Hudson Taylor: One can trust God with his last cent

“It was at Drainside, Taylor learned one can trust God with his last cent. He had been called out late one night to witness to and pray over a sick woman with starving children. As he tried to pray, his words choked in his mouth because he had in his possession a silver coin that would answer his prayer and alleviate their sufferings somewhat.

“Hypocrite!” he heard his heart condemn him. “Telling people about a kind and loving Father in Heaven—and not prepared to trust Him yourself, without your money!” He gave them his last coin—only one bowl of porridge between him and poverty! As he ate that last meal he remembered the Scripture, “He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.”

The next day he received a package. In it was a gold coin—worth ten times the silver coin. Taylor cried out triumphantly, “That’s good interest! Ha! Ha! Invested in God’s bank for twelve hours and it brings me this! That’s the bank for me!”

J. Hudson Taylor: Pioneer Missionary (1832-1905) in Missionary Biographies by Fred Barlow (Profiles in Evangelism, 1976).

“Giving ourselves to Christ’s service, at the cost of serving our own plans for ourselves, whatever their source and whatever their merit, is the response of faith and the cost of discipleship…It is about giving away our lives so we can secure them for eternity…The collective testimony of the saints who have gone before is is that Jesus did not lie about the way to let life slip away and the way to find life and keep it forever.”

David A. DeSilva in Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation through the Book of Common Prayer (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000) 192.

“If evangelism is telling the good news of God’s love, then stewardship is showing the good news by the way we live.”

Betsy Schwarzentraub in Afire with God: Becoming Spirited Stewards (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 2000) 13.

“Surely it must be confessed to be a matter of small account to sacrifice a little worldly comfort and prosperity during the short span of our existence in this life, in order to secure a crown of eternal glory, and the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at God’s right hand for evermore! It might be added also, that our blessed Saviour had fairly declared, that it would often be required of Christians to make such a sacrifice; and had forewarned us, that, in order to be able to do it with cheerfulness whenever the occasion should arrive, we must habitually sit loose to all worldly possessions and enjoyments.”

Wlliam Wilberforce (1759-1833) A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians with the Higher and Middle Classes contrasted with Real Christianity (Boston: Nathaniel Willis, 1815) 290-291.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel, will save it. Mark 8:35

“America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, etc.

Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice…

Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family, and as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves, we have nearly lost ourselves.”

Ralph Winter in “Reconsecration to a Wartime, not a Peacetime, Lifestyle” in Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 2nd edition (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1999) 706.

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become some ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in” : aim at earth and you will get neither.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) in Mere Christianity III. 10:118.

“It is not the rich man only who is under the dominion of things; they too are slaves who, having no money, are unhappy for the lack of it.”

George MacDonald (1824-1905) in George MacDonald by C.S. Lewis (New York: HarperOne, 2001) 38.

“The man who has tasted the things of heaven easily thinks nothing of what is below, but he who has no taste of heaven finds pleasure in possessions.”

St. John Climacus (c. 525-606) in the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 17.

“Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.”

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, (354-430) as quoted in Randy Alcorn, Managing God’s Money (Carol Stream: Tyndale, 2011) 72.

“God gives so we can become joyful givers and not just self-absorbed receivers…

Here is roughly how sin works in relation to God the giver. All things are from God and through God, and yet we want to be independent of God, standing on our own two feet, claiming God’s gifts as our own achievement…

Most of us, especially the believers among us, won’t deny God’s existence in order to secure our independence. Instead, we think we can have it both ways. We believe that we can stand on our own two feet, independent of God, and still affirm that God is the creator of everything…

When we assert our independence, when we ascribe to ourselves what comes from God, we wrong God…

We might not feel particularly grateful for what we have because we think that, rather than receiving it, we earned it. And we want to disposed of our hard-earned goods the way we please; they become not so much gifts given to us to enjoy and pass on, but rather exclusive possessions.

Assertion of independence, pride of achievement, sense of entitlement, an absolute right to dispose with our goods—these are the ways in which we live in contradiction to who we actually are in relation to God…

To live in sync with who we truly are means to recognize that we are dependent on God for our very breath and are graced with many good things; it means to be grateful to the giver and attentive to the purpose for which the gifts are given.”

Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 28, 35-36.