Life News
Despite the early hour of the day, the worship team was energetic and the atmosphere full of joy. I raised my voice and hands to join a thousand other worshippers in praising God.
We were in Anaheim for the Heartbeat International conference in April, gathered for the cause of life. The crowd included men and woman, Catholics and Protestants, young and old, and people of different races –a beautiful collection of God’s image-bearers, joined together to speak up for those who have no voice.
During that sweet time of worship, I thought of a similar conference I’d attended in the past, where the speaker asked this rhetorical question: “If Planned Parenthood holds conferences, what songs do you suppose they sing?”
Which begs other questions about those who oppose life-affirming work: What do they worship? What is their common source of strength and unity? How deep is their love for each other?
I’m not sure how abortion proponents would answer such questions, but I know what’s true for followers of Jesus.
Here’s how I put it in Unleashing Your Courageous Compassion:
Jesus said people would recognize His disciples by the love they showed to one another (John 13:35). Regardless of various doctrinal differences, personality types, and a wide range of ages, social classes, and ethnic backgrounds, God’s people are called to love and serve one another.
Here’s the lovely, two-edged truth: Pro-life work both requires and enhances unity in the Body of Christ.
If we are to get the work done, we must labor shoulder to shoulder with other Christians, including those who may not be part of our tribe. We may not share all the same doctrinal positions. We may prefer radically different types of worship services.
We may even get irritated with each other at times.
Unity between Christ-followers does not mean we have to enjoy sunshine and lollipops all the time. There will be challenges. There always have been.
The point is, in Christ, we have the power to overcome our differences in order to work together for the sake of the gospel—and in our case, specifically for the cause of life.
We were in Anaheim for the Heartbeat International conference in April, gathered for the cause of life. The crowd included men and woman, Catholics and Protestants, young and old, and people of different races –a beautiful collection of God’s image-bearers, joined together to speak up for those who have no voice.
During that sweet time of worship, I thought of a similar conference I’d attended in the past, where the speaker asked this rhetorical question: “If Planned Parenthood holds conferences, what songs do you suppose they sing?”
Which begs other questions about those who oppose life-affirming work: What do they worship? What is their common source of strength and unity? How deep is their love for each other?
I’m not sure how abortion proponents would answer such questions, but I know what’s true for followers of Jesus.
Here’s how I put it in Unleashing Your Courageous Compassion:
“There’s only one reason people from diverse backgrounds love each other, work together, and rejoice with one another the way Christians do—we all belong to Jesus and he belongs to us. The common ground for all followers of Christ is the foot of his cross.”One thing I’ve enjoyed most about life-affirming work is the diversity represented in this ministry. Many different “flavors” of Christians care deeply about protecting the preborn, which means we have plenty of opportunities to demonstrate something wonderful to the world—something called unity.
Jesus said people would recognize His disciples by the love they showed to one another (John 13:35). Regardless of various doctrinal differences, personality types, and a wide range of ages, social classes, and ethnic backgrounds, God’s people are called to love and serve one another.
Here’s the lovely, two-edged truth: Pro-life work both requires and enhances unity in the Body of Christ.
If we are to get the work done, we must labor shoulder to shoulder with other Christians, including those who may not be part of our tribe. We may not share all the same doctrinal positions. We may prefer radically different types of worship services.
We may even get irritated with each other at times.
Unity between Christ-followers does not mean we have to enjoy sunshine and lollipops all the time. There will be challenges. There always have been.
The point is, in Christ, we have the power to overcome our differences in order to work together for the sake of the gospel—and in our case, specifically for the cause of life.
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