I would urge everyone to read the whole book. I read it a few years ago and it had a profound effect on me. I wept many times as I read the book. Oh if modern day ministries could get a hold of the truth that Hudson got a hold of, what a wonder that would be. No more begging for money from people. Just to know the call and go and know that if God did the calling then He would indeed provide. To lose wife and children and to keep on serving, setback after setback but never losing His relationship with the Lord, always maintaining his sensitivity to the presence of God. Knowing that he served a big enough God that could save all of China. And how brother Hudson will be rejoicing in heaven as he discovers the countless millions of Chinese who have come to Christ..............Frank

Interesting that you posted this. I listen to this audio book while I'm driving during the day. This chapter on the Exchanged Life is the turning point in Hudson Taylor's Christian walk. After receiving this truth by simple faith, he felt like a great burden had been lifted from him. He learned the great truth about the Christian life: it's not about trying (in your own ability to please God), it's about trusting (in the indwelling Christ to live a life pleasing to God thru you). The Lord has been speaking to me about this and the crucial point seems to be a close intimate relationship with Him. Don't think you can ever enter into this freedom and blessing without spending plenty of quality time in communion and fellowship with the Father and the Son. My favorite verse of scripture at the moment is John 14:21
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Thanks for posting this.

I just wanted to add that I found the book "Christ is All" that so touched Hudson Taylor. It was written by Stephen H. Tyng and published in 1849. Since it is in the public domain, nobody owns a copyright to it. You can read or download it online freely. I found it on Google Books. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but from the Table of Contents and preface, it looks like a winner. You can read it online at the link below. If you want to download it as a PDF document that can be read using Adobe Acrobat reader, there is a Download PDF link on the upper right side bar. Enjoy!

http://books.google.com/books?id=4TUPAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=editions:0HiygpcIcscm42vlGHd

[i]"But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One."[/i]

My, really good to read this over again and even more so after recognizing the amount of time that has elapsed since it was originally posted ... Some 5 years later.

Being such notoriously human creatures and knowing something of the change in conditions at any given moment ... I should be writing this in the first person more explicitly, since I am talking of my own foolishness ... But reading this again did bring to mind, just how well or is there any progression ... 5 years later?

At this particular moment and in the last number of weeks, perhaps month's if they were taken as a progression themselves, there is something very much similar underneath everything that is, well;

[i]And it is all so simple and practical!

"But are you always conscious of this abiding in Christ?" Mr. Taylor was asked many years later.

"While sleeping last night," he replied, "did I cease to abide in your home because I was unconscious of the fact? We should never be conscious of not abiding in Christ." [/i]

I would just love to say that there is some finality to it all, that the striving is finished, never again to be experienced ... But I have learned just what kind of a trickster I am, my own mind tripping me up, some condition or set of circumstances, some passion or emotional upheaval ready to thwart my best intentions and I cannot but expect that I would or could fall prey to any of them again. Quite likely.

For now, this particular season of multiple responsibilities, tensions, challenges - seems to have crushed out almost all of the striving and internal ... anxieties.

For lack of a better way of putting it, it's akin to a different 'giving up' - For one, there is not time for it!

:-) That is, striving and that spiritual-micro-management that we are all so fond of, at some level or another, the navel gazing turned serious inquiry that contradicts or is at times even a bit hypocritical - The idea that we aren't doing what we in fact [i]are[/i] doing. Creating theological brain puzzles or enjoining them- Berating ourselves without mercy (No, not excusing) ... Random thoughts.

For a long time now I have been very much fascinated by and would put this carefully, by Jesus character. I mean to say His character is character exemplified, that He defines just what character [i]is[/i]. And a whole host of words, more and more, come to bare. In our modern parlance - Cool. Calm. Collected. But others - Poise. Contentment. Being ...[i]unshaken[/i]. Being never [i]disheveled[/i], or knocked out of kilter. Faith. Trust. It is one thing and rightly to actually attempt to attain after these things, to be reminded of them and practice them, but there is all that which is being expressed here by Hudson Taylor ... That He is all these things and we are in fact partakers of them but casting ourselves back on to Him - If He is indeed abiding within us ... How incredible that is. But how much more incredible that we so often are so ignorant and forgetful of this!

