Missions Quotations

“I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me; otherwise I might have died in the mistaken notion that I was a learned fellow.”
- Martin Luther

“I like what I’m doing better than what you’re not doing.”
- Dr. Charles Keen

“In all things not sinful, become Chinese”
- James Hudson Taylor

“If I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary’s love”
– Amy Carmichael

“Your eyes are of little use if your mind is closed.”
– (Arab Proverb)

“Why do what others can and will do, when there is so much that needs to be done that others will not do?”
– Dawson Trotman, Founder of Navigators

“I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God’s global mission.  Now I have another idea.  Let’s take God’s global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church.”
- George Miley

“I am ready to burn out for God.  I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some.  The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.”
- William Burns

“All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!”
- Jonathan Goforth

“Whom God would use greatly He will hurt deeply.”
- A.W. Tozer

“I will open Africa to the gospel or die trying.”
- Rowland Bingham

“Do not think me mad.  It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live.  The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give.”
- David Livingstone

“If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies.  And if they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay.  If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
- Charles H. Spurgeon

“The greatest tragedy to befall a person is to have sight but lack vision.”
- Helen Keller

“When God’s finger points, God’s hand will open the door.”
- Clarence Jones

“At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer’s love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces.  I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus Himself.”
- John G. Patton

“Jehovah Witnesses don’t believe in hell and neither do most Christians.”
- Leonard Ravenhill

“With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.”
- James Hudson Taylor

“As a hungry man makes dispatch and takes large morsels on account of his great hunger, so Thy servant feels a great desire to die that he may glorify Thee.  He hurries day and night to complete his work in order that he may give up his blood and his tears to be shed for Thee.”
- Raymond Lull

“While vast continents are shrouded in darkness… the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field.”
- Ion Keith Falconer

“You can do something other than working with God in His purpose, but it will always be something lesser, and you couldn’t come up with something better.”
- Steve Hawthorne

“When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything.  My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.”
- James Hudson Taylor

“A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves.  Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.”
- K.P. Yohannon

“The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West.”
- E. Stanley Jones

“From my many years’ experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.”
- Sadhu Sundhar Singh

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.”
- Clarence W. Jones

“God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know.”
- David Bryant

“I have said that there is nothing in the world or the Church, except it’s disobedience, to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility except disobedience.”
- Robert Speer

“We have a God who delights in impossibilities.”
- Andrew Murray

“Two distinguishing marks of the early church were:  1) Poverty and  2) Power.”
- T.J. Bach

“I am ready to burn out for God.  I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some.  The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.”
- William Burns

“God has huge plans for the world today!  He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation.  Even now, He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth.”
- David Smithers

“The history of missions has been the history of answered prayer.  From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual…”
- Samuel Zwemer

“Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?”
- K.P. Yohannon

“Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.”
- Oswald Chambers

“Today Christians spend more money on dog food than missions.”
- Leonard Ravenhill

“All roads lead to the Judgment Seat of Christ.”
- Keith Green

“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.”
- John Stott

“I feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians.”
- Samuel Zwemer

“Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them.”
- David Bryant

“We who have Christ’s eternal life need to throw away our own lives.”
- George Verwer

“God provides the men and women needeed for each generation.”
- Mildred Cable

“It is one of the great tragedies of church history — the divorce between the church and her mission.  Today few churches even know that the divorce occurred, making it even more painful.  The separation has persisted so long that it seems normal.”
- Tom Julien

“To be aroused in the dark by five feet of cold, green snake gliding over one’s face is unpleasant.”
- David Livingstone

“Fear God and work hard.”
- David Livingstone

“There is a Ruler above, and His Providence guides all things.  He is our Friend and has plenty of work for all His people to do.  It is such a blessing and a privilege to be led into His work instead of into the service of the hard taskmasters – the Devil and sin.”
- David Livingstone

“May the time come when rich men and great men would think it an honor to support whole stations of missionaries in Africa, instead of spending their money on hounds and horses.”
- David Livingstone

 “God cannot bless your ignorance – no matter how much you dedicate it!”
- David Mays

“Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives.  Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within His followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world He came to redeem.  Fame, pleasure, and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of His eternal plans.  The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards.”
- J. Campbell White

“Why do you need a voice when you already have a verse.”
- Jim Elliot

“It is just as proper, maybe even more so, to say Christ’s global cause has a Church as to say Christ’s Church has a global cause.”
- David Bryant

 

“There are three stages in the work of God: Impossible; Difficult; Done.”
- James Hudson Taylor

“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.”
- John Keith Falconer

“If you want the Kingdom speeded, go out and speed it yourselves.  Only obedience rationalizes prayer.  Only Missions can redeem your intercessions from insincerity.”
- William Carey

“The higher the monkey climbs, the more his nakedness shows.”
- African Proverb (on leadership)

“The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.”
- John Piper

“Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish…..You don’t praise what you don’t prize.”
- John Piper

“As we seek to find out why, with such millions of Christians, the real army of God that is fighting the hosts of darkness is so small, the only answer is – lack of heart. The enthusiasm of the kingdom is missing. And that is because there is so little enthusiasm for the King.”
- Andrew Murray

“All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and His Son among all the peoples of the earth.”
- John Piper

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas; but for scars.”
- (unknown) 

“God is far more to His people than One who commands, but He is not less.”
- John Piper

“The ultimate purpose…is that God be prized above all things.”
- John Piper

“Grace is free because God is jealous to be seen as an inexhaustible fountain of self-replenishing life and power and joy.”
- John Piper

“The opposite of covetousness is contentment in God which is what faith is.”
- John Piper

“Grace is owing entirely to something amazing in God.”
- John Piper

“Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God.”
- John Piper

“God will spend eternity exhausting the treasures of His immeasureable grace on us.”
- John Piper

“In faith, there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”
– Blaise Pascal

“I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.  Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine.  I don’t want enough of Him to make me love a black man [or any different ethnic group] or pick beets with a migrant.  I want ecstasy, not transformation.  I want the warmth of the womb not a new birth.  I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.  I’d like to buy $3 worth of God, please [How much do you want?].”
- Wilbur Reese

“Ministers have the central responsibility for ensuring that missions are a principal passion of their congregations (and not a peripheral program for the super saints).”
– Michael Griffiths

“Is is one thing for a minister to be an advocate and supporter of missions: it is another and very different thing for him to understand that missions are the chief end of the church, and therefore the chief end for which his congregation exists.  It is only when this truth masters him in its spiritual power that he will be able to give the subject of missions its true place in his ministry.”
– Bishop Hendrix

“Is what I’m living for, worth dying for?”
- (unknown)

“There are no God-forsaken places in the world…just church-forsaken.”
- (unknown) 

“When man works, man works; when man prays, God works.”
- Hans von Staden

“God does not want to make one man big with a lot of blessings, but He wants to bless a lot of little men by using their lives.”
– Paul Fleming

“I went to India as a missionary to save England from spiritual collapse.”
– William Carey (the Father of Modern Missions)

“Lack of world vision in any Christian produces a ‘pea-sized Christianity’.”
– David Bryant

“Missionaries are like a pile of manure.  When you spread them out, they do some good.  But if you let them pile up in one place, they begin to stink.”
– (unknown)

“There are no closed doors to the gospel – provided that, once you get inside, you don’t care if you ever come out.”
– Brother Andrew

“History’s one great lesson is that reactionaries are losers.”
– George Otis, Jr.

