Hudson taylor quotes

When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.

If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Saviour's plain command to go?

God is not looking for men of great faith, He is looking for common men to trust His great faithfulness.

Unless you intend your wife to be a true missionary, not merely a wife, home-maker, and friend, do not join us.

When we work, we work. When we pray, God works.

If we wait till we run no risk, the gospel will never be introduced into the interior.

The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity...if we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."

Are you in a hurry, flurried, distressed? Look up! See the Man in the Glory! Let the face of Jesus shine upon you—the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is He worried, troubled, distressed? There is no wrinkle on His brow, no least shade of anxiety. Yet the affairs are His as much as yours.

If the Lord is coming soon, is this not a very practical motive for greater missionary effort? I know of no other motive that has been so stimulating to myself.

Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.

It matters not how great the pressure is, only where the pressure lies. As long as the pressure does not come between me and my Savior, but presses me to Him, then the greater the pressure, the greater my dependence upon Him.

A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in little things is a great thing.

Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; that we walk in His ways and seek to please and glorify Him in everything, great and small. Depend upon it, God's work, done in God's way, will never lack God's supplies.

If this is a real work for God it is a real conflict with Satan.

If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China.

All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of His grace, power and love.

Many Christians estimate difficulties in the light of their own resources, and thus attempt little and often fail in the little they attempt. All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His power and presence with them.

Dream a dream so big that unless God intervenes it will fail.

To every toiling, heavy-laden sinner, Jesus says, Come to me and rest. But there are many toiling, heavy-laden believers, too. For them this same invitation is meant. Note well the words of Jesus, if you are heavy-laden with your service, and do not mistake it. It is not, Go, labor on, as perhaps you imagine. On the contrary, it is stop, turn back, Come to me and rest. Never, never did Christ send a heavy laden one to work; never, never did He send a hungry one, a weary one, a sick or sorrowing one, away on any service. For such the Bible only says, Come, come, come.

I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him to do His work through me.

Depend on it. God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. He is too wise a God to frustrate His purposes for lack of funds, and He can just as easily supply them ahead of time as afterwards, and He much prefers doing so.

In Shansi I found Chinese Christians who were accustomed to spend time in fasting and prayer. They recognized that this fasting, which so many dislike, which requires faith in God, since it makes one feel weak and poorly, is really a Divinely appointed means of grace. Perhaps the greatest hindrance to our work is our own imagined strength; and in fasting we learn what poor, weak creatures we are-dependent on a meal of meat for the little strength which we are so apt to lean upon.

In nothing do we fail more, as a Mission, than in lack of tact and politeness.

I myself, for instance, am not especially gifted, and am shy by nature, but my gracious and merciful God and Father inclined Himself to me, and when I was weak in faith He strengthened me while I was still young. He taught me in my helplessness to rest on Him, and to pray even about little things in which another might have felt able to help himself.

If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life.

There are three great truths, 1st, That there is a God; 2nd, That He has spoken to us in the Bible; 3rd, That He means what He says.

Satan may build a hedge about us and fence us in and hinder our movements, but he cannot roof us in and prevent our looking up.

Carrying the cross does mean following in Jesus' footsteps. And in His footsteps are rejection, brokenheartedness, persecution and death. There are not two Christs - an easy going one for easy going Christians, and a suffering one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ. Are we willing to follow His lead?

Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change.

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; Heaven so real that we must have men there.

An easy, non-self-denying life will never be one of power.

When the heart submits, then Jesus reigns. When Jesus reigns, there is rest.

The harvest here is indeed great, and the laborers are few and imperfectly fitted, without much grace, for such a work. And yet grace can make a few feeble instruments the means of accomplishing great things - things greater even than we can conceive.

I am so weak that I can hardly write, I cannot read my Bible, I cannot even pray, I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child, and trust.

Were it not for the consciousness of Christ in my life, hour by hour, I could not go on. But He is teaching me the glorious lessons of His sufficiency, and each day I am carried onward with no feeling of strain or fear of collapse.

The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.

The less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.

As our Father makes many a flower to bloom unseen in the lonely desert, [let us] do all that we can do, as under God's eye, though no other eye ever take note of it.

God means just what He says and He will do all that He has promised.

As a rule, prayer is answered and funds come in, but if we are kept waiting, the spiritual blessing that is the outcome is far more precious than exemption from the trial.

There are three indispensable requirements for a missionary: 1. Patience 2. Patience 3. Patience.

