“Lord, when did we see you hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, in need, or in prison?” The King will answer and say, assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” Matthew 25:37-40
Have you heard this before: “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t force my beliefs on other people.” Yes, the age-old, ever-popular, deceptive deflection of “I’m personally opposed, but…” It’s a classic sound bite used to express compassion, albeit a terribly misguided compassion. Of course, we’ve heard this before, and sadly we’ll continue to, and maybe at some point in your life you used it and thought this is the best that a Christian can do. Our neighbors, co-workers, friends, family, judges, politicians, and even presidents like Mr. Biden all say this.
But what’s most distressing and what resides at the very heart of the reason why abortion is still allowed in a nation that claims a heritage of being “Christian,” and being “One Nation Under God,” and “In God we Trust,” is that Christians frequently communicate this same sinful statement to defend apathy and offer a misguided false Gospel of fake love.
Scripture is clear: “You Shall Not Murder.” Exodus 20:13
Abortion is sin because it destroys a person, a human being, with all the DNA that is biologically necessary to create, grow, and sustain a human being from the moment of conception until natural death. By destroying this growing human life you kill a person, which is called murder. When Christians know and believe all the right things, and yet fail to act, fail to speak, fail to “be” Christian, there’s really is no hope that abortion will ever end. It’s up to us: we know better, and the only thing that will overcome evil is good. The only thing that overcomes a human lie is divine truth—a truth that Christians, pastors, and churches possess, but oftentimes are afraid to live. But here’s the real question: “What should we do first?”
Repent.
Repent of not doing everything that we could have done; repent of everything that we are currently not doing. German citizens were forced to walk among the dead bodies of Jewish men, women, and children—human beings—murdered in Auschwitz, a mile from where many of those German Christians lived. Like them, we cannot say, “We did not know,” or, “We were just following orders.”
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it.” We’re in the holy season of Lent, a sacred time that returns us to reflection and repentance—a season that moves us from just believing and “personally opposing” to being a living, breathing, active witness for the unborn and her parents; being life, light, and salt in a dead, dark, and tasteless world; being voices for the voiceless; standing in the gap for their lives: walking, picketing, praying, protesting the unjust death of unborn children at abortion facilities—offering a tangible truth for the world to see, and an honest, compassionate solution for the women, and men who come there.
Jesus said, “Whatever you DID for the very least of these My brothers and sisters, you did that to Me.” So, let us be what we believe. Let us be life because abortion is death. Murder is never right under any circumstance. Make no mistake, we are in the 11th hour, time is running out in the fourth quarter, the two-minute warning is seconds away.
How shall we acquit ourselves in these last moments? Will we falter? Will I allow others to do for me that which I know I must personally do? Will I not speak? Will I not pray and peacefully picket and protest? Will I not call my senators and representatives and demand that they end abortion by obeying God, and upholding the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution—the supreme law of the land?
Now is the time. Lent is the season. Repent and believe and then allow that belief to saturate your being, and become His voice, His hands, His feet, and His power in this world—a world which must know and receive the good news that human life is sacred in every form, at every age and stage, and that no one under Divine law, nor Constitutional law, has the right to abort, kill, or murder that life.
This Lent, repent. Be what you believe, be more active for the hour is late, and we must see Jesus’ face in the face of the unborn, and in the faces of their mothers and fathers.