Overthinking Will Betray You

I am a thinker. I ponder, muse, speculate, evaluate, and explore everything. In truth, I overthink. If it were possible, I could think things to death. I consider things I should have said and should have done. I relive discussions and circumstances I’ve had. I dwell on mistakes and analyze them in great detail. I recall the sorrows and heartaches of my past like a broken record. I think thoughts like if only, what if, or I should have. Unfortunately, the more I think, the more I despair. Is this a description of you?

A certain amount of self-evaluation can be good. We should have insight into ourselves, our motives, our choices, and our actions. We should keep aware of the ways we minimize our sin. We ought to know the idols that reign in our heart. We need to know the temptations we’re prone to give in to.
The apostle Paul encouraged such evaluation before taking Communion (1 Corinthians 11:28). He also encouraged the same Corinthian church to test themselves to see if they were indeed in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). The prophet in Lamentations wrote, “Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!” (Lamentations 3:40). Self-evaluation is good, especially when it helps us see the sin in our heart — when it helps us see the truth that we are fallen. Good self-evaluation will remind us of our need for a Savior and point us to the gospel of grace.

But sometimes we can go too far. When self-evaluation ends with ourselves instead of pointing us beyond ourselves, there’s a problem. Bad self-evaluation keeps us focused on ourselves and the things we should have done, ought to do, and will do. We dwell on our guilt over sin, shame over sins done to us, and regrets over what we wish had happened.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote that overthinking and self-evaluation can actually encourage and contribute to spiritual depression. "There is a type of person who tends to be always analyzing himself, analyzing everything he does, and worrying about the possible effects of his actions, always harking back, always full of vain regrets." (Spiritual Depression, 17)

He explained that there is a difference between self-examination, which is something we should do, and introspection, which is when self-examination becomes something we always do. We are meant to examine ourselves periodically, but if we are always doing it, always, as it were, putting our soul on a plate and dissecting it, that is introspection. (17) When introspection pulls us down into despair, it’s no longer self-examination, but what Martyn Lloyd-Jones calls morbidity. This morbidity makes us focus all our energies on ourselves, making us self-centered — the opposite of what Christ called us to do when he taught us to put others before ourselves. As Christians, we are to be self-forgetful. We are to put our energies into loving and serving others, just like Jesus did for us (Philippians 2:3–8).

Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote that because overthinkers can be prone to spiritual depression, we should know our strengths and weaknesses. If we tend toward overthinking and too much self-evaluation, we need to be cautious of that tendency and be on the lookout for it. There is great wisdom in knowing our tendencies, being mindful of them, and resisting them. For those of us who tend toward too much self-evaluation, what should we do when we find ourselves overthinking things?

We don’t have to listen to ourselves. Instead, we can talk back to ourselves. We can take our thoughts captive. We can speak the truth of God’s word to our hearts, for the word has the power to change and transform us. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17). Lies lose their power in the face of truth. We need to know God’s word by heart so that it is always on the tip of our tongue, ready for us to fire at the lies we hear around us — especially those within our own hearts.

The gospel isn’t something we respond to once in our life at the moment of salvation. Rather, it’s something we respond to and apply to our life each and every day. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves, remembering all that we have in Christ. We need to remember what Christ did for us in his perfect life, sacrificial death, and triumphant resurrection. We cling to the precious reality that God, who didn’t spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will certainly give us everything we need (Romans 8:32). When it comes to our overthinking, we need to rebuke and correct ourselves with the truths of what Jesus has done, what he is doing, and what he will do. Even when our thoughts betray us, and we find ourselves consumed with should haves and what ifs, the amazing thing is that God knows us. He examines the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! (Psalm 139:23)
Before a word is on our tongue, he knows it. He knows more about our hearts than we do; he knows the truth of who we are deep down inside. But what amazing grace! God looks at us and sees our Savior. He hears our thoughts and accepts Christ’s perfect thoughts in our place. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

When our thoughts turn inward and we fail to remember God’s grace, he continues to give more grace. In fact, God’s grace doesn’t depend on our thoughts about God, but his thoughts toward us.
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)
It’s good to evaluate ourselves. We should have insight into our thoughts and actions. But we cross the line when it becomes all we think about. If you tend toward overthinking, know yourself, know your tendencies, but most of all, know the truth: Jesus died for your what if anxieties, and he won’t let you fall into despair when you cling to his precious promises.

How To Love A Depressed Spouse

Experiencing the languishing of your spouse — your own flesh (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:6) — while you helplessly watch, is all at once incredibly sad, painful, scary, and frustrating. I can’t imagine the difficulty this season has brought you and your family.

Sadness spreads over our souls because we are watching the one we love most on this earth retreat to a place of nearly indescribable pain and inescapable darkness.
Pain pervades our hearts because our most intimate spiritual partner is wounded. We wince at the sharp sting, just as we would if we were injured physically.
Fear creeps in because the depth of this dark place seems unending (Psalm 88). You might even fear that the woman who once shone beauty and delight may never return.
Frustration forms because you alone cannot be enough for them (1 Samuel 1:8), and the one you most dearly desire to please seems to find no pleasure at all.

You might be tempted to think that if you only had the right words you could somehow fix their dark night of the soul. And believe me, they would want nothing more. Indeed, you may feel the pressure to be that quick fix for them. But there are no magic wands, no silver bullets. Even the gospel may ring dull in their ears for now — that most glorious truth that the God of all creation would love them so much that he would send his only begotten and most dearly beloved Son to take on human flesh for them can fall flat. That the King of the universe took on the form of a servant, was tempted and tried yet remained perfect, was betrayed and beaten yet remained steadfast, and had the wrath of hell poured upon him and was killed so that we might have his righteousness may not stir their soul as you would hope.

Even those awesome gospel truths might seem dim to them, like a faded memory or distant dream.
But don’t lose heart! Preach the gospel to them every single day — in thought, in word, and in deed.
Muster your courage and be determined to do nothing short of displaying the character of Christ to them hour-by-hour and moment-by-moment. And when you feel exhausted, run to the cross and receive the power of his all-sufficient grace, which gleams all the more brilliant in our greatest weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). While you cannot talk them out of this dark place, you can lead them through it. By lead, I mean the out-front leadership to which we as spouses are called (Ephesians 5:25–27). Your spouse needs someone to get behind while you storm the gates of hell together. They needs someone who’s willing to take up their cross daily for them, even when he’s at his weakest. They need a spouse who embraces the reality that only the grace of Jesus can sustain both of you in these darkened days.

1) Show them hope when they feel like they have none, because you have hope in Christ (Hebrews 6:19).
2) Give them mercy when they don’t deserve it, because you have mercy in Christ that you don’t deserve (Romans 3:24–25).
3) Exhibit joy when they can’t find it, because you have joy in Christ (1 Peter 1:3–9).
4) Display peace when they only know trouble, because you have the peace of Christ (John 14:27).
5) Demonstrate thankfulness when all they feel is bitter, because in Christ you’ve been given all things (Colossians 3:12–17).
6) Model sanctification when they have no energy to fight sin, because you are sanctified in Christ (Romans 6:17–19).
7) Offer them comfort when they are in distress, because you have received the Spirit of comfort through Christ (John 14:26).

