Christians, pray that the Spirit of God convicts more Planned Parenthood workers and infuses them with the courage to expose the abortion mill’s practices.

Related post:

• Christian Thinking Bad Thoughts

“But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

“For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” – 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18

For me, it is truth. The words fill me with deep longing. I count myself among those who belong to Him, including the men and women who saw Christ with their own eyes. I am a sister in Christ to the apostles Peter and Paul. I am a member of a body of believers that spans the globe. We are hopeful. We are waiting, watching, welcoming…

“Keep that blog going!” John MacArthur said after signing my Bible and adding the citation Joshua 1:8:

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

I met him last night at Grace Community Church’s evening service, where he preached about putting on the whole armor of God, beginning at Ephesians 6:10. I was surprised then glad he didn’t change his morning or evening sermons to factor in the election. He continued preaching on the series’ he began weeks ago.

It was a big deal for me meeting John MacArthur. Non-Christians won’t get it, and neither will Christians of certain denominations. But this Reformed Christian still carries around and studies from her 10-year-old MacArthur Study Bible, New King James version. In fact, I told MacArthur the story behind it. Years ago, my Bible-believing youngest sister guilt-tripped me into buying it (at which point Pastor MacArthur shook her hand). I wasn’t a Christian then, and it remained on my coffee table for a year still wrapped in its plastic packaging.

Since then, I’ve read it cover to cover at least twice, fallen in love with it, developed a deeper understanding of it, thanks to MacArthur’s study notes, and shared my excitement and awe about the overarching themes of rebellion, faith, and redemption within its pages.

Pastor MacArthur doesn’t preach politics from the pulpit, but I thought I’d take a moment to tell him I was a conservative blogger who wrote about politics from a Christian perspective, and I knew his view on Christians and politics. Being involved in politics isn’t the problem; believing politics will save is the problem. We tend to get caught up in the political process, policy debates, and the day-to-day he said/he said drama of it all. Christians know that being a conservative and/or voting for Republicans doesn’t make someone righteous in the way God requires.

MacArthur said (and I’m paraphrasing here) one has merely to look at what happened with the election to see that. Conservatives tried to create a superficial righteousness, a kind of morality devoid of what really matters: the saving grace of Christ. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter who’s in the White House.

I wanted to have a longer conversation with John MacArthur, but I kept my comments brief, as there was a line of people behind us. I thanked him and began to walk away, and he offered encouragement.

“Keep that blog going!”

As long as God’s willing, I’m willing.

“Part of what had spurred the adoption was a pro-life challenge. Could you share a little about that?

“This guy I know said, ‘You’re pro-life. Tell you what, if you really believe in what you speak, adopt a child — not any child, he’s got to have a serious deficiency,’ (and I will become pro-life). He never changed his (position), but it convicted me. I don’t think he thought I would step up to the plate.

“I was listening to Johnny Mathis the other day and I said, ‘What an amazing voice.’ I have yet to hear another person sound like Johnny Mathis. How are we so arrogant to think the 51.5 million babies who have died in this country… Look, I am for helping women. I just don’t see abortion as helping women. And I don’t love my career that much to say, ‘I’m going to remain silent on this.’ I’m defending every single baby who has never been born. And every voice that would have been unique like Johnny Mathis’. How do we know that we didn’t kill the very child who could have created a particular type of medicine that saves other lives?”

Pro-life and easy on the eyes.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn the people of his judgment if they didn’t repent, but Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to receive God’s wonderful redemption. He refused to deliver God’s message (though he did eventually). Did he hate them that much? Had to.

I feel pretty much the same way about people who hurt and kill children and babies, including the unborn. I want the perpetrators, who know very well what they’re doing, to feel just a fraction of what God has in store for them or even to feel the pain an unborn child has to feel when he’s torn apart in the womb.

But if they repent and accept, they’d avoid the wrath. And there’s the rub.

FYI…I am a sinner. Surprise! And I will be a sinner as long as I’m living in this fallen world in this fallen body. The difference between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians are forgiven sinners. We believe Christ sacrificed himself to save us. He paid for our sins with his own blood. Sinless, he took on my sins so I wouldn’t face the terrible and righteous wrath of a God whose laws I break.

