THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1881

THE MISSIONARY SPIRIT.

THE missionary spirit is identical with the Christian spirit. To be a Christian and to be a missionary are one and the same thing. There is that in the gospel which inspires everyone who receives it into his heart with a desire to communicate the good news to others. Hence, the first impulse of every genuinely converted soul is to do missionary work—to lead others to Christ, that they may be partakers of the same joy and peace in believing which he experiences. Not content with telling what the Lord has done for his soul, he goes out after the unconverted and entreats them to be reconciled to God. If any will not heed his entreaties, he turns from them to others. The constraining love of Christ will not let him rest so long as any remain who have not heard the glad tidings of salvation. This is the Christian spirit, and the man who has it is a missionary from religious necessity. This spirit is imparted to every believer by the Holy Ghost given unto him, and so long as he retains it, is like fire in his soul, inspiring him to incessant zeal and activity in saving men. The proper definition, then, of a missionary, is one who has the Holy Ghost in him. A man who has it not, may bear the name, but has neither the spirit nor the zeal requisite to make him a successful missionary.—Golden Censer.