Prayer & Mission Quotations

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

William Cameron Townsend (1896-1982)

One way to recollect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquillity, is not to let it wander too far at other times. You should keep it strictly in the Presence of God; and, being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings.

Brother Lawrence (c.1614-1691), The Practice of the Presence of God

The best cure for discouragement or qualms is another daring plunge of faith.

C.T. Studd (1860-1931)

You can read all the manuals on prayer and listen to other people pray, but until you begin to pray yourself you will never understand prayer. It’s like riding a bicycle or swimming: You learn by doing.

Luis Palau (b.1934)

He knoweth nothing as he ought to know it, who thinketh he knoweth anything without seeing its place and the manner how it relateth to God, angels, and men, and to all the creatures in earth, heaven and hell, time and eternity.

Thomas Traherne (1637?-1674), Christian Ethicks [1675]

The social gospel is not an addendum to the gospel; it is the gospel. If we read the Gospels, it becomes clear that it was not what Jesus said about God that got him into trouble (but) his treatment of men and women, his way of being friendly with outcasts with whom no respectable Jew would have anything to do. It has always been fairly safe to talk about God; it is when we start to talk about men that the trouble starts. And yet the fact remains that there is no conceivable way of proving that we love God other than by loving men. And there is no conceivable way of proving that we love men than by doing something for those who most need help.

William Barclay (1907-1978), Ethics in a Permissive Society [1971]

When a poor person dies of hunger, it has not happened because God did not take care of him or her. It has happened because neither you nor I wanted to give that person what he or she needed.

Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

Nothing is small or great in God’s sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance.

Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803)

The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.

Oswald J. Smith (1889-1986)

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

Oswald J. Smith (1889-1986)

From my ten years’ experience I can unhesitatingly say that the Cross bears those who bear the Cross.

Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

“But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?” I answer, “What if He knows prayer to be the thing we need first and most? What if the main object in God’s idea of prayer be the supplying of our great, our endless need—the need of Himself?”

George MacDonald (1824-1905), The Word of Jesus on Prayer, in Unspoken Sermons, Second Series, London: Longmans, Green, 1886, p. 66-6

When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.

A. C. Dixon

I’m not afraid of failure. I’m afraid of being successful in the wrong things.

Willam Carey (1761-1834)

The Gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.

Carl F. H. Henry

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.

J. Howard Edington

Christ’s call is… to save the lost, not the stiff-necked; He came not to call scoffers but sinners to repentance; not to build and furnish comfortable chapels, churches, and cathedrals at home in which to rock Christian professors to sleep by means of clever essays, stereotyped prayers and artistic musical performances, but to capture men from the devil’s clutches and snatch them from the very jaws of Hell. But this can be accomplished only by a red-hot, unconventional, unfettered Holy Ghost religion, where neither man nor traditions are worshipped or preached, but only Christ and Him crucified.

C.T. Studd (1860-1931)

A marble cutter, with chisel and hammer, was changing a stone into a statue. A preacher looking on said: “I wish I could deal such changing blows on stony hearts.” The workman answered: “Maybe you could, if you worked like me, upon your knees.”

A. T. Pierson

If we would talk less and pray more about them, things would be better than they are in the world: at least, we should be better enabled to bear them.

John Owen (1616-1683)

A man who prays without ceasing, if he achieves something, knows why he achieved it, and can take no pride in it… for he cannot attribute it to his own powers, but attributes all his achievements to God, always renders thanks to him and constantly calls upon him, trembling lest he be deprived of help.

Dorotheus of Gaza (7th century)

Souls are not made sweet by taking [ill tempers] out, but by putting something in—a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This can only eradicate what is wrong, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore “Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Henry Drummond (1851-1897), The Greatest Thing in the World [1892]

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 (1865-1955), The Pastor and Modern Missions, p203

Faith is not the holding of correct doctrines, but personal fellowship with the Living God….What is offered to man’s apprehension in any specific revelation is not truth concerning God but the Living God Himself.

William Temple (1881-1944)

I know the power obedience has of making things easy which seem impossible.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)