Missions Quotes

“The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.” – William Cameron Townsend

If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honour, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice? – David Livingstone

A missionary is one who never gets used to the sound of heathen footsteps on their way to a Christless eternity. – Anonymous

“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

‘God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply’. – Hudson Taylor

‘He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.’
– Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950s trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador

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

“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.” – Frederick Franson

Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader? – David Livingston

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 India and Persia

‘If God calls you to be a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.’ – Jordan Groom (variations of this also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

”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

“Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.” – Robert E. Speer

“Prayer needs no passport, visa or work permit. There is no such thing as a ‘closed country’ as far as prayer is concerned…much of the history of mission could be written in terms of God moving in response to persistent prayer.” – Stephan Gaukroger

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

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

‘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 Speer

‘No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.’ – William Borden

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

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

‘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

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

‘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.” – J. Hudson Taylor

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

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. – J. Hudson Taylor.

‘The reason some folks don’t believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn’t worth propagating.’ – unknown

‘God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him.’ – Hudson Taylor

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

Among many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was, “The cannibals! you will be eaten by cannibals!” At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms.” – John Patton

‘Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.’ – William Carey

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 Patton

‘No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once.’ – Oswald J. Smith

I had utterly abandoned myself to Him. Could any choice be as wonderful as His will? Could any place be safer than the center of His will? Did not he assure me by His very presence that His thoughts toward us are good, and not evil? Death to my own plans and desires was almost deliriously delightful. Everything was laid at His nail-scarred feet, life or death, health or illness, appreciation by others or misunderstanding, success or failure as measured by human standards. Only He himself mattered. – V. Raymond Edman

‘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, who inspired David Livingstone

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

We did not come to China because missionary work here was either safe or easy, but because He has called us. We did not enter upon our present positions under a guarantee of human protection, but relying on the promise of His presence. The accidents of ease or difficulty, of apparent safety or danger, of man’s approval or disapproval, in no wise affect our duty. Should circumstances arise involving us in what may seem special danger, we shall have grace, I trust, to manifest the depth and reality of our confidence in Him, and by faithfulness to our charge to prove that we are followers of the Good Shepherd who did not flee from death itself… – J. Hudson Taylor

‘The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.’ – Hudson Taylor

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. – N. L. Zinzendorf

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 – Adoniram Judson

Lord, here in your precious Word I give myself, my husband, my children, and all that I have or ever shall posses, all to you. I will follow your will, even to China. Lord, open doors, and I will go and tell the Chinese of your great love. In time of need, supply for us; in time of sorrow, give us peace; in times of joy, send someone to share. Help me to never murmur nor complain. I love you Lord Jesus. – Tanna Collins (This note comes from a page in Mrs. Collins’ Bible that was found at the scene of the airline crash in Tibet in which the entire family perished in 1994).

‘The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.’ – Carl F. H. Henry

‘God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.’ – Hudson Taylor, missionary to China

“Here am I. Send me.” – 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

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

‘In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God’s work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer.’ – Dick Eastman

Did you think that the missionary path was all glory? Then you have not read of God’s greatest Messenger to earth, who sat and wept over Jerusalem, crying out, “I would…but ye would not.” – Isobel Kuhn

“Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary.” – C.T. Studd

‘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 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

“Every movement of God can be traced back to a kneeling figure.” – D.L. Moody