If it wasn't for having tasted the grace of God, I would have stubbornly refused and denied God. However, after following the Lord for 13 years, I can attest that He has been faithful in every moment.
I come from a village in Fujian where Buddhism was back then ubiquitous, and atheists were few and far between. Growing up, I was a stubborn person and eventually refused to practice the local custom of setting up a worshiping table and kowtowing on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month. Despite this, my grandmother would still urge me to bow down, and out of respect for her, I would oblige. Since my childhood, I believed in atheism and thought it was the ultimate truth.
When I was a junior in college, my girlfriend started attending church gatherings two or three times a week. Whenever she mentioned going to a gathering, I pretended to be nonchalant and said "Go and have fun" even though I was secretly bitter. One day, I mustered the courage to ask what "party" she was attending, and she told me that I would know if I came along. I decided to go and was surprised to find a group of deeply committed religious believers in a modern age, worshipping an overseas religion - Christianity, in fact. What was even more surprising was that the group was held in one of my teacher's apartments - the same teacher who had taught me in my sophomore year.
Out of respect for my girlfriend and teacher, I attended a Bible study session despite my stubborn atheism. The format was simple, just a group of people gathered around, reading and explaining the Bible. In the end, I was impressed by the group as they were sincere and warm, even though I perceived them to be ignorant and irrational.
Meeting them felt like a crisis for my worldview, as I knew that if they were right, I had been terribly wrong. Thus, my whole atheistic worldview would have to collapse and be rebuilt. My pride did not allow for that possibility. Furthermore, I was afraid of that happening. Over the next few weeks, I prepared for the Bible study by trying to find "contradictions" in the Bible to disprove their faith. I did not hide my anti-religious attitude during the session and attacked their beliefs without reservation.
However, my actual results left me feeling defeated because this group of people could not be explained by my twenty-something years of life experience. Whenever I thought I had challenged them with my well-made rebuttals, it wasn't a win-lose situation as I had anticipated. Instead, they only furrowed their eyebrows for a brief moment and silently contemplated my challenge, before smiling to accept it.
I desperately screamed in my mind, "How can you not be angry?" Their responses were designed to be challenging questions, and even a few angry comments would have made my great efforts feel worthwhile. However, their tolerance and smiles left me feeling badly defeated. They were truly different!
I continued attending fellowship gatherings for a full semester, even outpacing my girlfriend's enthusiasm. Except for prayer meetings, I attended every gathering, including Sunday services. Our college was in the suburbs, and the Sunday service venue was a pastor’s house in the city proper. I usually woke up at 9 o'clock, but on Sundays, I had to get up at the latest by 7 o'clock, otherwise, I would be late. Sundays have been my earliest day ever since.
During this period of time, something remarkable happened, which shook my atheistic belief to its core. In the Christmas of 2007, my church held a holy birth thanksgiving service, and a teacher with an intellectual background from Xiamen was invited to deliver the sermon. I did not know why I could not stop thinking about every word he said, all the while hating what he said. After being mentally tormented for about half an hour, I left the service early. A staff member at the door tried to hand me a bag of gifts, but I rudely pushed the outstretched hand away and ran back to my school.
After two days, I was still tormented, unable to find peace. A Christian friend gave me a booklet entitled "Knowing the Truth" in an attempt to persuade me to believe in Jesus. I picked it up during lunchtime and read it alone in the Business School building. As I began to read, I couldn't help but feel a shudder. In my opinion, the content was nonsense. Yet, deep down, I felt a calling that I couldn't see or hear, but it made me want to draw close to it.
Gradually, I became less hostile to Christianity and attended gatherings in the following semester. I cherished being a "cultural Christian", a term that I had encountered while preparing for a Bible study. As a child, I saw myself as a Confucianist, enamored with ancient literature and poetry. However, the negative portrayal of Confucianism in history education made me anxious about it. Cultural Christianity was the answer to my distress. In my superficial understanding, it would have been ideal if love and equality became the core values of Confucianism, supplemented by "Jesus." As for God, I thought it was unnecessary. While Christian teachings were desirable, God was not needed, according to my views.
Contradictorily, my belief in being a cultural Christian was short-lived. The more I listened to and inferred from Bible sermons, the clearer it became that the path to cultural Christianity was an impassable one. I realized that without belief in God, it was impossible to live out the love pattern of Jesus Christ. Moreover, filtering out faith between men and God was tantamount to men trespassing on God. If one did not have faith in God, that person would surely judge God, thereby causing oneself to create an image of God that was not congruent with Christian theology. It would be more accurate to call these understandings as philosophical, instead of theological. I began to ponder over these questions and found myself unable to be fully humble to God even though I no longer despised religion like before.
