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Verse:For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. —2 Corinthians 5:14, 15
The history of Christianity has been brightened by brave missionaries like David Livingstone (1813–1873), who carried the gospel torch into the most remote places of the African continent. He arrived in Cape Town in 1841, and shortly afterward, he began moving northward to spread the gospel through “native agents.” Some three years later, he was attacked and injured by a lion.1 But he did not give up! “On January 2, 1845, Livingstone married [Robert] Moffat’s [oldest] daughter, Mary, and she accompanied him on many of his journeys”2 until her death in 1862.
But “so impassioned was his commitment to Africa that his duties as husband and father were relegated to second place.” Having served his beloved Africa for more than thirty years, Livingstone died from malaria and dysentery on May 1, 1873, in the southeast of Lake Bangweulu (modern Zambia).
His loyal attendants Chuma and Susi removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot where he died and then carried his body all the way to Bagamoyo (modern Tanzania), from where it was transported to London and eventually buried in Westminster Abbey. But his heart remained where it had always been —in Africa! Livingstone was not as successful in generating direct conversions as in exploring the mission field and sowing gospel seeds for later missionaries to harvest.
He declared, “Our work and its fruits are cumulative.
We work towards another state of things. Future missionaries will be rewarded by conversions for every sermon. We are then pioneers and helpers. Let them not forget the watchmen of the night —us, who worked when all was gloom, and no evidence of success in the way of conversion cheered our paths.
They will doubtless have more light than we, but we served our Master earnestly, and proclaimed the same gospel as they will do.” Did Livingstone regret all the years he served in Africa? Not at all. He bravely stated, “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?”5 If Christ sacrificed Himself for us, why can we not sacrifice ourselves in the places most in need of the good news?