The One Question that Reveals Our Heart

/2 Comments/in , , /by

When Jesus encountered a paralytic lying on a mat at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, he asked possibly the stupidest question ever, on the surface at least.

Really, though, this question, more than any other, reveals our heart.

Do you want to get well?

So here’s the deal with this pool. From time to time, an angel would stir up the waters. Then the first one in the pool got healed of whatever disease or ailment they had. The poor paralytic guy was paralyzed, so he couldn’t even roll and fall into the water. He just got to watch as people with lesser problems got healed. Can you relate?

Enter Jesus. The paralytic didn’t know it, but God set up his whole life for this moment. Jesus asks him the One Question. 

Do you want to get well?

I can think of a few humorous responses the paralytic could’ve used:

  • “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
  • “No, Jesus, I’m just lying here getting a suntan. It’s time to do my back. Can you flip me over?”
  • “No, actually, I was hoping you could help me change the oil in my camel.”

All kidding aside, the paralytic tells Jesus the truth of his situation, that he’s got no one to help him get in the water. Then Jesus, breaker of protocols, did what he seems to do best. He broke the rules on a couple different levels all at once and miraculously healed the man on the spot. But he did it in a way that engaged the man’s faith. Jesus told him, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk.”

Now even with my limited knowledge of medical science, “get up” isn’t something you normally say to a paralytic. In the natural, it kind of reflects that Jesus didn’t quite understand the situation here. Or did he?

The paralytic could have responded, “Um, I’m paralyzed here. I can’t.” But instead, he took Jesus at his word (as crazy as it was), and tried. Maybe he felt in his body that he was healed. Maybe he wasn’t healed until he tried. But the point is, he accepted Jesus’ healing, did the impossible, and walked into a whole new life. Will you?

Do you want to get well?

Jesus could’ve said, “Ok, I’ll help you get in the pool first the next time the water’s stirred.” He had twelve disciples. Jesus could have had them block everybody else while he was getting the paralytic in the water. But he broke the local protocol.

He also broke the national protocol by having the guy carry his mat on the Sabbath, getting himself in trouble with the Jewish authorities. Again. What does a healed guy need with a mat anyway? Why didn’t Jesus have him leave it at the pool for some other sick guy? What was with that whole “pick up your mat” thing anyway? It’s almost like Jesus went out of his way to shatter people’s rules and expectations.

Do you want to get well?

I know a pastor who had someone ask for prayer after church. They had a disability hearing coming up that week. The person wanted to pray for a favorable outcome, so they would continue receiving their disability payments. This was important — it was their livelihood. The pastor asked them, “How about if we pray for healing? Then you won’t need the disability hearing.”

The person didn’t want healing. They wouldn’t let him pray for that. That would disrupt their entire life, which was built around protecting their entitlement. The person had a legitimate disability, and it’s good that our society provides a safety net. I’m not knocking disability payments or making any political point here. 

But if God broke the protocol and healed this person, it would change their life. Their livelihood would have to change. They’d have to get a job. That’s scary when you’ve lost your skills and your confidence over years of disability. 

The paralytic’s livelihood had to change. He could no longer beg, and maybe that’s all he knew. What was he supposed to do now? Thanks a lot, Jesus. Are we so comfortable with our wounding that we turn down Jesus’ healing?

Or do we believe in God’s goodness more than the safety of our wounding and victimhood? He’s got something better than begging, entitlements, and woundedness for us. Is God allowed to shatter our protocols and our expectations? Who does our heart really trust for our provision?

Do you want to get well?

John Sandford founded Elijah House as a ministry mostly for pastors caught in repetitive, often sexual, sin. Some pastors experienced tremendous freedom, never looked back, and their ministries took off. Other pastors appeared to get free, but kept falling back into the same sin-cycle over and over again.

John asked the Lord what made the difference. The Lord showed John some people wanted healing and freedom because they understood their pain, wounding, and sin interfered with serving Jesus to the fullest. These were the people who got free and stayed free — those who wanted freedom so they could serve the Lord the best they possibly could. 

But others recognized their pain only as an obstacle to living the good life. Those who only wanted freedom so they could live the good life were the ones who kept falling back into habitual sins. They were the ones who never got healed of their wounding.

Do you want to get well?

We see it all the time in the volunteer work we do at our local crisis pregnancy center in post-abortive ministry. People come to us for help because they want to be free from the pain in their lives. But some aren’t willing to leave the lifestyle that caused the pain. Some people aren’t willing to do the hard work of working through their denial, anger, unforgiveness, and right to victimhood. So they stay stuck living their lives as emotional, spiritual, and moral paralytics, looking for someone to blame for not helping them into the water.

But we’ve seen other people, sometimes with much greater wounding, do the hard work. They’ve confronted the anger, forgiving those who don’t deserve it and so released themselves from prison. They’ve worked through the denial, repenting and receiving God’s forgiveness, sometimes for the first time in their lives. They experience God’s restoration and true freedom. They never look back.

Are we willing to die to ourselves, laying down our right to be a victim? Are we willing to “pick up our mat” of scary freedom, trusting someone else, God, with our future, maybe even our livelihood? Or do we need to be in control?

Do you want to get well?

That’s the question Jesus has for all of us. Prison is a known quantity, with lots of comfortable certainty and predictability. But there’s a downside. It’s prison. 

Are you willing to let Jesus heal you? Are you willing to die to yourself and let go of the upsides of prison? Are you ready for scary, but exhilarating, freedom? Are you ready to live, instead of just existing? Do you want to get well?

Does this resonate? Please share this post if it would bless others. And tell us your story in comments. We’d love to hear from you.

How to Address the Biggest Problem You Don’t Know You Have

/2 Comments/in , /by

Often the biggest problems in our lives aren’t the ones we know about. They aren’t the problems we’re dealing with. In fact, often what we think are the problems in our lives are really just symptoms. So often the real problem is something we’ve become so comfortable with that we think it’s normal.

Janet and I have a dear friend who had a laser eye procedure this week. She told us the doctor used a laser to burn away the membrane behind her eye that was causing her cloudy vision. Kudos to technology!

When I asked her if the procedure was successful, she sent me this email:

Very successful! I had no idea how much I was missing when I looked at things. My vision is so clear that on the way home I told my son if he would stop the car I could count the leaves on a tree. Colors are so bright. I was like a kid in a toy store telling my son all the things I was seeing as he drove home. All glory to God! Thank You Jesus!

That got me thinking. She had grown accustomed to cloudy vision. Yes, she knew her vision needed some help, but it wasn’t until after being healed that she realized how bad her vision had gotten, how much she’d been missing.

Are we like that? Have we become so comfortable with our wounding that we take the dysfunction it produces for granted? Yeah, we know we need some help in some areas, but it’s not that bad. We’ll get around to it. Some day.

