365 Words From Men and Women Who Died on the Field.

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.”

“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.”

“Jesus is light. He doesn’t go to light places. He goes to dark places.”

“One plants, another waters (1 Cor 3:6) and some of us measure the soil content and count the beans.”

“Global evangelization will not come through opportunity but rather through obedience to God.”

“The average pastor views his church as a local church with a missions program; while he ought to realize that if he is in fact pastoring a church, it is to be a global church with a missions purpose.”

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

“Remember, when you see a missionary coming home broken in body and weary in soul, it isn’t the privations or dangers or things he’s done that leave a deep hurt; it’s the things he couldn’t do that break his heart.”

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

“Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence.”

“Missions is not about ‘What can I spare?’ The question is ‘What’s it going to take?’ Risk. Abandon. Sacrifice. Radical dependence on Christ. Everything. Are you passionately committed to God’s glory among all peoples?”

“You want Beautiful Feet? Skip the pedicure! Share the Gospel!”

“Life is pitiful, death so familiar, suffering and pain so common, yet I would not be anywhere else. Do not wish me out of this or in any way seek to get me out, for I will not be got out while this trial is on. These are my people, God has given them to me, and I will live or die for Him and His glory.”

“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.’”

“If we are going to wait until every possible hindrance has been removed before we do a work for the Lord, we will never attempt to do anything.”

“Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power.”

“Christians receive 52.6% of the global income, but spend only .01% on the unreached world (World C).”

“Only 0.1% of all Christian giving is directed toward mission efforts in the 38 most unevangelized countries in the world.”

“North American and European Christians spend $12.5 trillion on themselves and their families each year.”

“Christians spend more on their annual audits of their churches and agencies than on all their workers in the non-Christian world.”

“More than 2 billion people are still unreached with the Gospel. The unreached or ‘hidden peoples’ have only one missionary working for every 78,000 people, and there are still 1,240 distinct cultural groups in the world without a single church among them to preach the Gospel.”

“To stay here and disobey God—I can’t afford to take the consequence. I would rather go and obey God than to stay here and know that I disobeyed.”

“Radical Christianity is not going on a missions trip or a big conference. Radical Christianity is staying steady for decades.”

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

“‘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.”

“Will you go to His feet and place yourself entirely at His disposal?”

“Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.”

“While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight—I’ll fight to the very end!”

“If ten men are carrying a log—nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end—and you want to help, which end will you lift on?”

“No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.”

“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.”

“All my desire was the conversion of the heathen… I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ. I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.”

“I have ever found it, when I have thought the battle was over and the conquest gained, and so let down my watch, the enemy has risen up and done me the greatest injury.”

“It is remarkable that God began this work among the Indians at a time when I had the least hope, and to my apprehension the least rational prospect of success.”

“Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God’s glory!”

“I love to live on the brink of eternity.”

“Here am I, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage lost of the wilderness; send me from all that is called comfort on earth; send me even to death itself, if it be but in your service, and to promote your kingdom”

“Oh, that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God!”

“Never think that you can live to God by your own power or strength; but always look to and rely on Him for assistance, yea, for all strength and grace.”

“I don’t want a big tree. But I don’t want a small tree either. I want an orchard.”

“We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it.”

“The Church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning.”

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

“Some are trapped in boxes of pea-sized Christianity, full of myths about missions that rob them of incentive to care about the unreached.”

“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.”

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

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God”

“To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.”

“Is not the commission of our Lord still binding upon us? Can we not do more than now we are doing?”

“There are grave difficulties on every hand, and more are looming ahead. Therefore, we must go forward.”

“Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”

“I will go down into the pit, if you will hold the ropes.”

“I am not afraid of failure; I am afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.”

“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.”

“Missionary life is simply a chance to die.”

“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.”

“You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving.”

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

“If you are ever inclined to pray for a missionary, do it at once, where ever you are. Perhaps he may be in great peril at that moment.”

“The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a ‘field full of wheat and tares.'”

“One can’t save and then pitchfork souls into heaven… Souls are more or less securely fastened to bodies… And as you can’t get the souls out and deal with them separately, you have to take them both together.”

“Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?”

“Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land; I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star: Hast thou no scar?”

“Every day and every hour, the cross is the test of our fellowship with Christ.”

“The mission in Acts is about going and gathering, not just going and telling.”

“The aim of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.”

“I don’t think we are in any danger, and if we are, we might as well die suddenly in God’s work as by some long drawn-out illness at home.”

“Jesus promised his disciples three things: they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”

“Lord, here in your precious Word I give myself, my husband, my children, and all that I have or ever shall possess, 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.”

“Put legs to your prayers”

“I just hope no one will say, in heaven, that they stopped before they came to my language.”

“The way you discover your gifts is really by serving not by searching.”

“If we want to be known in heaven and feared in hell we must be willing to lose our reputation here on earth.”

“Airplanes were invented for missionaries to complete the Great Commission.”

“You’re either a missionary or a mission field.”

“You never get bored with God in action.”

“To know God and to make Him known.”

“The Son of God had missionary supporters”

“If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn’t it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death.”

“World missions was on God’s mind from the beginning.”

“In our lifetime, wouldn’t it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?”

“Love is the root of missions; sacrifice is the fruit of missions.”

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

“I will lay my bones by the Ganges (River) that India will know there is someone who cares.”

“The church which ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangelical.”

“Missions is not just for missionaries; God’s call is for all.”

“Missions is practicing God’s presence until His passion compels us to obey.”

“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.”

“People who don’t believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South.”

“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.”

“Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will”

“There is no need for faith where there is no consciousness of an element of risk.”

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

“It’s hard to steer a parked car.”

“I have felt the impact of your prayer in these past weeks. I am certain now that nothing has had a more powerful influence on this life of mine than your prayers.”

“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.”

“We are a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.”

“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.”

“Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.”

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

“Lord, make my way prosperous — not that I achieve high station, but that my life be an exhibit to the value of knowing God.”

“A congregation that is not deeply and earnestly involved in the worldwide proclamation of the gospel does not understand the nature of salvation.”

“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.”

“I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with lights.”

“It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not.”

“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.”

“I know enough about Satan to realize that he will have all his weapons ready for determined opposition. He would be a missionary simpleton who expected plain sailing in any work of God.”

“I believe it will only be known on the Last Day how much has been accomplished in missionary work by the prayers of earnest believers at home… I do earnestly covet a volume of prayer for my… work—but oh! for a volume of faith too. Will you give this?”

“The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low.”

“When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.”

“I thought it reasonable that I should seek the work where the work was the most abundant and the workers fewest.”

“I go out as a missionary not that I may follow the dictates of common sense, but that I may obey that command of Christ.”

“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.”

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

“This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!”

“If you don’t have a definite call to stay here, you are called to go.”

“All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.”

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

“It is far easier for churches to give thousands of Dollars than to find one of their members who will walk into the slums for a decade.”

“If God calls you to be a missionary, don’t stoop to be a king.”

“If you take missions out of the Bible, you won’t have anything left but the covers.”

“God’s call doesn’t register in a vacuum; only a person who is committed to doing God’s will can receive a call.”

“The biggest hindrance to the missionary task is self. Self that refuses to die. Self that refuses to sacrifice. Self that refuses to give. Self that refuses to go.”

“The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time”

“God was the first ever missionary when in Genesis 3:8 he went out in search of two sinners who had rebelled against Him in order to bring them back into fellowship with Him.”

“Since God is a missionary God, God’s people are a missionary people.”

“‘Go ye’ is as much a part of Christ’s Gospel as ‘Come unto Me.’ You are not even a Christian until you have honestly faced your responsibility in regard to the carrying of the Gospel to the ends of the earth.”

“In the truth of the Gospel which I have written, taught, and preached, I will die today with gladness.”

“I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ.”

“Short term missions requires long term commitment. Prayerful and financial partnership should have longevity.”

“People are still waiting at the other end of our obedience.”

“We dare not go on awakening interest in the gospel unless somehow we can nourish and preserve the results.”

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

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

“Good spiritual logistics demand that we use every means available to us today to reach a lost world that desperately needs Christ.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

“There is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice it is because someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success it is because someone will succeed after you.”

“A life once spent is irrevocable. It will remain to be contemplated through eternity.”

“Our hearts are fixed; we will go and live and die among the Burmese, even if we never see a single convert in our lifetime, if we may only lay the first stone of the foundation.”

“Look yonder on that sight of woe, where idols dark the mind enthrall; O Christians, shall we let them go, without one solitary call?”

