The Heavenly Man

I have never been a big reader.  But when I find a good book I can sit and read for hours. 

I just finished an incredible book about 3 weeks ago.  It is called “The Heavenly Man.”  Andrew had started reading it before we came to Kenya, and about a week after getting here he recommended that I start reading it.  This is probably the best book I have ever read! 

Brother Yun, who is nicknamed ‘The Heavenly Man’ is a Chinese man who felt God’s calling on his life at age 16 to spread God’s Word among all the people in China.  He devotes himself to the Lord at this young age and literally spends his entire life ministering all over China, while running away from the police.  He is imprisoned multiple times, receiving beatings and torture that should have killed him.  It is truly by the grace of God that he is alive today.  Throughout the entire book, God is blessing him and giving him grace in all of the persecution that he faces.  I don’t want to give away all the details, but I’ll tell you a few just to get you hooked (I hope): 

• When Yun is 16, he does not have a Bible.  They were banned from China so if you had one, it was not public information.  He prayed and fasted for months to get a Bible, until one early morning, a random guy shows up at his house telling Yun that God told him to give him the Bible.  
• During one of his prison stays, he fasts completely  from food and water for 74 days!
• During another prison stay, God tells him to escape.  His legs are completely crippled so he cannot escape, but God healed his legs and blinds the guards eyes to seeing him walking out of the prison.

Something I love about this book is it is in present day!  He was born in the late 50’s, so all of the persecution happening in the book is in present times.  When I read it I felt like I was reading the Bible, because it is similar to a lot of the things Paul faced in the New Testament.

I think it is easy for us to sit back and think that God is not active in our lives anymore.  That he only did miracles in the Bible.  But we don’t see those things simply because we don’t believe it!  Yun literally lived for Jesus every day, and because of his whole-hearted devotion to him, the Lord showed himself to him constantly. 

Don’t we want that?  Shouldn’t we live like Jesus actually is alive and can work in our lives?

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…..            -Ephesians 3:20

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.                                                                                                  – James 5:16

Seriously, if you have not read this book before, you need to!! It will change your perspective on who God is and how we should be living as Christians!

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.  Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.                                                                                             -2 Peter 1:3-4