And when you don’t — because sometimes you won’t (Romans 7:19) — remember that God’s loving and patient grace is for you as well (2 Corinthians 12:9). Not even our own failures, accidental or purposeful, can keep us from the riches of love we have in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:31–39). So, when hope seems lost and darkness appears to overtake the light, cling to the cross. When you feel terribly alone because the one who shares a bed with you seems like a stranger, cling to Jesus.
Jesus is your refuge, your rock, your strength, and your stronghold (Psalm 18:1–3). That old rugged cross is the place where you see your Protector, Deliverer, Redeemer, Sustainer, Brother, and Friend (2 Thessalonians 3:3; Romans 7:24–25; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:17; Romans 8:17; John 15:15).
See Christ so that you may show them Christ, my dear friend. And the more you show them Christ, the more Christ will show himself to you.

With Jesus, all things are possible (Philippians 4:13). Even bearing the burdens of your depressed spouse is possible. Jesus is with you as the three of you walk together — when you descend into the dark valley and when you eventually make it through to greener pastures and stiller waters.

Fighting For Faith In Darkness

I’ve often said that depression is like wearing tinted glasses. Everywhere you look, things look dark. Bleak. Black. Hopeless. Helpless. The waiting room for depression says, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Depression is both a physical and spiritual affliction. Neurons and synapses fail to fire properly, leading to chemical imbalances in the brain. These imbalances cause the depressed person to feel awful, like their entire world is a raw catastrophe hovering over the depths of despair. When everything is a catastrophe, it’s easy for faith to falter and stumble. Normally, the prescription for faith is somewhat straightforward. We read the promises of God, let them diffuse throughout our hearts, and then embrace them fully. As we embrace these promises, our faith rises. When we have more faith, there is often a physical feeling of encouragement and hope.
But with clinical depression (and most other forms of mental illness), things don’t work quite that way. Depression usually causes a person to feel only gloom and despair, no matter what they’re thinking. Filling your mind with God’s promises is necessary, but it doesn’t usually alter the way you feel. It’s like having a migraine. Believing God’s word is essential, but it won’t take away the migraine (usually). When all you feel is gloom, it becomes very hard to have hope, no matter what you read in Scripture. As someone who labored under a lot of depression and anxiety throughout my life, I know that it usually doesn’t help a depressed person to say, “Just believe God’s word more!”

So if you’re depressed, how can you fight for faith? How can you believe while also stumbling through the dark? Here are some things that have helped me.
1. Distinguish between fact and feeling.
The most important thing I’ve learned is that 90% of the time in the midst of my depression, my feelings have zero connection to reality. This is key when you’re in the morass of mental illness.
I feel bad because something is seriously wrong with my body. Because my brain is rebelling — not because everything is really going to pieces. Reality is outside of my broken brain. It is defined by God’s word. It’s solid. Objective. Unchangeable. If I try to process my life or circumstances through the dark lens of depression, I will be terrified. If you’re depressed, it can be dangerous to evaluate anything in your life. Don’t scrutinize your circumstances or friendships or prospects for marriage. I can assure you that you will misinterpret reality. Instead, simply say, “I’m leaving that to God for now. I’ll think about it later and trust him to handle it.” God is good. He is faithful. He loves you even though you don’t feel it. He can handle your life even when you can’t.

Remember, faith is not a feeling. Faith is simply believing that God will do what he said, even when it doesn’t feel like it. I can guarantee that when you’re depressed, it won’t feel like God is faithful. But that feeling simply is not true. Don’t believe it. John Calvin, a pastor acutely sensitive to the imperfect feeling of our faith, says that true faith “clings so fast to the inmost parts that, however it seems to be shaken or to bend this way or that, its light is never so extinguished or snuffed out that it does not at least lurk as it were beneath the ashes” (Institutes). Like David prays in Psalm 139:11–12, our faith may often slip away from our sight, but it does not slip away from God who gave it in the first place. Separate your feelings from the truth.

2. Find a friend to remind you of the truth.
Depression gets you stuck inside your head. Your brain becomes a swirling mass of half-truths and distorted perceptions. Up seems down; truth seems stranger than fiction. It’s impossible to think straight. It’s like looking upside down in a hall of darkened mirrors.
During these times, I need someone to tell me the truth. Not in a corrective way or as an exhortation, but simply as an anchor. I need someone to say, “Listen, here’s what’s true. I know it doesn’t feel true, but it’s true. Right now, you feel like you are doomed. But God is with you. He loves you and won’t let you go.” If you’re depressed, one of your greatest temptations is to shut people out. And I get that. It’s really hard to let people into the cage of your life. But you need someone to gently remind you of what’s real; a faithful friend to walk through the valley of depression with you. When your friend speaks the truth to you, it gives you something to grab onto. In the moments of darkness, don’t believe what your mind is telling you. Believe the words of your faithful friend.

3. Give sunshine to the soul.
There is an intimate connection between the body and soul. The body often charts the way forward and the soul follows in the wake. When your body is deeply sick, it pulls your soul downward, like a weight tied around the ankle. I’ve found that one of the most effective methods for increasing my faith begins with my body. When I exercise or go for a walk or sit in the sunshine, my body feels better. Blood and oxygen pump through my body, refreshing and nurturing it. When I feel better, I think more clearly and see things more accurately. When I think more clearly, I can more easily process and embrace God’s promises. When I embrace God’s promises, my faith surges.

Charles Spurgeon, who often fought depression, said, "A day’s breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours’ ramble in the beech woods’ umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brain of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind’s face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is the next best. If you’re depressed, embrace the sunshine. Go for a walk or a jog. Sit on your porch and feel the warmth on your face. Drink your coffee and watch the sun rise. You won’t feel like it. You’ll want to hole up in the darkness of your room or stay in bed. But just twenty minutes in the sun can do wonders for the darkened brain and the sunken soul."

Ultimately, your hope in depression hinges on Jesus. He’s holding onto you even when it feels like you’re free falling. You may be in the dark, but your Shepherd is walking right beside you. He knows what it’s like to be overwhelmed by grief and swallowed by bleakness.

Your grip on life may falter, but his grip on you won’t.

What Makes A Person?

What shall we call the unborn in the womb?
If the entity is a living thing, is it not a life? If your person began as a single cell, how can that fertilized egg be something other than a human being? Isn't it more accurate to say you were an embryo than that you simply came from one? So when does a human being have a right to life?

Shall we say size matters? Is the unborn child too small to deserve our protection? Are big people more valuable than little people? Are men more human than woman? Do offensive linemen have more rights than jockeys? Is the life in the womb of no account because you can't hold him in our arms, or put him in your hands, or only see her on a screen?

