Daily Devotion

“"Ah, there is rest!" I thought. "I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I'll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me — never to leave me, never to fail me?" … The sweetest part … is the rest which full identification with Christ brings. … No fear that His resources will be unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me. All this springs from the believer's oneness with Christ.”

James Hudson Taylor · Letter to his sister Mrs. Broomhall, 17 Oct. 1869, in Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission: The Growth of a Work of God (1918), ch. 12 "The Exchanged Life"

Scripture

John 15:4-5 Remain in me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

Reflection

A true breakthrough in faith lies in shifting from "working for God" to "resting in Christ." Hudson Taylor came to see that rest lies not in striving to believe, but in oneness with Christ and reliance on the Faithful One. This means we are not merely waiting for future salvation, but are rooted in the already abundant abundance. Just as the branch is connected to the vine not by striving to gain nourishment, but by drawing upon the life force already prepared by the roots, when you lie like a baby in the Lord's embrace, you enter into eternal rest—no longer struggling for peace, but facing all today's challenges from the victory He has already achieved.