I was offended by the term "redemption." I perceived it as an extremely unequal relationship. One end was high above everything and the other end was as low as nothing. What was particularly intolerable was that those good people who studied the scriptures all agreed with one voice that if they did not believe in their God, they would perish in hell.
For more than half a year, I attended church gatherings regularly, and my attitude towards Christianity had undergone significant changes. I still regarded some doctrines as ignorance, such as the idea of a virgin giving birth. However, I had to admit that those Christians were more respectable and lovelier than others around me. Despite these changes, I was reluctant to call Jesus the Lord and address God as "Abba, Father," terms that made me feel awkward.
I thought I would continue spending time with this group of people until I graduated. However, the day of change would come sooner than I had anticipated.
During a church gathering, a speaker was invited to preach, and although I didn't remember much of the message, the events afterward were unforgettable. At the end of the fellowship, the pastor asked to pray for me in private, and we proceeded to kneel down together. Kneeling in worship had always been a struggle for me, but I reluctantly knelt down and repeated each word of the pastor's prayer.
As I listened to the pastor's words, I began to feel dizzy, and by the end of the prayer, I felt a great joy filling my entire being, as if every cell in my body was cheering. The questions that had previously troubled me and caused me to resist submitting myself to God all of a sudden seemed insignificant, childish, and entirely ridiculous.
I felt like a different person overnight, and the brethren who had gathered around me started calling me "brother." In that moment, with my eyes closed and softly calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and weeping while singing hymns, I knew that I was a Christian.
Years later, while watching the movie, "The Passion of the Christ," I felt overcome with emotion. Seeing the soldiers whipping Jesus' back made me sob, and when I saw Mary look at him on the way to the execution ground, I cried some more. And when Jesus was crucified, I cried for a solid hour.
Though it may seem unremarkable to others, this moment made my heart soften and open up completely. It had been more than a decade since I had cried for anything, not even for my grandmother's death. But on that day, I cried because Jesus loved me so much that he was willing to be crucified for a sinner like me. I cried freely because I knew with absolute certainty that there is a God in this world who loved us so much that he was willing to be humbled by becoming flesh, being born in a manger, having no fixed place, being rejected by others, and eventually being crucified.
如果我没有尝过那恩典的滋味，确实我可以硬着心去否认、去拒绝。但迄今我跟随祂一十三年，在每一个时刻，祂都是那样信实。
一