My duty as a Christian is to spread this message wherever I go, so that others can also benefit from this gracious gift. Sometimes, I don’t feel like sharing. I pull a Jonah and flee in the opposite direction, stiff-necked and refusing to warn the people. This isn’t God’s fault. It’s mine. I’m overly prideful and, as my mother has told me my whole life, stubborn.

But it is not my place to judge who does or does not deserve salvation. I don’t deserve it, and neither do people who murder infants.

But God can and does save people who murder infants.

I must remember that.

Makes for calm blood.

Pregnant women out there in the audience who don’t want your babies, consider adopting them out to Christian families instead of killing them. You can even adopt out Down Syndrome babies. If you choose to endure the physical, emotional, and financial “inconvenience” of carrying an unwanted baby to term, you’ll be saving a precious child’s life and enriching a family’s life.

Bethany Christian Services is just one of many adoption agencies for Christian families who want to give orphans and unwanted babies a loving home. Bethany has joined the social networking trend and established its presence on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, and other sites. (Follow Bethany on Twitter.) Bethany strives to make families aware of what they do and help them find orphaned and unwanted children.

Please let your unborn baby live. Give him a chance to love and to be loved, and experience the bittersweet joy of this sometimes chaotic and confusing yet amazingly wondrous thing called life.

May we never forget that our freedom isn’t free. It costs something. It must be defended. It must be fought for. I don’t know about you, but I’m more than convinced it’s worth the fight. I support our military’s commitment to keeping America safe and free.

Good Memorial Day to you all.

My concern wasn’t whether it passed constitutional muster. The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses don’t prohibit religious books in government schools. It restrains the government from establishing a national religion and interfering with the people’s right to practice their religion.

Here’s my problem with Bible distributions and lessons in government schools: America’s freedom of religion makes me nervous in the sense that any old group calling itself a religion would get equal time, as it were, with Christianity. As far as I’m concerned, people may worship whomever and whatever they want, but I don’t want people pushing those doctrines and beliefs in tax-supported schools.

For instance, I oppose distributing Korans to children in government schools. Wicca pamphlets, too, or whatever they read. I wouldn’t want my tax dollars paying for Koran lessons. In a previous post I wrote:

[L]et’s look at this a different way. Although a majority of Americans would identify themselves as Christians (as opposed to Muslims), the country isn’t religiously homogenous anymore. How would you feel about Muslims distributing Korans in public school classrooms? If a Muslim teacher visited your kid’s classroom every week to give a Koran lesson, what would you do? I wouldn’t like it. I’d probably file suit.

I oppose the so-called Bible resolution for similar reasons. Republican Paul Broun recently introduced the resolution in the House of Representatives in an attempt to honor the Bible’s influence in shaping our country and to declare 2010 the “Year of the Bible.” The resolution is non-binding, which means it can’t become a law. It merely expresses the sentiment of Congress. The resolution is a noble sentiment, for sure, but one that leaves open the door for a “Year of the Koran” resolution. The Koran wasn’t influential in shaping our great country, but that’s beside the point. On what grounds could we allow one but disallow the other? Would we disallow the other?

I don’t want my tax dollars paying congressmen to declare 2011 the “Year of the Tripitaka,” would you?

I wish every American were a Christian, but that’s not the way it is. America is no longer religiously homogenous, either. To be logically consistent in opposing a “Year of the Koran” resolution, which I wholeheartedly would, I must also oppose a “Year of the Bible” resolution.

(Concerning handing out Bibles and receiving biblical instruction in government schools, Christian parents can provide such instruction in the home, or send kids to Christian schools, or home-school their kids, which I highly recommend for Christian parents in any case.)

When asked a question about homosexual “marriage” by a homosexual gossip blogger “Perez Hilton,” who, inexplicably, was a judge in the Miss USA pageant, Carrie Prejean provided a “controversial” answer:

“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. [Nope, and that's the way it should remain. She meant relationships, which is true.] And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

She was a little wobbly, but I’m sure it’s because the question caught her off guard. Despite her nervousness, she said what she believes. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Watch her Today show segment: “[B]iblically correct, not politically correct…I was true to myself.” And she talks about speaking to young people and being able to tell them to stand up for what they believe. On NATIONAL TV, no less. Love you, girl!

“Perez Hilton” has been on almost every network morning show and cable news show. That they gave the hypocrite a platform for his rude, crude, and moronic ramblings is most frustrating. But ratings rule.

