What we need is to be drinking!

Hudson Taylor was a pioneer missionary who lived to take the Gospel to inland China. While the need for the lost peoples of China served as a great motivator for Taylor, his supreme motivation was the joy of knowing and serving Jesus.


For Hudson Taylor, John 7:37-38 became foundational for the way that he thought and for the way that he lived out the Christian life. There Jesus says, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."


Read Taylor's comments on this passage and see how it drove his life to be saturated with the desire for Christ and being satisfied in Him:

 “Who does not thirst? Who has not mind-thirsts, heart-thirsts, soul-thirsts, or body-thirsts? Well, no matter which, or whether I have them all – “Come unto Me and” remain thirsty? Ah no! “Come unto Me and drink.”

“What, can Jesus meet my need? Yes, and more than meet it. No matter how intricate my path, how difficult my service; no matter how sad my bereavement, how far away my loved ones; no matter how helpless I am, how deep are my soul-yearnings – Jesus can meet all, all, and more than meet. He not only promises me rest – ah, how welcome that would be, were it all, and what an all that one word embraces! He not only promises me drink to alleviate my thirst. No, better than that! He who trusts Jesus out of him shall flow…”

 “Can it be? Can the dry and thirsty one not only be refreshed – the parched soil moistened, the arid places cooled – but the land be so saturated that springs well up and streams flow down from it? Even so! And not mere mountain-torrents, full while the rain lasts, then dry again…but, “from within him shall flow rivers” – rivers like the mighty Yangtze (great river in China), ever deep, ever full. In times of drought brooks may fail, often do, canals may be pumped dry, often are, but the Yangtze never. Always a mighty stream, always flowing deep and irresistible!”

 “Come unto me and drink. Not, come and take a hasty draught; not, come and slightly alleviate, or for a short time remove one’s thirst. No! Drink or be drinking constantly, habitually. The cause of thirst may be irremediable. One coming, one drinking may refresh and comfort: but we are to be ever coming, ever drinking. No fear of emptying the fountain or exhausting the river!”

On another occasion Taylor wrote:

“Do not let us change the Savior’s words. It is not ‘whosoever has drunk,’ but ‘whosoever drinks.’ It is not one of isolated draught He speaks, or even many, but of the continuous habit of the soul. The habit of coming in faith to Him is incompatible with unmet hunger and thirst. It seems to me that where many of us err is in leaving our drinking in the past, while our thirst continues in the present. What we need is to be drinking – yes, thankful for each occasion which drives us to drink ever more deeply of the living water.”

Let us come to Jesus and drink! And may the sovereign Lord of the universe give us the grace to make us always thirst for more!