The heroes of our faith have always had a burning passion to win the lost. Paul wished he were accursed to benefit his countrymen (RM 9:3). John Knox said, "Give me Scotland or I die." Wesley said, "The whole world is my parish". Praying Hyde landed on the mission field, and said, "Here let me burn out for God." Amy Carmichael, who spent 55 years as a missionary to India without ever taking a furlough, prayed, "Make me Thy fuel." David Brainerd, who died at 29, yet Wesley required all Methodist ministers to read his biography, said, "Oh, that I were a flame of fire in my Master's cause." Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia, prayed he might "burn out for God," and did.
MacArthur tells a story of Robert Murray McCheyne, one of my favorite heroes. I have been blessed for years by repeating his prayer, "Lord, make me as holy as a saved sinner can be." One of my life's most moving experiences was to voice that prayer aloud in McCheyne's Scotland. It was said of him, "Everywhere he stepped Scotland shook" (Courtland Myers). He was responsible for thousands coming to Jesus; all before he died at 29. How does a person have that much influence this young? Visitors who come to see the church where McCheyne was Pastor are shown a table, chair, and open Bible. They are then told he spent hours with his head buried in the Bible, weeping for those he would preach to. I pray God would give us all, beginning with me, a deeper passion for unbelievers.
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