The Grace of God enables you to Exchange your Life for Jesus Life - Hudson Taylor

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The Exchanged Life Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret

Hudson Taylor was a missionary to China and the founder of the China Inland Mission (now OMF).

Early in his career Taylor struggled with a lack of spiritual power, but that changed once he discovered the principle of the Exchanged Life.

Taylor learned to draw upon the wealth of Christ for every need, and this became for him a great source of inward joy and power.

His biographers describe the effect of the exchanged life upon him:

Whenever he spoke in meetings after that, a new power seemed to flow from him, and in the practical things of life a new peace possessed him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way, and gave more time to prayer.

In this excerpt Hudson Taylor describes how he came to discover the exchanged life.

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Taylor's struggle

I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation--but all without avail.

Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. 

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Then came the questions, is there no rescue? 

Must it be thus to the end--constant conflict, and too often defeat?

Instead of growing stronger, I seemed to be getting weaker and to have less power against sin;

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Christ's abiding presence

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed to me the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before.

"But how to get faith strengthened?

Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One." 

As I read, I saw it all!

"If we believe not, he abideth faithful."

I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed)!

That He had said, "I will never leave thee." (Hebrews 13:5) 

 

"Ah, there is rest!" I thought.

"I have striven in vain to rest in Him.

I'll strive no more.

For has not He promised to abide with me--never to leave me, never to fail me?" 

And, He never will.

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The key to the exchanged life

It is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ!
Think what it involves.
Can Christ be rich and I poor?
Can your right hand be rich and your left poor?
Or your head be well fed while your body starves?
…No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus

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Resources sufficient for any task

The sweetest part is the rest which full identification with Christ brings.

I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this;

for He, I know, is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine.

It makes no matter where He places me, or how.

That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His Grace, and in the most difficult His Grace is sufficient. 

[Excerpted from 'The Exchanged Life' chapter in Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret]