Re-post:
It seems some people are convinced that I needed to abandon my pro-life "agenda" and return to doing "Kingdom work". Whether or not I should have, I have taken these suggestions to heart and struggled with them for the last four days. Am I, as Beth Moore calls it, allowing myself to "become the enemy of my best?" Should I put my pro-life battles in only one little compartment of my life and use the rest of it to pursue Kingdom work, or should I abandon it altogether?
The problem is, the more I seek God, the more I can ever so slightly see His image in those around me, and then the more fervent my desire is to "Deliver those who are being taken away to death,and those who are staggering to slaughter"(Pro 24:11), and am more moved with compassion for the "least of these".
So, I've been praying that if my passion for the unborn and the time I spend defending them is interfering with my relationship with God, that He would show me. That if it is His will for me to tone it down, that He would relieve me of this intense burden. Yet the more I pray, the more my heart wrenches for them.
On day 4's homework of this week, God made it crystal clear to me that He has, in this area, "made His passions my passions", as I've been praying for Him to do.
And here's my answer:
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'(Matthew 22:37-39)
Kingdom work and rescuing those in need are not mutually exclusive vocations. Loving our neighbours goes right to the very identity of Christianity and is an integral extension of faith.
However, God did warn me through day 5's homework not to work until I have sought His direction through prayer and His word, so that my God-given passions would be poured out within the safe framework of His agenda, so as not to be used destructively or in vain. After all, to fulfill the law you must love all your neighbours. I need to be careful to go where He tells me, and to say what He tells me to say.
I love this Scripture...
Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.”(Psalm 37:4-6)
But I must also remember the prayer He gave me...
"now lift up my eyes and let me look at life."
The wise words Shelly gave to Harry on the movie My Girl are whispering in the back of my mind..."I'm not asking you to stop feeling for those people..but life isn't just death. Don't ignore the living." I must remember to allow myself to live, as well as take pity on the living:The women who are in need, half-dead, stigmatized by society and the church... That again, I am to not only hate what is evil, but then also to CLING TO WHAT IS GOOD....and that's where I lack big time.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"
In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'
"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"
The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." (Luke 10:25-37)
Is it possible that just as the religious leaders of the parable were so consumed with pursuing "God's agenda" that they forgot that, as Paul writes,
"If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing?"(1 Corinthians 13:2),
we do the same with our lack of action on behalf of the unborn and their mothers? Beth Moore writes
"often the tests of our hearts will be similar...they usually involve behaviors and reactions to one another. How we deal with people may be a truer test of the heart than how we relate to things....Stepping across a boundary to help is sometimes our first introduction to the commonality of humanity on the other side. Offering help in a time of need can be the first step to overcoming God-dishonoring prejudice."
So...the question is...
...WHO IS YOUR NEIGHBOUR?
According to Jesus, your neighbour is anyone in need....or are we ourselves attempting "to hide in loopholes of terminology", instead of taking pity (remember, that word means "to feel deeply or viscerally") on the unborn and post-abortive women, and compassionately acting on that?
"It's not a real 'person'...just a fetus...sub-human...not like us..."
"She made her choice...it's her own problem...She's a murderer...sub-human...not like us..."
And so we justify passing by on the other side...after all...we're just so busy doing the important work of God.
If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Deliver those who are drawn away to death, and those who totter to the slaughter, hold them back [from their doom]. If you [profess ignorance and] say, Behold, we did not know this, does not He Who weighs and ponders the heart perceive and consider it? And He Who guards your life, does not He know it? And shall not He render to [you and] every man according to his works? (Proverbs 24:10-12)
No comments:
Post a Comment