My dad told the story of a poor but well- known Japanese Christian who is now with the Lord. His name was Toyohiko Kagawa. He was burdened deeply for the poor Japanese people in the slums of Kobi. And he spent the years of his life in those slums demonstrating his love to those who were downcast and down trodden. He was a small man with a frail body. And one of his lungs was diseased with tuberculosis.
On a visit to America the doctors told him that he couldn't live long, so he returned to the slums of Kobi saying, "If my life is short, it will be full." He moved into a room in the slums so the needy could get to him and there in the stench of those back streets Toyohiko Kagawa lived. Every day he preached in the streets to the poor people.
On one particular day as he was preaching, his text was John 3:16 and his theme was the love of God for unworthy sinners. It wasn't an easy place to preach the love of God, a dismal rain, a dank street, dispersed the crowd and rough men laughed and mocked at him. What does this little man with his funny talk about God know? And what does anyone know about whether God loves us or not?" one man mocked. It seemed they had the right side of the argument for even as Toyohiko tried to answer them he coughed the hacking cough and spit up a significant amount of blood.
They laughed and said, "If God loves you why doesn't He do something for you?" The persistent little man lifted his arm, wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve and went on with the story of God's love. And the biographer says, "Gradually in the cold street there ruckus voices were stilled, for stealing in on their pagan minds was the realization that right before their eyes in that little sick man was the very proof of what he was saying. Toyohiko Kagawa was actually a demonstration of God's love."
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