Those who have gone before us provide so many lessons for today. One of the greatest treasures we enjoy are the words of those who have given their lives in service to Christ for the cause of missionary service. Collected here are only a few that we pray will be an encouragement and help stir the hearts of all those who read these words.
“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.” - J. Hudson Taylor
“We who have Christ’s eternal life need to throw away our own lives.” - George Verwer
“Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.” - Francis Xavier
“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
“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.” -John Stott
“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. Paton
“God provides the men and women needed for each generation.” -Mildred Cable
“All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.” -Keith Green
“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
“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 talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first.” -Oswald J. Smith
“Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions” -Leonard Ravenhill
“All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!” -Jonathan Goforth
“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.” -Robert Speer
“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
“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
“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
“I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver.” -Robert Murray Mc’Cheyne
“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
“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
“We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.” -John Stott
“The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.” -William Cameron Townsend
“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 Zinzindorf
“And 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
“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
“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
“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
“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