Often, it has to do with how we were raised, stuff that’s been in our fundamental assumptions about the world for a long time. In inner healing lingo, we call these foundational lies. They are things we’ve believed are true for so long that now we don’t even realize we’re making that assumption. We take the lie for granted, and, like looking through a filter, it distorts how we see the rest of the world.

For a long time, I believed I was a mistake. My two brothers are ten and eleven years older than me. Before I could talk, I probably heard well-meaning, good people, talk to my parents about their “little accident.”

I believed my preferences weren’t important. I had a great dad, and growing up, he’d often play games with me if he wasn’t busy. But if he was doing work on his adding machine and I wanted some of his time, I’d ask him to play cribbage. He loved cribbage and couldn’t resist a game. He’d stop whatever he was doing, however important, and play cribbage with me. But he’d never interrupt his work for some other game that I wanted to play.

I adopted another foundational lie in high school. As a freshman, I lettered JV on the tennis team. I wasn’t that good, but I was persistent. With six singles and two doubles on each varsity and JV team, that’s 20 players total. I was #22 on the roster. On any given match day, there was a high probability two of those 20 teens would be absent. Then everyone moves up on the roster, and I’d get to play on the bottom JV doubles team. I played enough matches to letter.

After coming home from the awards banquet, I was giddy. I was never that athletic and had never had an honor like that before. I was so euphorically happy, it was like I was drunk. I was being crazy silly and laughing at my own jokes hysterically. My parents put up with it for a while, but then said, “That’s enough!” I calmed down immediately. Enter another foundational lie: “It’s wrong to be too happy.”

Now I grew up knowing I was loved. None of the lies I believed were my parent’s fault, per se. I jumped to wrong conclusions about myself and the world all on my own. But these lies, “I’m a mistake,” reinforced by “My preferences aren’t important,” and then “You don’t want to be too happy” set me up for a first marriage that was a disaster. My picker was off.

I didn’t realize I believed these lies. I certainly couldn’t articulate them. I didn’t know why I believed them. The Lord has just recently shown me these incidents in my past that tempted me to believe these lies.

Now I’ve gotten healing, and my second marriage to Janet is wonderful. It’s only having received healing that I see how wrong I was and the devastating impact these lies had on me.

So what can we do? How can we fight lies we don’t know we’re believing? Do these 3 things.

1) Ask the Holy Spirit. Regularly.

Make it a regular practice, during your daily time with the Lord, to ask him what you’ve gotten used to. Ask him to show you your blind spots. This is what David was asking God in Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and experience my heart. Test me and experience my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. –Psalm 139:

2) Investigate Your Bad Behaviors. Connect the Dots.

If you’ve got behaviors in your life that you know are dysfunctional that you can’t seem to find your way out of, that’s a clue that somewhere, in the fiber of your being, you’re believing a foundational lie.

For example, addictions are usually never the problem. They’re a symptom. What pain are you medicating? If you don’t know, think back in your life. When did the addiction start? What happened in your life about then?

We’re constantly amazed by how many people we see at our crisis pregnancy center that don’t connect the dots between their depression and their abortion. Now relax, I’m not saying all depression is a result of abortion. It’s obviously not. But it is an extremely common result of abortion, as are addictions, relationship issues, and a host of other dysfunctions. But because the abortion was something they “chose” (although most women are actually coerced), and society lies that this was something that was good for them, they don’t connect the dots.

We see it with post-abortive men too. If your self-medicating started after a particular breakup, you could have fathered an aborted child and not even known it. But your spirit knows. Many men are left with an overwhelming sense of failure where their self-confidence used to be, and they don’t know where it came from. They don’t connect the dots.

3) Ask Your Heart.

I’ve a longer post on this subject here. Talking to your heart is a skill you can learn.

Ask your heart questions: “Heart, why are you afraid?” “Heart, why did it hurt when that person said that seemingly innocent thing?” Then shut your brain up, be still, and listen to your heart. Often, your heart answers with memories or pictures rather than words.

Once we know what the lies are, we can replace them with God’s truth. Ask the Holy Spirit what’s the opposite of that lie for you, and tape it to your bathroom mirror, computer, steering wheel, or someplace you’ll see it every day. Over time, we can choose to believe the truth God says about us instead of the lies the world (and ourselves) say about us.

How about you?

What foundational lies have you believed? How did you discover them? What truth did you replace them with? We’d love to hear your story. And please share this post on social media if it would bless someone else.

3 Steps to Stop Sabotaging My Life

/2 Comments/in , , /by

How do we keep from sabotaging ourselves? I’m old friends with self-sabotage. We go way back.

When I was 8 or 10 or so, my friends and I rode bikes (bicycles, not motorcycles). Constantly. All the time. On road and off-road. Especially in the fields and canyons around our housing track in Southern California, in a suburb called Canyon Country north of Los Angeles.

I was not a strong kid, and I had a heavy Schwinn bike. My friends had more expensive, lighter bikes. I couldn’t pull up on the handle bars going over jumps like they could. My front tire would always land first, and over the handle bars I would flip. But I was smart. I learned quickly after a couple crashes not to go over jumps. I learned quickly (and falsely!) that I couldn’t do what the other kids did.

One day my two best friends and I were riding around through the fields. The trail went down sharply into a small canyon (75’ deep or so). The trick was to go down as fast as possible so you’d have enough momentum to make it up the other side. The path down was steep, narrow, and rocky. I did not like the looks of it.

My friends encouraged me. These were good, solid, Christian friends. There was no peer pressure; just true, healthy, “you can do it” encouragement. My friends went first. First Marc effortlessly made it down and up, and then Bruce did the same. Then it was my turn.

I didn’t know you were supposed to stand up on your pedals over bumpy terrain. I had a really bumpy ride going down. Although it was probably less than 15 seconds, it seemed like slow-motion terror to me. This was not fun at all; I was filled with fear. My bike was out of control!

I knew I was going to crash. Since crashing was inevitable, the best I could do was decide where I was going to crash. On rocks, or in a bush? I decided crashing into a bush would be safer. So I picked a big, 3-foot high bush and steered into it. What I didn’t know, until it was too late, was that particular bush hid a 2-foot diameter boulder, a much bigger rock than any other rock on the trail. My front wheel stopped abruptly. I did not. Over the handle bars I flew. Again.

After my friends helped me get back to my house and get the road rashes bandaged up, they asked me, “Why did you crash into the bush?”

“Because I was going to crash anyway.” Duh.

“No you weren’t, you almost made it!” 15 more feet and I’d have done something I never thought I could, but I blew the opportunity because I sabotaged myself.

I was actually succeeding in spite of myself, in spite of not knowing the basics, like standing up on the pedals. But I made myself fail, to be true to be script playing over and over in my head: “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…”

Do you do this? Is there a script playing inside your head: “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…” Sound familiar?

That whole thing’s a lie. From. The. Pit. Designed to hold you down, to keep you from reaching your potential, the identity God created you for.

  • “I can’t be both successful and happy.”
  • “I’m not lovable. No one will ever love me.” (My personal favorite hogwash.)
  • “I’ll never reach that dream.”

None of that rubbish is true. Yet because we believe it is, it has power over us and we live it out. Because we’ve heard it in our head our whole life, we don’t even notice it anymore and we think it’s normal. So we sabotage our relationships, our success, and our dreams. We pick the safest bush to crash into, discovering too late that lying bush hides the very rock we’re trying to avoid.

So here’s 3 ways to escape self-sabotage:

1) Identify your limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are the chains we use to hold ourselves down.

Someone in my writer’s group recently asked the group a question: “A friend wants to pay me to edit his book. But I’m not an editor, what should I charge?” Do you see her limiting belief? “I’m not an editor.” Even though she’s written a couple books, and part of her day-job is editing sales-copy! If someone wants to pay you to edit, you’re an editor!

The worst limiting belief we all have to some degree is our Upper Limit Problem (kudos to Gay Hendricks for coining this term in his book The Big Leap (not an affiliate link). Our Upper Limit Problem is the false belief that we can’t be simultaneously successful in love, finances, and creativity. If one area, or especially two, start to go outrageously well, we sabotage the other area(s) to bring ourselves back down to where we (falsely!) think we belong.

The good news is, we can shed our Upper Limit Problem. The first step is identifying those limiting beliefs.

2) Start telling yourself a different story. Out loud. In Public.

My former mentor, Jeff Goins, has a short, little powerful book called You Are A Writer: So Start Acting Like One (not an affiliate link). His point is, you’re a writer (or whatever) when you start calling yourself one. Silence the limiting beliefs “I can’t…, I’m not…, I’ll never…” by telling yourself a different script.

Ok, you sold me, but what script should I tell myself? Do I just make one up? No, get Heaven’s script for you. Because it’s not a script. It’s a calling.

So how do I find my calling? It’s that thing you’re passionate about. What makes your heart leap? Who do you think put that there? That’s heaven’s calling God planted in your heart.

The enemy’s plan is to get us so weighed down with the day-to-day, going-nowhere, hamster-wheel, slog-of-life that we forget what it feels like to be passionate about something. The kingdom of darkness can’t risk many of us actually living out God’s calling on our lives. The most effective way to squelch that calling is to break our heart, where the calling lives.

That’s why sexual purity is so important in our culture. The lure of pleasure and relationship without cost, restraint, or commitment trick us into giving our heart away, one broken relationship at a time. Pretty soon we have no heart left, and no calling. We forget who we are, let alone what we’re passionate about.

God wants to restore your passion. What feeds your soul? Get away and go do that thing, get some soul time. Ask God to remind you what you’ve forgotten. What used to make your heart sing? Then start telling yourself that story.

So often the Holy Spirit’s job is dealing with our limiting beliefs that war against our calling. Look at Moses’ calling in Exodus 3 and 4. Moses had a whole slew of limiting beliefs:

  • “I’m a nobody.” (Exodus 3:11)
  • “I can’t take a mission from God. I don’t even know God’s name.” (Exodus 3:13)
  • “I’m just some random guy wandering in from the desert. The Israelites won’t believe me.” (Exodus 4:1)
  • “I can’t talk to Pharaoh. I stutter.” (Exodus 3:10)

The thing is, they were all true! And Heaven totally doesn’t care. God’s calling wins over earth’s limitations every time. Unless…

Unless we actually say, “No, I’m not doing that.” God was fine with all of Moses’ excuses until Moses actually said “please send someone else” in Exodus 4:13. Verse 14 says God’s anger burned against Moses. But even then, God made a deal with him to send his brother, Aaron, with him to do the talking.

So start telling people you’re a writer/musician/artist/chef/entrepenuer/whatever/fill-in-the-blank-for-you. What are you passionate about? What makes your heart leap?

3) Take the first step in that direction. Really.

Don’t overthink it. Just take that first step. Any first step. Yes, I know it’s easy to say, but hard to do. As an engineer, I have a PhD in over-thinking things. The truth is, that’s just my fear protecting me from my calling. “Gee thanks, Fear, but with friends like you, who needs enemies.” Exactly. Over-thinking is not your friend.

Play this game. Ask yourself, “What would I do if I wasn’t afraid? If I really was that thing, what would I do?” Then do that.

Do a little acting. You’re Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. You’ve been given a star role. Start playing it. This isn’t “fake it till you make it,” but “believe it till you become it.” (Thank you Jeff Goins!)

So how about you? What have you forgotten makes your heart sing? God hasn’t forgotten. He’s dying (literally, Jesus did that) to redeem and awaken your forgotten passion, so you can live the adventure he created you for. What is it? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

MLK’s 6 Keys of Nonviolence the Church Needs to Learn

/2 Comments/in , /by

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., changed the world. Pure and simple. MLK is an American hero on par with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

In his 1958 book Stride for Freedom, MLK outlines 6 key principles of nonviolence. These are all Christian principles found in scripture. This post is based on a summary of this work published online here by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute of Stanford University online encyclopedia.

The Church needs to relearn these 6 key strategies and practice them, whether we’re debating on FaceBook or protesting injustice at a rally. We can’t defeat the world by fighting with the world’s weapons.

1) Resist Evil without Resorting to It

Fighting fire with fire just makes a big fire. The Apostle Paul understood this.

“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” — Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 10:4

So often, even in the Old Testament in actual warfare, God had a strategy for his people that made no sense.

  • “Joshua, march around Jericho blowing trumpets.” (Joshua 5:13-6:27)
  • “You have too many men, Gideon. Lose 99% of them. Of your 32,000 men, only fight with 300 of them.” (Judges 7:1-8)
  • “Don’t fight at all, Jehoshaphat, just go pick up the plunder.” (2 Chronicles 20:1-25)

So while conventional wisdom often offers good strategies, the Holy Spirit always has the best strategies.

For example, in the pro-life movement, actually killing abortion doctors is wrong. Although some misguided individuals have done that, you can’t defeat legalized murder in our society by committing murder yourself.

The Holy Spirit had a much better strategy with life tape. Pro-life protestors would simply stand with red tape over their mouths with the word “LIFE” written on it, silently praying, symbolically standing for the lives of those who could not speak up for themselves.

2) Understand, Not Humiliate, Your Opponent

While our opponent is talking, if we take the time to actually listen, instead of just waiting to talk, we often get the key to turn opponents into allies. Solomon understood this. We state our case; we think we’re right. But then the other person speaks. There’s another side.

“In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right, until someone comes forward and cross-examines.” – Solomon, Proverbs 18:17

So often when we face unrighteous opposition, it comes from people motivated by fear. Listening to them to understand their fear goes a long way.

We can then acknowledge their, often, legitimate fear. At that point, we’re no longer an enemy in their eyes. We understand! Now we can show them another way to mitigate that fear. Having taken the time to understand, we have their ear.

Think of it this way. Before you can take someone to your bus stop, you have to go pick them up at theirs.

3) Evil Is the Problem, Not the People Committing It

Again, Dr. King brilliantly understood something straight from scripture.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” – Apostle Paul, Ephesians 6:12

The godless world believes that we, as the people of God, are the enemy. But we know that people trapped in godless deceptions are not the enemy. The demonic forces of evil in the heavenly realms are the enemy.

Therefore, we can truly love our enemies, because we know those people are not our real enemy, although they are deceived and being used by the enemy. They are prisoners-of-war, and our charter is to set them free, not conquer them.

4) Suffer without Retaliation

Dr. King exemplified this principle. He was willing to go to jail, and did, but did not retaliate. He didn’t lead a mob to burn down the jail or the police station that unrighteously arrested him.

He stood his ground and took the consequences, unrighteous as they were. Such action moved heaven on his behalf.

“I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” – Jesus, Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:39-41

That’s crazy talk! But it works.

I had a friend who, in high school, got beat up by a bully. Afterward, driving away from the school in his air-conditioned car on a hot day in California, he saw the bully walking home, sweating and carrying a ton of books. He slowed, rolled down his window, and asked if the bully wanted a ride.

The bully at first thought my friend was mocking him, but was blown away when he realized my friend was serious. He gladly accepted the ride, asking my friend, “Why are you doing this?!?”

“You looked like you needed a ride,” my friend answered. They were close friends from that day forward.

5) Avoid Both External and Internal Violence

Dr King understood that external violence starts with internal hatred.

“The nonviolent resister not only refuses to shoot his opponent, but he also refuses to hate him.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, Stride for Freedom

This is a Biblical principle. Jesus said, “Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). All actions and words, good or bad, start in the heart. To put it another way, our actions and words are the fruit, but the root causing the fruit, good or bad, is in our hearts.

Yes, bad behavior needs to be addressed. But to get to the real issue, we need to go past that to the heart. As the people of God, we should be the experts at this. I pray that we continue to grow into that place.

6) Hope

I love this one. Dr King expressed it by writing in his book Stride for Freedom that we must have a “deep faith in the future” because “the universe is on the side of justice”.

Despair is the devil‘s playground.

As the people of God, we have the hope the world desperately needs, even though they don’t realize it. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).

As the people of God, if we forget our hope and give ourselves over to despair, we will do and say things that are counter-productive, playing right into the enemy’s hand.

The hope we have in Jesus is far stronger than the fear our enemy propagates. And, at the end of the day, it’s hope that gives us pause. It reminds us to stop and ask the Holy Spirit for his strategy. And it gives us the patience, fortitude, and wisdom to carry out those divine strategies, no matter how bleak or hopeless it looks in the natural.

Our hope in Jesus is our unshakable, unstoppable, and undefeatable secret weapon.

Your Turn

Did this post resonate? What do you think? Share your thoughts, experiences, and insights with us in the comments, and please share this post to bless others.

How to Partner with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

/4 Comments/in , /by

The most common malady in the human experience is loss. We have all experienced it in the past. We will all experience it in the future. It is a sad fact in this fallen world. By far though, the greatest loss is ourselves. That is trauma’s worst consequence—the loss of our identity. The good news is God wants to restore our lost identity. We can partner with God and reclaim our lost identity. I recently saw a brilliant illustration of this process.

Our new favorite Internet-TV series is The Chosen, a dramatization of the gospels that is done extremely well. Instead of trying to cram everything into a two or three-hour movie, they are presenting the life and ministry of Jesus as a multi-season series. This gives them the luxury of developing fictional but plausible backstories for the various characters that meet Jesus, like the disciples, Pharisees, and others.

Jesus is not the main character, although he becomes more and more of a central character as the series develops. The main characters are the people who meet Jesus. The vision of the production is to introduce Jesus to viewers through the eyes of the people who met him, so viewers can have similar experiences meeting Jesus. The stories surrounding its production and the impact it is having around the world are truly the fingerprints of God. This series is reaping amazing Kingdom fruit.

(You can download The Chosen app on your device from your app store, and watch the series for free.)

Spoiler alert. The first episode of season 1 is all about Mary Magdalene, whom Jesus delivered from multiple demons (Luke 8:2). There is nothing in scripture about her initial encounter with Jesus, so The Chosen gives her a fictional but plausible backstory. The trauma in her life has completely robbed her of her identity, even to the point of her name. She goes by the name of Lilith, which means “night monster.” None of her friends even know her real name.

3 Steps to Partnering with God in Reclaiming Your Identity

At the end of episode 1, Mary meets Jesus, who restores her identity in a way that’s amazingly practical for us. There are 3 steps, and Jesus wants to partner with us in each one.

1) Jesus Called Her by Her True Name

When Jesus shows up, the demons plaguing Mary aren’t happy being around him. Mary bolts. Jesus goes after her, stopping her dead in her tracks with one word:

“Mary.”

He calls her by her true name. Not the false name, the false identity, the trauma has given her, that everyone else knows her by. But her true name. Her true identity. The one she thought was lost forever. BTW, “Mary” means “beloved.”

How to Partner with Jesus when He Calls Our True Name

Agree with him. Mary stopped and turned. He had her attention. Does he have ours? Do we acknowledge our true name?

Agreement means action, not just an intellectual nod while we continue on with nothing changing. We stop. We turn to him. And we, in our heart of hearts, buy into the truth of our real name, the one he gave us.

Don’t buy into the false identity anymore. Mary stopped going by the name Lilith. And whenever someone calls her Lilith, she reminds them, “I’m Mary now.”

At one point Jesus says, “You always were” (episode 8).

One area where we are actively encouraging people to keep, and even celebrate, their false name is by condoning transgenderism. These individuals have suffered such deep trauma that it has completely stolen their identity down the most basic, fundamental level: their gender. Rather than helping them reclaim who God created them to be, we slam the door of God’s healing in their faces by celebrating the false name they give themselves when they “switch” genders. (“Switch” in quotes because they aren’t really switching genders; they are just pretending. They still have the same XX or XY chromosomes God created them with.)

2) Jesus Quoted Her Life Verse to Her

In the episode, there was a particular verse from Isaiah that her father had taught her. She’d saved the paper with that verse for many years, but finally had given up. She tore it up and threw it into the sea. Goodbye identity.

After he calls her by her true name, Jesus miraculously quotes her life verse to her. He’s reminding her of who she really is.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Quotes Our Life to Us

Agree with him. Let your heart leap! It may not be a Bible verse per se, but Jesus will remind us of our life’s passion. That part we thought could never happen, that we’d given up on.

Agreement means action. Think about it: If this passion, this calling I thought was dead, were really to happen, what’s the first thing I’d do? Then do that. One step at a time. Keep doing the next right thing.

3) Jesus Claimed Her

Finally, Jesus says to Mary, “You are mine.” He claims her. It’s in that place of holy surrender to him that the healing happens. Mary collapses into him sobbing tears that were many years overdue.

How to Partner with Jesus when He Claims Us

Agree with him. We have a choice. We can surrender to him, or we can go our own way. Will we release our defenses and trust him, or will we continue to protect ourselves? The choice is up to us.

Agreement means action. What does this look like? Being claimed by Jesus is all about lifestyle. If you agree with his claim on your life, you can’t live a lifestyle that breaks his heart. For example, we get healing for addictions through a recovery process. We save sex for marriage. We start tithing and our tips at restaurants substantially increase because we’re living in generosity. We love hanging out with God’s people, the church.

It’s All in Our Agreement

Are you noticing a pattern here? Although healing can be a painful process, Jesus is doing all the heavy lifting here. We partner with him through our agreement and our actions coming out of that agreement.

There are many voices vying for our agreement. Who are you agreeing with today?

Tell us your story in the comments. It will help others when they see they aren’t the only one. And please share this post so we can bless as many people as possible with the freedom that comes from agreeing with Jesus.

3 Ways to Not Let Your History Control Your Destiny

/2 Comments/in , , , , /by

Our destiny is the adventure God created us to live. Yet so many of us are not living it, and our history is why—all the wounding, trauma, pain—and the fear it brings. The good news is our history does not have to control our destiny. Jesus is bigger than your fear, and he wants to heal your pain.

To keep us from that healing, our enemy wants us to live in our pain. Forever. He’s terrified of us living our God-given adventure. If we do that, his kingdom of darkness will take major hits and there’s nothing he can do about it. His only hope is to be pre-emptive. That’s why you feel so much fear and spiritual resistance whenever you start to move in your calling.

Our enemy’s strategy is, “I will wound them with so much trauma that the overwhelming pain and resultant fear keeps them from ever moving into the life God created them to live.” Those are the components of the enemy’s strategy: Trauma, causing pain, causing fear, which keeps us stuck. And that’s his goal—to keep us stuck in the pain, never moving into the adventure God has for us. Because he’s terrified of that.

It’s a diabolically brilliant plan. It works on every one of us, taking us hostage to fear. He’s got just one little problem though: The cross. The empty tomb. The love of a relentless God who just won’t stop meddling with things.

Actually, it’s a big problem. The blood of Jesus demolishes all the structures, lies, and plans of our enemy over our lives. The power of the love of God is stronger than the power of the trauma, pain, and fear in our lives.

But we have a choice. The Holy Spirit won’t just burst his healing into our lives like Satan did with trauma and sin. God loves and trusts us enough to honor our choice. Our healing is a partnership with Jesus. It’s our choice.

So here are 3 ways to partner with God and not let your history control your destiny.

1) Decide to Not Play the Victim

Enough is enough already. I’m sick of the pain and wounding in my life, and I pray you are too. The first step in getting free is deciding we want to be free. It’s acknowledging the pain in our lives and believing God can heal it.

2) Get Healing

Step 2 is to proactively get healing. We need to seek it out, and actively take steps to pursue our healing. Healing comes in many forms. For some of us, it’s counseling. For others, deliverance. And then there’s inner healing, prayer ministry, or medication. For most of us, it’s going to be a unique combination of the above.

Some of us need medication first to level us out enough so we can receive counseling, inner healing, and/or prayer ministry effectively. Some of us need deliverance or prayer ministry first.

It may take several tries until we find the counselor, pastor, prayer minister, and/or doctor that work for us. That’s normal. Keep trying.

Pro Tip: Ask to sign releases so your pastor, counselor, prayer minister, and/or doctor can talk to each other. You want everybody on your team on the same page. That doesn’t just happen by chance. Be proactive. Ask them to call each other and talk about your case.

3) Limit Negative Influences in Your Life

Misery loves company. The only thing worse than being miserable is being miserable alone. Some friends are just toxic, and they need to go. People who identify with you because your wounding matches theirs may not be happy when you get healthy.

I know a young woman who has a very difficult relationship with her godly parents. A few years ago, through interventive counseling and prayer ministry initiated by her parents, she was on the verge of a breakthrough and healing in that important relationship. But she had a friend who has a bad relationship with her own toxic parents. This friend sabotaged the young woman’s healing. Who else would the friend commiserate with if the young woman got healing?

“Bearing your heart to your hurting friends is not helping. Because all they do is accommodate you in your pain and understand it. You call that sensitivity; I call it enablement.” –Dan Mohler

When someone resents or downplays our healing, that’s a sign that friendship is unhealthy. The young woman would have been better off pulling away from that friend. But because her healing was hi-jacked, she’s now into decades of total estrangement from her parents.

But what do you do if you’re married to the negative influence?

I know someone who, every time they get inspired to move forward in their calling, excitedly talks to their spouse about it. This spouse is like a wet blanket. Their response is always, “Ok that’s great, but…” And they point out the difficulties, issues, or obstacles. The result is the person either doesn’t move forward at all, or moves forward in a limited way.

Now, yes, there’s a balance here. When you share an idea or a plan, most people will just say, “Wow, that’s great!” and won’t share any checks they have in their spirit about it. You want someone in your life who will tell you what no one else will.

Spouses are great for this. A healthy spouse is a great sounding board. While they tell you the obstacles they see that maybe you don’t, they are willing to help you work through them. If your spouse is truly supportive, you’ll come away from the conversation feeling encouraged, not discouraged. You’ll feel empowered, not limited. They are excited about you moving forward, not threatened by it.

If, maybe out of their own wounding, they are consistently a wet blanket of negativity, talking to them is not helping you. You are stuck with a significant negative influence in your life. You need to realize this and acknowledge it.

A negative reaction typically comes from fear. Because of their wounding, your vision is scary or intimidating to them. But you are not helpless. You need to find a way to share it that is less scary. And you can.

If you need ideas for dealing with this situation, download our free guide “7 Ways to Deal with a Wet Blanket Spouse.”

Download the Guide
“7 Ways to Deal with a
Wet Blanket Spouse”

Do not accept it like it’ll never change. Don’t let your spouse be your excuse for not walking into your destiny. That’s not fair to either of you.

