God’s Sacrificial Love

“If I gave everything I have to the poor, and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.”

(1 Corinthians 13:3)

Many years ago in China great numbers of Chinese people were being seized, bonded in slavery, and delivered to the mines of South Africa. They were forced to descend into the black depths of the earth where gold was mined. They worked long, sunless days deep in the caverns, with no hope—and it was never long before death from suffocation, infected lungs, or perhaps the occasional avalanche delivered the Chinese slave from his life of agony.

Lough Fook, a wealthy man, and a follower of Jesus Christ, took the pains of his brothers to heart. He placed himself on the human slave market and became a coolie slave for a…