Shall we make intellectual development and mental capacity the measure of our worth? Are three year-old children less valuable than thirteen year-olds? Is the unborn child less than fully human because he cannot speak or count or be self-aware? Does the cooing infant in the crib have to smile or shake your hand or recite the alphabet before she deserves another day? If an expression of basic mental acuity is necessary to be a full-fledged member of the human community, what shall we do with the comatose, the very old, or the fifty year-old mom with Alzheimer's? And what about all of us who sleep?

Shall we deny the unborn child's right to life because of where he lives? Can environment give us value or take it away? Are we worth less inside than outside? Can we be justly killed when we swim under water? Does where we are determine who we are? Does the eight inch journey down the birth canal make us human? Does this change of scenery turn "its" into persons? Is love a condition of location? Shall we reserve human dignity only for those humans who are not dependent on others? Do we deserve to live only when we can live on our own? Is the four-month old fetus less than human because she needs her mom for life? Is the four-month old infant less than human when she still needs her mom for life? What if you depend on dialysis or insulin or a breathing apparatus? Is value a product of fully-functioning vitality? Is independence a prerequisite for human identity? Are we worth only what we can think, accomplish, and do on our own?

If the unborn life is human life, what can justify snuffing it out? Would it be right to take the life of your child on his first birthday because he came to you through sad and tragic circumstances? Would you push an 18 month old into traffic because she makes our life difficult? Does a three year-old deserve to die because we think we deserve a choice?
What do you deserve now? What are your rights as a human person? Did you have those same rights five years ago? What about before you could drive? Or when you used training wheels? Were you less than fully human when you played in the sandbox? When you wore a bib? When you nursed at your mother's breast? When your dad cut your cord? When you tumbled in that watery mess and kicked against that funny wall? When your heart pounded on the monitor for the first time? When you grew your first fingernails? When you grew your first cells?

What shall we call the child in the womb? A fetus? A mystery? A mistake? A wedge issue? What if science and Scripture and commonsense would have us call it a person? What if the unborn child, the messy infant, the wobbly toddler, the rambunctious teenager, the college freshman, the blushing bride, the first-time mother, the working woman, the proud grammy, and the demented old friend differ not in kind but only in degree? Where in the progression does our humanity begin and end? Where does life become valuable? When are we worth something? When do human rights become our rights? What if Dr. Seuss was right and a person's a person no matter how small?

Why celebrate the right to kill what you once were? Why deny the rights of the little one who is what you are?

The Works Of God Displayed

His name was Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar – the first person killed by official order of Adolph Hitler. He was born blind and missing some limbs. He was five months old. And he was not the last.
Immediately following this illegal act (not even the Chancellor of Germany could legally order such a thing), Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, created a registry of children with disabilities and a panel of doctors who would decide who should live and who should be killed. Soon it would include adults. More than 200,000 physically or cognitively disabled people would be killed between 1939 and 1945 in Germany.

This was not a single aberration in human history perpetrated by a madman — people with disabilities are frequently the first to be targeted for destruction. And when that practice becomes acceptable, it expands to include more and more people who are "considered" unworthy of life.
Today, that includes aborting one of two healthy twins in the womb. Some women who have gone through significant financial expense and physical hardship to conceive children through medical interventions are voluntarily choosing to kill one of their healthy twins, though there is usually no medical reason to do so. The New York Times looked at this issue of the two-minus-one pregnancy in August 2011 and it frequently came down two things: 1) this isn’t what I planned for; and 2) I don’t want to endure the suffering that comes with twins.

And at least one woman made the case that since it is acceptable to abort children with disabilities it should be equally acceptable to abort one of two healthy twins: “I couldn’t have imagined reducing twins for nonmedical reasons,” she said, “but I had an amnio and would have had an abortion if I found out that one of the babies had an anomaly, even if it wasn’t life-threatening. I didn’t want to raise a handicapped child. Some people would call that selfish, but I wouldn’t. Parents who abort for an anomaly just don’t want that life for themselves, and it’s their prerogative to fashion their lives how they want. Is terminating two to one really any different morally?”

Pause over that last sentence. She is right, you know. There is absolutely no moral difference between a healthy twin and a baby with disabilities. Yet, as a culture, we behave like there is a difference. We see some qualitative difference between the life of a child with a disability and the life of a ‘typically’ developing child. And when we see this way, we open the door to more children being destroyed, including healthy children. And if history can teach us anything, it could also include adults that don't fit our brand of genetic purity. Church, we will not see this way. We will not. We will confound our culture, valuing all children in all circumstances. This is a radical expression of love that we are called to as the redeemed of God. We will see differently and Jesus will be glorified.

Attributes such as ethnicity or gender are socially off limits for such discussion. But it is socially acceptable — many argue ethically necessary — to talk about “options” when disability is discovered in the womb. “Wrongful birth” lawsuits, where the parents declare they would have aborted their child if they had known the child would be born with a disability, have been won with awards in the millions of dollars. Doctors and insurance companies notice such things. Do we need more evidence that discriminatory attitudes remain against people with disabilities? Shouldn’t killing them before they are born or awarding “damages” when they are “wrongfully” born be enough to convince us?

There are signs of hope. Legislators in Indiana are seeking to join North Dakota in banning abortions based on fetal disability. They are rightly shining a light on the deadly, twisted way many think about unborn children who are not genetically “normal.” Opponents of the law, however, have no problem stating publicly that termination options must be available. One mother who aborted her child with significant, fatal disabilities testified that having that child “would have ruined me and it would have ruined my family.” The fact that she had a healthy boy after her abortion was offered as proof of the wisdom of her decision.

I’m glad she had a healthy son, but I doubt her ability to accurately predict the future. How is the birth of a healthy boy a guarantee against future suffering? We’ll never know the true impact of her first child on her family. If you believe in the sovereignty of God in all things, aborting children is outrageous. Period. The God who intimately knits babies together (Psalm 139:13), including some who will live with a disability (Exodus 4:11; John 9:3), does so for his glory and for the good of his people. All the promises of God remain true for that child and that family. God is mighty and full of mercy in the gift of every child, and he equips us to love them no matter what.

The Story Of Jane Roe

Norma McCorvey is probably a name most people have never heard of. But if we were to use the alias given to her, Jane Roe, as in Roe-v-Wade, then you would know her. But would you truly know who Jane Roe was?

Jane Roe was already on her third pregnancy when the infamous court case was being heard. Her first two pregnancies all resulted in adoption. She was living in Texas, where abortion was illegal, and could not afford to get to a state where it was. So she set out to see if someone could send her in the right direction. She was introduced to a young lawyer that was trying to sue the state for the right to abortion; and they needed a desperate and believable plaintiff. McCorvey was the perfect candidate for Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, but her story needed to be more believable.

