there are many persecutions waiting for me in the future, but blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12)

A quote from this book:
Jesus is truly worth knowing. He is worthy to receive our whole lives. If you do give him your life, you'll surely never regret it.
Will you follow him?