“The Great Commission will not be fulfilled with our spare time or spare money.”

“Bullets cannot kill the love of Christ. When men with guns stand before you, the cross is the only ground that does not shake.”

“I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!”

“Part of the heartache of all missionary work is the bright promising convert who turns out to be a mere puffball, crumbling like a macaroon under the least pressure.”

“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, ʻI would… but ye would not.ʼ”

“When I get to Heaven they aren’t going to see much of me but my heels, for I’ll be hanging over the golden wall keeping an eye on the Lisu Church!”

“If God’s love is for anybody anywhere, it’s for everybody everywhere.”

“Be a small part of the big thing God is doing in the nations.”

“There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.”

“The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose.”

“Many of us are missing something in life because we are after the second best, I put before you what I have found to be the best – one who is worthy of all our devotion – Jesus Christ. He is the Saviour for the young and the old. Lord, here I am.”

“Sympathy is no substitute for action.”

“Cannot the love of Christ carry the missionary where the slave trade carries the trader?”

“If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?”

“God had an only son and he was a missionary. A poor, poor example of him I am. But in this work I now live. And in this work, I wish to die.”

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

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

“This generation can only reach this generation.”

“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.”

“Anywhere provided it be forward.”

“Christ alone can save the world, but Christ cannot save the world alone.”

“I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk when we remember the great sacrifice which he made who left His Father’s throne on high to give Himself for us.”

“No factor of human migration is more significant than that of the Holy Spirit who has decreed all such movement for the sake of mission.”

“Live God LOUD!”

“The Great Commission is the Great Adventure of Christianity.”

“It is high time to make known the glad tidings in these dark regions of sin and spiritual bondage.”

“The will of God – nothing less, nothing more, nothing else.”

“The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”

“I am immortal until God’s work for me to do is done. The Lord reigns.”

“Now let me burn out for God.”

“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!”

“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—Villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.”

“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.”

“I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been.”

“Why should we not do something that will prove that we are really in earnest in claiming to be followers of Him who, though He was rich, for our sake became poor?”

“What is needed is twenty men and women who will come out here and live and die with the people.”

“May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!”

“If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small.”

“Can’t you do just a little bit more?”

“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.'”

“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.”

“Faith does not operate in the realm of the possible. There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. Faith begins where man's power ends.”

“Be assured, if you walk with Him and look to Him, and expect help from Him, He will never fail you.”

“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.”

“I maintain my joy.”

“If we have not staked everything on Christ, we have not yet learned what it is to follow Him.”

“So many Christians seek to live the pain-free Christian life. Such a life has no impact.”

“If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged.”

“One Way: Jesus! One Job: Evangelism!”

“Jesus will judge us not only for what we did, but also for what we could have done and didn’t.”

“Let me die in the harness, winning one more soul before the sun goes down.”

“A nation will not be moved by timid methods.”

“At the moment when I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, but now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems 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.”

“… and over that side of the island all their sacred men were at work trying to kill me by their (magical) arts. Messengers arrived from every quarter of the island, inquiring anxiously about my health, and wondering if I was not feeling sick.”

“If I die here in Glasgow, I shall be eaten by worms; If I can but live and die serving the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; for in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.”

“Nothing so clears the vision and lifts up the life, as a decision to move forward in what you know to be entirely the will of the Lord.”

“With my trembling hand I dug the grave for my young wife and my little boy on that cannibal island; yet in that dark hour Jesus stood by me, and I would not have exchanged that lonely grave on Tanna for a king's palace.”

“We can only once live and die on earth; let us live and die to the utmost for the Lord who bought us with His blood.”

“Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity, or whatever it may be; but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty, who reigns everywhere.”

“We visited sixty-six islands and landed eighty-one times, wading, swimming (to shore). Most of the people were friendly and delightful; only two arrows shot at us, and only one went near—So much for savages!”

“I make it my ambition to preach Christ where he has not been named.”

“If what we model before others is only reproducible by people like us, then our disciple making & planting methods are too complex.”

“O Christian! do not falter, The harvest field is white, And many souls are sinking Into eternal night.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart”

“If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed until the will is lost by self–surrender in the will of God. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together.”

“Every step in the progress of missions is directly traceable to prayer.”

“Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.”

