Cause Captured Christianity

We are Christians, believers and followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We by God’s grace have been given light that can now see the Risen Christ, our sin, and what He has accomplished in our stead. Upon our conversion we start a journey to surrender all of our lives to Christ, and our mandate is to preach the gospel to every creature. Why every creature? Because God’s heart of redemption beats for all sinners everywhere. The Father hasn’t chosen a bunch from America, very few from Iran, a bunch from England, very few from India, and so on. God’s spilled blood of forgiveness is for everyone and His desire is for His gospel to be carried to every sinner. That is our commission, our mandate, and it should be the heartbeat of the spiritual body of Christ as it was in the incarnate body of Christ.

But so often we get caught up with other causes, other issues, many times causes that we would never have championed aside from the illuminating grace of God. One of these causes that we so often find spiritual solace in is abortion. Abortion is the murder of the unborn and it is a sin against God. Every Christian should abhor the practice and many women have come to Christ and experienced the forgiveness that only God can give after having had an abortion. Praise God for His mercy and grace!

But abortion is not our message or even our calling, preaching the gospel is. The only reason I am against abortion is that I became a Christian and the Holy Spirit graciously led me into that truth. Now when we have that perspective we must always remember two obvious realities, one about ourselves and one about others. First let us never forget or act as if we gained this knowledge on our own and that we somehow should behave or speak in a prideful or self righteous way about our position concerning abortion which actually is God’s position. There is such a thing as being fervent in conviction but humble in tone and communication. We have been given an amazing gift after God saved our souls, we were inhabited by the Spirit of Truth who systematically began a process of illumination that continues to this very day.

When I was first saved I still believed in evolution so I became a “theistic” evolutionist which means that God used evolution as part of His plan. It was about a year later that I saw that evolution was incompatible with any literal reading of the Scriptures so I repented and was changed. But without the Spirit I still would have clung to that view. Should I now be proud about my view and look down upon others who haven’t seen what God has shown me? Jesus Himself told us that his disciples shouldn’t feel proud about their Jewishness and that God could make stones praise Him. God hates pride and the pride that sometimes emanates from His own children is particularly repulsive considering they were born and kept by God’s grace and not of themselves. So if you are pro-life, be clothed in humility about it. Some of my personal heroes are the women that work in Crisis Pregnancy Centers all around the country. Not only do they reach out to girls and women in crisis, they present and live the gospel of Jesus Christ. Only eternity will reveal how many women and sometimes their families will spend eternity with Christ because of the humble and sacrificial witness of a Crisis Pregnancy worker.

The second reality is that only the gospel can change a person, and if we desire to save the unborn it must be done through the regenerating power of the Spirit of God. I find it abjectly repugnant and even unchristian to criticize the unsaved for their blindness in this area. Even the lady who was “Roe” in Roe v. Wade has changed her stance because she came to Christ. Like hollering at a blind man to watch where he walks, we as believers take a page from Fred Phelps when we castigate the spiritually blind for not understanding spiritual or even moral issues. How easy it is to pick apart the lost, how hard is it to shed tears for those same people. It is so easy to use demeaning words that call people murderers and the like, but when do we pray and fast for those who are caught in the deception?

And why do we use the Constitution to ”prove” abortion is wrong as if the Constitution is inspired? When will we realize that we as the body of Christ operate within another kingdom, infinitely higher than this democracy that we have attempted to portray as “Christian”, and with a written revelation not written by men but by God? Our calling is to live and preach Christ and all these causes will follow. Our life is Him, our passion is Him, and our message is Him. Grieve for the lost with all their misguided views and beliefs and remember God loves them and people like me used to be them. If Christ made Himself of no reputation and came down in the likeness of sinful flesh should we not humble ourselves and with words of weeping not caustic pride let our lights shine before them so perhaps they will repent and believe?

Our cause is Christ. Let the world dabble in politics, our cause is Christ. Let the world battle over morality, our cause is Christ. Let the world picket, protest, and boycott, our cause is Christ. Our cause will be Christ and Christ alone forever.
Amen.