PENDETA ZHANG HENG (SEORANG MANTAN ATHEIS) - YANG LUMPUH DISEMBUHKAN YESUS

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Seorang pendeta Cina yang banyak menderita penganiayaan untuk pemberitaan Injil di negara resmi ateis, mengirim iman dari pertemuan global Kristen yg diadakan pada hari Rabu ketika dia bersaksi bagaimana seluruh keluarganya yg atheis berbalik kepada Allah setelah ia sembuh dari suatu penyakit yang telah membuatnya lumpuh di masa mudanya melalui doa kepada Yesus.

Zhang Heng, direktur asosiasi dari China Gospel Mission dan pendeta senior di Gereja Zaidao di Beijing China, mengatakan kepada beberapa ratus orang di konferensi Movement Day Global Cities di Jacob Javits Center di New York City Rabu bahwa penyembuhan yang memicu perjalanannya ke dalam kekristenan juga menyebabkan terciptanya banyak gereja di Cina.

Berbicara melalui seorang penerjemah, Abraham Jiang, pemimpin pelayanan Shanghai Logos di Shanghai, dalam sebuah wawancara dengan Ebony Small, Direktur Movement Day and Events, The New York Leadership Center, Heng menjelaskan bagaimana sebagai seorang pemuda ia menderita suatu kondisi medis yang tidak diketahui yang membuatnya lumpuh sampai tahun 1979.

Sampai tahun itu, Heng mengatakan, dia tidak memiliki harapan dan ada saat-saat ia ingin bunuh diri. Dia mengatakan dia berseru kepada Allah untuk bantuan dan Allah mengirim dia seorang pengkhotbah yang memperkenalkannya kepada Yesus.

Pengkhotbah mengatakan kepada Heng: "Bahwa Yesus adalah anak Allah dan mati untuk dosa-dosa kita dan tiga hari kemudian bangkit," bahwa jika ia menerima Yesus, ia akan diampuni dan ia bisa disembuhkan dan masuk ke surga.

"Saya tidak terlalu banyak mengkuatirkan tentang pengampunan, yang saya kuatirkan adalah kesehatan saya sendiri," Heng mengaku sambil tertawa.

Untuk penyembuhannya, pendeta menginstruksikan kepada Heng untuk berdoa dan berpuasa selama tujuh hari dan "pada hari ketujuh, Tuhan menyembuhkan saya," Heng bersaksi. "Aku bangkit dan berjalan."

Keajaiban itu mengejutkan keluarga Heng sehingga banyak dari mereka segera mulai memuji Yesus dan bertobat hampir seperti sebuah adegan dari Kisah Para Rasul dalam Alkitab.

"Seluruh keluarga yang melihat mujizat ini berlutut berdoa untuk menerima Tuhan sebagai penyelamat pribadi mereka," katanya disambut tepuk tangan.

Sebulan kemudian keluarga Heng mengadakan pesta syukur di rumah mereka dan teman-teman diundang juga pengkhotbah yang memberitahu mereka tentang Tuhan.

"Pengkhotbah memberitakan Injil pada mereka dan saya memberi tahu kesaksian saya sendiri, mengisahkan pada semua orang apa yang Yesus telah lakukan dalam hidup saya. Lebih dari 50 orang menjadi beriman. Kami mulai mendirikan gereja malam itu," kata Heng.

Dalam delapan tahun ke depan, kelompok itu tumbuh menjadi gerakan yang mendirikan 200 gereja dan menarik lebih dari 20.000 pengikut.

"Kami mulai jaringan nasional, mengirim orang ke berbagai provinsi untuk berkhotbah," kata Heng. Meskipun berhasil namun gerakan Kristen di Cina mengalami serangan yang signifikan dari pemerintah Cina.

"Banyak pendeta dilemparkan ke penjara lagi. Saya dikejar sekitar selama lebih dari lima tahun dan dijebloskan ke penjara selama tiga tahun. Saya bertanya kepada Tuhan mengapa saya harus berada di penjara. Tuhan mengatakan kepada saya, 'ada kebutuhan untuk Injil di tempat ini. Jadi, bahkan di penjara kami membuat banyak orang menjadi beriman, membaptis mereka di toilet, "kata Heng.

Meskipun ada penganiayaan Gereja di Cina, bagaimanapun juga, kekristenan telah meledak di bangsa itu dan diperkirakan ada 100 juta pengikut.

Fenggang Yang, seorang profesor sosiologi di Purdue University dan penulis Agama di Cina: Kelangsungan Hidup dan Kebangkitan dibawah Peraturan Komunis, mengatakan kepada The Telegraph bahwa Cina, yang masih resmi sebuah negara ateis yg terdiri dari 1,3 miliar orang, bisa membanggakan paling Kristen dalam waktu kurang dari satu generasi.

