I want you to know that I am not a woman of politics, I am a woman of faith. So set aside your political lens before you read this, because I don’t care where you stand on the political spectrum. From my point of view, the battle belongs to the Lord: It is God against sin—not people against people—and I care about your soul’s wellbeing.
I’m going to be very frank right now; more direct than perhaps I have ever been on here. We’re at a crux as a country. When I sit down to pray, I find that God has shut up my instinctual prayer for mercy; that in the face of the atrocity of abortion, I am no longer allowed to cry out for mercy for our country. “It is the wrong prayer,” He tells me. Instead, I am lifting my voice to those around me with this plea, “Turn and repent!”
Let me lay out reality for you. In increasing measure over the last few years, we’ve been shown the blunt truth about abortion in very wide-reaching visuals and testimonies: Physicians have stood up and explained the heart-breaking process of removing living children from the womb piece by piece; Planned Parenthood executives have talked heartlessly about harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted children; former abortion workers and recipients of abortion have described the reality of what abortion is and its effects; statistics have shown that less than 2% of abortions are done because of rape/incest and less than 15% because of medical (physical & emotional combined) reasons; science has proven fetus’ ability to feel pain, made strives in helping them survive earlier and earlier outside the womb, proven the reality of what we all know…that a child in the womb is a living, individual human being. And yet, even in the face of that, in the last 2 annual reports from PP— the leading abortion provider in the US—they stated that 600,000+ new donors and over 250,000 volunteers stepped into their direct work since 2016. They showed that abortions increased and actual healthcare services decreased, government funding increased by $20 million, private contributions increased by $100 million and their total net assets increased from $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion. Legislation has arisen in state after state increasingly removing the personhood of unborn children, cheering resounds and lights shine as murder is legalized to the moment before birth, and the call has been lifted to accept infanticide (killing living, breathing infants outside the womb)—just yesterday senate democrats took a stand for letting babies born alive after failed abortions die on the table. Basically, as the blinders have been pulled off to reveal what is underneath the word “abortion” that we flippantly toss around, our society has called for more blood.
I’ve been reading through the bible this year, and I keep encountering verses about how innocent blood that is shed in a land pollutes and defiles the physical land on which it is shed and there is a point in which that blood will be too much and the land will “vomit you out” as God finally punishes utter wickedness.
Society, you have called for and celebrated death of innocent children. You look across the ocean at tribes participating in child sacrifice on physical altars to their local gods and arrogantly pat yourselves on the back for having a higher morality. But in our country, since the passing of Roe vs. Wade, we have sacrificed 60,997,447+ children on the altar of “Women’s Choice.” Whether you acknowledge or deny the LORD, He is still the one TRUE living God, and one day you WILL answer to Him, your knee WILL bow to Him and He WILL justly determine your eternal resting place. Turn and repent for the blood we have shed before the opportunity to receive mercy passes.
Isaiah 55:6–7 “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He WILL abundantly pardon.”
Statistics on why people have abortions (per state): http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
How a child is aborted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tzMV9OmvY
Upcoming movie of former PP exec’s life (rated R for violence): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9024106/
Movie of real-life abortionist Grosnell: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3722234/
Do not close your eyes any longer, don’t blindly follow narratives you want to believe because you want to be accepted by the culture around you…millions of children are killed in the name of “choice” every year. Stand for women. Stand for children. Stand for HUMANITY! Stand for life.
#abortion #prolife #istandforwomen #istandforlife #truth #turnandrepent
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Complex Compassion
I’m burdened, you guys, so I am going to write about it. Compassion for the oppressed and compassion for the oppressor. I want to give you a glimpse into how I, as a follower of Jesus and the Bible, hold those two things together.
When I say that I have compassion for the oppressed and the oppressor, these are very different things and may look very different from each other when played out. I also want you to know that to feel both does not mean I am impartial, to feel both is not something that comes naturally to me, and to feel both has more to do with the Lord’s heart than with my own.
If I were to walk into a room in which sat a rapist and a rape victim, my inclination might be to do two things: Pummel the rapist and hold the victim while weeping, seeing, listening, and feeling the pain of the atrocity done to her.
But as a believer in Jesus and a follower of the Bible (and if you claim the first, you should be doing the second), my responsibility is to take these feelings and bring them before the Lord. Because even though I have walked with Him for 14 years, it may just mean that if I were to walk into that scenario today, the only initial difference would be that I stop myself from doing the actual pummeling.
It is only when I kneel before the Lord is prayer that I find the compassion that is foreign to me. In prayer, I must lay before Him my fury over the oppressor, my sorrow over the oppressed, and my heart. I must set beside these things the truths and commands I see in scripture, and the heart of the Lord I read about there. Things like:
Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Ezekiel 33:11”...As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live...”
And when all of these things are laid out before Him, I must wrestle.
Let me tell you about the pivotal moment for me surrounding this topic: Some of you may know that I have a heart for those caught in sex trafficking (broken sexuality and its effects are a whole). A number of years ago, I was praying one day about a big fight that was happening in Vegas. I was praying Psalm 72 and found there was one verse in particular that really captured me while I prayed:
Psalm 7:14 “From oppression and violence He redeems their life, and precious is their blood in His sight.”