Your Turn

So how about it? We want to help you walk out of your history and into your destiny. What in your past has kept, or is keeping, you stuck? How did you walk, or are walking, out of it? Tell us in the comments—your story and vulnerability will help others. Or shoot us an email [LINK http://identityinwholeness.com/contact-us/] if it’s too personal. We’d love to hear from you. And please share this post on social media to bless others.

How to Hear God Like Your Radio

/4 Comments/in , /by

Hearing God in your life is a lot like listening to the radio. In order listen to your radio, you’ve got to 3 things. You’ve got to turn it on. Then you’ve got to tune it in to the station you want. Then you’ve got to set your volume—turn it up! Listening to God in your life regularly is a lot like that. Here’s how it works.

Turn It On with Faith

Faith turns your radio on. Without faith that God actually can, will, and wants to speak to us, we’re not going to hear anything.

Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11:6

I hear non-Christians say all the time, “Yeah, right, Christian, I’d believe in God too if he talked to me. But I’ve never heard him.” It doesn’t work that way. Of course they’ve never heard him. Their radio’s off! They have no faith.

The station can be broadcasting at full power, but if you’re radio’s off, you’re not hearing it. The exciting adventure of hearing God in your life all starts with faith.

Tune It In with Consistency

Personally, I listen to 91.9 FM, WGTS, one of our local Christian music stations here in the Washington, DC, area. I also listen to 107.7 FM, WWWT, for news. Say my radio is set on 107.7, and I want to listen to some Christian music, not news. So I turn on my radio, and all I get is news. Then I get mad at WGTS. “Why don’t they broadcast? Why can’t I hear Christian music like everyone else can? I’ve been listening all day!”

You’d probably say to me, “You goof! You’ve got your radio set to the wrong station. Tune-in to 91.9.” And you’d be right. There’s nothing wrong with WGTS; they’ve been broadcasting just fine. The problem’s with me. I’ve got my radio set to the wrong station.

I’m not going to hear the Christian music station if my radio is set to the news station. Duh! That’s pretty obvious. None of us would really do that with radio stations, webinars, or Pandora. But we do it all the time with God. We think he’s not speaking to us when in fact he’s speaking all the time. We’re just not tuned-in to his frequency. So how do we tune-in to God’s frequency?

Consistency. We are listening to whatever spiritual radio station we consistently spend our time at.

If we consistently watch secular TV shows or movies, where godless behavior (like sex outside of marriage) and lifestyles (like LGBTQ) are portrayed as good and acceptable, we’ve tuned into the world’s frequency. We’ll have no discernment when it comes to elections or other important things in life. We’re deceived by the spirit of the age because that’s the frequency we’ve tuned our spirits in to.

But if we consistently spend our time with God, in worship, reading his word (the Bible), listening to teachings, meditating on him, we’re tuned in to his spirit.

I’m not saying don’t watch TV or movies or listen to secular music. I am saying filter what you watch and listen to through the Holy Spirit. I don’t care how funny or hip it is, if it’s portraying godless behavior and lifestyles as good, desirable, and acceptable, then watching it is harming your relationship with Jesus. And hence it degrades your ability to hear God.

If you want to hear God, tune into Heaven’s station, not Hell’s. You are tuned into the station you spend the most consistent time with. Simple.

Turn It Up with Focus

Now that your radio is turned on and tuned in, we just need to turn it up. The volume on your spiritual radio is focus. Here are 3 specific things you can do to focus your life on Jesus so you can hear God better. I’m sure you can think of many more.

1) Baptism. If you haven’t been baptized since making Jesus your Lord and Savior, then it’s a great thing to do. It’s a public declaration of dedicating your life to Jesus. Going under the water and coming back up again is symbolic of dying to the world and being alive to God.

2) Communion. This has different names in different denominations, like the Lord’s supper or the Eucharist. It’s like coming over to your parent’s house for dinner. You don’t do it to check a box (hopefully), but to spend time with them. Communion is dinner at God’s house. It’s a special activity with a community of other believers where the veil between Heaven and Earth is thinner. Taking communion regularly with the community of God’s people is a great way to turn up your spiritual radio.

3) Fasting is taking the time you would have spent doing something, and instead spending that time with God. Fasting food is the most common, taking the time you would’ve spent preparing, cooking, and eating and giving that time to the Lord. But if you’re diabetic, pregnant, or have some other medical condition where your doctor advises against it, do not fast food.

There are lots of other things you can fast besides food. Fasting TV or media is excellent. Again, it’s not just not watching. It’s taking the time you would’ve spent watching and spending that time with the Lord. You can fast sports. You can fast video games. You can fast just about anything.

Pro Tip: It’s usually best to set a well-defined timeframe at the beginning, like “I’m going to fast sports for 2 weeks.” It’ll be easier if you’re clear about the duration up front.

Don’t you feel special when your spouse or special someone sets aside time just for you? God loves fasting, and will often meet you at a deeper level in that place.

So There You Have It

You turn your spiritual radio on with faith that God will actually talk to you. You tune in to his frequency with consistently spending time with him more than spending time on things of the world that detract from him. And you turn your volume up by focusing your life on God. Three great ways to do that are baptism, communion, and fasting.

Your Turn

Where are you at in your spiritual journey? Do you hear God regularly? Are you hungry for more? Do you identify with what we’ve talked about in this post? Tell us your story and thoughts in the comments, and please share if this would bless someone else.

Why You Don’t Want Clarity but This Instead

/0 Comments/in , , /by

We all want clarity before moving forward. But that’s not how God has wired the universe. Clarity is backward facing. It looks at the past events and actions in our lives and says, “Oh, that’s why that didn’t work out, but that’s why this did.” Looking back, we see how God orchestrated them for good in our lives. We see what we’ve learned. We see how far we’ve come. We see what God did.

Clarity looking through your rearview mirror. It does you no good driving forward.

My Favorite Mother Teresa Story

A reporter went to Calcutta to do a story on Mother Teresa. As he was leaving, he asked her, “I’ve got some important decisions coming up in my life that I have to make when I get back. Would you please pray for me for clarity?”

She said, “No.”

“What?!? You’re Mother Teresa! How can you not pray for me?!?” said the surprised reporter.

“I can’t pray for you for clarity because I’ve never had it,” she calmly replied. “But I will pray for you for faith.”

Read that again. That’s huge.

Another Word for Faith

Faith is often an abstract concept to us, and we don’t always know what it means. Another word for faith, on a very practical level, is direction.

Mother Teresa could just as well have said, “But I will pray for you for direction.”

Direction is forward facing. It requires faith because you don’t know if it’s actually going to work or not until you try it.

