Missionary Quotes

I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done in 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.'

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.

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.

Oh God, here's my Bible, Here's my money. Here's me. Use me, God.

God is not looking for men of great faith, He is looking for common men to trust His great faithfulness.

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 with for Him and His glory.

Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards.

Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.

The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.

How many there are ... who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ in bringing back a lost world to God.

The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity.

..if we want to see mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness, failure and disappointment, let us answer God's standing challenge, "Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."

Should we not press it home upon our consciences that the sole object of our conversion was not the salvation of our own souls, but that we might become co-workers with our Lord and Master in the conversion of the world?

Should I worship Him from fear of hell, may I be cast into it.

Should I serve Him from desire of gaining heaven, may He keep me out. But should I worship Him from love alone, He reveals Himself to me, that my whole heart may be filled with His love and presence.

Is not the festive season when families and friends exchange gifts in memory of The Gift laid on the altar of the world for the redemption of the human race, the most appropriate time to consecrate a portion from abounding riches and scant poverty to send forth the good tidings of great joy into all the earth?

Carrying the cross does mean following in Jesus' footsteps.

And in His footsteps are rejection, brokenheartedness, persecution and death. There are not two Christs - an easy going one for easy going Christians, and a suffering one for exceptional believers. There is only one Christ. Are we willing to follow His lead?

When life's flight is over, and we unload our cargo at the other end, the fellow who got rid of unnecessary weight will have the most valuable cargo to present the Lord.

Why should I fear? I am on a Royal Mission. I am in the service of the King of kings.

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

Christ never was in a hurry. There was no rushing forward, no anticipating, no fretting over what might be. Each day's duties were done as each day brought them, and the rest was left with God.

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.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to revival on a large scale is the fact that we are to interested in a great display. We want an exhibition; God is looking for a man who will throw himself entirely on God. Whenever self-effort, self-glory, self-seeking or self-promotion enters into the work of revival, then God leaves us to ourselves.

A young man should ask himself not if it is his duty to go to the heathen, but if he may dare stay at home. The command is so plain: “Go.”

I would rather die now than to live a life of oblivious ease in so sick a world.

There are many beautiful things in the world around us, but pearls can only be discovered in the depths of the sea; if we wish to posses spiritual pearls we must plunge into the depths, that is, we must pray, we must sink down into the secret depths of contemplation and prayer. Then we shall perceive precious pearls.

I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him to do His work through me.

There are three stages in the work of God: impossible, difficult,done.

Salt, when dissolved in water, may disappear, but it does not cease to exist.

We can be sure of its presence by tasting the water. Likewise, the indwelling Christ, though unseen, will be made evident to others from the love which he imparts to us.

Surely there can be no greater joy than that of saving souls.

All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reackoned on God being with them.

God wants us to have soft hearts and hard feet.

The trouble with so many of us is that we have hard hearts and soft feet.

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 real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will.

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

God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.

The motto for every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be 'Devoted for Life.'

Pray as you can, not as you can't.

The branch of the vine does not worry, and toil, and rush here to seek for sunshine, and there to find rain. No; it rests in union and communion with the vine...Let us so abide in the Lord Jesus.

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

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

The New Testament, and to a very large extent the Old, is the soul of man.

You cannot criticize it. It criticizes you.

Prayer is not a painful effort to gain from God help in the varying needs of life. Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself

I will not leave Burma until the cross is planted here forever.

From time immemorial men have quenched their thirst with water without knowing anything about its chemical constituents. In like manner we do not need to be instructed in all the mysteries of doctrine, but we do need to receive the Living Water which Jesus Christ will give us and which alone can satisfy our souls.

Prayer at its highest is a two-way conversation - and for me the most important part is listening to God's replies.

Airplanes were invented for missionaries to complete the Great Commission.

Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians.

Disagreements don't cause disunity, a lack of forgiveness does.

If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that It is not by might, but by My Spirit.

Only one life, a few brief years, Each with its burdens, hopes, and fears;

Each with its clays I must fulfill. living for self or in His will; Only one life, 'twill soon be past, Only what s done for Christ will last.

Prayer does not mean asking God for all kinds of things we want, it is rather the desire for God Himself, the only Giver of Life.

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