“To belong to Jesus is to embrace the nations with Him.”

“God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.”

“Go, send, or disobey.”

“All the money needed to send and support an army of self-sacrificing, joy-spreading ambassadors is already in the church.”

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”

“Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie–talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It is not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for more comforts in the den…Until you know that life is war, you cannot know what prayer is for: Prayer is for the accomplishment of a wartime mission.”

“Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coast through life without a passion.”

“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.”

“A God-centered theology has to be a missionary theology”

“Somewhere along the way we have subtly and tragically taken the costly command of Christ to go, baptize, and teach all nations and mutated it into a comfortable call for Christians to come, be baptized, and listen in one location.”

“No sound system. No band. No guitar. No entertainment. No cushioned chairs. No heating or air-con. Nothing but the people of God and the word of God. And strangely, that’s enough. God’s Word is enough for millions of believers who gather in house churches… Jungles… Rainforests, and middle-eastern cities. But is his Word enough for us?”

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy… It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.”

“Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”

“The desperately poor are not going to come to us to hear the Good News. We have to go to them.”

“Satan is delighted for us to be satisfied with having given of our time, contributed significant expense and helping a lot of people without introducing them to the One who can give eternal hope.”

“Prayer is not a preparation for the battle; it is the battle!”

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

“We Christians are debtors to all men at all times in all places, but we are so smug to the lostness of men. We’ve been ‘living in Laodicea,’ lax, loose, lustful, and lazy. Why is there this criminal indifference to the lostness of men? Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living.”

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

“What’s your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?”

“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.”

“If God would grant us the vision, the word sacrifice would disappear from our lips and thoughts; we would hate the things that seem now so dear to us; our lives would suddenly be too short, we would despise time-robbing distractions and charge the enemy with all our energies in the name of Christ. May God help us ourselves by the eternities that separate the Aucas from a Comprehension of Christmas and Him, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor so that we might, through his poverty, be made rich.”

“As we have a high old time this Christmas may we who know Christ hear the cry of the damned as they hurtle headlong into the Christless night without ever a chance. May we be moved with compassion as our Lord was. May we shed tears of repentance for these we have failed to bring out of darkness. Beyond the smiling scenes of Bethlehem may we see the crushing agony of Golgotha.”

“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.”

“Lord, I give up All my own plans and purposes, All my own desires and hopes And accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all, Utterly to Thee To be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt, Send me where Thou wilt, Work out Thy whole will in my life At any cost, Now and forever.”

“Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is – where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.”

“One-third of the planet’s population, over two billion people, has never heard the gospel. And of that number, over 50,000 die daily, separated from God forever.”

“Today, 112 years later, 94% of the people in the world recognize the Coca-Cola logo and product. In 112 years, we can reach the world for profit’s sake, but we cannot do it for the glory of God in 2,000 years.”

“When God calls His child to live the life of a missionary, He gives him the desire with the calling.”

“If someone does not have a missions heart at home, nothing magical happens when they buckle the seat belt on the airplane.”

“Some of us are senders and some are goers. Neither is more important than the other. Neither is possible without the other.”

“What we can say for sure is that, at the very least, God calls every Christian to live with a missionary heart.”

“When you love the Lord, you long to glorify Him and see the nations fall at His feet in worship. When you love your neighbor as yourself, you share the gospel with him and seek to meet his needs in every way you can, which includes seeing him fall at Jesus’ feet in thanksgiving for salvation.”

“If you are sure that He is calling and you can be sure that He will also remove the barriers that would preclude your service, in His perfect timing. Rest in that.”

“God has called every Christian to international missions, but He does not want everyone to go. God calls some to be senders.”

“God will not lead you where He will not provide for you.”

“The dangers that exist are real, but only illustrate the fact that men and women need Christ. The suffering and dying of missionaries advance the Kingdom as nothing else could and the blood of the saints has ever been the seed and fuel of gospel advance.”

“Hearing the missionary call has a great deal to do with what you are listening for.”

“The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world.”

“Prayer is the mighty engine that is to move the missionary work.”

“How shall I walk across the snow of Tibet with shoes when my Master walked up Calvary with bleeding feet? Look at His feet — pierced for me. Should I not walk barefoot for Him?”

“It is easy to die for Christ. It is hard to live for Him. Dying takes only an hour or two, but to live for Christ means to die daily.”