I cried out to God for the women who would be sold and used: declaring that no matter how they were viewed by any other human, in His eyes their lives were precious; that every drop of blood drawn by the violence of their oppressors was seen by Him and counted as something in His eyes. And then my prayers turned to the ones who sold and bought them; I prayed they would see the evil of their ways and turn from them; that intended violence would stop before it came to fruition; that they would know salvation....and, in my righteous indignation, that if they were not to turn from their wickedness, that He would stop the oppression from continuing by “wiping them out.” And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the Spirit gently said to me, “But...precious in My sight is their blood.” And in that moment, I shut my mouth and I wept and I have not been the same since. Friends, when I pray for the oppressor, the intensity, purity and longing that fuel my prayers CANNOT come from me--mine are far too limited and faulty--they must come from the heart of the Lord; the heart that beats through the pages of scripture and in His Spirit that He left as a Helper to guide us into ALL Truth.
I want you to know this: You can learn many thing about the heart of God when you read His Word, but if you want to learn how to feel the heart of God, you cannot do that unless you pray. It is in prayer that your heart fellowships with His, that your heart wrestles with His, that your heart learns to feel what He feels for whomever He feels it. I do not know of ANY OTHER place where you can learn to feel the heart of God than with His Word in prayer.
If you are a believer in Jesus, a follower of the Bible, one who wants to grow in likeness to Christ and reflect the beauty of your Savior, you must grow in truly KNOWING God’s heart. Because if you do not learn to wrestle in His presence with His Truth, you will distort Who He is and what He desires. The call on our life as His followers requires us to TANGIBLY depend upon Him to fulfill it, because left to our own volition, we will not land in a place that looks upon the wicked and declares, “Precious is their blood in His sight.”
When I say that I have compassion for the oppressed and the oppressor, these are very different things and may look very different from each other when played out. I also want you to know that to feel both does not mean I am impartial, to feel both is not something that comes naturally to me, and to feel both has more to do with the Lord’s heart than with my own.
If I were to walk into a room in which sat a rapist and a rape victim, my inclination might be to do two things: Pummel the rapist and hold the victim while weeping, seeing, listening, and feeling the pain of the atrocity done to her.
But as a believer in Jesus and a follower of the Bible (and if you claim the first, you should be doing the second), my responsibility is to take these feelings and bring them before the Lord. Because even though I have walked with Him for 14 years, it may just mean that if I were to walk into that scenario today, the only initial difference would be that I stop myself from doing the actual pummeling.
It is only when I kneel before the Lord is prayer that I find the compassion that is foreign to me. In prayer, I must lay before Him my fury over the oppressor, my sorrow over the oppressed, and my heart. I must set beside these things the truths and commands I see in scripture, and the heart of the Lord I read about there. Things like:
Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Ezekiel 33:11”...As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live...”
And when all of these things are laid out before Him, I must wrestle.
Let me tell you about the pivotal moment for me surrounding this topic: Some of you may know that I have a heart for those caught in sex trafficking (broken sexuality and its effects are a whole). A number of years ago, I was praying one day about a big fight that was happening in Vegas. I was praying Psalm 72 and found there was one verse in particular that really captured me while I prayed:
Psalm 7:14 “From oppression and violence He redeems their life, and precious is their blood in His sight.”
I cried out to God for the women who would be sold and used: declaring that no matter how they were viewed by any other human, in His eyes their lives were precious; that every drop of blood drawn by the violence of their oppressors was seen by Him and counted as something in His eyes. And then my prayers turned to the ones who sold and bought them; I prayed they would see the evil of their ways and turn from them; that intended violence would stop before it came to fruition; that they would know salvation....and, in my righteous indignation, that if they were not to turn from their wickedness, that He would stop the oppression from continuing by “wiping them out.” And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the Spirit gently said to me, “But...precious in My sight is their blood.” And in that moment, I shut my mouth and I wept and I have not been the same since. Friends, when I pray for the oppressor, the intensity, purity and longing that fuel my prayers CANNOT come from me--mine are far too limited and faulty--they must come from the heart of the Lord; the heart that beats through the pages of scripture and in His Spirit that He left as a Helper to guide us into ALL Truth.
I want you to know this: You can learn many thing about the heart of God when you read His Word, but if you want to learn how to feel the heart of God, you cannot do that unless you pray. It is in prayer that your heart fellowships with His, that your heart wrestles with His, that your heart learns to feel what He feels for whomever He feels it. I do not know of ANY OTHER place where you can learn to feel the heart of God than with His Word in prayer.
If you are a believer in Jesus, a follower of the Bible, one who wants to grow in likeness to Christ and reflect the beauty of your Savior, you must grow in truly KNOWING God’s heart. Because if you do not learn to wrestle in His presence with His Truth, you will distort Who He is and what He desires. The call on our life as His followers requires us to TANGIBLY depend upon Him to fulfill it, because left to our own volition, we will not land in a place that looks upon the wicked and declares, “Precious is their blood in His sight.”
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