“The God of the Bible confronts entire nationalities, challenges whole peoples, takes seriously every cultural sphere.  And the God of the Bible doesn’t talk about most of the people (individuals) of the world.  God has not commanded us to go into most of the world.  We do not read in the Bible that in the End Times every tribe and tongue and people will be represented.  The Bible talks about every people – that is, every nation, tribe, and tongue.”
– Ralph Winter (U.S. Center for World Mission)

“I believe that we are the generation that will rise and fulfill the Great Commission.  But if we don’t; some generation will.  God has decreed it!”
– David Shibley

“The purpose of revival is to fire the church with divine energy for her divine assignment.  Revival will tear us away from our temporal pursuits to give ourselves for what really matters….Revival will not occur without prayer.  Prevailing prayer is always antecedent to revival.”
– David Shibley

“When God intends unrivaled blessing on His people, He sets them first a-praying.”
– Matthew Henry

“Intercession remains the unrivaled master in fulfilling the Great Commission.”
– David Shibley

“The evangelization of the world depends first of all upon a revival of prayer.  Deeper than the need for workers; deeper far, than the need for money; deep down at the bottom of our spiritual lives is the need for the forgotten secret of prevailing, worldwide prayer.  Missions have progressed slowly abroad because piety and prayer have been slow at home.”
- Robert Speer (missionary stateman)

“Priority number one for too many of us is not the glory of God but the blessing of ourselves.”
- David Shibley

“There are no closed doors to the gospel – provided that, once you get inside, you don’t care if you ever come out.”
– Brother Andrew

“History’s one great lesson is that reactionaries are losers.”
– George Otis, Jr.

“The God of the Bible confronts entire nationalities, challenges whole peoples, takes seriously every cultural sphere.  And the God of the Bible doesn’t talk about most of the people (individuals) of the world.  God has not commanded us to go into most of the world.  We do not read in the Bible that in the End Times every tribe and tongue and people will be represented.  The Bible talks about every people – that is, every nation, tribe, and tongue.”
– Ralph Winter (U.S. Center for World Mission)

“I believe that we are the generation that will rise and fulfill the Great Commission.  But if we don’t; some generation will.  God has decreed it!”
– David Shibley

“The purpose of revival is to fire the church with divine energy for her divine assignment.  Revival will tear us away from our temporal pursuits to give ourselves for what really matters….Revival will not occur without prayer.  Prevailing prayer is always antecedent to revival.”
– David Shibley

“When God intends unrivaled blessing on His people, He sets them first a-praying.”
– Matthew Henry

“Intercession remains the unrivaled master in fulfilling the Great Commission.”
– David Shibley

“The evangelization of the world depends first of all upon a revival of prayer.  Deeper than the need for workers; deeper far, than the need for money; deep down at the bottom of our spiritual lives is the need for the forgotten secret of prevailing, worldwide prayer.  Missions have progressed slowly abroad because piety and prayer have been slow at home.”
- Robert Speer (missionary stateman)

“Priority number one for too many of us is not the glory of God but the blessing of ourselves.”
- David Shibley
 

“We are a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”
– Jim Elliot (Missionary martyr, Ecuador – 1956)

“There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead – Therefore, we must go forward.”
– William Carey (Missionary to India, 1761-1834)

“What we need to be assured of is not that we possess an excellent system of doctrine and ritual, but that the gift of the Holy Spirit is a reality.”
- Roland Allen (Missionary to China, 1868-1947)

“We dare not go on awakening interest in the gospel unless somehow we can nourish and preserve the results.”
- Clarence W. Jones (Missionary to Ecuador, 1900-1986)

“Every step in the progress of missions is directly traceable to prayer.”
- A.T. Pierson

“I do not know how to make a man think seriously about sin and judgment, and must look to the work of the Holy Spirit for any hint of such a working.”
- Jim Elliot (Missionary martyr in Ecuador, 1927-1956)

“It should be clear that all these theologians believe in the same gospel; that the first priority of the church is to take the gospel to all men everywhere; that man’s eternal destiny is involved; and that the task of the church is an urgent one.”
- David Hesselgrave

“The greatest churches in the world haven’t been built yet.”
- George Truett (a former pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, TX)

“Gain all you can; save all you can; give all you can.”
- John Wesley

“Satan’s greatest fear is that a generation in transition will look away from their idols and see love in the eyes of the church.”
– John Dawson

“I am becoming increasingly convinced that the emerging global call to prayer will be the key to gathering in history’s final and greatest harvest.  To bring back the King, we must pray back the King.”
– Dick Eastman

“The unexpected becomes suddenly possible, because God’s people on earth have invoked heaven, the home of the possibilities, and have been heard.  What happens next, happens because people prayed.  The message is clear:  History belongs to the intercessors.”
– Walter Wink

“The worldwide proclamation of the Gospel awaits accomplishment by a generation which shall have the obedience, courage, and determination to attempt the task.”
– John R. Mott

“Evangelism is the proclamation of the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ, the only Redeemer of men, according to the Scriptures, with the purpose of persuading condemned and lost sinners to put their trust in God by receiving and accepting Christ as Savior through the power of the Holy Spirit, and to serve Christ as Lord in every calling of life and in the fellowship of His Church, looking toward the day of His coming.”
– Congress on World Evangelism in Berlin, 1966

“I am driven to keep going for Christ by the filling of the Holy Spirit and the knowledge that the harvest is not forever.  It will soon be past.”
– Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ)

“We must be constantly weaving into our organization the new generation.  My work the world over and across the many years has shown me  that young people can be trusted  with great loads and great responsibilities.  Youth have never disappointed me when I have put heavy  burdens on them.”
– John R. Mott

“This generation is waiting for the challenge that will demand their all.  They are waiting to find something they can pour their lives into – something to sink their teeth into.  They have become disallusioned with both the secular world and the Christian world.  Our greatest natural resources – the vision and energy of a whole generation of youth – are being squandered.  We must show them a Christianity that will answer their cry for a meaningful life.  It is time to call them to give their lives away to a cause greater than themselves.  We need to let them know there is a Christ to live for and a cause worth dying for.”
- Ron Luce

“The first joint priority of the churches of any city should be that of making it hard for people to go to hell from that city.”
- David Shibley

“A literal fulfillment of the Great Commission is not as complex as it may seem.  And as we all work together, it can happen far more quickly than you might imagine.”
– Dick Eastman

“The true goal of Christian unity is world evangelization.”
– David Shibley

“The Bible itself is the basis of missions.”
– Ralph Winter

“We have given too much attention to methods, and to machinery, and to resources, and too little to the Source of Power, the filling of the Holy Ghost.”
– James Hudson Taylor

“People full of the Holy Spirit are committed to God’s work.  They want to be where laborers are needed most, and there is no more pressing need than bringing the Gospel to hell-bound men and women.”
– Robert E. Coleman

“Most Christian ministries would like to send their recruits to Bible college for five years.  I would like to send our recruits to hell for five minutes.  That would do more than anything else to prepare them for a lifetime of compassionate ministry.”
– William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army)

“God has instituted prayer so as to confer upon His creatures the dignity of being causes.”
– Blaise Pascal

“More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
- Lord Tennyson

“I am convinced that when we stand before God…we will discover that every soul ever brought to a knowledge of Christ was in some way related to intercessory prayer.”
- Dick Eastman

“All my forefathers have passed away into darkness without knowing anything of what was to befall them; how is it that your forefathers knowing all these things, did not send word to my forefathers sooner?”
– (an African chief speaking to Missionary David Livingstone)

“There is no argument for missions.  The entire action of God in history, the whole revelation of God in Christ — that is the argument.”
– James S. Stewart

“God is a missionary God.  The Bible is a missionary book.  The Gospel is a missionary message.  The church is a missionary institution.  And when the church ceases to be missionary minded, it has denied its faith and betrayed its trust.”
– J. Herbert Kane

“Essentially, the church has many responsibilities but only one mission, and that is the evangelization and discipling of all nations.”
– Daniel Bacon

“Missions are the chief end of the Church….the chief end of the ministry ought to be to equip the Church for this.  Each congregation is meant to be a training class.”
– Andrew Murray (The Key to the Missionary Problem)

“Watch out for teachers who preach all manner of insight, yet have no passion for the ends of the earth.  When they say that it is ‘just not their ministry,’ they are people who have not seen the heart of God and who are not committed to the complete Lordship of Christ.”
– John Willis Zumwalt (Founder of Heart of God Ministries)