Rest.

Such a profound word. It is incredible just how "simple and practical" it all really is. But it is paradoxical it seems the [i]difficulty[/i] of getting this through these (this) thick skull(s).

For now, I can only say, in the midst of all this upheaval and overwhelming situations and circumstances ... He is faithful and there is this subtle calm underneath, back of everything.

[i]And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! . . . I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ––ay, and risen too! And now Christ lives in me, and "the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."[/i]

Thanks for bringing this back up again brother, thanks for the reminders

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Mike Balog

Hi brother, I enjoyed reading your thoughts, they blessed me. The subject reminded me of "unconsious Christianity." Often times when the Lord is using us the most, it seems like we believe that we are furthest from Him. In the thrust of our lives, lives dedicated to God we walk. And yet the closer we walk with Him, the deeper the comunnion, the greater the revelation of who we are. I beleive that this was Paul's state as he wrote Romans 7. Its because of his proximity to God that he discovers that there is something in his very flesh, there is sin. Its the paradox of coming into His presence, glorious and oftentimes agonoizing all at the same time. The prophet, in the prsence of God cries "Woe is me, I am undone." Yet, I know, there would be no place he would rather be.

I know a couple. Mighty in God, gentle in spirit. They had 5 children, three had a syndrome which I could not spell or even pronounce. Very rare. Mother was the carrier. The oldest child lived until she was 17. They could not walk or talk and the most agile daughter could drag herself across the floor. One child died when she was twelve, the other when she was nine, that child having never left the bed or even made a grunt. The couple did not have a full nights sleep in 17 years. Yet people came to them. They were full of the love of God. And in a particular period of time this mother was used again and again by the Lord for other people. At a home meeting she confessed that she had been really struggling and that she felt that she had been letting her Lord down. The reality was quite the opposite. In her nearness to God, she did not even know that she was helping people. Therefore, far from being puffed up at the "works," she was doing, she was simply focused on her relationship with God and she knew that she fell short. The ministry that she was doing was so ingrained in her nature that it was not "ministry" at all, does that make sense? This was not a condemnation incident, this was just the reality of her realizing how far she had to go and striving to move forward.

"Mat 25:37 Then the righteous shall answer Him, saying, Lord, when did we see You hungry, and fed You? Or thirsty, and gave You drink? "

You see, the Righteous do not keep account of their "works," for they do what they do because they are like Jesus, it is their nature. It is like breathing. And the other side of this coin, is ...........


Mat 7:22 Many will say to Me in that day, Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in Your name, and through Your name throw out demons, and through Your name do many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!

When we stay close to the Lord, whether concious of His presense or not, we will do what we do because of who we are in Him. This is not to justify those who have never been "concious," of His presence, not at all. If you have never, at any time, been consious of His presence, then thats a whole other story :).......Frank

Just finishing the audio book, spent all day at work listening, cried when Grace died. I have been blessed by George Mueller's biography, but didn't know much about Hudson Taylor. This is the life God is calling us to as the Church. So completely abandoned, broken and trusting that we can't even fathom the possibility of God not keeping His word as a loving Papa. Incredible bio and example. Love in Christ, Barry

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Barry Voss

Is there an audio book for George Mueller? I was challanged by young Hudson Taylor's dedication to very meager living arrangments, as well as his zeal for ministering to the slums on Sunday nights.

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Buck Yates

Just finished pt. 8 of 10 of the audio book found here http://www.gratisaudio.com/2005/05/hudson-taylors-spiritual-secret.html

What trust he had! Three of his children buried in China; Grace, Samuel, and Noel. His first wife Maria buried in China and his health utterly failing him at a mere 33 years of age. Unbelievable.

Joe