我是闽南农村人。那个地区满天神佛，找不出几个无神论来。每逢初一十五，每家每户就在门前设供桌，磕头烧纸钱。我是个犟种，年龄稍长，便不肯依流俗去跪拜。有时候奶奶看不下去，或许怕我得罪些什么东西，按着我的头，我才意思低个头。那只是我不愿忤逆奶奶罢了。这样，我从小就挺信无神论那一套，以为是颠扑不破的真理。
到了大三，那时的女朋友每周总固定要去聚会两三次。一到她跟我说要“聚会”，我就装作大度地答“去吧，玩得开心点”，实则整颗心泡在醋罐子里。有一次我忍不住问，你参加的是什么聚会，她说，你也来就知道啦。一去之后大惊，什么年代了居然还有人认真信宗教，而且是洋教（基督教）。更意想不到的是他们聚会的地点在一位老师的公寓里，那老师还是我大二时候一门课程的老师。
由于尊重女朋友以及这位老师的缘故，我这个顽固的无神论者耐着性子参加完了一次查经（对，他们聚会的内容就是坐一圈读和解释圣经），到最后居然印象还不错。我发现这一群人虽然“愚昧”，但与他们相处真的如坐春风。对我来说，他们就是一群缺乏理性精神的好人。不过，这群好人可把我“折磨”得够呛。
接触了这么一个群体，令我倍觉遭遇世界观危机。我深知，假如他们是对的，那我就错了，而且大错特错，我整个的无神论世界观都将崩毁、重建。我的骄傲不允许这样的事情发生，何况，我也恐惧这样的事情发生。几周以后，我已经开始在查经之前做功课，努力寻找并试图利用圣经当中的“矛盾”，收拾下那帮教徒。我在查经过程中也毫不掩饰自己的反宗教态度，甚至不乏攻击信仰的言语。
然而，现实却使我满有挫败感，因为，我碰上的这群人，实在是我二十啷当的人生经验无法解释的——每当我自以为提出一个漂亮的反驳，似乎他们也难以招架，可接下来的情形并非是一方自得另一方恼怒。不，他们只在低头思索的刹那眉头有片刻的锁紧，当他们抬眼，笑容又爬回脸上。
“你们怎么能不生气呢！”我失望地在心里呐喊。精心设计的问题，假如能换来哪怕几句带火药味的反呛，也算值回我的苦心。可是一张张笑脸令我拳头击打在棉花上，反震得我内伤。他们真的好不一样！
就这样，我参加了一个学期的聚会。每一周的查经，简直比女友更显热情。除了祷告会，其他的一概不落，周天的主日（也就是礼拜日的“礼拜”）也去。当时要参加主日，对我而言还有点辛苦。我们学校在市郊，主日地点在市区牧者家里。我平常要睡到9点多，主日至迟7点就得起床，否则可能就迟到了。每个礼拜天，从此成为我最早起的一天。
这之间发生过一件事，明显动摇了我的无神论信念。07年圣诞节，教会举办降生感恩会，从厦门请了一位知识分子背景的老师作为讲员。不知为何，我特别厌憎他所说的每一句话，但又忍不住琢磨。煎熬了约莫半小时，我提前离开了会场。门口有工作人员试图递一袋子礼物给我，我粗暴地推开那伸过来的手，跑了，一气回到学校。
隔约两日，仍旧纠缠于那种煎熬之中。终于拿起一位学弟（是个颇热心劝我信耶稣的基督徒）送的册子，题为《认识真理》，趁午休无人独自跑到商学楼去看。这一看，使我战栗不已。于我看来，那分明是一派胡言，然而，隐隐地，在我内心深处又有呼唤：无法眼见也听不真切，就是令我要亲近。
二
这事以后，我开始不再那么敌视基督教。下学期开始照旧聚会了一段时间，我渐渐萌生了要当一个“文化基督徒”的想法。这是我在某次预备查经时接触到的术语，只知香港教会对刘小枫等人有此指责。这个术语却很吸引我。
我打小自认是个儒家，热爱古代文学，常沉浸在诗词的世界。尽管从未正儿八经研读儒家经典，但并不妨碍我对儒家的向往。而历史教育刻画的百年来儒家的尴尬，不由得我为之焦虑。如今，“文化基督徒”就像一味良药，对上了儒家的弊症。在我当时粗浅的见识里头，若爱与平等成为儒家核心学说，实现以耶补儒，得是多美妙！至于上帝就算了吧，基督教的部分学说可取，神则没必要取。如此一来，做个文化上的“基督徒”，真是美哉妙哉。
可惜好景不长，随着我听的讲道、查考的圣经愈多，文化基督徒之路也愈加不通。譬如基督教谈爱，设若拿掉了上帝，其实和别的学说也没差。理论上而言，一个人若要活出耶稣基督那种爱的模式，不信仰上帝是不可能之事。我亦模糊地思想，在人神之间拿掉信心，便是默许人可僭越神。为何？人若不信仰神，就一定得判断神。在判断中认识的神，不是基督教谈论的上帝。撇开神去谈论其余概念，便不叫启示，称之为某种哲理还倒贴切。每一周，我思索这些问题，便不再那样轻视宗教；但也有些问题，堵在心里，教我完全无法向上帝低头。
人为何需要被救赎？常常我一听到“救赎”，就相当反感。我以为，位于救赎两端的，是极其不平等的关系。一方高高在上，一方卑污像烂泥。尤其不可容忍的是，那帮一起查经的好人，竟异口同声地赞成若不信奉他们那位上帝，人是要下地狱的。
算一算，我接触教会也超过半年了。和刚来时相比，我对基督教大为改观，尽管某些教义依然被我视作愚蠢（如上以及童女生子等），但却不得不承认，那些基督徒比之身周的老师同学，更多可敬可爱之处。因为这群与众不同的人，我愿意一直参与他们的聚会，只是不愿像他们一样称耶稣是主，呼叫“阿爸，天父”（实在难为情）。我以为，这样的日子将持续下去，至少能维持到我大学毕业。没想到，改变的那天很快就来了。
三
教会请来一位外地的讲员，当晚听了什么内容，至今我已全无印象，但随后发生的事，刻苦铭心。那是散场之际，教会的牧者单独叫住我，言下是要给我祷告。
两个人单独进房间祷告，要一起跪着。我从小就抵触跪拜，勉为其难跪了，又有要求说，这个祷告需要我复述他的每句祷词。
于是，就听牧者说，亲爱的天父，我来到这里不是偶然，你爱我，也要拣选我……从今以后，我要弃绝魔鬼撒旦，跟随主耶稣基督……阿门！一句“阿门”完毕起身，我整个人晕晕乎。我不知道我怎么和牧者作别，不记得怎么出的门，只感受到一种巨大的喜乐充盈我整个人，从头到脚从里到外，没有一个毛孔不在欢呼。
最不可思议的是，原本困扰我使我以为绝对无法向上帝低头的那些问题，忽然间变得无足轻重——而且，反倒显得幼稚、可笑。
我知道我变了，一夜之间判若两人。一起聚会的弟兄姐妹们开始称呼我，“弟兄”。我是个基督徒了，我的心告诉我——当我敬而重之与他们一起闭着眼睛祷告的时候，当我轻声呼唤“主耶稣基督”就真实地感到甜蜜的时候，当我唱起诗歌止不住要流泪的时候——我是个基督徒了！
四
一天中午，我在宿舍床上看一部叫《耶稣受难记》的电影。当看到兵丁的鞭子狠狠抽在耶稣的背上，我的眼泪唰地就流出来；当耶稣背负着十架走向刑场，途中马利亚望了祂一眼，我开始抽泣；等到耶稣被钉上十架，我嚎啕大哭……整个人哭足了一个小时。
这对于别人而言也许没啥特别，却叫我的心彻底柔软、打开了。在此之前，我至少十年不曾为任何事哭泣，包括我奶奶去世。
可那天中午，我竟会流泪了。因着耶稣如此爱我，愿意为我这般罪人被钉上十架，我哭得那么释放，那么痛痛快快。我十分笃定地知道，这世上真有一位神，一位爱我们爱到竟愿意降卑成为肉身，生在马槽，居无定所，被人厌弃，终钉十架的神。
http://www.gospeltimes.cn/portal/article/index/id/56378
见证：因我尝过了那恩典的滋味