Consider six or eight hours a day sacred to the Lord and His work, and let nothing hinder your giving this time (to language study and practice) till you can preach fluently and intelligibly.

The real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will.

Learn to move man, through God, by prayer alone

[God] wants you to have something far better than riches and gold, and that is helpless dependence upon Him.

There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult,done.

If I had a thousand pounds, China should have it. If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him?

There has never been a successful social movement for any minority without the support of the majority.

God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.

Abiding in Jesus isn't fixing our attention on Christ, but it is being one with Him... A man is abiding just as much when he is sleeping for Jesus, as when he is awake and working for Jesus. Oh, it is a very sweet thing to have one's mind just resting there.

Jesus is our strength, and what we cannot do or bear, He can both do and bear in us.

Nothing can take the place of a real hunger for souls, or make up for the lack of it.

I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize that He is able to carry out His will for me. It does not matter where He places me, or how. That is for Him to consider, not me, for in the easiest positions He will give me grace, and in the most difficult ones His grace is sufficient.

Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference...instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.

God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him

It is not so much the greatness of our troubles, as the littleness of our spirit, which makes us complain.

All God's giants have been weak men and women who have gotten hold of God's faithfulness.

The hardest part of a missionary career is to maintain regular, prayerful Bible study. Satan will always find you something to do, when you ought to be occupied about that - if it is only arranging a window blind!

But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.

God's work is not man working for God; it is God's own work, though often wrought through man's hands.

It is the consciousness of the threefold joy of the Lord, His joy in ransoming us, His joy in dwelling within us as our Saviour and Power for fruitbearing and His joy in possessing us, as His Bride and His delight; it is the consciousness of this joy which is our real strength. Our joy in Him may be a fluctuating thing: His joy in us knows no change.

It is not lost time to wait upon God!

Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.

We have heard of many people who trusted God too little, but have you ever heard of anyone who trusted Him too much?

Let but faithful labourers be found, who will prove faithful to God, and there is no reason to fear that God will not prove faithful to them.

Power with God will be the gauge of real power with men.

I often think that God must have been looking for someone small enough and weak enough for Him to use, and that He found me.

Satan, the Hinderer, may build a barrier about us, but he can never roof us in, so that we cannot look up.

Not infrequently our GOD brings His people into difficulties on purpose that they may come to know Him as they could not otherwise do.

The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine...Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.

I have seen many men work without praying, though I have never seen any good come out of it; but I have never seen a man pray without working.

Devotion to God is still a voluntary thing; hence the differences of attainment among Christians.

it is no small comfort to me to know that God has called me to my work, putting me where I am and as I am. I have not sought the position, and I dare not leave it. He knows why He places me here-whether to do, or learn, or suffer.

Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives.

Oh, for eloquence to plead the cause of China, for a pencil dipped in fire to paint the condition of this people.

While unbelief sees the difficulties, faith sees God between itself and them.

Let us give up our work, our thoughts, our plans, ourselves, our lives, our loved ones, our influence, our all, right into His hand, and then, when we have given all over to Him, there will be nothing left for us to trouble about, or to make trouble about.

Too often we attempt to work for God to the limit of our incompetency, rather than to the limit of God's omnipotency.

The Lord IS my shepherd. Not was, not may be, nor will be. . . is my shepherd on Sunday, is on Monday, and is through every day of the week; is in January, is in December, and every month of the year, is at home, and is in China; is in peace, and is in war; in abundance, and in penury.

If it is true in anything, it is especially true of divine things, what costs little is worth little.

We are not only to renounce evil, but to manifest the truth. We tell people the world is vain; let our lives manifest that it is so. We tell them that our home is above and that all these things are transitory. Does our dwelling look like it? O to live consistent lives!

Fruit-bearing involves cross-bearing. There are not two Christs--an easygoing one for easygoing Christians, and a suffering, toiling one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ. Are you willing to abide in Him, and thus to bear much fruit?

One difficulty follows another very fast - but God reigns, not chance.

It does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies -- whether it comes between you and God, or whether it presses you nearer His heart.

You do not need a great faith, but faith in a great God.

Believing prayer will lead to whole-hearted action.

Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.

When I cannot read, when I cannot think, when I cannot even pray, I can trust.

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many.

Truly Jesus is the great need of our souls.

The missionary spirit is the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of the incarnation and the cross.

So if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in places of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? No fear that HIs resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.

Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all

All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reackoned on God being with them.

Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success.

Let us never forget that what we are is more important than what we do.