So she and her attorneys told the court the pregnancy was the result of a gang rape, so she "needed" an abortion and she deserved the right to choose, or she thought she did. So on March 17, 1970, she signed an affidavit that would, in her words some years later, " brought the holocaust of abortion into America." By the time the courts made their decision in 1973, she had already given birth to her baby, who was also adopted.

So the figurehead of the abortion movement, never actually had an abortion. In fact she was only used for the sole purpose of the attorneys to push their movement. Her image didn't fit the look of their movement. She was an alcoholic, drug-user, and worked odd jobs undesirable to those they were trying to reach. After she signed the papers she had nothing to do with the movement till many years later. A civil rights attorney from Los Angeles named Gloria Allred, befriended her and told her to feel proud that she was Jane Roe, and set her on the course for working for abortion rights.

She made a career out of working for abortion clinics in Dallas Texas. Until one day when Operation Rescue set up shop next to the clinic. Operation Rescue is now the nation’s leading pro-life Christian activist organization. It was then under the leadership of director Flip Benham, who McCorvey preferred at the time to call Flip Venom. Assisting Benham was Ronda Mackey, a fiery young mother of two girls, Chelsea and Emily. Although she assumed they would be filled with hate like other protesters around the country, she was constantly met with love and friendship from them. As time past, their love grew on her and she excepted an invitation to their church.

That day Jane Roe died, and Norma McCorvey was reborn. Norma excepted Christ into her life that day, and was baptized that afternoon in the family's pool. From that day forward she made it her cause in life to try and get that infamous court case overturned. From protest speeches, to lobbying Congress, she was now pro-life because she had been given new life. The poster child for abortion, had leaped off the poster and took up the charge to fight for life.

This is a story we never hear. The media takes great steps to keep the information one sided. Even at her death last year the reports from popular media did what they could to paint her in a bad light.(Such as here and here) But there are always two sides to a story, and you can usually tell truth where there is love.

Just as Norma McCovey, a young girl at the time, poor, addicted to drugs, and with a hard life, was coerced into lying for the case; so was another young girl, attached to the other high profile case in the Supreme Court Doe-v-Bolton. Another young girl,  Sandra Cano was living a life very similar to Norma's and looking for help out of a horrible marriage. Both girls, used under the false pretenses of the liberation of women, were used as the faces of the abortion movement.

Both never had an abortion.  Both are pushing too have the rulings overturned.

Poems Of Brokenness

Through all the research,  I've come across hundreds of testimonials from women who were broken after having an abortion. These are poems written by two women after being broken by their abortions.

"It"

I waited in my nausea, surrounded by stone-faced bourgeois
With rolls of twenty-dollar bills in jacket pockets with their pills,
Funds from the ATM outside the clinic door, because the guide,
Imbedded in the website said “Cash only in advance.” The dread
Concealed — as if I really read the Mademoiselle — my eyes instead
Were staring at the vinyl floor, so clean and cold, a wise decor
In case a mother’s vomit soiled the luster underfoot, and spoiled
This sterile place.

And then, all through the brief and mindless interview
And prep, they called my baby “it.”
I tried to think that what God knit in me was only “it.” I gripped
For dear life every word — a script, to somehow make this life an “it.”

But then, with legs still split in clamps, I lifted up my head,
And saw there on the table, dead, a tiny torso, not an “it,” but “she,”
Destroyed, and with her, me.

Do You Hear The Children

Do you hear the children crying? I can hear them every day, Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

Somewhere safe from all the dangers, Somewhere safe from Crack and AIDS, Safe from lust and lurking strangers, Safe from war and bombing raids.

Somewhere safe from malnutrition, Safe from daddy's damning voice, Safe from mommy's cool ambition, Safe from deadly goddess, Choice.

Do you hear the children crying? I can hear them every day, Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

Do you see the children meeting? I can see them in the sky, Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.

Why the milk no longer nourished, Why the water made them sick, Why the crops no longer flourished, Why the belly got so thick.

Why they never knew the reason Friends had vanished out of sight, Why some suffered for a season,
Others never saw the light.

Do you see the children meeting? I can see them in the sky, Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.

Do you hear the children singing? I can hear them high above, Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

Glory for the gift of living, Glory for the end of pain, Glory for the gift of giving, Glory for eternal gain.

Glory from the ones forsaken, Glory from the lost and lone, Glory when the infants waken, Orphans on the Father's throne

Do you hear the children singing? I can hear them high above, Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

Do you see the children coming? I can see them on the clouds, Coming, strumming, drumming, humming Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

Songs with lots of happy clapping, Songs that set the heart on fire, Songs that make your foot start tapping, Songs that make a merry choir.

Songs so loud the mountains tremble, Songs so pure the canyons ring, When the children all assemble Millions, millions, round the King.

Do you see the children coming? I can see them on the clouds, Coming, strumming, drumming, humming Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

Do you see the children waiting? I can see them all aglow Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
Who of us will rise and go?

Will we turn and fly to meet them Will we venture something new? I intend to rise and greet them.
Come and go with me, would you?

May You Be Blessed with Peace and Understanding

Call It What It Really Is

Abortion is rarely talked about.
I’m not talking about the word “abortion.” We hear this word a lot in the public square. But we rarely hear about it. Abortion almost always refers to something else. We hear that abortion is fundamentally about a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. Or abortion is a litmus test for judicial nominees. Or abortion is symptomatic of what’s wrong with the social discourse in America.
But none of those things is what abortion really is. Abortion is the intentional killing of unborn children. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Abortion is a clear example of this truth.

The killing of children can be tolerated and even championed as a social good so long as we don’t call it what it is. Call abortion an individual’s right to privacy and you can write it into the legal code. Call abortion a compassionate choice offered to a frightened girl to save her future or to save a child from an undesirable quality of life and you can swing popular opinion. Call abortion a liberation of women from the social and economic oppression of male dominance and passionate people will march on capitols chanting demands to preserve the human right of abortion on-demand.
But you won’t hear the street marchers chant, “We will fight for the right to kill our children!” Because calling abortion what it is might awaken uneasy consciences out of a euphemistic stupor to realize that millions of the most defenseless human beings on the planet are being denied the self-evident, Creator-endowed human right to life.

Death is in the power of logic-contradicting, term-redefining, and deceptively-clinical tongues. We have allowed legal child-killing on-demand for 45 years because we’ve called it something else.
That’s why Christians, “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14) must keep speaking the truth about what abortion is with relentless clarity. “We destroy arguments” (2 Corinthians 10:5) by not yielding the ground of clear truth. Because life is in the power of truth-speaking tongues. Therefore, we will keep saying: Abortion kills children and we all know this.

Our legal code demonstrates that we know this because it grants an unborn child the rights of personhood in areas such as tort, criminal, and property law, making legalized abortion a schizophrenic, arbitrary, and tragically defective legal ruling. Abortion is mercilessly violent. Children with heartbeats, brainwaves, and a nervous system that allows them to feel pain are literally torn to pieces. “93% of all abortions [in the United States] are performed on healthy mothers, with healthy babies. . . . Less than 1% are performed because of rape or incest.” (Abort73)
The number of children killed by abortion every year dwarfs the Holocaust and other homicidal horrors of history.