"Ini akan menjadi kurang dari satu generasi. Tidak banyak orang yang siap untuk perubahan dramatis ini," katanya. Jemaat Kristen telah menjamur dengan pesat di Cina sejak kematian Ketua Mao pada tahun 1976, menurut Telegraph.

"Dengan perhitungan saya China ditakdirkan untuk menjadi negara Kristen terbesar di dunia segera," kata Yang.

Profesor, yang adalah seorang ahli terkemuka tentang agama di Cina, memperkirakan bahwa pada tahun 2025 China akan bermegah dengan 160 juta orang Kristen. Estimasi yang diperkirakan akan melampaui AS yang melaporkan 159 juta Protestan pada tahun 2010 namun mengalami penurunan jemaat.

Total penduduk Kristen China, termasuk umat Katolik, akan melebihi 247 juta, menempatkannya di atas Meksiko, Brasil dan Amerika Serikat sebagai jemaat Kristen terbesar di dunia pada tahun 2030, prediksi Yang.

"Mao pikir dia bisa menghilangkan agama. Dia pikir dia telah berhasil," kata Yang. "Ini ironis - mereka tidak dapat, mereka benar-benar gagal total."

Sumber: www.christianpost.com

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Chinese Pastor's Atheist Family Turned to Christ After Faith Healing Made Him Walk Again

NEW YORK — A Chinese pastor who suffered much persecution for spreading Christianity in the officially atheist country, sent the faith of a global gathering of Christians soaring Wednesday when he testified how his entire atheist family turned to God after he was healed of an illness that had left him crippled in his youth through prayers to Jesus.

Zhang Heng, associate director of China Gospel Mission and senior pastor at Zaidao Church in Beijing China, told several hundred people at the Movement Day Global Cities conference at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City Wednesday that the healing which triggered his journey into Christianity also led to the creation of many churches in China.

Speaking through a translator, Abraham Jiang, ministry leader with Shanghai Logos Church in Shanghai, in an interview with Ebony Small, director Movement Day and Events, The New York Leadership Center, Heng explained how as a youth he suffered from an unspecified medical condition that left him paralyzed until 1979.

Up until that year, Heng said, he had no hope and there were times when he wanted to take his life. He said he cried out to God for help and God sent him a preacher who introduced him to Jesus.

The preacher told Heng: "That Jesus was the son of God and died for our sins and three days later rose," that if he received Jesus, he would be forgiven and he could be healed and get into Heaven.

"I was not too much concerned about forgiveness, all I was concerned about was my own health," Heng confessed to laughter.

For his healing, the preacher instructed the desperate Heng to pray and fast for seven days and "on the seventh day, the Lord healed me," Heng testified. "I rose up and walked."

The miracle shocked Heng's family so much they immediately began praising Jesus and repented almost like a scene from Acts in the Bible.

"The whole family saw this and just knelt down to pray to receive the Lord as their personal savior," he said to applause.

A month later Heng's family had a thanksgiving party at their house and invited friends and the preacher who told them about God.

"The preacher shared the Gospel with them and I gave out my own testimony telling everybody what Jesus had been doing in my life. More than 50 people just came to faith. We started a church that very night," said Heng.

In the next eight years, that group grew into a movement that created 200 churches which attracted more than 20,000 converts.

"We started a nationwide network, sending people to different provinces to preach," Heng said.

Despite the successes however, the Christian movement in China suffered significant attacks from Chinese authorities.

"Many of the different ministers were thrown into jail again. I was chased around for more than five years and thrown into prison for three years. I asked God why I have to be in jail. The Lord told me, 'there's a need for the Gospel in this place. So even in the prison we had many came to faith, baptized them in the restrooms," Heng said.

Despite the persecution of the Church in China, however, Christianity has exploded in the nation to an estimated 100 million adherents.

Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule, told The Telegraph that China, which is still officially an atheist nation of 1.3 billion people, could boast the most Christians in less than a generation.

"It is going to be less than a generation. Not many people are prepared for this dramatic change," he said.

Christian congregations have mushroomed at a rapid pace in China since Chairman Mao's death in 1976, according to the Telegraph.

"By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon," Yang said.

The professor, who is a leading expert on religion in China, estimates that by 2025 China will boast 160 million Christians. That estimate is expected to surpass the U.S. which reported 159 million Protestants in 2010 but is experiencing dwindling congregations.

China's total Christian population, including Catholics, would exceed 247 million, placing it above Mexico, Brazil and the United States as the largest Christian congregation in the world by 2030, Yang predicted.

"Mao thought he could eliminate religion. He thought he had accomplished this," Yang said. "It's ironic — they didn't. They actually failed completely."