“Don’t aim to plant churches.  Aim to plant a church that will plant many other churches.”
– George Patterson

“Look to the heathen without Christ, and you will find an altar…and may God help you to be a sacrifice.”
– Warren Chastain (OMF Missionary to Thailand, Singapore, and Indonesia)

“We have the means of evangelizing our country, but they are slumbering in the pews of our churches.”
- John Stott

“The first time that Jesus came in the flesh, He died for the lost of the world, gladly laying down His precious life that others might have true life!  Now that He is enfleshed in you, I wonder what He wants to do?  Hopefully He learned better…maybe He will try the subtle route now to evangelism, perhaps take it easier through me…”  No, He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.”
– John Willis Zumwalt

“For one, I hold we must either give up the inspiration of the Word, or accept the lost condition of the world.  The epistle of the Romans deals with these very questions and leaves no standing room for any candid doubt, unless we deny that Paul spake under the moving of the Holy Ghost.  We can scarcely read the introductory chapter of that masterly epistle, which is logic on fire, without observing a fearful indictment on the whole pagan world from idolatry and iniquity.  Yet he does not hesitate to affirm that they are WITHOUT EXCUSE, because that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.”
– A.T. Pierson

“I meet a good many people who say to me, ‘I cannot believe that the heathen are lost, because they have not heard the Gospel'; and I fully agree with them.  I believe they are lost, because they are now in sin and go on in sin. It is not a delusion as to whether people will be lost.  We are lost, because it is a state of nature.  The unconverted are lost already, but they can learn that Jesus Christ came to seek and to save, not those who are in danger of being lost, but those that are lost.”
– James Hudson Taylor

“None but women can reach (Muslim) women…so we have a solemn duty in this matter that we cannot shift.  The blood of souls is on our skirts, and God will demand them at our hands.”
– (woman missionary to Iran)

“Brother, sister, I want to tell you calmly and quietly, I am resolved, God helping me, to stretch this poor body of mine across their pathway to a burning hell, if perchance some may stumble over it and land in a happy Heaven.  I am resolved, God helping me, my time, my talents, my money, my strength, my all, shall be thrown between them and their hopelessness and helplessness here and hereafter if perchance some may hear the gracious invitation, accept and be saved.  Beloved, what will you say?  What will you do?”
– William Hesslop (early missionary to Korea)

“I continually heard…the wail of the perishing heathen in the South Seas.”
– John G. Paton

“Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest.”
– James Hudson Taylor

“There is no better way to measure the self centeredness in the Church than the lip service that we give to the heart of God concerning those who are living in total darkness.”
– Dr. James L. West

“Missions is the reason we live.  The minute the Church gets on her knees, the minute the Church sells out to advancing the Gospel into these dark areas, Satan is done.”
– John Willis Zumwalt

“Is it possible to get close to the Master’s heart without getting close to the Master’s mission?”
– Larry Moyer

“Jesus was moved with compassion concerning the miseries of men.  He saw them as lost, hungry, sick and bewildered.  And just as His Father’s heart had been moved in love to send Christ into the world to redeem them, so our Lord’s own heart was moved in compassion toward them.”
– G. Christian Weiss

“Most people are bothered by the passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture that bothered me most are those which I do understand.”
– Mark Twain

“You would believe in pioneer missions if your family were part of an unevangelized people group.”
– Norm Lewis

“The shore waters are largely over-fished.  Out in the deeps are fish that have never had smell or sight of bait or net.  Here, near shore, the lines get badly tangled sometimes, and committees have to be appointed to try to untangle the lines and sweeten up the fishermen.  And the fish get very particular about the sort or shape of the bait.  Some men have taken to fishing wholly with pickles, but with very unsatisfying results.  The fish nibble, but are seldom landed apparently.  And just a little bit out are fish that never have gotten a suggestion of a good bite.”
– S.D. Gordon

“We are never closer to God than when we share His heart for the unevangelized.”
– Patrick Johnstone

“The way I see it, we ought to be willing to die.  In the military, we are taught that to obtain our objectives, we have to be willing to be expendable.  Missionaries must face that same expendability.”
– Naint Saint (martyred missionary)

“It is hard to understand how the soul of Christian youth is not filled with holy ambition, born of loving loyalty to Christ and strong compassion for lost and suffering multitudes, to dedicate their lives, with all their God-given talents and capabilities, to this greatest and noblest cause in all the world, that of ‘preaching the gospel in the regions beyond,’ where as yet the name of Christ has never been heard.  Every ‘unoccupied’ area and unevangelized tribe or community in the world today, nineteen hundred years after the Great Commission was given, is a sad reproach upon the fair name of Christ, and a shameful reflection upon the Church which professes allegiance to Him.  God’s words to Israel years after they entered the Promised Land are truly applicable to His Church today with reference to the missionary ‘land of promise’ (Psalm 2:8): ‘There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed…How long are ye slack to go to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers hath give you?’ (Joshua13:1; 18:3)…We should take no satisfaction in the job half done, only take our past victories as evidence of ultimate victory!  A missionary working on the borders of Tibet wrote these impressive words: ‘The eyes of Christians should turn as instinctively toward the lands closed to the Gospel in this missionary age as do the eyes of a conquering army toward the few remaining outposts of the enemy which withstand the victors and hinder complete victory, and without which the commander-in-chief is unable to close the campaign.’”
– Robert Hall Glover

“Oh for a fresh, clear, arresting vision of the whole world to break upon the Church of Christ, constraining all Christians to lift up their eyes and look out unselfishly beyond their own narrow boundaries and local interests, and share their Savior’s burden of heart for the souls of all mankind!”
– Robert Hall Glover

“We all want to do the will of God, and we know that there is nothing nearer to His heart than the evangelization of the world.”
– Oswald J. Smith

“They say, ‘Souls are of equal value everywhere: there are plenty of pagans and of unconverted souls in this country; and while these are unconverted and unsaved, what is the use of going into other nations.  Home is dear to us.  English souls are as valuable as Hindu souls.  If I can save five souls a year here, I shall be more useful here than some of the missionaries, who have labored twenty years, without perhaps saving one soul, or but one or two.’  To this mode of speaking I am really at a loss what to say.  It seems pious, but I fear it is impious sophistry, virtually impugning the wisdom and goodness of the Savior’s command, to make known His salvation to all nations.  I conceive the Savior’s declared intentions and wishes must be the rule to individual disciples and churches.  And while there are many nations to whom Christ’s salvation has not been proclaimed; the reasoning which has been exhibited is impertinent and irrelevant.  Oh! man, who are you who argues against your Savior?  He says, ‘Go and disciple all nations’ -but you say, ‘No: we will stay till all the souls in this nation are converted.’  Here I might ask, on what system of theology is the opinion grounded, that such will ever be the case with respect to any one nation?  Would that this were the case!  But many men will not come to Christ, that they may be saved.  Broad is the road that leads to destruction, and multitudes persist in traveling onward in it.  What our Savior taught, and did, and suffered on earth, was for the benefit of all nations.  And it is His revealed will that the glad tidings of salvation should be proclaimed to all nations.  If this suffice not, Oh you ministers and Christians, to sanction, and to stimulate, and to encourage your going, I have done; my arguments are exhausted.  If required obedience to the Almighty Savior will not operate on ministers and churches, I know not ‘by what methods,’ nor ‘by what topics to excite them to missionary exertions.’”
– Robert Morrison

“If we lose the spirit of ‘go,’ we have lost the very Christian spirit itself.  A disobedient church will become a dead church.  It will die of heart failure.”
– S.D. Gordon

“Even if no one should be benefited, and no fruits follow my efforts, yet I will go, for I must obey my Savior’s call.”
– Leonard Dober (the first Moravian Missionary)

“The plea of inability is the worst excuse.  It slanders God so, charging Him with infinite tyranny in commanding men to do that which they have no power to do.  All pleas and excuses for not submitting to God are acts of rebellion.  It is not because they cannot do what God commands, but because they are unwilling.”
– Charles Finney

“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.”
– C.S. Lewis

“Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself but because it contradicts them.”
– Frank Mead

“If the church is to be missionary, she must be spiritual; and if the church is to be spiritual, she must be missionary.”
– G. Campbell Morgan

“Any tear shed in sharing the heartbeat of God, any tear shed through Christlike loving empathy with our fellowmen, any tear born of the yearning constraint of the Holy Spirit is a tear by which we serve the Lord.  Nothing pleases Christ more than for us to share with Him His burden for the world and its people.  Nothing so weds us to the heart of Christ as our tears shed as we intercede for lost ones with Him.  Then truly we become people after God’s own heart.  Then we begin to know what it is to be Christ’s prayer partners.”
– Wesley L. Duewel

“As the pulpit goes, so goes the church.”
– Unknown

“Missionaries live like fish in an aquarium with home supporters looking in on one side and the nationals among whom and with whom they work looking in on the other.”
– Paul A. Beals (Professor of Missiology, Dallas Theological Seminary)

“Six Exhortations for “Green” Missionaries:
     1. Fear God and you need not fear man.
     2. Never lose your confidence in the Gospel.
     3. Believe God.
     4. Be ready to preach, pray, or die at a moment’s notice.
     5. It is an honor to suffer dishonor, disgrace, or discomfort for His sake.
     6. Learn to look at each situation from God’s perspective.”
– Overseas Missionary Fellowship (formerly, the China Inland Mission)

“Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.”
– Charles Haddon Spurgeon

“God is so pleased when He finds His heart beating in another.”
– Steven C. Hawthorne (Founder/Director of WayMakers and Perspectives Author)

“Some there are who speak disparagingly of the blessed and holy work of evangelization. We tremble for them. We feel persuaded they are not in the current of the Master’s mind; and hence, we utterly reject their thoughts. It is to be feared that their hearts are cold in reference to an object that engages the heart of God.”
– C.H. Mackintosh

“The church that loses its sense of mission is in peril of its life. The church exists by mission as a fire exists by burning. Let a fire cease to burn and it becomes ashes. Let the church cease to be missionary and evangelistic and it ceases to be a church – and the coldness and dullness of death sets in.”
– Paul W. Powell

“The missionary enterprise is no human conception or undertaking, no modern scheme or invention…It did not originate in the brain or heart of any man, not even William Carey, or the Apostle Paul. Its source was in the heart of God Himself. And Jesus Christ, God’s great Missionary to a lost world, was the supreme revelation of His heart and expression of His love.”
– Robert Hall Glover

“Can anything exceed this in interest? Who can fail to see in the fact here recorded that it was the loving desire of the heart of God to reach every creature under heaven with the sweet story of His grace?”
– C.H. Mackintosh
“Our world can be moved Godward only by leaders who have shared to a deep degree the heartbreak as He looks in compassion and love on the world. Until you sense the suffering tears in the heart of God, until you share to some extent our Savior’s suffering passion in Gethsemane, until you come close enough to God to enable the Spirit to yearn within you with His infinite and unutterable yearnings, you are not prepared to minister about the cross.”
– Wesley L. Duewel

“The only heroes who operate alone are figures of fiction.  The true stories of accomplishment and significance always unfold as stories of teamwork.  In Christ, one’s life fame and self-importance for God-granted greatness and blessing is by walking in partnership with others.”
– Steve Hawthorne (Founder/Director of WayMakers and Perspectives Author)

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something; and together, we can change the world.”
– Ron Sider (Author, Rich Christians in An Age of Hunger)

“What is to give light, must endure burning.”
– Victor Frankyl

“If you want to go fast, go alone: if you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb

“Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire. Let me not sink to be a clod; Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.”
– Amy Carmichael (Missionary to southern India)

“If we in the West insist on keeping our blessing instead of sharing it, then we will, like other nations before us, have to lose our blessing for the nations to receive it.”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“Evangelism is a church growing where it is:  Missions is a church growing where it isn’t.”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“Don’t let people ‘lay hands’ on themselves.”
– Unknown

“We commonly represent God as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world…Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God.  Don’t get interested in missions out of some delusion that God is in trouble.  He is still the Creator of the ends of the earth, the great Redeemer, the Almighty.”
– A.W. Tozer

“Do not bring us the Gospel as a potted plant.  Bring us the seed of the Gospel and plant it in our soil.”
– Mr. Murthis (Indian Evangelist)

“People pursuing a God-given vision live with strategic intent.  The vision virtually captures them.  They no longer dream about what could happen.  They become convinced that certain things must happen.  They make choices as if each day held abiding value.  They are not driven by obligation.  They live in the dignity and liberty of knowing they give their utmost for God’s purposes.”
– Steve Hawthorne (Founder/Director of WayMakers and Perspectives Author)

“It is not enough to have a Christian presence in every place, but also to have followers of Jesus in every people.”
– Patrick Johnstone (Director of Research at WEC International, Author of Operation World and The Church is Bigger Than You Think)

“What God will do is always more than what He has given us to do. He has given us a clear and simple thing to finish: to see that Christ is worshipped and followed in every people. This is the essential missionary task. This task we must do with utmost focus and passion until it is finished.”
- Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“Nothing that does not occur daily will ever dominate your life.”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“You don’t lose if you go with God.  But you have to be willing to lose or you can’t stick close to God.”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“Never concede to doing something so small that it could be accomplished entirely in your lifetime.  Be a part of something that began before you were born, and will continue onward toward the fulfillment of all that God has purposed to accomplish.”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“Anyone who can help 100 missionaries to the field is more important than one missionary on the field [unless you are one of the missionaries who go in the will of God].”
– Ralph Winter (Founder/Director of the United States Center for World Mission)

“World Christians are heaven’s expatriates, camping where the Kingdom is best served.”
– David Bryant (Founder/Director of Concerts of Prayer International)

“There is very little difference between men, but that little difference makes a very big difference.”
– Howard W. Ferrin (President of the Providence Bible Institute)

“The value of a life is computed not by its duration but by its donation.”
– William James (professor at Harvard)

“I would rather die now than to live a life of oblivious ease in so sick a world.”
– Nate Saint (martyred Missionary to the Auca Indians)

“As long as I see anything to be done for God, life is worth having; but O how vain an unworthy it is to live for any lower end!”
– David Brainerd (Missionary to the American Indians, New England)

“It is to be kept in mind that the generations of men do not wait for the convenience of the church in respect to their evangelization.  Men are born and die whether or not Christians are ready to give them the Gospel.  And hence, if the church of any generation does not evangelize the heathen of that generation, those heathen will never be evangelized at all.  It is always true in the work of evangelization that the present can never anticipate the future, and that the future can never replace the past.  What is to be done in soul saving must be done by that generation.”
– J. Oswald Sanders (Director of the OMF, formerly the China Inland Mission)

“This is a decision we do not make, because it has already been made. Whether we spend our lives for the purpose of reaching all men with the Gospel is not optional. Christ has commanded every Christian to do just this.  Now there are many different ways of accomplishing this one purpose – but regardless of the particular work God has for each of us to do, the one aim of us all in doing our particular job for the Lord must be the evangelization of the whole world.”
– G. Allen Fleece (President of Columbia Bible College)

“If God has called you to China or any other place and you are sure in your own heart, let nothing deter you….Remember, it is God who has called you and it is the same as when He called Moses or Samuel.”
– Gladys Aylward (Missionary to China)

“There are individuals ripe to receive the Lord in the most resistant and hostile situations.  We must take the Gospel to them.”
– Virgil Amos

“God entered into history by sending His Incarnate Son as a suffering slave who would end His own earthly life enduring torture and martyrdom.  In this event, God revealed to us that suffering and self sacrifice are His specific methods for tackling the problems of rebellion, of evil, and of the sin of mankind.  Self-sacrifice is the only method consistent with His own nature.”
– Josef Tson (President of the Romanian Missionary Society)

