January 18, 2014

"He replied, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. 38  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself."  Matthew 22:37-39

A second rationale offered to justify abortion is this argument: I am not terminating a human life since it cannot survive outside of the womb.

I would have to ask, "How can it not be a human life when you have a human sperm uniting with a human egg?" If the sperm is alive and the egg is alive how can the cell formed by this union not be considered alive?

If you are lying to yourself about this, what else are you lying to yourself about?

Let me concede your point that it is just a few cells. If it is just a few harmless cells then why would you need a procedure to get rid of them? If it is because you know it is eventually going to be alive then aren't you still guilty of knowingly ending a life if you abort it?

"You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.  Your works are wonderful—I know that very well. My bones weren’t hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened." Psalm 139:13-16

But let's measure this argument against what God's commandment says.

What decision would you make if God was truly your Lord and you loved Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind? Would you please Him by ending a pregnancy?

And what about the second part of the Commandment? What decision would you make if you were to love another as you love yourself? And what about loving yourself? Can you be sure you will still love yourself if you terminate a pregnancy? Is having the abortion the best thing you can do for yourself? Are you glad your mother decided to carry you to full term and give you birth?

There is no doubt that making a decision on whether to end a pregnancy or carry it to term can be a very difficult decision. Shouldn't you seriously consider what God says about it before you make a final decision?

When you factor in God's commandment the decision becomes much clearer doesn't it? 

January 17, 2014

"Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-39

I am convinced that every problem at its root is a spiritual problem. Why do I believe this? I believe it because the spiritual part of you is the part that will live for ever because the spiritual part of you is what connects with God.

So, as I address this evil thing called abortion, I want to approach it at the spiritual level. Actually, I am not going to address it but I will let Jesus address it.

"I didn't know Jesus said anything about abortion," you may be thinking, "I didn't know Jesus said anything about abortion."

When he was asked to identify the most important thing Jesus replied, "Loving God and loving others is most important." So, according to Jesus, love is the gold standard by which all things should be evaluated.

Let's see what happens if I take the three most common arguments for abortion and hold them up against this Great Commandment of God!

We will do the first one in this post and one per day for the next few days.

Argument One: It is my body and no one should tell me what to do with my body!

In fact, there are an increasing number of government laws and regulations that DO tell you what you can and cannot do with your body!

But that aside, God would say, "Is it really your body?" I remind you that He is your Creator! I remind you that all life begins and ends in Him. If you love Him with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind you will realize you belong to Him. 

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God--this is your true and proper worship." Romans 12:1

"Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? Don’t you know that you have the Holy Spirit from God, and you don’t belong to yourselves? You have been bought and paid for, so honor God with your body."  I Corinthians 6:19-20

Whether you like or not. Whether you want to admit it or not you are accountable to God! He is keeping a permanent record and there will be a day when you will give an accounting to Him for what you did with your body while you are in your body.

"Because it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me and every tongue will give praise to God. So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God." Romans 14:11-12

So, if you belong to Him and if you are accountable to Him, don't you think it matters what you do with your body? 

If you are facing a life altering decision like an abortion, shouldn't you consider what He would want you to do? 

As the source of life and as the source of love, what do you think He would want you to do?

Doesn't that make sense?

There is another question you need to ask, "What about the body forming within my body?"

Think about that! If your body belongs to God then the body forming within you belongs to God, right?

The second part of the commandment says you need to love others like we love yourself. 

How do you love yourself?

You want the best for yourself, right? 

You want to live! You guard and protect your life, don't you?

Apply that to the life growing within you.

One big reason why women consider abortion is for selfish reasons. It seems easier to end the pregnancy rather than to deal with the complications and responsibilities of a child.

Is that really what it means to love yourself? Is it what means to love another?

If you deal with this "pro-choice" argument at the level that really matters - the spiritual level - and measure it against the Great Commandment, the argument sort of dissolves.

Life gets better when you live it according to God's loving laws.

January 16, 2014

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40

I am proudly, purposefully, and passionately pro-life!

I am pro-life because I am pro-God and God is life! He is the beginning of life and at the end of life and everywhere in between! Where He is there is life and where He is not allowed there is death. I know that because I was once spiritually dead but through faith in Jesus Christ I have been made alive and given abundant life!

Loving God is demonstrated by keeping His commands and the commandments are wrapped up in this one Great Commandment! So, if I love God I will measure my choices, values and principles against this standard. There is no way I can reconcile abortion with the Great Commandment.

What do you think would happen to the abortion rate if every woman finding herself in a crisis pregnancy would factor the Great Commandment into her decision-making?

