A young man from South Africa approached a minister who had just completed a lecture at a university seminar. The young man introduced himself by saying, "I am from South Africa, and I would like to ask you what for me is a very important question."

The young man told the speaker of his experiences in South Africa. "I have lived in a land where my family and I have been persecuted, starved and tortured," he said. "My people have been oppressed for many years. We have seen times when we didn't know if other family members were alive or dead. Poverty was for us a way of life. Children died for lack of food. I was imprisoned for no apparent reason and tortured. Later I escaped, and with the help of several courageous people, I came here to America. My question is this. Please understand that I am not asking it to put you down, but to discover the answer. "How can you, a rich Christian from America who has never experienced any of these things, say to me, a man from South Africa, `Jesus loves you?'"

The minister thought for a moment before he responded. "You are, of course, right," he told the young man. "I have never lived in any land where I have been persecuted. I have always had food to eat. I don't honestly know by experience the meaning of hunger. My family has never been tortured or murdered. I don't honestly know how I would respond if they were." Then he answered the man's question, "I have experienced the love and intervention of Jesus Christ in my life. I share with you what God has done for me. And I hope, I pray, that even though the words may sound hollow, that when you hear me say, `Jesus loves you' that you also see that Jesus loves you through my actions and my faith."

The words of the speaker would have been hollow if he could not have shown this student the love of Jesus in his own life. Sad but true, there are people who profess to be Christians who literally hate anyone who does not live or look exactly as they do. Some day they will be in for a surprise.