“Circumstances may appear to wreck our lives and God’s plans, but God is not helpless among the ruins.  Our broken lives are not lost or useless.  God’s love is still working.  He comes in and takes the calamity and uses it victoriously, working out His wonderful plan of love.”
– Eric Liddell (MK, Olympic Champion, and Missionary to China)

“I can plod; I can persevere in any definite pursuit.  To this I owe everything.”
– William Carey (Missionary, Bible Translator, and much more to India)

“Even if I should never see a native converted, God may design by my patience and continuance in the Word to encourage future missionaries.”
- Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“The pioneer missionary, in overcoming obstacles and difficulties, has the privilege not only of knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection, but also something of the fellowship of His suffering.”
– Samuel Zwemer (Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“Christ’s presence has turned my prison into a blessed heaven.  What then will His presence do for me in heaven hereafter?”
– Sadhu Sundar Singh (from prison)

“As I wander from village to village, I feel it is no idle fancy that the Master walks beside me and I hear His voice saying gently, ‘I am with you always, even until the end.’”
– Lottie Moon (Missionary to China)

“I had feelings of fear about the future….The devil kept on whispering, ‘It’s all right now, but what about afterwards? You are going to be very lonely’….And I turned to my God in a kind of desperation and said, ‘Lord, what can I do?  How can I go on to the end?’  And He said, ‘None of them that trust in Me shall be desolate.’  That word has been with me ever since.”
– Amy Carmichael (Missionary to the people of India)

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”
– Bob Pierce

“I believe that in each generation God has ‘called’ enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth….Everywhere I go, I constantly meet with men and women who say to me, ‘When I was young, I wanted to be a missionary, but I got married instead.’ Or, ‘My parents dissuaded me,’ or some such thing. No, it is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!”
– Isobel Kuhn (Missionary to China and Thailand)

“The modern habit throughout the Christian church is to play this subject down.  Those who still believe in the wrath of God (not all do) say little about it; perhaps they do not think much about it.  To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the church mumbles on about God’s kindness, but says virtually nothing about His judgment…The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the subject.”
– J.I. Packer

“Men are in this plight, not because they are unevangelized, but because they are men. Sin is the destroyer of the soul and the destruction of the knowledge of God which is life.  And it is not the failure to have heard the Gospel which makes men sinners.  The Gospel would save them if they heard it and accepted it, but it is not the ignorance or rejection of the Gospel which destroys them, it is the knowledge of sin.”
– Robert E. Speer (Missionary Statesman/Administrator)

“Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there; Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows, the Man of Joy by the conversion to Him of many.”
– James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China, founder of the CIM)

“It seems to me personally that our failure to have as complete and perfect an understanding of ‘fairness’ as God does, stems from two things.  First, we do not have all the facts.  Trying to decide if what He does in a given situation is fair or not, is like coming into a room half way through an argument.  Not having all the background information, we are in no real position to cast a verdict.  And we won’t have all the information until the Judgment Day, when we’ll be able to see things in the light of an eternal perspective.  The second reason…is our own failure to appreciate the seriousness and hideousness of sin.  I know that it seldom really strikes me that God owes this utterly rebellious and ungrateful planet absolutely nothing.  In fact, that is an understatement.  Actually He does owe us something – hell.”
– Joni Eareckson Tada

“If this indeed is the present condition and future prospect of the heathen – and Scripture seems to offer no alternative – and if the church of Christ has in her charge the message which alone can transform these tragic ‘withouts’ into the possession of ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ,’ then how urgent is the missionary enterprise.  And how great the tragedy if we fail to proclaim it.”
– J. Oswald Sanders (Director of the OMF, formerly the China Inland Mission)

“Satan will always find you something to do when you ought to be occupied about that (prayer and Bible study), if it is only arranging a window blind.”
– James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China, founder of the CIM)

“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer….It is the key to the whole mission problem.  All human means are secondary.”
– Samuel Zwemer (Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“We have a need for 200,000 new missionaries for a new millennium so that everyone in the world should receive the Gospel and that a church should be planted in every people group.”
– George Verwer (founder of Operation Mobilization)

“I thought of all God’s people looking out after me with expectation, following me with their wishes and prayers.  I thought of the holy angels, some of whom, perhaps, were guarding me on my way; and of God and Christ approving my course and mission.  Who will go for me?  Here am I, send me.”
– Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“Most Christians would rather be happy than feel the wounds of other peoples’ sorrows.”
– A.W. Tozer

“It is conceivable that God might have ordained to preach the Gospel directly to man through dreams, visions and revelations.  But as a matter of fact, He has not done this; but rather has committed the preaching to man, telling them to go and disciple all nations.  The responsibility lies squarely on our shoulders.”
– J. Oswald Sanders (Director of the OMF, formerly the China Inland Mission)

“But I have given myself up, and I have put myself in the hands of God; and I am resolved to trust in Him as long as I live; I never mean to stop.”
– Amanda Berry Smith

“For eighty-six years, I have been His servant; and He has never done me wrong:  How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”
– Polycarp, before his martyrdom

“The world to come at the end of history will be a world without the national barriers that divide people today, a glorious and rich mosaic of peoples, languages, and cultures around the Lamb of God.  Missionary internationalization is a clear step in that direction.”
– Samuel Escobar

“Facts are the fingers of God.”
– A.T. Pierson (co-founder of the SVM and AIM)

“To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.”
– William Carey (Missionary, Bible Translator, and much more to India)

“The Bible is a missionary book throughout….The main line of argument that binds all of it together is the unfolding and gradual execution of a missionary purpose.”
– Bruce Ker

“That land is henceforth my country which most needs the gospel.”
– Count Nikolus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf

“In view of the constraining memories of the cross of Christ and the love wherewith He hath loved us, let us rise and resolve, at whatever cost of self-denial, that live or die, we shall live or die for the evangelization of the world in our day.”
– John Mott (Missionary Statesman, chairman of the Student Volunteer Movement)

“I feel that I cannot go on living unless I do something for China.”
– spoken by the teenager, James Hudson Taylor

“Our hearts have room for only one all-embracing devotion, and we can cleave to only one Lord.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyred German pastor)

“Tonight Shanghai is burning, and I am dying too.  But there’s no death so real as the death inside of you.  Some men die by shrapnel and some go down in flames.  But most men die inch by inch playing little games.”
– an American Journalist writing from China

“God is a God of missions.  He wills missions.  He commands missions.  He demands missions.  He made missions possible through His Son.  He made missions actual in sending the Holy Spirit.  Biblical Christianity and missions are organically interrelated.”
– George W. Peters (Mennonite Missiologist)

“Obedience to God’s will is the secret of spiritual knowledge and insight.  It is not willingness to know, but willingness to DO (obey) God’s will that brings certainty.”
– Eric Liddell (MK, Olympic Champion, and Missionary to China)

“There is nothing finer nor more pathetic to me than the way in which missionaries unlearn the love of the old home, die to their native land, and wed their hearts to the people they have served and won; so that they cannot rest in England, but must return to lay their bones where they spent their hearts for Christ.  How vulgar the common patriotisms seem beside this inverted homesickness, this passion of a kingdom which has no frontiers and no favored race, the passion of a homeless Christ!”
– Dr. P.T. Forsyth

“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men.  Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.  Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be a miracle.”
– Bishop Phillip Brooks

“Make a Life, not a Living!”
– Unknown

“The challenge of the unoccupied fields of the world is one to great faith and, therefore, to great sacrifice.  Our willingness to sacrifice for an enterprise is always in proportion to our faith in that enterprise.  Faith has the genius of transforming the barely possible into actuality….The unoccupied fields of the world must have their Calvary before they can have their Pentecost.”
– Missionary Samuel Zwemer (Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“There are eyes that have never been illumined by a great vision, minds that have never been gripped by an unselfish thought, hearts that have never thrilled with passion for another’s wrong, and hands that have never grown weary or strong in lifting a great burden.  To such the knowledge of these Christless millions in lands yet unoccupied should come like a new call from Macedonia, and a startling vision of God’s will for them.”
– Missionary Samuel Zwemer (Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“Let us press on.  All Africa must be won for Christ.  Though a thousand missionaries die, send more.”
– Missionary Andreas Riis (Missionary to Africa)