Is ending a pregnancy pleasing to God? Is it consistent with loving Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind?

What about the second part of the commandment? How does ending a pregnancy square with loving others as yourself? Is ending an innocent life consistent with the way you love yourself? Love requires you to desire the best for others. Can you honestly make a case for terminating a life being the best course of action for it?

Does having an abortion cause you to love yourself more? Can you end an innocent life and feel better about yourself as a person?

Abortion is a social issue, I could debate it on that basis. It is also a moral issue that could be argued from that perspective. And abortion is an emotional issue but emotional arguments usually don't end well. It has become a political issue and arguing politics is a tough win. But essentially abortion is a spiritual issue so I let God's Word speak to it and the Great Commandment summarizes the Word as well as any other Scripture passage. When the question of abortion is set against the answer of God's Word truth becomes evident.

Why not let God's Word do your talking?

Why not let God's Word guide your decisions?

January 15, 2014

"You saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalms 139:16

On the day when I celebrate my birth, it seemed appropriate to argue for the right to be born and not aborted.

The Bible clearly indicates that God is intimately involved in human lives before they are even conceived and from the moment of their conceptions to the end of natural lives. 

It simply makes sense that when a sperm from a living man fertilizes an egg from a living woman that the cell produced by that union would be living.

To argue that no one really knows when life begins is either uniformed or intellectually dishonest.

Randy Alcorn documents testimonies from the Congressional record:

Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception:

A United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee invited experts to testify on the question of when life begins. All of the quotes from the following experts come directly from the official government record of their testimony.1

Dr. Alfred M. Bongioanni, professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated:

“I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception…. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood and that any interruption at any point throughout this time constitutes a termination of human life….I am no more prepared to say that these early stages [of development in the womb] represent a incomplete human being than I would be to say that the child prior to the dramatic effects of puberty…is not a human being. This is human life at every stage.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, professor of genetics at the University of Descartes in Paris, was the discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down syndrome. Dr. LeJeune testified to the Judiciary Subcommittee, “after fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being.” He stated that this “is no longer a matter of taste or opinion,” and “not a metaphysical contention, it is plain experimental evidence.” He added, “Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception.”

Professor Hymie Gordon, Mayo Clinic: “By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”

Dr. Watson A. Bowes, University of Colorado Medical School: “The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter—the beginning is conception. This straightforward biological fact should not be distorted to serve sociological, political, or economic goals.”

A prominent physician points out that at these Senate hearings, “Pro-abortionists, though invited to do so, failed to produce even a single expert witness who would specifically testify that life begins at any point other than conception or implantation. Only one witness said no one can tell when life begins.”

Many other prominent scientists and physicians have likewise affirmed with certainty that human life begins at conception:

Ashley Montague, a geneticist and professor at Harvard and Rutgers, is unsympathetic to the prolife cause. Nevertheless, he affirms unequivocally, “The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.”

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, internationally known obstetrician and gynecologist, was a cofounder of what is now the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). He owned and operated what was at the time the largest abortion clinic in the western hemisphere. He was directly involved in over sixty thousand abortions.

Dr. Nathanson’s study of developments in the science of fetology and his use of ultrasound to observe the unborn child in the womb led him to the conclusion that he had made a horrible mistake. Resigning from his lucrative position, Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he was deeply troubled by his “increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.”

In his film, “The Silent Scream,” Nathanson later stated, “Modern technologies have convinced us that beyond question the unborn child is simply another human being, another member of the human community, indistinguishable in every way from any of us.” Dr. Nathanson wrote Aborting America to inform the public of the realities behind the abortion rights movement of which he had been a primary leader.5 At the time Dr. Nathanson was an atheist. His conclusions were not even remotely religious, but squarely based on the biological facts.

Dr. Landrum Shettles was for twenty-seven years attending obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. Shettles was a pioneer in sperm biology, fertility, and sterility. He is internationally famous for being the discoverer of male- and female-producing sperm. His intrauterine photographs of preborn children appear in over fifty medical textbooks. Dr. Shettles states, "I oppose abortion. I do so, first, because I accept what is biologically manifest—that human life commences at the time of conception—and, second, because I believe it is wrong to take innocent human life under any circumstances. My position is scientific, pragmatic, and humanitarian."

So, if life begins at conception, and it clearly does, then an abortion constitutes the taking of a human life. This is precisely why people of faith and conscience oppose abortion.

Any questions?

January 14, 2014

"For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

    your works are wonderful,

    I know that full well.

15 

My frame was not hidden from you

    when I was made in the secret place,

    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

16 

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

    all the days ordained for me were written in your book

    before one of them came to be.