Approximately 3,300 children are killed by abortion every day in the United States. Americans kill 1.2 million unborn children every year. The World Health Organization estimates between 40 and 50 million children are killed around the world by abortion, approximately 125,000 every day.
Unborn girls are killed at a higher rate than unborn boys. Estimates are as high as 163 million unborn girls have been intentionally killed since the 1970’s because they were girls, resulting in what some are now calling a “gendercide” (see Abuse of Discretion, 334).
And we will speak many, many more clear truths (here are 15 more) until abortion on-demand is ended. Here’s the point: truthful tongues save lives. Legalized abortion is an evil that occurs and is tolerated because of deceptive words. And truthful words are required to clear the fatal fog with clarity.

I don’t know if our speaking truth will succeed in helping to change the abortion laws. World Magazine reports encouraging developments. “We are not called to win; we are called to witness.”
However, history does show that the faithful, relentless, prophetic witness of the saints over many years results in the remarkable spread of the gospel and the end of thousands of horrible social evils from the individual to the national levels. So we must keep speaking. We must call abortion what it is: the killing of children and a vicious, established, legalized evil and injustice.

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we just remembered because of his relentless truth-telling in the face of established, legalized, racial evil, once said, “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it.”
We dare not be guilty of this. The Lord who said, “Rescue those who are being taken away to death” will not accept the excuse, “Behold, we did not know this” (Proverbs 24:11–12).

May life be in the power of our truthful tongues.

We Know What We Are Doing

One biblical principle of justice is that the more knowledge we have that our action is wrong, the more guilty we are, and the more deserving of punishment (Luke 12:47–48). The point of this article is that, when it comes to abortion, we know what we are doing — all America knows. We are killing children. Pro-choice and pro-life people both know this. But before I show that, let’s clarify what the Supreme Court did 45 years ago. In Roe v. Wade the Supreme Court in effect made abortion on demand untouchable by law. The way this was done was with two steps.

One step was to say, laws may not prevent abortion, even during the full nine months, if the abortion is “to preserve the life or health of the mother.” The other step was to define “health” as “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient.” For 45 years this has meant that any perceived stress is a legal ground for eliminating the child. We have killed over 60 million babies. And what increases our guilt as a nation is that we know what we are doing. Here’s the evidence that we know we are killing children.

1. Anecdotally, abortionists will admit they are killing children.
Many simply say it is the lesser of two evils. I read an article where John Piper took an abortionist out to lunch prepared to give him ten reasons why the unborn are human beings. He stopped him, and said, “I know that. We are killing children.” He was stunned. He said, “It’s simply a matter of justice for women. It would be a greater evil to deny women the equal right of reproductive freedom.”
Which means women should be no more encumbered by the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy than men. That equal freedom from the burden of bearing unwanted children is the basis for abortion that President Obama referred to again and again in public when he talked about equal rights for women. We know what that means. We are killing children.

2. States treat the killing of the unborn as a homicide.
We know what we are doing because 38 states (including Minnesota) treat the killing of an unborn child as a form of homicide. They have what are called “fetal homicide laws.”
It is illegal to take the life of the unborn if the mother wants the baby, but it is legal to take the life of the unborn if she doesn’t. In the first case the law treats the fetus as a human with rights; in the second case the law treats the fetus as non-human with no rights. Humanness is thus defined by the desire of the strong. Might makes right. We reject this right to define personhood in the case of Nazi anti-Semitism, Confederate race-based slavery, and Soviet Gulags. When we define the humanness of the unborn by the will of the powerful we know what we are doing.

3. Fetal surgery treats the unborn as children and patients.
High risk pregnancy specialist, Dr. Steve Calvin, in a letter some years ago to the Arizona Daily Star, wrote, “There is inescapable schizophrenia in aborting a perfectly normal 22 week fetus while at the same hospital, performing intrauterine surgery on its cousin.” When the unborn are wanted, they are treated as children and patients. When they are not wanted, they are not children. We know what we are doing.

4. Being small does not disqualify personhood.
The five-foot-eight frame of a teenage son guarantees him no more right to life than the 23-inch frame of his little sister in her mother’s arms. Size is, we know, morally irrelevant. One inch, 23 inches, 68 inches — does not matter. It is morally irrelevant in deciding who should be protected. We know what we are doing in killing the smallest.

5. Not having a developed reasoning power does not disqualify personhood.
A one-month-old infant, nursing at his mother’s breast, does not have reasoning powers. But only a few dare argue that infanticide is therefore acceptable. Most know better. Outside and inside the womb the infant cannot yet reason, but, in spite of that, is a human person. We know what we are doing.

6. Being in the womb does not disqualify human personhood.
Location or environment does not determine a right to life. Scott Klusendorf asks, “How does a simple journey of seven inches down the birth canal suddenly transform the essential nature of the fetus from non-person to person?” We know what we are doing.

7. Being dependent on mommy does not disqualify personhood.
We consider persons on respirators or dialysis to be human beings. The unborn cannot be disqualified from human personhood because they are dependent on their mother for food and oxygen. In fact, we operate on the exact opposite principle: The more dependent a little one is on us, the more responsibility we feel to protect him, not the less. We know what we are doing.
(Those last four observations, points 4 through 7, were summed up by Scott Klusendorf under the acronym SLED: Size, Level of development, Environment, Degree of dependence — none is morally relevant for the definition of human life.)

8. The genetic makeup of humans is unique.
The genetic makeup of a human is different from all other creatures from the moment of conception. The human code is complete and unique from the start. Once that was not known. Now we know.

9. All the organs are present at eight weeks of gestation.
At eight weeks of gestation all the organs are present. The brain is functioning, the heart pumping, the liver making blood cells, the kidney cleaning the fluids, the finger has a print. Yet almost all abortions happen later than this date. We know what we are doing.

10. We have seen the photographs.
The marvel of ultrasound has given a stunning window into the womb that shows the unborn, for example, at 8 weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. We know that they are children.

11. When two rights conflict, the higher value should be protected.
We know the principle of justice that when two legitimate rights conflict, the right that protects the higher value should prevail. We deny the right to drive at 100 miles per hour because the value of life is greater than the value of being on time or getting thrills. The right of the unborn not to be killed and the right of a woman not to be pregnant may be at odds. But they are not equal rights. Staying alive is more precious and more basic than not being pregnant. We know what we are doing when we kill a child.

For Christians who believe the Bible, we could add at least ten more reasons why we know what is happening in abortion, and why it is wrong. But the aim here is threefold.

