The Heavenly Man: The remarkable true story of Chinese Christian Brother Yun

By Brother Yun and Paul Hattaway.

This book contains an amazing testimony. Anything I say won't be the same as what you'll get out of reading the book, so go read it.

That said, here are some of the things I "got" out of it: (the hard part is doing, not saying, right?)

We are all sinners and God uses us only because of his grace and mercy, not because he needs us.

For God to use you fully, you must follow him boldly and without reservation.

It is both possible and necessary to be joyful without possessions ("where your treasure is, there your heart will be also") and in prison. Yun dislikes the so-called "prosperity gospel"; the point of God's will is not for you to have a large bank account! In the end, it's worthless! His story really shows how far you can go for Jesus without money (which is very, very far indeed). Jesus's warnings against trusting in wealth and material possessions are familiar to us ("It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved"), but I don't think we actually take them to heart in America. For me, they have been more like a piece of knowledge that I believe with my head but not with my actions.

Yun also memorized many scriptures, including the gospels of Matthew and John. This seems to be a natural desire of someone who is hungry for God, which shames me. His whole account is filled with scripture references and quotations. Most of the time that he was in prison, his memory was all that he had.

Yun was not ever ashamed of the gospel. He testified constantly, even in the courtroom at his trial. Near the end of the book when a prison guard asked him what he was doing while he was baptizing some prisoners, he shouted "I know what I am doing! I am a servant of the Most High God!" The guard was speechless.

I'm sure later I will have more to say, but this is all for now. I highly recommend this book.