17 

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!

    How vast is the sum of them!

18 

Were I to count them,

    they would outnumber the grains of sand—

    when I awake, I am still with you." Psalm 139:13-1i

Dr. Bernard Nathanson was the leading abortion doctor in the United States in the 1970’s. He had campaigned vigorously for the legalization of abortion and he himself had performed 60,000 abortions. He even believed his intentions were good and that he was doing a righteous thing by providing a service that guaranteed a woman’s right to control her body. 

But something changed Dr. Nathanson’s point view. It was a medical breakthrough called the ultrasound, introduced in 1976. This device literally opened a window on fetal development. The first time Nathanson saw an ultrasound in action, he was with a group of residents gathered around a pregnant patient in a darkened examining room watching a demonstration by a technician. The technician applied a conductive gel to the woman’s abdomen and then began working a handheld sensor over her stomach. As the screen clarified, Nathason was amazed. He could see a throbbing heart. When the technician focused closely on the image, Nathanson could see all four chambers of the heart pumping blood. 

And during the scan Nathanson became convicted. He said that his mind had dropped the word fetus in favor of the word baby. Suddenly, everything he had been learning about the child in the womb since his entry into the medicine snapped into focus. He had known what took place in the womb but somehow seeing it for the first time changed everything. 

Bernard Nathanson, the leading abortion doctor in America, became convinced that human life existed with in the womb from the onset of pregnancy. In an article he wrote for the New England Journal of Medicine he wrote, in abortion “we are taking life.” That fetus is not mere tissue it is human life.

Well congratulations Dr. Nathanson! After taking 60,000 innocent lives while lying to yourself about their true nature, you finally discovered what the humble, uneducated shepherd boy knew centuries ago!

All you would have needed to do was read the 139th Psalm and you could have discovered what he knew - life begins at conception and God charges you to nurture and protect it, not to destroy it.

Any shepherd knows that!

1frh.16 

"For y

January 13, 2014

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." Genesis 1:31

Mark Evans shares this powerful story:

I once had a co-worker who asked the question, "If God is really a loving God then why does He permit all this evil in the world. In response to my co-worker I said, For just a moment, pretend that you are God and in your imagination you are going to recreate a perfect world.

Keep in mind, however, that for every thing that you do there is a ramification, a certain consequence.

Now to help my friend get started I begin to assume what any person in his/her right mind would think of. I said OK let’s start by wiping out "all murder". POOF! NO More Murder! Whoops…now all the Pro-Choice people are mad at you because you forgot to exclude abortion.

Now let’s get rid of "all rape". POOF! No More Rape! 

Oh, I said, you can’t stop there, why don’t you stop all robberies. POOF! NO More Robberies!

I said, again, while your at it why don’t you eliminate World Hunger. POOF! No More Hunger! People are helping to plant crops again and are giving food in abundance! People are being fed again. Great! Fantastic! I tell my friend you continue to wipe out every known evil till you are finished.

Oh wait a minute! Something is wrong. Oh yes, very, very different. No one is following you anymore. No one believes in you anymore and no one loves you anymore. What do you mean my friend says! Why I just finished wiping out and eliminating all the evil in the world and you mean to tell me that no one loves me anymore!

Well, remember in the beginning, I said, "keep in mind" that for everything you do there are ramifications, certain consequences?

1. When you wiped out all murder, you wiped out the "choice" of certain people to "commit" murder.

2. When you rid the earth of rape, you rid the "choice" of certain people to "choose" to rape.

3. When you stopped all robberies, you stopped the "choice" of certain people to "choose" to rob.

4. When you stopped World Hunger you took away certain people’s "choice" to NOT help those in need. OR man’s choice not to work in the fields in such a way to preserve its crop.

So you see. When man’s "choice" was taken from him; Man could no longer choose to do "evil", however, he could also no longer choose to do "good".

If man cannot "choose" to hate man cannot "choose" to love either.

Thus, mankind cannot "choose" to love a "loving" God who loved them first.

But God is a loving God, isn’t He?

God "chose" to create the earth we live on. Man "chose" to create the world we live in!

The Earth is by "Design", the World is by "Choice".

January 12, 2014

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."  John 15:1-8

Don't underestimate the effectiveness of small things done consistently over time by average people. Effectiveness increases significantly when those small things are done consistently over time in the power of God! 

Consider this illustration:

In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite’s primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter’s magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target. 

But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter’s immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. 

And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. "Perhaps most remarkable," writes Jaroff, "those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth."

The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible. 

So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits.