Testimony…
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Li Guangping’s baby daughter – music album “Amazing Grace”
As a Christian family, our family is blessed by God. Our daughter, Li Silin, is the best example of being used by God and loved by God. Growing up in a Christian family, Celine was favored by God. When she was very young, she went to church with us, and at night, before bedtime, she would study Bible stories on her own, and we often taught her Bible truths. Wherever she goes, there is a magnetic field, and she is loved by the gods. In 2005, to allow Li Silin to receive the best music education in China, we decided to move our family north and move to Beijing to prepare for the high school attached to the Central Conservatory of Music.
You may not know that the composition major is the most difficult in the Conservatory of Music: before the exam, we not only have to learn composition, but also learn professional piano performance, ear training, folk song memorization, music theory knowledge, etc., and we have to take four or five classes a week, which are all very difficult courses! I remember that we often took taxis, buses, subways, etc. through Beijing to go to class in the snowstorm, and Si Lin never complained. In the process of studying, the biggest miracle is that the teachers who teach Si Lin’s composition class and piano class are all Christians, which is God’s blessing of preparation! As a result, she was admitted to the composition major of the High School Affiliated to the Central Conservatory of Music with the first place in her major. I deeply feel that every life we have is not accidental, it has a will and mission from God, and behind everything we do, there is also goodwill and blessing from God!
In 2008, when my friend Deng Weibiao (he is a representative composer of “New Century Music” in China) was chatting with me, he said that he wanted to release a record for Si Lin, and he asked me about the theme, and I immediately thought of the theme of hymns, so I decided that we would make a fever record of hymns for Si Lin! I hope that our family is willing to put our lives on the table, use beautiful music to promote the main sound and attract more people to God. And no matter what we do in the future, we will always do it in the spirit of spreading God’s great love, so that it will be a meaningful and valuable musical life.
I am deeply grateful to Ms. Yang Lanxiang, chairman of the board of directors of “Haojie Culture,” and Lin Haodong, general manager of “Haojie Culture”! The publication of the album “Amazing Grace,” attracted the attention and encouragement of a large number of writers in China; Wang Shuya, Li Wan, Hua Zi, Han Songluo, Han Haoyue, Chen Weiwen, and other famous writers all spoke highly of it; and writer Yu Jie also gave the record to many Hong Kong, Friends from Taiwan and the United States, let everyone listen to hymns from Chinese mainland and promote the grace of the Lord.
The songs in the album, such as “Love is a Miracle”, “I Have a Good Friend”, and “Ode to Love”, have been widely circulated in society and have been well received. Speaking of the preface to “Amazing Grace”, this is also a miracle worth writing about: I have always liked the film review articles written by the Christian writer Mr. Wang Shuya, and to find him to write the preface, I emailed or called him but could not find him;
One day, I accidentally bought the book “Heaven Was Silent for Half an Hour”, and I wrote a few words on my blog, but I showed it to Brother Peng Qiang, the publisher of the book, and he took the initiative to contact me, and through him it was easy to get in touch with Brother Wang Shuya. I think Cereen is a very good instrument used by God, and her singing voice sings the yearning of many people’s hearts. I hope that she will not only be a singer, but also she will become a musician in the future, not only singing, but also composing, using all her wisdom to glorify God, and we hope that many people will know the God behind us because they hear her praise singing. All of this is already beginning to be revealed: many of Cyrene’s “fans” say that they didn’t know what a “hymn” is, let alone about God’s grace, but now they are starting to understand, and some fans are even starting to go into the church to hear the pastor preach, what a wonderful thing!
At the end of 2008, Li Silin’s hymn concert held in Dongguan, Guangdong Province attracted a large number of people from Hong Kong, and Shenzhen, This was the first ticketed hymn concert in the Chinese mainland, and its significance is really special: many people feel the beauty of music, we believe that the seeds of the gospel will be sown in their hearts; China now needs such a concert so much: let the hard heart become soft, let the indifferent heart become warm, let the disappointed hear hope, let the desperate see the light, let the proud learn to be grateful, let the humble heart comfort the heart, let the shallow heart yearn for abundance, let the gray life see the sacred！
5. Born to the Lord
Li Guangping shared his testimony at Fengtai Hall in Fengtai District, Beijing, and I am grateful for God’s care and kindness over the years. As a little intellectual who likes to think, there is no way to escape the serious question of “What do you live for”. One day, I was chatting with a friend in Taiwan on the Internet, and I said, I have talked with you a few times about business experience, and I feel that you are a Christian. He immediately replied to me: Thank you for your care, I was saved more than ten years ago! I was greatly moved by what he said about “being saved”! Yes, the day we were baptized, we were saved! We were born out of the dead, born to the Lord! In fact, from the day we were born, we were “created” and born to the Lord. Psalm 139:13-16 says, “You have made my inwards.” I am in my mother’s womb, and you have covered me. I praise you, for I have been created to be amazing and terrible. Your deeds are wonderful, and I know them in my heart. I was created in secret, and I was connected in the depths of the earth. At that time, my form was not hidden from you. Your eyes have seen my unformed constitution. Before I have spent a day of your day, you have written it in your book.