Sometimes it’s just a single next step. Sometimes it’s a few steps. But it’s almost never the whole journey, mapped out end-to-end, like we would like.

God Gives Direction, Not Clarity

Look at God’s call to the heroes of the Bible. Moses. Gideon. Samson. David. And in the New Testament, Peter, Paul, even Jesus’ mother Mary.

They were all given first steps. None of them were told the end of the story. They were just given direction. They objected because they didn’t have the whole story, quite reasonably, usually telling God why this is a bad idea or that it just outright isn’t going to work. But every time, God just chuckles and says, “Nevertheless, I will be with you.”

Take that first step. Do the next right thing.

Uncharted Waters

God can’t give us the whole plan up front because each step is a direction of its own. A direction assumes a starting point.

If I was giving you directions to New York City and said, “Get on I-95 North,” that only works if you’re roughly in the same geographical location I am. I’m in the Washington, DC, area, so those directions would work if you’re starting south of New York City somewhere along the East coast.

But if you’re starting in Los Angeles, CA, then “get on I-95 North” does you no good at all. You’d better get on I-10 East first.

Directions only make sense if the starting point is known. Suppose God gives you Step 1. But he can’t give you Step 2 until you’ve done step 1, because you wouldn’t understand it. Because it’s from a different starting point than you expect. Because Step 1 is going to take you to a place you didn’t expect.

That’s the way it so often works, isn’t it? We tend to think so binary, either this is going to work or it isn’t. But what happens is often in the middle. It works, but differently than we expected. So the starting point for Step 2 isn’t where we thought we’d be.

So after we actually do Step 1, and get to whatever surprising place God knew it would lead us, now we’re ready for Step 2. Having completed Step 1, we’re finally at the starting point for Step 2. Now it makes sense. But it never would have made any sense before we completed Step 1.

Clarity Needs These 3 Things. Especially #3.

Yes, God does bring us clarity. But it requires these three things.

As we’ve said, clarity is backward facing. After we’ve done the thing, then we get clarity about it, looking back and learning from our experience. So the first thing clarity needs is action. That’s why “analysis paralysis” is a thing. There’s no clarity until you do something.

Second, clarity needs time. You don’t always get clarity the day or week or month after doing something. Sometimes, you’re still too close to it.

Have you ever seen those science pictures where they show you a close-up of something, and you have no idea what it is? Then they zoom out and you can clearly distinguish what the object is? Clarity and time are like that. Sometimes, you need some distance.

Third, and most important of all, clarity needs healing. You can look at events in your life, even from a long time ago, and still not have clarity about what really happened if you haven’t received healing.

Healing’s a two-way street. God is more than willing to give healing, and sometimes it comes over time, which is one reason why time is so important in all of this. In fact, he’s dying (literally) to bring healing into our lives. He really wants to heal.

But we have to be just as willing to receive it. That requires several difficult things on our part:

  • Humility. “Healing?!? I don’t need healing. I’ve got this.”
  • Vulnerability. It’s scary letting someone else, even God, into a place of pain.
  • Spiritual Maturity. The more healed you are, the more you’ll accept more healing.

Your Turn

So cut God a break. Don’t pray for clarity. Pray for direction.

What is your “next right thing” that God is leading you into? Are you hesitating? If so, you’re in good company; everyone in the Bible did. But when you know it’s God, even if it doesn’t make sense, follow his direction and step out. The clarity comes afterward. We’d love to share the journey with you. Reach out to us on the Contact page. And please share this post if it would bless others.

2 Practical Ways to Faith Jesus

/0 Comments/in , /by

On July 15, 1859, daredevil and tight rope walker Charles Bloudin walked across a tightrope 1100 feet long, suspended 160-200 feet in the air, without a net. Over Niagara Falls. Pushing a wheelbarrow. Walking backward. Blindfolded.

When he reached his destination on the other side, the crowd roared with amazement. When he was ready for his return trip, he asked the crowd, “Who believes I can carry a person across in this wheelbarrow?” Everyone raised their hand and shouted an enthusiastic “Yes!”

His next question quieted the crowd. “Who wants to get in the wheelbarrow?” Every hand went down. He had no volunteer from the audience on the return trip.

This story shows us two very practical things about walking out our faith.

1) Faith is a Verb. Practice It.

The crowd believed Charles Bloudin could re-cross Niagara Falls with someone in the wheelbarrow. But none of them had faith that he could.

“To believe” is just intellectual ascent. It’s something we do with our mind. Once a thing is proven to us, it gets filed in our mind under “Things We Believe.” We don’t need to waste energy thinking about it again. So if you’re like me, you free up that memory and forget the proof, just remembering that it’s something you believe. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s an efficient way to manage our finite intellectual capacity. But it’s got nothing to do with our heart.

Faith, on the other hand, is all from the heart. It’s an on-going thing. This is the sense of the Greek word often translated “faith” in the New Testament. The closest we can come in English is “to believe”, which diminishes it to just theoretical intellectual ascent, or “having faith”, which makes it sound like a possession we bought and keep on our shelf with other keepsakes.

But real faith is an active thing. We would understand it better if we treated it like a verb, saying things like, “I faith in Jesus.” Continual. On-going. From the heart.

2) Don’t Be Afraid to Go First.

Everyone watching Charles Bloudin that day believed he could carry someone else across the Niagara Falls tightrope in the wheelbarrow. They all wanted somebody else to go first.

That’s a problem in the Kingdom of God. Because God always calls us to go first. He’s calling us to something unique that no one’s ever done before (at least not like we’re going to do it). He makes all things new, and our calling is no exception.

Moses had this problem of belief without faith. When God called him, Moses saw and heard some amazing things (Exodus 3):

  • A bush burning that didn’t burn up.
  • God standing in the middle of the fire and speaking with him.
  • Getting God’s name, a completely new revelation on the Earth of who God is.
  • His staff turns into a snake and back again.
  • His hand turns leprous and back again.
  • God’s promise to be with him.

Moses’ response? “Please send someone else to do it.” He believed God could do it. But he didn’t have faith that God would actually do it through him. He wasn’t “faithing” God.

In the end, God gave Moses the boost he needed. Moses had the faith to get into God’s wheelbarrow as long as his brother Aaron got in with him.

God’s ok with that. He knows it’s hard for us to actually step out into the impossible realm he’s calling us to, even if we want to. If our hearts remain soft and willing, he will give us the boost we need. By Exodus chapter 8, Moses was talking to Pharaoh directly without needing to speak through Aaron. Moses grew into who God already knew he was.

So will you. So will I. Continue to practice your faith, don’t take it for granted. Faith is not a “one and done.” Treat it like something that needs constant maintenance, like a car or a garden, because it does.

Don’t be afraid to go first. God is calling you to something unique, that the world’s never seen before. Even if it’s something others have done, the world has not seen anyone do it with your unique gifting and style, and the world desperately needs to.

