RIVERSIDE, Calif. (March 3, 2015) -- Dr. Christopher Yuan shared his story of God's love and grace in his life during chapel services March 2 and 4 at California Baptist University.

Yuan is a professor at Moody Bible Institute and last year earned a doctorate from Bethel Seminary in St. Paul, Minn. But before that happened, he was on a very different path, he told chapel audiences.

While attending dental school, he began living promiscuously as a gay man and experimenting with drugs. He was expelled from dental school and later was imprisoned for drug dealing and discovered that he was HIV positive.

"According to the world, I had it all. Money, fame, drugs and sex," Yuan said. "I had exchanged the truth of God for a lie and I began worshipping and serving the creature, rather than the creator."

While he was still at dental school, his parents became Christians. His mother prayed for him and continued to reach out to him.

"My mother began to pray a very bold prayer -- ‘God, do whatever it takes, whatever it takes to bring this prodigal son to you,'" Yuan said.

It was while he was in prison that he became a Christian. He felt called to full-time ministry in prison and when he was released, he began attending Moody Bible Institute, where he is now a professor.

"From prisoner to professor, how about that for a resume?" Yuan said. "But God has done far more abundantly beyond all that we have asked or thought."

Yuan's desire is to minister to those working through issues of sexuality and to those living with HIV/AIDS. He speaks locally and internationally, on college campuses and in churches. His parents often speak with him, and he and his mother co-authored a book, "Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son's Journey to God, A Broken Mother's Search for Hope."

He acknowledges in his younger years he had no interest in God, made bad decisions, which resulted in bad consequences. But the reality is everyone is sinful, he said, and everyone's days is numbered.

"Not one person in this room – student, faculty, staff, administration – has ever been promised tomorrow here on earth. But don't we take tomorrow for granted?" he said. "As a child of God, I must live with a sense of urgency."