“Let her alone; she did this for Me, for My burial.”[4] In other words, she could see something about the plans, purposes, and worth of Jesus no one else could see. And Jesus didn’t just vindicate her good deed—He told everyone to emulate it, and mention it every time the Gospel is introduced to someone so they could replicate it.[5]
In other words, it’s possible to preach an incomplete “Gospel of the Kingdom”[6] without it.
Mary’s glimpse of the glory of God drove a decision that didn’t only affect her that night—it had severe and real consequences for the rest of her life. Her thirties. Her forties. Her fifties. Her sixties. Every day until she passed into glory would’ve been marked by a moment in her youth, when she realized God gets all. Deserves all. Should be lavished upon.
She didn’t invent this revelation. It is woven throughout Scripture— “all the heavens and earth declare the glory of God,”[7] and “from the rising of the sun to its setting, [His] name will be great among the nations;”[8] in fact, all nations will stream to Him.[9] The knowledge of His glory will cover the earth like waters cover the sea,[10] and His presence will put both the moon and sun to shame.[11]
But we are not stars, nor are we tides told to stop at shorelines. We are bearers of the Holy Image[12] made and saved for “good works.”[13] How are we to respond to the revelation of His glory? What does it mean to see what the young girl in Bethany saw?
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”[14] This “greatest commandment”[15] informs, instructs, and inspires us: God is everything, deserves everything, and is worth everything. We cannot “abide”[16] if we deviate from this truth—and we will not bear “good fruit”[17] if we don’t abide.
Some of us, like the early apostles, take months or years after confessing Christ to see this truth, to give ourselves to His worth. Others, like Mary, make their decision in moments. Hudson Taylor had a heart like Mary’s, and in his “sinner’s prayer,” he truly gave his heart and life to Jesus—not because he felt he needed to prove himself or compensate for grace, but simply because he loved Jesus and wanted to give Him what He deserves:
I besought Him to give me some work for Him, as an outlet for love and gratitude, some self-denying service, no matter however trying or however trivial.[18]
Put simply, James Hudson Taylor loved Jesus. He was devoted to Jesus, and this devotion drove him to live with a rare kind of clarity we can only thank God we’re able to witness as we study his life. Still, his laser-like focus on his single lifelong vision—to exalt the Jesus he loved so dearly amongst those who have never heard His name—was obsessive. If he were as committed to any cause other than Christ, we’d perceive his obsession as lunacy. We are stirred, then, by his example. Provoked. Challenged. What can we glean from the treasury of his life? Can we do what he did?
It certainly isn’t impossible. Like so many of us, Taylor heard no “voice from the heavens” about China. He was emboldened for service to God in the same way as Mary of Bethany—both had a revelation of the Cross, the perfect One on it, and the Father who sent Him to it. This revelation brought both to their knees with this question burning in their hearts: “What can I do for Him?” In the same way that Jesus pointed to Mary’s devotion and instructed us to include her in the story of the Gospel, so too we can see the same example to emulate in Hudson Taylor’s life. The “greatest commandment” is to love Jesus with everything we have; this is His inheritance from us, and it is our highest calling to give it to Him. We get to love Him “rightly.”[19]
The loving devotion offered from our hearts, souls, minds, and bodies holds nothing back. It is the only appropriate, affectionate response to the Christ who held and holds nothing back. Taylor lived this. For a year after coming to the Lord, he lived with a very intentional “yes” in his gut. He did not qualify it. He did not temper it. He did not pray, “You can have everything (except that).” It is the grace of God to allow us to see His kindness and glory. It is our privilege to respond to Him, and Hudson Taylor emptied his pockets and shattered his alabaster. Let us not squash the desire in our own hearts to do the same. How right and good and beautiful and true a witness we can give to His worth when we see all that He is, to such depth and degree that we rush around the room gathering all our valuables and throwing them at Jesus’ feet.
This is why Hudson Taylor gave his life to a foreign field he never felt explicitly “called to.” He went because he loved Jesus, and it bothered him that no one in China had ever heard the precious Name that had saved that young man from Hell.
This is where Hudson Taylor’s life confronts us. We can either elevate him to some kind of “superhero” status beyond our own capacities, or we can emulate him because we have the same Spirit and same Scriptures and same Jesus. What did Mary know about Jesus that led her to hinge her life on His worth? What did Taylor know? What should the nations know?
We must ask ourselves, what is our modern China? Does it bother us that 3,140,900,000 people alive and breathing as you read this have not heard about the One who plucked you out of your death and depravity?[20] If not, why not?
We’ve heard the numbers and percentages. The amount of people without a witness of Jesus is huge. With 13,315 missionaries working in unreached nations, there is a major lack of access to the knowledge of Jesus. It has to make you wonder who’s ignoring it: God or us? We know that the Father put His Son on display and He doesn’t wish for any to perish but for all to come to Him through Jesus. But they must be told, and in the words of Paul, how can they believe without hearing, and who will tell them if not us?
Scripture promises that the knowledge of God will cover the Earth as the water covers the sea. He is going to make His Son famous, but how? It’s been two millennia since the mystery of Christ in us was revealed, what is He waiting for? He’s waiting for the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached throughout the whole earth.[21] He is patient because He will get what He deserves.
Revelation 7 gives us a picture of what it will look like: every tribe, tongue, people, and nation worshipping! No matter what it costs, having a hand in Jesus getting what is due Him is worth it. On that glorious day, I hope many of us can be proud that the work of our life was gathering those who would love Him. When our work is burned in a testing fire, I hope we can be proud of what’s left. Let it not be mostly ashes, temporary and worthless in light of Him. We all want to stand and look into Jesus’ eyes with a wheel barrow full of work that stood the fire. What work is that? One that, in spite of all other “worthwhile” things, served and glorified Jesus glory and return. Our work should be one that brings God’s tabernacling sooner to us.
What we choose to put our hands to, reveals what we love most. If we look down and are convicted that it will not last into eternity, we can change! It’s never too late to waste everything and follow our Lamb. Let’s look to the Father and leave our temporal work behind. Giving us, like Hudson Taylor with the “cloud of witnesses” this testimony: He’s worth it. And I have no regrets:
If I had a thousand pounds, China should have it. If I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him?[22]
Amanda Scott and her husband Jordan are founding members of the Frontier Alliance International family. They have spearheaded a number of initiatives on the Gospel frontier, most recently the Haven Addiction Refuge.
[1] John 12:3
[2] John 12:7
[3] John 12:4–5
[4] John 12:7
[5] Matthew 26:13
[6] Matthew 24:14
[7] Psalm 19:1
[8] Malachi 1:11
[9] Isaiah 2:2–3; Micah 4:2
[10] Habakkuk 2:14
[11] Psalm 113:6
[12] Genesis 1:27
[13] Ephesians 2:10
[14] Deuteronomy 6:4–5
[15] Matthew 22:36–40
[16] John 15:1–8
[17] Ephesians 2:10
[18] J. Hudson Taylor, A Retrospect.
[19] See Song of Solomon 1:4
[20] The Joshua Project, 2018. Accessed 15 November 2018 from https://joshuaproject.net/ people_groups/statistics.
[21] Matthew 24:14
[22] J. Hudson Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d.
