Feeding and Abiding

The following is a transcription of Hudson Taylor's talk in Shan-si, China in July of 1886 as compiled in the book Days of Blessing in Inland China by Montagu Beauchamp, who was one of the Cambridge Seven:

"He [the Lord Jesus] also gives us a precious word about abiding in Him. How is it to be brought about? 'He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth (is abiding) in Me and I in him.'

"What an illustration food gives of abiding. What is food? It is something that is calculated to build up our bodies. We see a baby, it has become heavy--where did the additional weight come from? It is caused by the food that abides in it; and our food not only abides in us, but we abide in it. So also with Christ; we feed on Christ, and think about Christ, and Christ builds us up. Thus abiding in Him, how truly we become one with Him, and grow up into Him.

"We cannot pick a man to pieces and take the food out of him. We cannot reduce him to a baby again. And what shall separate us from the love of Christ? 'Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?' There shall be no picking us to pieces again, and reducing us to our baby state as Christians.

"But you say, 'I have been feeding for years: yet the abiding is broken; how is this?' It may be that the eyes of your understanding need enlghtening : you are not apprehending, and consequently not appropriating by faith, the fruits of abiding.

"For myself, I can say that for sixteen or seventeen years after my conversion I had no idea of what abiding in Christ was, I thought of it as attaining, as a hand over hand climbing only possible to a spiritual athlete. That abiding is resting, as I am abiding in this chair, I had no idea.

"I thought it was a tremendous climb, needing the strength of a spiritual giant, but a hopeless task for a weak man like me. Then came home to me, 'He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood is abiding in Me and I in him.' I considered my body in relation to food: my hair, my nails, my skin as but transformed food, in which I was abiding, while it was abiding in me. And so I learned what abiding in Christ is, and the importance of feeding on Him.

"Now feeding is voluntary and active: abiding is passive; and it is not a thing of consciousness. I am as much abiding when asleep, as when preaching. Feeding is not a constant act: what should we say of anyone who was always at the table? So we need not always be reading our Bibles, or be in the attitude of prayer all day long in order to abide in Christ. Let us feed on Him, and then go about our duty, knowing that so doing we are abiding in Him and He in us.

"We cannot bear fruit if we are not abiding: fruit is the evidence of abiding. Now the fruits of abiding must be claimed by faith. What are they? Answers to prayer, abundant fruitfulness, and a Christ-like walk. 'He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much fruit;' and fruit that shall remain or abide."