Mother's Day

"A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts." 

- Washington Irving

Happy Mother's Day to my mother (a wonderful blessing from God), and to all the other mothers out there.

Ambassadors for Christ

The Commission

"I asked the Lord to help my neighbor,

And carry the gospel to distant lands,

And to comfort the sick but He said to me,

If you love Me, be My hands.

"I asked the Lord to go to the dying,

And the orphan on the street,

And visit the prisoner, but He said to me,

If you love Me, be My feet.

"I asked the Lord to look to the poor,

And watch over the babe that cries,

And see each man's need, but He said to me,

If you love Me, be My eyes.

"I said to the Lord, I want to serve You,

But I don't know where to start.

To love is the answer, He said to me.

If you love Me, be My heart."

- G. Shirie Westfall

     We typically think of a missionary as someone who lives five thousand miles away from home, in a grass hut. But being a missionary starts HERE: right where God has placed us.

     In John Piper's book, "Desiring God," he makes the point that we should be so full of love and joy for God, that everyone we come in contact with will see it. Are we showing God's love to those around us? Or are we mirroring this world?

     As Christians, we are called to represent Christ on this earth.

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on the behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

- 2 Corinthians 5:20

     That doesn't mean that only Christians who are living five thousand miles away from home are called to be an "ambassador" for our Lord. It means that whether you are married or live with your parents; whether you are a pastor or work at McDonald's; whether you are a missionary in a foreign country or a kid at school: you are called to show the love of Christ to everyone, right where you are.

A Mouth for the Speechless (Part 2)

"The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."

- Mother Teresa

     Abortion: a branch of what started as something called eugenics. Its primary purpose: to make a super human race - a Utopia. But until Roe v. Wade abortion was illegal. 
     
      "Besides being immersed in eugenics, Roe v. Wade was founded on lies. 'Jane Roe' was really Norma McCorvey. This single, pregnant woman was used by two lawyers to legalize abortion. She never knew anything about the case or its proceedings except that she could get an abortion when the case was over. She never went through with the abortion. The first thing she heard about the case was on the news when Roe v. Wade was decided and abortion was made legal.
     "Roe v. Wade’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, which made abortion legal in all three trimesters of pregnancy for virtually any reason, had a similar situation. 'Mary Doe’s' real name was Sandra Cano. Her husband was in jail, her kids had been placed to foster care, and she was pregnant at the time the lawyers approached her. When she agreed to be Doe, she thought it was to get a divorce and to get her children back.
     "They tried to convince her to have an abortion, but she wouldn’t agree to one because she believed abortion was wrong. She had no idea that her case would become the infamous Doe v. Bolton. Now both women are followers of Christ and are trying to reverse their cases (Cavanaugh-O’Keefe, The Roots Chapter Thirteen)." But until the abolition of abortion, many innocent children are dying.

To read more on the history of abortion CLICK HERE.

     Abortion was legalized in the U.S. in 1973, so for the last thirty-eight years women have had the choice to get rid of their "little problems." But exactly how many have made that choice? Below are the statistics (taken from  http://bound4life.com/statistics which based their statistics upon "the most-cited sources regarding abortion").


Abortions worldwide: 46 million babies are aborted ever year (approximately one baby is aborted every two seconds).


Abortions in the United States: since the legalization of abortion in 1973, approximately 50 million children have been aborted (one third of all pregnancies end in abortion).


Causes for abortion: 
98% personal choice (AKA: it was inconvenient).
1.7% the health of the mother or child was at stake.
0.3% (3 out of every one thousand) rape/incest.


     Only 2% of abortions are actually due to a difficult situation. But just because there was a difficult situation, does it make abortion any better? 

"Repay no evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable." - Romans 12:17 (ESV)

     480 physicians signed a public statement that abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. They stated: "I agree that there is never a situation in the law or in the ethical practice of medicine where a preborn child's life need be intentionally destroyed by procured abortion for the purpose of saving the life of the mother" (http://all.org/article.php?id=10682). 

     Furthermore, "a child conceived through rape or incest does not deserve the death penalty for his or her father's crime...research shows that the victim of either crime is likely to suffer more if she resorts to abortion." (Pro-Life Action League, Sharing the Pro-Life Message, p. 34).

     The founders of our nation said that we are all created equal, and that we should all have equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Abortion takes away these rights. Abortion is the depravity of life from a baby, but no innocent human should be killed. It does not matter what title you give it; murder is murder. And it is our duty to stand for the innocent, to help those in need and to be a "mouth for the speechless."

"When my bones were being formed, 

carefully put together in my mother's womb, 

when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there- 

You saw me before I was born."

- Psalm 139:15-16 (GNT)

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."

- Jeremiah 1:5 (ESV)

A Love Worth Dying For

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV
     What is love? Is it what we see in Hollywood? "Love" based upon sudden impulses and physical attraction. Or does it go beyond that? A love that is selfless, unchanging and never ending: a love worth dying for.
     In the Bible we find the greatest love story of all time: the story of a Father sending His one and only Son to free the human race. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16 ESV). This love isn't the selfish love that Hollywood portrays. It is a pure and perfect and self-sacrificing love.         "Yea," we may argue. "But that is God's love, it goes pass my own. I can't love that way." But that's not what the Bible tells us. In John 15:12-13, Jesus tells us, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends (ESV)." And throughout the Bible we see this same pattern; true love is self-sacrificing.
     Love is when a father devotes his life to providing for his family. Love is when a mother lays everything down to tend to her child. Love is when siblings stand up for each other. Love is when a spouse gives up his/her dreams for their beloved. Love is when someone gives up His life to save the world.  Love is selfless.
"Love should be unconditional. It shouldn't be 'I will love you if...' It should be 'I will love you no matter what."- Gilbert Morris, The Heavenly Fugitive