50 Great Missions Quotes

 

There is no shame in admitting that someone has said it better that you could ever say it. Here are a few quotes that I’ve collected from different sources.

“It is more important that you should know about the reverses than about the successes of the war. We shall have all eternity to celebrate the victories, but we have only the few hours before sunset in which to win them. We are not winning them as we should, because the fact of the reverses is so little realized, and the needed reinforcements are not forthcoming, as they would be in the position were thoroughly understood…So we have tried to tell you the truth the uninteresting, unromantic truth.” ― Amy Carmichael

“William Carey chides his countrymen for deciding it would be impossible for the Gospel to travel over great distances and to penetrate varied cultures when they are willing to face the same trials for the sake of commerce.” ― William Carey

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

“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 Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

“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.” – Unknown

“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.” – David Livingstone, 1813-1873, missionary to Africa

“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.” – Anonymous Missionary

“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages – Villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.” – Robert Moffat, 1795-1883 Pioneer Missionary to South Africa

“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.” – James O. Fraser, 1886-1938, Missionary to China

“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.” – David Livingstone, 1813-1873, missionary to Africa

“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.” – T.J. Bach, 1881-1963, Missionary to Venezuela

“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.” – David Brainerd, 1718-1747, Missionary to North American Indians

“We are a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt Somebody.” – Jim Elliot, 1927-1956, missionary martyr in Ecuador

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

“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, 1927-1956, missionary martyr in Ecuador

“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.” – Eleanor Chestnut, died in 1905, China

“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.” – Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905, China

“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, 1884-1973, India

“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.” – David Brainerd, 1718-1747, North American Indians

“Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.” – Hudson Talyor, 1832-1905, China

“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!” – John Coleridge Patteson, 1827-1871, Melanesia

“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.” – Isabella Thoburn, 1840-1901, India

“Unless there is the element of extreme risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.” – Hudson Taylor, 1832-1905, China

“I will lay my bones by the Ganges (River) that India will know there is someone who cares.” – Alexander Duff, 1806-1878, India

“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.” – Amy Carmichael, 1867-1951, India

“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.” – David Sills, “The Missionary Call”

“God’s call doesn’t register in a vacuum; only a person who is committed to doing God’s will can receive a call.” Thomas Hale When God calls His child to live the life of a missionary, He gives him the desire with the calling.” – David Sills, “The Missionary Call”

“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.” – Oswald Chambers

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

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

“God’s work done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supply.” – J. Hudson Taylor

“I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. . . . No it is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond.” – Isobel Kuhn

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

“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.” – 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

“‘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.” – William Booth

“If Christ be God, and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him.” – C.T. Studd

“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.” – John G. Paton

“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?” – J. Hudson Taylor

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

“Missionary life is simply a chance to die.” – Amy Carmichael

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

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

“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell. I want to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell.” – C.T. Studd

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

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

“Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” – William Cary

“The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.” – Oswald J. Smith