“We do not truly understand the gospel if we spend all of our time preaching it to Christians. The gospel is a missionary gospel. It is a communication of Good News to people and in places where the name of Christ is unknown.”

“I am on a crusade right now to recruit martyr missionaries for the least reached people groups of the world.”

“Prayer is the greatest power God has put into our hands for service — praying is harder than doing, at least I find it so, and the dynamic lies that way to advance the Kingdom.”

“Lord, the task is impossible for me, but not for Thee. Lead the way and I follow.”

“The Lord did not tell us to build beautiful churches, but to evangelize the world.”

“No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once.”

“Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist.”

“The mission of the church is missions”

“The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.”

“The supreme task of the Church is the evangelization of the world.”

“I have seen the vision and for self I cannot live; Life is less than worthless till my all I give.”

“We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first.”

“You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.”

“You must go or send a substitute.”

“If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed to the will of God.”

“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.”

“The question for us to answer is not, Am I called to the foreign field? But, Can I show sufficient cause for not going?”

“A man not spiritually fitted ought not to go, but neither is he fit to stay.”

“If God has fit you to be a missionary, I would not have you shrivel down to be a king.”

“Where the plow does not go and the seed is not sown, the weeds are sure to multiply.”

“Someone asked Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? 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.”

“Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor.”

“The motive is this, ‘Oh! that God could be glorified, that Jesus might see the reward of his sufferings! Oh! that sinners might be saved, so that God might have new tongues to praise him, new hearts to love him! Oh! that sin were put an end to, that the holiness, righteousness, mercy, and power of God might be magnified!’ This is the way to pray; when thy prayers seek God’s glory, it is God’s glory to answer thy prayers.”

“The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.”

“Whether the Lord shall be magnified by my life, or by my death — may Christ be magnified in my body.”

“The concern for world evangelization is not something tacked on to a man’s personal Christianity, which he may take or leave as he chooses. It is rooted in the character of the God who has come to us in Christ Jesus. Thus, it can never be the province of a few enthusiasts, a sideline or a specialty of those who happen to have a bent that way. It is the distinctive mark of being a Christian.”

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

“‘The nations are not gathered in automatically. If God has promised to bless ‘all the families of the earth,’ he has promised to do so ‘through Abraham’s seed’ (Genesis 12:3, 22:18). Now we are Abraham’s seed by faith, and the earth’s families will be blessed only if we go to them with the gospel. That is God’s plain purpose.”

“His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice.”

“Do we claim to believe in God? He’s a missionary God. You tell me you’re committed to Christ. He’s a missionary Christ. Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? He’s a missionary Spirit. Do you belong to the church? It’s a missionary society. And do you hope to go to heaven when you die? It’s a heaven into which the fruits of world mission have been and will be gathered.”

“I like men whose vision carries them far beyond their own horizons.”

“Will you shed your tears for the souls of the nations?”

“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.”

“If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.”

“Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.”

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

“How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves.”

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

“True religion is like the smallpox. If you get it, you give it to others and it spreads.”

“Only one life, ’twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

“How could I spend the best years of my life in working for myself and the honors and pleasures of this world, while thousands of souls are perishing every day without having heard of the Lord Jesus Christ?”

“Nail the colors to the mast! That is the right thing to do, and therefore that is what we must do, and do it now.”

“Take my academic medals and cast them into the ocean. I would rather die preaching the cross of Christ to my countrymen than live in the applause of men.”

“God is a God of motion, of movement, and of mission… Mission is not an activity of the church but an attribute of God. God is a missionary God, Jesus is a missionary Messiah, and the Spirit is a missionary Spirit. Missions is the family business.”

“As child, at age 5: “When I am a man, I mean to be a missionary and go to China.” As a young man: “I feel I cannot go on living unless I do something for China.” Late in life, as a veteran missionary: “If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China.”

“Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.”

“If in the sight of God you cannot say you are sure that you have a special call to stay at home, why are you disobeying the Saviour’s plain command to go?”

“The great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.”

“‘Must you go to China? How much nicer it would be to stay here and serve the Lord at home!’ She made it plain at last that she would not go to China.”

“God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him.”

“Unless there is the element of extreme risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.”

“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”

“God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.”

“The harvest here is indeed great, and the laborers are few and imperfectly fitted, without much grace, for such a work. And yet grace can make a few feeble instruments the means of accomplishing great things – things greater even than we can conceive.”

“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.”

“Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.”

“The Church must send or the church will end.”

“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.”

“Don’t bother to give God instructions, just report for duty.”

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.”

“The least difficult thing a foreign missionary has to learn is the language; the part of her work which she has the most reason to dread is its responsibility.”

“Brother, receive the Word of God!”

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

“Christians don’t tell lies they just go to church and sing them.”

“It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.”

“A scared world needs a fearless church.”

“If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”

“Lord, open the King of England's eyes.”

“The truth is that most mission work is carried out where the church already exists… Only small percentages are working where the church is non-existent.”

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

“Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop.”

“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.”

“I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.”

“Preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten.”

“Missions, after all, is simply this: every heart with Christ is a missionary, and every heart without Christ is a mission field.”

“We are because of faith; they are because of unbelief. There can be no talk of uniting faith with unbelief.”

“The missionary heart: Care more than some think is wise. Risk more than some think is safe. Dream more than some think is practical. Expect more than some think is possible. I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience… There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him.”

“When God calls there are no regrets. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart.”

“Bear up the hands that hang down, by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. Have you any days of fasting and prayer? Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, and mercy will come down.”

“You have one business on earth: to save souls.”

“Untold millions are still untold.”

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

“I would rather wear out than rust out.”

“Other men may preach the Gospel better than I, but no man can preach a better Gospel.”

“If there is no passionate love for Christ at the center of everything, we will only jingle and jangle our way across the world, merely making a noise as we go”

“You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

“Don’t wonder whether you have a call to go. Have you had a distinct call from Christ to stay at home?”

“The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible.”

“God cannot lead you on the basis of information you do not have.”

“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.”

“It’s not that God has a mission for his Church in the world, but that God has a Church for his mission in the world.”

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

“What can we do to win these men to Christ?”

“A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.”

“In solitary confinement, we could not preach to men anymore, so we preached to the angels and principalities, showing them by our chains that Christ is worth more than freedom or life.”

“Christ and His apostles taught the people in that tongue that was best known to them. Why should not men do so now?”

“I want to be where there are out and out pagans.”

“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.”

“Many, very many, here in India fail to become Christians solely for the lack of someone to make them Christians. Often the thought comes to me to go round all the universities of Europe, crying aloud like a madman to those whose learning is greater than their charity: 'Ah, what a multitude of souls is through your fault shut out of heaven and falling into hell!'”

“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.”

“Walk away from your own preoccupations… and see the perishing multitudes.”

“Many of the crisis problems which are considered disasters in the United States would only be normal, everyday living conditions in most of Asia.”

“Every Christian in America has some minimal responsibility to get involved in helping the poor brethren in the church in other countries.”

“Rediscover the real meaning of the Great Commission. Beginning in our own prayer and devotional lives, we must begin to feel the compassion of the Lord for a lost and dying world. As we have already seen, the Great Commission is not something that was given to a tiny group of specially trained and educated envoys. It was given to all Christians—to the whole Church. It is something that we are all to be engaged in naturally every day.”

“My plea to the Body of Christ is while we must do all we can to meet the needs of the suffering and dying millions, we must not see these activities as a substitute for evangelism and establishing churches among the unreached.”

“The lesson is obvious. True missionaries concentrate on doing the work of Mark 16:15 rather than operating social-welfare programs. True missionaries serve the message of Christ, not the institutions of the church.”

“In order to plant the Gospel, we must take risk.”

“The great Pioneer Missionaries all had ‘inverted homesickness’ this passion to call that country their home which was most in need of the Gospel. In this passion all other passions died; before this vision all other visions faded; this call drowned all other voices. They were the pioneers of the Kingdom, the forelopers of God, eager to cross the border-marches and discover new lands or win new-empires”

“The printed page is a missionary that can go anywhere and do so at minimum cost. It enters closed lands and reaches all strata of society. It does not grow weary. It needs no furlough. It lives longer than any missionary. It never gets ill. It penetrates through the mind to the heart and conscience. It has and is producing results everywhere. It has often lain dormant yet retained its life and bloomed years later.”

“The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.”

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

“The secret of the survival of the cross is that the cross was made to die on, not to wear.”