This is the living and true truth that Heavenly Father has revealed to us! Decades of materialist education have made us atheists and so-called “liberal” intellectuals, and most of those who do not believe in God cannot avoid the severity of these questions: Do you believe that man has a soul? In addition to material life, man must have a spiritual life, there is no doubt about this, but the ultimate result of spiritual life is not to find a home for one’s spiritual world. If you don’t admit that people have a soul life and that the soul is immortal, then we are only alive, and there is no eternal ultimate meaning, and there is no absolute law of behavior! We see too many such people: After material satisfaction, you will inevitably have endless emptiness, loneliness, depravity, and decadence, as well as anxiety, pain, and boredom, this is the death of the soul, and what is the difference between it and a walking corpse? This is the death of the soul, and you live in the world in vain! At this time, what you need most is the warmth of love with an eternal heart! I like a passage that the famous host Zhang Yue said: “We need eternal love, never give up, and always be gentle.”
We desperately look for this kind of love in the world, but we never find it. Friends may empathize, lovers may not love, and only maternal love may be closer to eternity, but after all, it cannot be eternal. Mother is a human being, and if she is a human being, she may have all the faults of people, such as narrow-mindedness, such as selfishness, such as vulnerability, such as utilitarianism, which is normal and cannot be blamed. If you know that there is really someone who loves you, no matter how bad you are, and loves you so much that he can die for you, do you feel a little more settled in your heart? A little warmer? Can you be a little nicer to others? It is this love that looks at you sadly and with concern from the cross, why don’t you look into his eyes? The more we look at the history of World War II, the more we feel disappointed in people and our closeness to God; how despicable, shameless, cunning, vicious, and cruel human crimes have been in China’s “movement” and in world wars; how ungrateful, murderous, unreasonable, and miserable we are! What is sad is that we have not had these sufferings, but what is sad is that we have forgotten these sufferings, blood and tears, tragic memories, painful lessons, and pictures of death, intentionally or unintentionally! What is sad is that our history has been rewritten, and obscured, and Sadly, some events are still repeated, and tragedy is repeated!
In the Christian faith, in the process of studying the Bible, I have been reminded again and again: never underestimate human sin! Never give up faith in God! No matter how great a great man is, no matter how great a leader is, he must be doubtful, because man is man, except by following Jesus, we can never go to the Father (God); the great British Christian writer Louis said that there are two things in this world, you can’t be too amazed, one is the sinful nature of man, because of sinfulness brings out sin. We see that a person has been bad to this extreme, and you will see something worse than him. You can’t overstate how you marvel at the crimes of man. And there is one thing that we cannot be amazed enough about, and that is the glory of God, which is where our hope lies. We were born in the sixties, and to be honest, we have not experienced too many dark periods of extermination of humanity in Chinese history, but while shedding tears of sympathy for our parents, the only thing we can do for future generations and survivors is to find a quiet place in the dead of night, alone to God, with the most humble, softest, and most tender heart, to offer our prayers and praises!
Let me end this article with “John 3:16”: God loved the world and even gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life! Li Guangping has won professional awards such as the “1996 Outstanding Musician Achievement Award in the Chinese Pop Music Circle”, the “Fifth Chinese Music Media Award – Special Contribution Award in the Chinese Music Circle”, and the “Outstanding Contribution Award for Musicians in the 30 Years of Guangdong Pop Music”. He is a member of the 1st and 2nd “Society Awards” Review Committee of the China Pop Music Society, and a judge of the National Pop Singer Newcomer Selection Competition. He is currently the artistic director of Beijing Starlight Culture Communication Co., Ltd., and currently lives in Beijing. Representative works: “Are You Okay in Another Country”, “Wet Heart”, “Believe in the Distance”, “101 Blessings”, etc., and composed more than 600 songs. He has won more than 60 central and provincial music creation awards. He has published two kinds of music criticism books and more than 100,000 words of music criticism articles.
Blog note: Once again, we hope that God’s mercy will always accompany Brother Li Guangping’s family and that the more they serve, the more humble they become, and the more they serve, the more blessed they be! May Brother Li and his daughters use God’s gift of music to spread it on this much-needed arid land in China! Please pray for their family! God commemorates and blesses them!
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect reward comes from above, from the Father of lights, and there is no change in Him, nor a shadow of turning. 1 Peter 4:11 If anyone preaches, let him speak according to the word of God, and if anyone serves, he should serve according to the strength given by God, that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. For to Him is the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen!
Introduction of Li Guangping
Li Guangping is a well-known music producer, lyric writer, expert in the planning, commenting, and promotion of music culture and music activities in China, and a member of the Chinese Musicians Association. He has won the 1996 Outstanding Musician Achievement Award in the Chinese Pop Music Scene, the Special Contribution Award in the Chinese Music Scene at the 5th Chinese Music Media Awards, and has served as a member of the 1st and 2nd “Society Awards” of the China Light Music Society and the China Pop Music Society, and a judge of the National Pop Singer Newcomer Selection Competition.
