Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself…. Neither can you, unless you abide in Me. John 15:4
Missionary pioneer Hudson Taylor worked so hard in China that his health was impaired. One day a letter came from a friend who wrote about the joy of abiding in Christ. The letter said, “Abiding, not striving nor struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present (perhaps power…. This is not new, and yet ‘tis new to me.”
Reading this at his mission station at Chin-kiang on September 4, 1869, Taylor’s eyes were opened. “As I read,” he recalled, “I saw it all. I looked to Jesus; and when I saw, oh how the joy flowed!” Writing to his sister, he said: “As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible, or so difficult; but the weight and strain are all gone. The last month or so has been perhaps the happiest of my life, and I long to tell you a little of what the Lord has done for my soul.”
This became known as the “Hudson Taylor Spiritual Secret.”
BOTTOM LINE:
Proclaiming the Word is not something we do for Christ but something He does through us as we abide in Him.
“The branch … rests in union and communion with the vine; and at the right time, and in the right way, is the right fruit found on it.” Hudson Taylor, sometime after his 9/4/1869 revelation.
NEXT UP: A Changeless God In A Senseless World