“There is a living God.  He has spoken His word.  He means just what He says, and will do all that He has promised.”
– Missionary James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China, founder of the CIM)

“They are a body who have perhaps excelled all mankind in solid and unequivocal proofs of the love of Christ and ardent, active zeal in His service.  It is a zeal tempered with prudence, softened with meekness and supported by a courage which no danger can intimidate and a quiet certainty no hardship can exhaust.”
– William Wilberforce (great evangelical English social reformer, writing concerning the Moravians)

“Few books on the subject of China missions were accessible to me.  I learned, however, that the Congregational minister of my native town possessed a copy of Medhurt’s China, and I called upon him to ask a loan of the book.  This he kindly granted, asking me why I wished to read it.  I told him that god had called me to spend my life in missionary service in that land.  “And how do you propose to go there?’  he inquired.  I answered that I did not at all know; that it seemed to me probable that I should need to do as the Twelve and the Seventy had done in Judea – go without purse or scrip, relying on Him who had called me to supply all my need.  Kindly placing his hand upon my shoulder, the minister replied, ‘Ah, my body, as grown older you will get wiser than that.  Such an idea would do very well in the days when Christ Himself was on earth, but not now.”  I have grown older since then, but not wiser.  I am more than ever convinced that if we were to take the direction of our Master and the assurances He gave to His first disciples more fully as our guide, we should find them to be just as suited to our times as to those in which they were originally given.”
– James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China, founder of the CIM)

“Too many people want the fruit of Paul’s ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died.  He died to everything.  He died daily He was crucified with Christ…I challenge you to pray this prayer: ‘Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and my lack of willingness to die to myself.’  I guarantee that He will answer your prayer – and quickly.”
– Floyd McClung

“To me, it has always been difficult to understand those evangelical Christians who insist upon living in the crisis as if no crisis existed.  They say they serve the Lord, but they divide their days so as to leave plenty of time to play and loaf and enjoy the pleasures of this world as well.  They are at ease while the world burns; and they can furnish many convincing reasons for their conduct, even quoting Scripture if you press them a bit.  I wonder whether such Christians actually believe in the Fall of Man.”
– A.W. Tozer

“True courage comes through the Holy Spirit.  When the Jewish Council in Acts 4 noticed that Peter and John were uneducated and untrained, the members of the Council marveled and knew the men had been with Jesus.  They recognized Christ’s power.  Many in today’s persecuted church do not have access to seminaries or the great expanse of Christian literature and training materials that believers in the West have.   They have very little knowledge, some only as much as John 3:16.  They know Christ died for their sins, and that is enough to launch them into a full time ministry of evangelizing the lost in their country.  Many are willing to be persecuted and maybe even die for that ‘one inch’ of knowledge.”
– VOM Missionary

“I want my breakfast served at eight, with ham and eggs upon my plate; a well-broiled steak I’ll eat at one, and dine again when day is done.  I want an ultramodern home.   And in each room a telephone; soft carpets, too, upon the floors, and pretty drapes to grace the doors.  A cozy place of lovely things, like easy chairs with inner springs, and then I’ll get a small TV – Of course, ‘I’m careful’ what I see.  I want my wardrobe, too, to be of neatest, finest quality, with latest style in suit and vest: why should not Christians have the best?  But then the Master I can hear in no uncertain voice, so clear: ‘I bid you come and follow Me, the lowly Man of Galilee.  Birds of the air have made their nest, And foxes in their holes find rest, but I can offer you no bed; no place have I to lay My head.’  In shame, I hung my head and cried.  How could I spurn the Crucified?  Could I forget the way He went. The sleepless nights in prayer He spent?  For forty days without a bite, alone He fasted day and night; despised, rejected – on He went, and did not stop till veil He rent.  A man of sorrows and of grief, no earthly friend to bring relief; ‘Smitten of God,’ the prophet said – ‘Mocked, beaten, bruised, His blood ran red.’  If He be God, and died for me, no sacrifice too great can be for me, a mortal man, to make; I’ll do it all for Jesus’ sake. yes, I will tread the path He trod, no other way will please my God; so, henceforth, this my choice shall be, my choice for all eternity.”
– William “Smiling Bill” McChesney (age 28; 5′ 2″; 110 lb.; single missionary to the Congo – he was shoved into a truck by Simba rebels in the Congo in 1964, stripped and mercilessly beaten by soldiers while suffering from malaria, imprisoned in a small cell with 40 other prisoners, he was turned over to a rioting mob armed with clubs and fists who struck him down, dead.)

“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee.  Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine.  I seek not a long life, but a full one, like You, Lord Jesus.”
– Jim Elliot (Honor student, All-star athlete, Martyred missionary)
[Poor Jim.  He could have been a success.]

“That the Lamb who was slain would receive the reward of His suffering.”
(the missionary motivation of the Moravians)

“The evangelization of the world in this generation is not play-word.  It is no motto to be bandied about carelessly.  The evangelization of the world in this generation is the summons of Jesus Christ to every one of the disciples to lay himself upon a cross, himself to walk in the footsteps of Him who, though He was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich, himself to count his life as of no account, that he may spend it as Christ spent His for the redemption of the world.”
– Robert E. Speer (Missionary Statesman/Administrator)

“You have a factor here that is absolutely infinite, and what does it matter as to what other factors may be.  ‘I will do as much as I can,’ says one.  Any fool can do that.  He that believes in Christ does what he can not do, attempts the impossible and performs it.”
– Charles H. Spurgeon (preaching from the text, “All power is given unto me…go ye therefore…and Lo, I am with you always”)

“I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to.”
– Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

“I feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians.”
– Samuel Zwemer (Missionary to the Muslims of Saudi Arabia)

“Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people – the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.”
– Oswald Chambers

“Christians don’t tell lies; they just go to church and sing them.”
– A.W. Tozer

“We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first.”
– Oswald J. Smith

“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the Gospel of Christ.”
– Francis Xavier (Pioneer Spanish Jesuit Missionary to Asia)

“Answering a student’s question, ‘Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?’  thus, ‘It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.'”
– C.H. Spurgeon

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn’t.”
– Richard Bach

“The one who glorifies God in death is the one who glorified God in life.”
– Unknown

“Only as the church pursues her missionary responsibility does she justify her existence.”
– Unknown

“Your Christian life is no stronger than the time you spent with God this morning.”
– Unknown

“Sometimes the door of opportunity swings on the hinges of opposition.”
– Unknown

“God already owns your money whether you give it or whether He takes it.  He just wants your heart.”
– Unknown

“When the flame of worship burns with the heat of God’s true worth, the light of missions will shine to the darkest peoples on earth.”
– John Piper

“There are too many over-fed, under-motivated Christians hiding behind the excuse that God has not spoken to them.  They are waiting to hear voices or see dreams – all the while living to make money, to provide for their future, to dress well and have fun.”
– Floyd McClung

“For me, passion means whatever a person is willing to suffer for….’Apostolic passion,’ therefore, is a deliberate, intentional choice to live for the worship of Jesus in the nations.  It has to do with being committed to the point of death to spreading His glory.  It’s the quality of those who are on fire for Jesus, who dream of the whole earth being covered with the Glory of the Lord.”
– Floyd McClung

“Don’t look at your devotional life as something to do, but rather someone to be with.”
– Unknown

“If miracles are not required to maintain your work for Christ, you are not doing enough.”
– Unknown

“A sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice unless It’s a sacrifice.”
– Unknown