1. We aim to make clear that we will not be able to defend ourselves with the claim of ignorance. We knew. All of us. It is astonishing how relevant Proverbs 24:11–12 is to our present situation of abortion: Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

2. We aim to solidify our conviction to resist this horrific evil.

3. We aim to intensify our prayer and our preaching toward gospel-based soul-renovation in our land, because sinful hardness of heart, not innocent ignorance, is at the root of this carnage.

Today Is An Anniversary

Today is an anniversary — a time for warm smiles and congratulations.

Never mind that one black child is killed every minute in America. Never mind that more blacks are lynched in the womb every three days than white supremacists strung up on trees at the end of dirt roads. Never mind that more black children were killed last week than the KKK killed in all their 150 years of horror. No, never mind that.

For today is an anniversary — a day to feast, drink, and be merry.

Not a day to consider that every other black baby is put down before they see life — two conceived, one born. Never mind that in some states more black babies are killed than kept. Never mind that blacks are the only minority whose population is in decline. No, never mind that.

For today is an anniversary.

Not a day to acknowledge that the grim reaper of abortion sickles and harvests Black America, claiming twice as many black lives yearly as police violence, gang murders, accidents, heart disease, cancer, AIDS, and all other illnesses — combined. Nor is this the time to wonder why our government gives over half a billion dollars to fund these minority death camps. No, for today is a time for celebration and cheer.

For today is an anniversary.

Never mind that the skeleton of abortion emerges from Uncle Sam’s racist past. Never mind that it was propagated by white eugenicists who aimed to protect America’s economy by limiting the threat of a freshly emancipated black population whose workforce consisted of largely unskilled and uneducated workers. Never mind that abortion was an offshoot of the “Negro Project.”

And never mind that the first people against abortion weren’t white conservatives but the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam because they saw abortion as a civil rights issue. And never mind that their fears have been actualized in today’s statistics, which tell us that black babies are five times more likely to be aborted than whites. Or that nearly 40% of abortions today are procured by black women (though they are only 12% of the population), or that two out of every three Planned Parenthood clinics are located in a black community.

No, today is a happy day. A special day. A day to mark on our calendars. A day to remember — an anniversary.

A toast then . . .

Since the gavel sounded on Roe v. Wade 45 years ago today, more than 20 million black children have been killed in their own mother’s womb. That’s the combined populations of New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. States full of black citizens, fathers, mothers, professionals, students, children, friends — gone.

Today is an anniversary.

This is a powerful video, please take the time to watch, think about, and share with others.

May You Be Blessed with Peace and Understanding.

We Can't Do Nothing

Every year Americans commemorate Memorial Day, a holiday of collective national remembrance. Many will gather in cemeteries and civic parks for grateful and sometimes tearful ceremonies. This is a good and appropriate kind of remembering. It is important that we remember the immense price hundreds of thousands of soldiers have paid with the currency of their life-blood so that we can enjoy our political and religious freedoms. But this kind of remembering will not demand much of us beyond renewing our grateful resolve to not take for granted our freedoms. There will be a brief recollection, hopefully a prayer, and then we’ll move on with our leisurely plans.

But a Memorial Day kind of remembering will not suffice for our suffering Christian brothers and sisters. The remembering that God requires of us demands sustained action: Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. (Hebrews 13:3) When the author of Hebrews tells us to “remember,” he isn’t talking about a fond, grateful private reflection. What he means is, “go help them,” and the original Greek conveys the sense, “keep helping them.” When we remember our war dead, we don’t remember them as though we were dead with them. But we are to remember the imprisoned Christians “as though in prison with them.” That is a demanding remembering. We are to remember mistreated Christians as though we were sharing mistreatment. We are to react to our brothers’ and sisters’ affliction just like our entire body reacts to the pain when one member of our body is afflicted. That is a demanding remembering.

In northern Iraq, Christians are being brutalized and exterminated. They are being beaten, imprisoned, raped, kidnapped, extorted, and murdered. Their homes are being stolen or destroyed. Their wives and daughters are being stolen and sold into sex slavery. Young prepubescent girls are fetching the highest prices from lecherous ISIS militants who believe Allah sanctions such sating of their lust. Christians in North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and a host of other nations are suffering under terrible adversity and persecution. Boko Haram has wiped out 5,000 Christians in Nigeria within a year. In 2015, on Good Friday, 148 Christians were hunted and assassinated by Islamic militants at Garissa University College in Kenya. In Pakistan the Christian minority population is under a constant threat of violence, many marginalized into abject poverty, and 700 girls each year are kidnapped, sexually abused, and forced to convert to Islam.

“Remembering” in Hebrews 13:3 is an imperative. Involvement at some level is not optional. Remembering our suffering brothers and sisters in Christ must move us to action.
It seems clear from Hebrews 10:32–39, that the author was speaking into a local context of suffering when he wrote Hebrews 13:3. The readers likely knew the sufferers personally. Thus, from this text and others, we know that Christians bear a unique responsibility to care for suffering Christians in their local church and region. But the New Testament ethic for actively remembering (i.e. helping) suffering fellow Christians reaches far beyond our local communities. Perhaps the clearest example is when Paul collected funds from churches throughout the Roman Empire for the relief of the suffering saints in Palestine (Acts 11:27–30; 1 Corinthians 16:1–3). The famine in Judea was a concern for all Christians everywhere who knew about it. The suffering of millions of Christians in the world is a concern for Christians everywhere who know about it. And due to the ubiquitous media reports, most of us know about it.

Read — Seek to understand what’s going on. Indifference is often connected to ignorance. Spend time, perhaps 10 minutes 2–3 days a week, on sites like the ones referenced on our website and do Internet searches on phrases like “persecuted Christians.” You will have your awareness raised significantly and, Lord willing, your concern. Don’t shy away from graphic descriptions. We must not turn a blind eye from the real horrors being inflicted upon our brothers and sisters. We must remember as though mistreated with them.

Pray — Really pray. Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs, Operation World, and others have collected helpful prayer resources to educate you and help you target your prayers, especially for the persecuted church. But there is also a lot of fodder for prayer in daily news reports. Have your family, friends, small group, etc. join you in intercession.

Give — If we know about Christian suffering, and we have this world’s goods, and we do nothing, or we give significantly beneath our ability, “how does God’s love abide in [us]” (1 John 3:17)? That’s what we must ask ourselves. Can we give to all needs? No. But we can give to some. If we ask our Father, he will direct us where to give over and beyond our local church’s needs. If we have an abundance, one of the reasons we have it is to supply for our suffering brothers’ and sisters’ needs. Where do we give? There are so many worthy charities and a few minutes’ Internet research will yield some great options.

Talk About the Needs — One way we “stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24) is to talk about the needs by counseling and encouraging each other on how to best meet them. Let’s help each other move beyond merely talking about how horrible some suffering is to what we can tangibly do about it.

Go — If the suffering we see is in close proximity, we have some responsibility before God to personally help relieve it. But a few of us are called to also travel thousands of miles to put our remembering to action. Every time we hear a report of suffering Christians, may we all breathe the prayer, “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8). At some point it may be our privilege to have the Lord take us up on our offer.