Your Turn

Tell us your story in the comments. What is God calling you to do that’s bigger than you? What have you done in the past that you never thought you could? We’d love to walk this journey with you, and please share this post if it would bless someone else.

Credit where credit is due. I got the excellent concept of faith as a verb from Pastor Jim Bethany at Richland Baptist Church. You can listen to his excellent teachings here. And the story of Charles Bloudin comes from Creative Bible Study.

Why Life is Sacred and What that Even Means

/12 Comments/in , , /by

Sacred. What does that word even mean? We hardly use it anymore today. It sounds like a vegetable. “Yeah, we just planted some sacred between the beets and the squash.” But it’s a very important word. Because life is sacred. When our hearts lose the truth of that last sentence, we descend into the very worst of humanity. But when we live that truth, we reflect the best.

Google says sacred means:

  • Connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.
  • Religious rather than secular.
  • Of writing or text, embodying the laws or doctrines of a religion.

Wrong. That’s not even right! We totally don’t know what the word even means anymore. Sacred is not just a synonym for religious.

Wikipedia’s Sacred page starts with: “Sacred means revered due to sanctity and is generally the state of being perceived by religious individuals as associated with divinity and considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspiring awe or reverence among believers. Objects are often considered sacred if used for spiritual purposes, such as the worship or service of gods.”

Wrong again. “Sacred means revered due to sanctity”? That’s a circular definition! At best, Wikipedia makes it sound irrelevant to everyday life. But nothing could be more relevant to life than an understanding, at the heart level, of this word.

Yes, both Google and Wikipedia capture the way the word is often used, but that’s not what it means. It is used in these ways because of what it means. So let’s find out what it really means.

Merriam-Webster reaches back a little further than the birth of the Internet. While listing similar definitions to Google and Wikipedia, Merriam-Webster also says this, which is the real definition of sacred:

  • Entitled to reverence and respect
  • Highly valued and important

Sacred is often used for religious meanings because we traditionally have considered God, and the things of God, worthy of respect and highly important. But sacred really means entitled to and worthy of reverence and respect, highly valued and important. Irreplaceable. Something you don’t mess with.

That’s your life. That’s my life. That’s our lives. That’s all human life. Human life is sacred, not to be messed with, because we’re created in the very image of God (Genesis 1:27). None of the animals were, only people. We alone are this unique blend of physical and spiritual life.

Human life is sacred. You don’t mess with it. When we forget this truth, or ignore it, we make devastating consequences for ourselves. We deal ourselves a huge loss.

During her American visit in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton was president, Mother Teresa was asked by Hillary Clinton, “Why haven’t we had a women president yet?” Mother Teresa didn’t even blink, “She was probably aborted.” HRC was not amused.

Every life has a tree of life attached to it. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. And that’s just heredity. Think about impact. We all touch thousands of lives. That touch matters, for good or ill. Those lives will never be the same.

Who’s inspired you? Who has pulled you back from the brink? A parent? A teacher? A coach? An author? A friend? Where would you be if that life never existed?

It’s a Wonderful Life, the black ‘n’ white movie with Jimmy Stewart, is more than just a drippy Christmas movie. It’s an amazing example of this concept. You know the story. George Bailey, at the height of his despair over his own failed life, gets the tremendous gift of seeing what the world would be like without him. Turns out he’s not a failure after all. His life held back tremendous evil in his town, hugely affecting everyone in ways they would never know. Hundreds of men would’ve died on the other side of the world during WWII, because his medal-of-honor war hero brother wasn’t there to save them, because George wasn’t there to save him when he fell through the ice when they were children. Every life matters.

Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

The worst of humanity comes out when we lose sight of this truth. The Nazis. ISIS. North Korea. Stalin’s purges in the old Soviet Union. Abortion.

We’ve lost over 60 million lives due to abortion in America alone (which is a small number compared to the rest of the world). To put it in perspective, the Holocaust was 18 million. Our numbers are 3 times that, and counting.

If you count not just the deaths, but the devastation left in abortion’s wake, it’s at least 180 million. Because there’s a mother whose maternal nurturing identity was devastated with the death of her child. There’s a father whose paternal provider/protector identity was cut to the heart, replaced by a false identity of failure. And we haven’t counted grandparents or siblings yet, who also lost a family member.

The lie in the culture is about quality of life over sanctity of life. Do any of these lies sound familiar?

“It was for the best, she’s got three kids on welfare already.” It doesn’t matter how poor the mother is. Do we really believe only rich people deserve to live? I thought money couldn’t buy happiness?

“The ultrasound and amniocentesis show the baby has Down’s syndrome. You should abort.” Have you ever known a child with Down’s syndrome? I have. These precious children bless the lives of everyone who meets them. Yet some countries have aborted almost every one of them, to their great loss. The eugenicists of the ‘20s would be so proud. God forgive us and lead us to repent.

“She had her whole life ahead of her. She had to abort. Now she can go to college and her life can get back to normal.” Had to abort? That doesn’t sound like a choice. The truth is, her life will never get back to “normal,” whatever that means. Once she’s pregnant, she’s a mother. She can either be a mother who has a child, or a mother who lost one. But she will never again not be a mother.

All of these common excuses for abortion reflect quality of life, not sanctity of life. Life is sacred. You don’t mess with it.

If one life, especially the most vulnerable—the unborn who have no voice of their own to stand up for themselves—is not valued, then no one’s life is safe.

The culture of death does not stop with abortion. It starts there. Here’s the slippery slope:

  • Abortion
  • Assisted suicide
  • Euthanasia for the comatose
  • Euthanasia for the elderly
  • Euthanasia for the disabled
  • Euthanasia for the “undesirables”
  • The Final Solution

Sound familiar? Have you seen this movie? Haven’t we already had this nightmare? How many times do we have to stumble blindly down this road?

Let’s not let history repeat itself again. We can stop this.

Speak up for life. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. Help an unwed mother. Be the change we want to see. God will always strengthen us for this and answer that prayer. Perhaps we were born for such a time as this.

If you have had an abortion, or fathered an aborted child, get healing. Jesus loves you and has so much healing for you, but you can’t walk through it yourself. You need help, and it’s so available, just waiting for you. Here are some resources to help you find a Christ-centered, post-abortive recovery program in your area. And if you can’t find one, email us. We’ll walk through it with you.

http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/weekend/sites.aspx

http://hopeafterabortion.com

https://optionline.org/after-abortion-support

http://afterabortion.org/help-healing

https://www.healingafterabortion.org/mission–vision-statement.html

So who’s made a significant impact in your life? Where would you be if that person wasn’t there? Tell us in the comments. And please share on social media if you think this post would bless someone els