“The lion that is after you is no match for the Lion within you.”
– Unknown

“Take down your mirrors and put up windows.”
– Unknown

“God does not want men who are distinguished, but men whom the world cannot extinguish.”
– Unknown

“Start something so big, that only God can finish it.”
– Unknown

“God will give you to give what He will never give you to keep.”
– Unknown

“Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary.”
- C.T. Studd (Missionary to China, India, and Africa)

“As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both.”
- J. L. Ewen

“The command has been to ‘go,’ but we have stayed – in body, gifts, prayer and influence.  He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth … but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.”
- Robert Savage

“He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).
- John the Baptist

“The man…looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, ‘Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?’ ‘No sir,’ said Morrison, ‘but I expect that God will.’”
- Robert Morrison (Missionary, Linguist, and Bible Translator to China)

“If the future is to be different, the present must be disturbed!”
– Unknown

“What I can no longer do with energy, I do with urgency.”
– Unknown

“There is no painless way to follow Christ.”
– Unknown

“God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on Him.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“Here am I. Send me” (Isaiah 6:8)
- The Prophet Isaiah
“Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop.”
- Kurt von Schleicher

“The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something.”
- Clarence W. Jones

“I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China…I don’t know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man.  I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died.  Perhaps he wasn’t willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said, ‘Well, she’s willing.’”
- Gladys Aylward (Missionary to China)

“We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given.  Rather, we should ask, ‘What has happened to the salt and light?’”
- John R. W. Stott

“It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions.”
- John R. Mott

“A tiny group of believers who have the Gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves.  Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.”
- K.P. Yohannan

“At the moment when I put the bread and the cup into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, but now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer’s love, I had a foretaste of the joy of Glory that well-nigh broke my heart to pieces.  I shall never taste a deeper bliss till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus Himself.”
- John G. Paton (Missionary to the New Hebrides Islands – present-day Vanuatu)

- Victor Raymond Edman (Missionary to Ecuador/President of Wheaton College)

“In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.”
- Robert Moffat (Pioneer Missionary and Linguist to Africa)

“People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries.  They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.”
- Nate Saint (martyred missionary to Ecuador, South America)

“The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“I have but one passion–it is He, it is He alone.  The world is the field, and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”
- Count Nikolus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf (German nobleman and Moravian Leader)

“If I had not felt certain that every additional trial was ordered by infinite love and mercy, I could not have survived my accumulated suffering.”
- Ann Judson (Missionary to Burma, present-day Myanmar)

“Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us.”
- Keith Wright

“It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“We can reach our world, if we will.  The greatest lack today is not people or funds.  The greatest need is prayer.”
- Wesley Duewel

“The reason some folks don’t believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn’t worth propagating.”
- Unknown

“Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back.  ‘You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages,’ he cried.  To that, Calvert replied, ‘We died before we came here.’”

“All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!”
- Jonathan Goforth (Missionary to China)

“’Not called!’  did you say?  ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say.  Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.  Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help.  Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there.  Then look Christ in the face – whose mercy you have professed to obey – and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.”
- William Booth (founder of the Salvation Army)

“Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin, and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven on earth. . . God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”
- John Wesley

“Sometimes we don’t need another chance to express how we feel or to ask someone to understand our situation.  Sometimes we just need a firm kick in the pants.  An unsmiling expectation that if we mean all these wonderful things we talk about and sing about, then lets see something to prove it.’
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyred German pastor)

“There is nothing in the world or the Church – except the church’s disobedience – to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility.”
- Robert E. Speer (Missionary Statesman/Administrator)

“No reserves.  No retreats.  No regrets.”
- William Borden (influenced for Muslim missions in China by Samuel Zwemer, gave his millionaire inheritance to missions, died in language study in Egypt after contracting spinal meningitis)

“There are no closed countries if you do not expect to come back.”
- Larry Poston

“Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies!  All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.”
- Robert Moffat (Pioneer Missionary and Linguist to Africa)

“In Proverbs we read: ‘He that winneth souls is wise.’  If any man, women, or child by a godly life and example can win one soul to God, his life will not have been a failure. He will have outshone all the mighty men of his day, because he will have set a stream in motion that will flow on and on forever and ever.”
- Dwight L. Moody

“It’s amazing what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit.”
- Clarence W. Jones

“I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth.”
- James O. Fraser (Missionary to China and Burma)

“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”
- James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”
- C. T. Studd (Missionary to China, India, and Africa)

“If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray.”
- Fredrik Franson (Missions Mobilizer)

“Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?”
- David Livingstone (Pioneer Missionary Explorer to Africa)

“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions.  The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become!”
- Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“If God calls you to be a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.”
- Jordan Groom (also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

“Within six months, you will probably hear that one of us is dead.  When the news comes, do not be cast down; but send someone else immediately to take the vacant place.”
– Alexander MacKay (How prophetic his words were?  Within three months, one of the party of eight was dead; within a year five had died; and at the end of two years, MacKay himself was the sole survivor. In the face of overwhelming odds he struggled on for twelve years until he too was felled by the fever.)

“I will place no value on anything I possess or anything I may do, except in relation to the Kingdom of Christ.”
– David Livingstone (Pioneer Missionary Explorer to Africa)

“The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world.”
– A. B. Simpson (pastor, missionary statesman, and founder of the CMA)

“I cannot understand how any man or woman can believe in the Lord’s coming and not be a missionary, or at least committed to the work of missions with every power of his being.”
– A. B. Simpson (pastor, missionary statesman, and founder of the CMA)

“It is not by trying to be faithful, but in looking to the Faithful One, that we win the victory.”
– James Hudson Taylor (Missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, now called Overseas Missionary Fellowship – OMF)

“Prayer, study, and suffering make a pastor.”
– Martin Luther

“I would never have thought of going out to China had I not believed that the Chinese were lost and needed Christ.”
– James Hudson Taylor (…Similar convictions were shared by Carey, Judson, Livingstone, Martyn, Brainerd, and many others.  Indeed, the singular success which attended their missionary careers can only be interpreted in the light of their belief in the lost condition of the heathen, and the compulsion that was laid upon them to put forth their best efforts to take the Gospel to lost and dying men.  Were they mistaken in their belief?  Did they misread the Scriptures?  Has further evidence been adduced to disprove their convictions?)

“The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.”
- William Cameron Townsend (co-founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators – WBT, and Summer Institute of Linguistics – SIL)

– Unknown

“Missions properly rooted in Christ and motivated by the Holy Spirit ceases to be a burdensome duty of the church.  It becomes rather the outflow of the life of the church.  It is lifted from a legalistic spirit of duty to the fruit of the Spirit generated from a life relationship to Christ.”
– George W. Peters (Mennonite Missiologist)

– George W. Peters (Mennonite Missiologist)

“Let a thousand fall before Africa be given up.”
– Melville B. Cox (Pioneer Methodist Episcopal Missionary to Liberia, Africa)

“The primacy of missions is written in large letters across the pages of the whole Bible. All the apostles gave themselves to missions, and only the sword could cut short their path to the uttermost part of the earth.”
– George W. Peters (Mennonite Missiologist)

– Apostle Paul (his deepest passion)

“No church can divorce herself from missions and retain her true New Testament character and ‘apostolic succession’ or relegate missions to a secondary place and retain her spiritual vitality.”
– George W. Peters (Mennonite Missiologist)

– Archibald McLean

“If the Church is ‘in Christ,’ she is involved in mission.  Her whole existence then has a missionary character.  Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence.”
– David Bosch (Missionary to South Africa)

“The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions, and the nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”
– Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“No one will be able to rise to the magnificence of the missionary cause who does not feel the magnificence of Christ.  There will be no big world vision without a big God.   There will be no passion to draw others into our worship where there is no passion for worship.”
– John Piper

“Missions is more than a matter of obeying a command, it is the result of an encounter with Christ.  To meet Christ, means to become caught up in a mission (Christ’s mission) to the world.”
– David Bosch (Missionary to South Africa)

“Missions is not the ‘ministry of choice’ for a few hyperactive Christians in the church.  Missions is the purpose of the church.”
– Unknown

“The weakness of much current mission work is that we betray the sense that what is yet to be done is greater than what Christ has already done.  The world’s greatest need is less than Christ’s great victory.”
– P.T. Forsyth

“There is not an inch of any sphere of life over which Jesus Christ does not say, ‘Mine.’”
– Os Guiness (quoting Abraham Kuyper)

“Missions is not a recruitment project for God’s labor force.  It is a liberation project from the heavy burdens and hard yokes of other gods.”
– John Piper

“No local church can afford to go without the encouragement and nourishment that will come to it by sending away its best people.”
– David Penman

“When I left England, my hope of India’s conversion was very strong; but amongst so many obstacles, it would die, unless upheld by God.  Well, I have God, and His Word is true.  Though the superstition of the heathen were a thousand times stronger than they are, and the example of the Europeans a thousand times worse; though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all, yet my faith, fixed on the sure Word, would rise above all obstructions and overcome every trial.  God’s cause will triumph.”
– William Carey (Missionary, Bible Translator, and much more to India)

“Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”
– William Carey (Missionary, Bible Translator, and much more to India)

“We cannot preach good news and be bad news.”
– Tekmito Adegemo

“Where passion for God is weak, zeal for missions will be weak.”
– John Piper

“Far away is far away only if you don’t go there.”
– George Otis

“Is our failure to thrive in Muslim countries the absence of martyrs?  Can a covert church grow in strength?  Does a young church need martyr models?”
– George Otis

“God almost never calls His people to a fair fight.”
– George Otis

“The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.  When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer (martyred German pastor)

“And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do” (Luke 12:4).
– Jesus Christ

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
– Apostle Paul

“I am immortal until God’s work for me to do is done.  The Lord reigns.”
– Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.  And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.  But there shall not an hair of your head perish” (Luke 21:16-18).
– Jesus Christ

“Lord, make me free from fear and greed, to be like Jesus.”
– John Piper

“Grant that I may experience the power of Thy Word before I deliver it.”
– Christmas Evans

“Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“The true greatness of any church in not how many it seats but how many its sends!”
– Unknown

“Man’s extremities are God’s opportunities!”
– Unknown

“No credit, no glory!”
– Unknown

“Not for Us Only!” (based on 1 John 2:2, “…and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”)
– David Shibley

“380 million people still do not have the first verse of Scripture.”
– (Wycliffe Bible Translators – WBT)

“85% of all missionaries surrender between the ages of 10-16.”
– Unknown

“We want Paul’s theology and his results but not his methods.”
– Roland Allen (Anglican Priest and Missiologist)

“If you don’t do Acts 1:8; then you’ll get Acts 8:1.”
– Unknown

“And Jonah stalked to his shaded seat and waited for God to come around to his way of thinking.  And God is still waiting for a host of Jonahs in their comfortable houses to come around to His way of loving.”
– Thomas Carlisle

“If your church wouldn’t miss them, we probably don’t want them!”
– Unknown

“You must go or send a substitute.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“Send us people with initiative, who can carry themselves and others too; such as need to be carried hamper the work and weaken those who should be spending their strength for the heathen.  Weaklings should be nursed at home!  If any have jealousy, pride, or talebearing traits lurking about them, do not send them, nor any who are prone to criticize.  Send only Pauls and Timothys; men who are full of zeal, holiness and power.  All others are hindrances.  If you send us ten such men the work will be done.  Quantity is nothing; quality is what matters.  ‘FORWARD EVER; BACKWARD, NEVER!’”
– C.T. Studd (Missionary to China, India, and Africa)

“GLOBAL GOD… This expression more than any other reveals the living God of the Bible to be a missionary God. This expression condemns:

all our petty parochialism
our narrow nationalism
our racial pride
our condescending paternalism
all our arrogant imperialism

How dare we adopt a hostile or scornful or even indifferent attitude to any person of another color or culture if our God is the God of “all families of the earth?”  We need to become global Christians with a global vision, for we have a global God!” (Gen 12:3 “All families of the earth”)
– K.P. Yohannan (Missions Mobilizer and founder of Gospel for Asia)

“This generation can only reach this generation.”
– Unknown

“The mission of the Church is missions.”
– Unknown

“Anywhere, provided it be forward.”
– David Livingstone (Pioneer Missionary Explorer to Africa)

“If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed to the will of God.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“Only as the Church fulfils her missionary obligation does she justify her existence.”
– Unknown

“A man may die leaving upwards of a million, without taking any of it upwards.”
– William Fetler

“The light that shines farthest shines brightest nearest home.”
– Unknown

“Give according to your income lest God make your income according to your giving.”
– Peter Marshall

When Judson was lying loaded with chains in a Burmese dungeon, a fellow prisoner asked with a sneer about the prospect for the conversion of the heathen.  Judson calmly answered, “The prospects are as bright as the promises of God.”
– Adoniram Judson (Missionary to Burma, present-day Myanmar)

“Now let me burn out for God.”
– Henry Martyn (Missionary to the Muslims of Persia and India)

“Yet more, O my God, more toil, more agony, more suffering for Thee.”
– Francis Xavier (Pioneer Spanish Jesuit Missionary to Asia)

“Not how much of my money will I give to God, but, how much of God’s money will I keep for myself?”
– Unknown

“The supreme task of the Church is the evangelization of the world.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“Untold millions are still untold.”
– Unknown

“Sympathy is no substitute for action.”
– Unknown

“Christ alone can save the world, but Christ cannot (will not) save the world alone.”
– Unknown

“The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.”
– Unknown

“If we have not enough in our religion to drive us to share it with all the world, it is doomed here at home.”
– Unknown

“Do we pray, ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ but never say, ‘Here am I, Lord, send me’?”
– Unknown

“The first work of the whole Church is to give the Gospel to the whole world.”
– Unknown

“I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.”
– Count Nikolus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf

“I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.”
– David Brainerd (Missionary to the American Indians, New England)

“I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ.”
– David Brainerd (Missionary to the American Indians, New England)

“You can’t beat God giving.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“God will be no man’s debtor.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“I have seen the Vision and for self I cannot live; Life is less than worthless till my all I give.”
– Oswald J. Smith (Missionary Statesman and Pastor of the People’s Church, Toronto, Canada)

“Go all out for God and God will go all out for you!”
– Jonathan Goforth (Missionary to China)

“The purpose of the church is to bring God glory through the worldwide proclamation, reception and worship of His Son.”
- Unknown

“Never think that Jesus commanded a trifle, and do not dare to trifle with anything He has commanded.”
– Dwight L. Moody

“This is not only our best shot at the global harvest; it’s our only shot.  When it comes to your target and the direction of your life’s influence, aim well.”
– Unknown

“Missions is the automatic outflow and overflow of love for Christ!”
– Unknown

“We have eternity to tell of victories won for Christ, but we have only a few hours before sunset to win them.”
– Unknown

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ…That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:7-8, 10).
– Apostle Paul

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).
– Apostle Paul

“People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa….Away with the word in such a view, and with such a thought!  It is emphatically no sacrifice.  Say rather it is a privilege.  Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then, with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment.  All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us [Rom 8:18].  I never made a sacrifice.”
– David Livingstone (A stirring appeal to the students of Cambridge University made on December 4, 1857 by David Livingstone, the great pioneer to Africa, in which he showed what he had learned through years of experience – to deny himself a lesser good for a greater good!)

“Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.”
– Lottie Moon (Missionary to China)

“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mark 8:34, 35).
– Jesus Christ

“To accept Christ is to enlist under a missionary banner.  It is quite impossible to be ‘in Christ’ and not participate in Christ’s mission in the world.”
– Dr. James S. Stewart

“The church can vote on it purpose statement; but it cannot vote on its purpose.”
– Unknown