Americans, remember with appropriate gratitude on Memorial Day the military deaths that purchased your freedoms. But Christians, don’t remember your imprisoned and mistreated brothers and sisters like Americans remember their war dead. Hebrews 13:3 remembering demands action.
We must not do nothing.

The Gospel Cannot Be Shackled

It was a lesson in the school of hard knocks for a promising young leader. A crowd had gathered in an urban center, ready to hear him speak. He rose to the occasion, feeling a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. He spoke with conviction and clarity, and found remarkable reception among the people.
But word of his explicitness about Jesus quickly made its way to the powers-that-be and ruffled their feathers. Soon they descended upon the young firebrand, and he and his ministry partner spent the night in custody before facing interrogation the following day.
Still his courage had not been in vain. They may have arrested Peter and his companion John (Acts 4:3), but “many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about five thousand” (Acts 4:4).

Arrest didn’t sink the advance of the gospel. The two went hand in hand.
The days of gospel persecution in the United States no longer just hang on the distant horizon; they are already here, at least for some. It’s beginning with the bakers, florists, and photographers. Before long, the consensus may be that faithful biblical exposition is “hate speech.”
For 350 years, the church on American soil has enjoyed relatively little affliction for her fidelity to the Scriptures. This nation, though, is an anomaly in church history. And those days are passing, more quickly than many of us expected.
Once the most basic beliefs and morals of Christianity were taken for granted not only in the church, but in society at large. Now many of our most deeply held, once uncontroversial, claims are under full assault, within and without. Barring some change in trajectory, it will only be a matter of time before some of our leaders will find themselves in custody.

Do not panic. For two thousand years, this has been what it has meant to identify with Christ in the world — the normal experience of those who follow a man who was crucified. Suffering for the gospel was not just tolerated in the early church; it was expected. Peter learned the lesson in Acts 4, and again in Acts 5. Then Stephen was stoned in Acts 7. After Acts 3, only three of the book’s remaining 25 chapters have no mention of persecution. The storyline of the early church turns on opposition and oppression. This same Peter writes, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12).

For now, deluded by American history, we’re prone to think it strange. We are surprised. “Give us our country back!” Our angry, desperate reactions only show how out of step we are with the tenor of the New Testament. Our entitlement and resentment reveal a heart foreign to the reality of “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16). Soon enough, though, our expectations will necessarily adjust to what is normal for the true church in other times and places. We will increasingly realize that when we proclaim a gospel like ours, and make the sort of claims we do, the world won’t receive it well. For Christians, it really is strange not to be persecuted.
Jesus said as much. “A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). Paul picks up the refrain. “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). The Scriptures seem to suggest we should be more concerned if we’re not being persecuted, than if we are.

Embracing persecution for the sake of the gospel is Christianity 101. How did Paul and Barnabas minister to fledgling churches? “They returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:21–22). It is a sobering word, but not a cause for despair. To say we will suffer opposition is not to say that the spread of the gospel will be stymied. In fact, what we learn from Peter and John in Acts 4:3–4, and from the life of the apostle Paul, and from Jesus himself, is that arrest and advance go together in God’s invincible story.

The same is true today, and will be tomorrow. We will find that our newfound opposition and affliction, while being difficult and painful, is a good and fruitful phenomena. It will be more and more like the first century, when the gospel was attacked on every side, and spread like wildfire.
Paul describes this powerfully from a prison cell in Rome. Look for the irony. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Philippians 1:12–14)

You can’t arrest the gospel. In fact, when you imprison one whose words and life boldly declare the good news of Jesus, you only help it grow and spread. You may shackle the feet of the messenger, but his message will run. “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound!” (2 Timothy 2:8–9). But our message will not run if we go kicking and screaming. It is not the grumblers and complainers who shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (Philippians 2:14–15). Rather, it is those who embrace suffering for the name of Jesus with joy.
But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. (1 Peter 4:13–14)

Christians are not a dour people, even in the darkness of a dungeon. We don’t whine and bellyache as our society lines up against us and our convictions. We plead. We grieve. But beneath it all we have untouchable strongholds of joy. Even in the worst, most inconvenient, most lonely days, we rejoice. The suffering days are good days for gospel advance. We have great cause to be optimistic about our good news, to “joyfully accept” prison and the plundering of our possessions and even our freedoms.
After all, they can take our civil liberties, garnish our wages, and smear our names, but they cannot take our Treasure, who is “a better possession and abiding one.”

So we are not surprised. We do not retreat. Instead, grounded in God’s eternal promises, armed with joy in him, and assured of victory in the end, we ready ourselves for whatever opposition comes. Perhaps one day it will be said of us, You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. (Hebrews 10:32–34)

Will You Choose To Live Or Die?

"Will you choose to live or die?" "What do you say?"

The questioner was Henry VIII, the King of England, who had unrestrained power in the land. The "criminal" who stood before him, charged with heresy, was John Lambert, a Greek and Latin tutor. Lambert audaciously challenged his pastor for delivering a sermon that didn't agree with Scripture.
Lambert was brought before the archbishop of Canterbury and later before King Henry.

Quoting from the Scriptures and explaining the original Greek, Lambert presented his case to an assembly of bishops, lawyers, justices, and peers. The two sides argued strenuously back and forth until Henry, bored with it, presented Lambert with a final choice: "After all the reasons and instructions of these knowledgeable men, are you now satisfied? Will you choose to live or die? What do you say?"

Lambert took a deep breath and answered confidently, "I commend my soul to the hands of God, but my body I give to your clemency."
"You must die," Henry answered scornfully, "for I will not be a patron to heretics."
Convicted of heresy, Lambert was burned at the stake. Lambert was unbowed in his slow, torturous death. He lifted up his hands in worship, declaring, "None but Christ! None but Christ!"

In the modern age of possibilities, our right to choose has grown nearly insatiable. Two hundred television channels are a "basic" right, tantamount to freedom itself. We want options. Variety. Assortment. Even mundane decisions are delivered daily to our doorstep-what to wear, eat, drive, or do. However, our choices are no longer utilitarian-they are virtually limitless. In contrast, when life's greater questions come to us, we have only one answer to give: "None but Christ."

 Is there another way to heaven? None but Christ-He is the Way!
 Is there another priority in life that deserves one's full devotion? None but Christ-He is supreme!
Can someone else satisfy the longing of the human heart? None but Christ can satisfy!
Truth has no alternative, you see. When life's greater questions come, and they will, are you prepared to testify that of all the possibilities "None but Christ" will satisfy?