If it wasn't for having tasted the grace of God, I would have stubbornly refused and denied God. However, after following the Lord for 13 years, I can attest that He has been faithful in every moment.
I come from a village in Fujian where Buddhism was back then ubiquitous, and atheists were few and far between. Growing up, I was a stubborn person and eventually refused to practice the local custom of setting up a worshiping table and kowtowing on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month. Despite this, my grandmother would still urge me to bow down, and out of respect for her, I would oblige. Since my childhood, I believed in atheism and thought it was the ultimate truth.
When I was a junior in college, my girlfriend started attending church gatherings two or three times a week. Whenever she mentioned going to a gathering, I pretended to be nonchalant and said "Go and have fun" even though I was secretly bitter. One day, I mustered the courage to ask what "party" she was attending, and she told me that I would know if I came along. I decided to go and was surprised to find a group of deeply committed religious believers in a modern age, worshipping an overseas religion - Christianity, in fact. What was even more surprising was that the group was held in one of my teacher's apartments - the same teacher who had taught me in my sophomore year.
Out of respect for my girlfriend and teacher, I attended a Bible study session despite my stubborn atheism. The format was simple, just a group of people gathered around, reading and explaining the Bible. In the end, I was impressed by the group as they were sincere and warm, even though I perceived them to be ignorant and irrational.
Meeting them felt like a crisis for my worldview, as I knew that if they were right, I had been terribly wrong. Thus, my whole atheistic worldview would have to collapse and be rebuilt. My pride did not allow for that possibility. Furthermore, I was afraid of that happening. Over the next few weeks, I prepared for the Bible study by trying to find "contradictions" in the Bible to disprove their faith. I did not hide my anti-religious attitude during the session and attacked their beliefs without reservation.
However, my actual results left me feeling defeated because this group of people could not be explained by my twenty-something years of life experience. Whenever I thought I had challenged them with my well-made rebuttals, it wasn't a win-lose situation as I had anticipated. Instead, they only furrowed their eyebrows for a brief moment and silently contemplated my challenge, before smiling to accept it.
I desperately screamed in my mind, "How can you not be angry?" Their responses were designed to be challenging questions, and even a few angry comments would have made my great efforts feel worthwhile. However, their tolerance and smiles left me feeling badly defeated. They were truly different!
I continued attending fellowship gatherings for a full semester, even outpacing my girlfriend's enthusiasm. Except for prayer meetings, I attended every gathering, including Sunday services. Our college was in the suburbs, and the Sunday service venue was a pastor’s house in the city proper. I usually woke up at 9 o'clock, but on Sundays, I had to get up at the latest by 7 o'clock, otherwise, I would be late. Sundays have been my earliest day ever since.
During this period of time, something remarkable happened, which shook my atheistic belief to its core. In the Christmas of 2007, my church held a holy birth thanksgiving service, and a teacher with an intellectual background from Xiamen was invited to deliver the sermon. I did not know why I could not stop thinking about every word he said, all the while hating what he said. After being mentally tormented for about half an hour, I left the service early. A staff member at the door tried to hand me a bag of gifts, but I rudely pushed the outstretched hand away and ran back to my school.
After two days, I was still tormented, unable to find peace. A Christian friend gave me a booklet entitled "Knowing the Truth" in an attempt to persuade me to believe in Jesus. I picked it up during lunchtime and read it alone in the Business School building. As I began to read, I couldn't help but feel a shudder. In my opinion, the content was nonsense. Yet, deep down, I felt a calling that I couldn't see or hear, but it made me want to draw close to it.
Gradually, I became less hostile to Christianity and attended gatherings in the following semester. I cherished being a "cultural Christian", a term that I had encountered while preparing for a Bible study. As a child, I saw myself as a Confucianist, enamored with ancient literature and poetry. However, the negative portrayal of Confucianism in history education made me anxious about it. Cultural Christianity was the answer to my distress. In my superficial understanding, it would have been ideal if love and equality became the core values of Confucianism, supplemented by "Jesus." As for God, I thought it was unnecessary. While Christian teachings were desirable, God was not needed, according to my views.
Contradictorily, my belief in being a cultural Christian was short-lived. The more I listened to and inferred from Bible sermons, the clearer it became that the path to cultural Christianity was an impassable one. I realized that without belief in God, it was impossible to live out the love pattern of Jesus Christ. Moreover, filtering out faith between men and God was tantamount to men trespassing on God. If one did not have faith in God, that person would surely judge God, thereby causing oneself to create an image of God that was not congruent with Christian theology. It would be more accurate to call these understandings as philosophical, instead of theological. I began to ponder over these questions and found myself unable to be fully humble to God even though I no longer despised religion like before.
I was offended by the term "redemption." I perceived it as an extremely unequal relationship. One end was high above everything and the other end was as low as nothing. What was particularly intolerable was that those good people who studied the scriptures all agreed with one voice that if they did not believe in their God, they would perish in hell.
For more than half a year, I attended church gatherings regularly, and my attitude towards Christianity had undergone significant changes. I still regarded some doctrines as ignorance, such as the idea of a virgin giving birth. However, I had to admit that those Christians were more respectable and lovelier than others around me. Despite these changes, I was reluctant to call Jesus the Lord and address God as "Abba, Father," terms that made me feel awkward.
I thought I would continue spending time with this group of people until I graduated. However, the day of change would come sooner than I had anticipated.
During a church gathering, a speaker was invited to preach, and although I didn't remember much of the message, the events afterward were unforgettable. At the end of the fellowship, the pastor asked to pray for me in private, and we proceeded to kneel down together. Kneeling in worship had always been a struggle for me, but I reluctantly knelt down and repeated each word of the pastor's prayer.
As I listened to the pastor's words, I began to feel dizzy, and by the end of the prayer, I felt a great joy filling my entire being, as if every cell in my body was cheering. The questions that had previously troubled me and caused me to resist submitting myself to God all of a sudden seemed insignificant, childish, and entirely ridiculous.
I felt like a different person overnight, and the brethren who had gathered around me started calling me "brother." In that moment, with my eyes closed and softly calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and weeping while singing hymns, I knew that I was a Christian.
Years later, while watching the movie, "The Passion of the Christ," I felt overcome with emotion. Seeing the soldiers whipping Jesus' back made me sob, and when I saw Mary look at him on the way to the execution ground, I cried some more. And when Jesus was crucified, I cried for a solid hour.
Though it may seem unremarkable to others, this moment made my heart soften and open up completely. It had been more than a decade since I had cried for anything, not even for my grandmother's death. But on that day, I cried because Jesus loved me so much that he was willing to be crucified for a sinner like me. I cried freely because I knew with absolute certainty that there is a God in this world who loved us so much that he was willing to be humbled by becoming flesh, being born in a manger, having no fixed place, being rejected by others, and eventually being crucified.
Testimony: "For I Have Tasted the Grace of God"
