Learning To Walk As Jesus Walked
For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God.
Hebrews 2:17
Soon after he arrived in inland China, J. Hudson Taylor spoke Chinese, wore Chinese clothes, ate Chinese food and observed Chinese customs. As a pioneer missionary to the masses of people in the interior of China, Taylor knew the importance of identifying with those he wanted to reach.
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When God became man in the person of Christ, he secured our salvation by living and dying as God incarnate, in the flesh. J. Hudson Taylor explains why identification with the lost is a powerful testimony of Christ’s incarnation.
WALK WITH J. HUDSON TAYLOR
“Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to the One who appointed him, and left us an example that we should follow.
“To save man he became Man—not merely like man, but very man. In language, in costume, in everything unsinful, he made himself one with those he sought to benefit.
“Had he been born a noble Roman rather than a Jew, he would perhaps have commanded more of a certain kind of respect; and he would assuredly have been spared much indignity. This, however, was not his aim; he emptied himself.
“Surely no follower of the meek and lowly Jesus will be likely to conclude that it is beneath the dignity of a Christian to seek identification with poor people, in the hope that he may see them washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God!
“Let us be followers of him.”
WALK CLOSER TO GOD
J. Hudson Taylor’s strategy for reaching the teeming millions of China was simple: When in China, do as the Chinese do. Those with a genuine concern for the lost will do everything they can to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:15).
Jesus did; J. Hudson Taylor did. What about you?