Joshua 24:15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Unacceptable Silence

When I read the Gospels for the first time, the repetition confused me. Why revisit the same story four times? Yet it was in and through that repetition that I fell deeply in love with Jesus. The Gospels invited me in, encouraging me to ask questions of God, to write myself into his story. They demanded an honesty and openness, with God and myself, unlike any I had experienced. I even questioned the Creator himself. How could he do it? What kind of Father lets his Son be tortured, humiliated, and crucified? Perhaps what troubled me most was when the Son cried out to his Father, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). And what reply does the Son receive from his Father God? Nothing. Bible scholars sometimes explain this “silence from heaven” as the Father’s necessary reaction to the Son who had actually become sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The spotless Lamb of God had become sin for those who betrayed and crucified him. He had become sin for you . . . for me.
This painful silence may also point to the Father’s unspeakable pain at the suffering of his Beloved. In either case, it is a silence I can understand and accept.
There is a second kind of silence, however, that I cannot accept.

Somalia, on the east coast of central Africa, is a nation that has been shredded by an ongoing civil war that began in 1991. The statistics will shock you. In Somalia in the 1990's, there were  approximately 150 followers of Jesus from Muslim backgrounds. A few years later, only four believers were left alive. Four.  What does one do when all seems to be crucifixion, and nothing resembles resurrection? In the face of a death rate among Somali believers higher than 97 percent, it's hard to say to the Somali people that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). Is Jesus still trustworthy? Is he still Lord for the really tough places of the world, the modern-day Roman Empires defined by severe persecution? Or is Jesus limited to the dressed-up, building-oriented, literate, theologically intolerant, and denominationally defined Western church?

These modern-day giants of the Christian faith show us the power of Jesus. They were men and women, young and old, literate and non-literate, rural and urban. Their names are rarely known outside their immediate communities. They don’t blog or tweet or post on Facebook. But they show us how to follow Jesus and make him known in environments of persecution, and  how to survive and thrive in seasons of extreme suffering. At a time when our world has been defined far too long by crucifixion, they show us resurrection.

In the former Soviet Union, 240 pastors were brought into a Siberian labor camp. They were men who had refused to deny their faith. These pastors were given the truly impossible job of plowing the frozen tundra outside the camp, using only sticks and broken tools. Each evening, as punishment for another day of inevitable failure, they were stripped to their underwear and doused with buckets of cold water. Within three months all had died of various diseases, each remaining “faithful unto death” (Revelation 2:10). This is not ancient history. This story, and a hundred more like it, have happened within my lifetime. Some are happening right now. Today.

Approximately seventy percent of Christians who are practicing their faith live in environments of persecution. In the West, most believers find it shocking — even unbelievable — that followers of Jesus should face real persecution at all, anywhere. In stark contrast, more than 90% of Christians in the West will never share the good news of Jesus with another person. Not. Even. Once.
Somehow the “gospel” we love has become so associated with health, wealth, and happiness that it leaves no room for persecution, at least, not for those whom God truly loves. If we think about persecution at all, we think its absence from our own lives is a sign of our special standing with God. No wonder we pray so little for our persecuted brothers and sisters. No wonder they hardly even cross our minds.

Rarely do sermons inform or inspire us about the suffering church. Seldom is a seminary course meant to prepare its students for suffering and persecution. We pray more for our military than we do for the suffering church. Even though Jesus said that he was sending us out as “sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matthew 10:16), most people in seminary or Bible school are trained for domestic ministry, staying as sheep among the sheep. All the while, elsewhere on the planet, believing brothers and sisters, living daily in contexts of suffering and persecution, display the unquenchable power of the resurrection. And as a result their children are taken from them. They are beaten. They are imprisoned. They are martyred.

This silence from the West is one I can neither understand nor accept.

What does our silence do? It increases the suffering of believers in persecution. It breaks God’s heart. It demonstrates that we have forgotten our eternal family members who live daily with persecution.
What it may mean is that we simply don’t care.  “There is no such thing as a persecuted church and a free church. There is only the church! There is one church — one church that is at the same time free and persecuted.” Hebrews 13:3 beautifully captures our calling in light of this reality: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body” or, as the NIV puts it, “as if you yourselves were suffering.”

No nation and no form of government lasts forever. When persecution comes for us, will we be content to have others pray for us, carrying us, to the same extent that we pray for and carry our suffering brothers and sisters today?
There are times to be silent. But this is not one of them.
This is a time to tell the truth, to remember, to recite the stories.

This is a time to speak of God, to share the gospel, to sing the promises of God. This is a time to pray, to cry out to God on behalf of our brothers and sisters, to count on the Spirit to intercede for us and for them when our words are not enough. This is the time to be the church, one church, at the same time free and persecuted. Indeed, there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. Truly, there is a time to be silent and a time to speak.

This moment — the moment that belongs to us today — this is a time to speak.

The Great Letter

On April 3, 1963 Martin Luther King issued the “Birmingham Manifesto” (not the letter). He was 34 years old, married and with four children, one of them five days old. The manifesto called for all lunch counters, restrooms, and drinking fountains in downtown department stores to be desegregated. Some called the city the most segregated city in the country. Its bombings and torchings of black churches and homes had given it the name, “Bombingham” – the “Johannesburg of the South.” That day sixty-five blacks staged sit-ins in five stores, and Police Commissioner Bull Conner dragged twenty of them away to jail. King arrived with unparalleled eloquence in the service of non-violence. In nightly meetings in the black churches he rallied the troops: "We did not hesitate to call our movements an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity. No uniform but its determination, no arsenal, except its faith, no currency but its conscience. It was an army that would move but not maul. It was an army that would sing but not slay. It was an army to storm bastions of hatred, to lay siege to the fortress of segregation, to surround symbols of discrimination." (Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound, [New York: A Mentor Book, 1982], p. 210)

On April 13, Good Friday, 1963 King and his team refused to follow a court injunction that forbade peaceful marching. Such injunctions had been used to tie up peaceful direct action for years. Not this time. King met the barricades and the shouting Bull Conner, knelt beside his friend Ralph Abernathy, and was thrown into the paddy wagon and taken to the Birmingham City Jail. This was the 13th time King was arrested.He was put in solitary confinement without mattress, pillow, or blanket. His situation improved when Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked why he was in solitary confinement. On Tuesday, April 16 he was brought a published letter signed by eight white clergymen of Alabama criticizing King and the peaceful movement of demonstrations. King felt inspired to write a response. What came from his pen is today called Letter from Birmingham Jail. It has been called “the most eloquent and learned expression of the goals and philosophy of the nonviolent movement ever written.” (Let the Trumpet Sound, p. 222). Its message is relevant today. I recommend that everyone at read it.

We need to hear the power and insight with which King spoke to that generation of the sixties—enraging thousands and inspiring thousands. The white clergy had all said:" Be more patient. Wait. Don’t demonstrate." He wrote: "Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, “Wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policeman curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she’s told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “Nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears an outer resentments; when you are for ever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness” -- then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience." (M. L. King, Letter from Birmingham Jail)

Finally he delivered a powerful call to the church which rings as true today as it did 51 years ago:
"There was a time when the church was very powerful—in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . . But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] as never before. If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century." (Letter, p. 17)