This is sort of old news, but I’m blogging it now to reiterate a point. Apologize if you accuse someone of something and find out later you were wrong about the facts. Do not apologize for stating your beliefs and opinions or if someone is “offended” by them. I so admire people who stand by their convictions in the face of ridicule, criticism, and jackassery. This may be vulgar of me to write (let alone say out loud), but over the years I’ve been tempted to offer my backside to people who’ve sent me hate e-mail informing me of how “offended” they are by my views.

God has graciously exercised a restraining hand, tempering the snark and channeling it into more productive and edifying pursuits.

Again, don’t apologize for holding or stating your opinions. You think the other side even thinks about doing the same? Stand firm. Be strong. The truth will out, indeed.

Related posts:

• Says Geraldine Ferraro to Detractors: Kiss My…
• NO APOLOGY
• In Defense of Virgil Goode

But I’m getting a lot of reading done.

Last month, I blogged about Joel Rosenberg’s non-fiction book, Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East will Change Your Future. I was curious about it, so I picked it up from the library. Couldn’t put it down. See Joel Rosenberg and the Scriptural Lens.

Now I’m reading his novels, which are political thrillers based on biblical prophecy. Just finished The Ezekiel Option, which ended with a wild cliffhanger, and will start reading The Copper Scroll this weekend. Next week, Dead Heat.

Through the years…

• 11 Years Sober
• 9 Lives
• 8 Mile

No matter what your marital or residential status is, you can still do the right thing by your children, especially daughters. A long time ago and far, far away, fathers used to serve as a filter, so to speak, something or someone a boy/young man had to pass through to get to the girl/young woman.

In those ancient of days, young men were intimindated by fathers, and rightly so. They had to present their case and listen to fathers lecture them about how they expected their daughters to be treated. Do fathers still do that? I know, I’m so retro.

For Christian fathers of daughters looking for guidance, help has arrived in the form of What He Must Be…If He Wants to Marry My Daughter, by pastor and author Voddie Baucham, Jr. God has a clear picture of the role a father and husband plays in the home. Baucham breaks down the picture into 10 godly qualities fathers should look for in a future son-in-law. Among these are:

He must be a Christ follower;
He must be prepared to lead;
He must lead like Christ;
He must be committed to children (which includes a commitment to have them, invest in them, and support them).

In each category, Baucham includes arguments for these propositions and provides biblical answers to the most common objections. What He Must Be…If He Wants to Marry My Daughter is based on the author’s research and interviews, and he included personal anecdotes about being a father to four children. By the way, the book also serves as a guideline on how to raise godly sons…extremely important

Visit White’s Alpha and Omega Ministries.

While it didn’t take a bill to declare a fertilized egg human (because it is human, as opposed to canine), the language of the measure directly challenges Roe v. Wade.

If the state senate passes the bill, it won’t become law unless the governor signs it. The bill outlaws abortion; that’s why the governor won’t sign it. Selfish, irresponsible, and amoral men and women will fight like hell to keep child killing legal, and too many judges (and governors) agree with Roe’s tortured ruling. Supreme Court justices found a way to justify murder by declaring that the Constitution contains a “right to privacy” (which it does not) that includes killing babies in utero.

If I were queen of the world, I’d outlaw child killing at all stages of pregnancy. Once a woman made the decision to have intercourse, her choices were made. The choice she has once a human being is growing inside her is to carry the baby to term, be a parent to him, or give him to an intact family.

Since I’m not queen of the world, the best I hope for is: 1) Roe is overturned; 2) people will give generously to pregnancy crisis centers that talk women out of killing their children and offer financial and psychological help. Most of all I hope: 3) churches make this a high priority issue; 4) Christ followers warn these lost women of the consequences of this and other sins and; 5) Christ followers tell them how to avoid God’s just punishment.

I’m embarrassed to admit I only recently heard of Joel Rosenberg, a Jewish evangelical Christian who writes biblical speculative political thrillers in the “what if” fashion. I haven’t read his novels, yet, but I’m fascinated by his non-fiction book (can’t put it down!), Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East will Change Your Future. (Israel is the epicenter of the world, Jerusalem is the epicenter of Israel, and the Temple Mount is the epicenter of Jerusalem.)

Rosenberg’s novels seem to stay one step ahead of events in the Middle East. In fact, some call him a modern-day Nostradamus. For example, the day Islamofacists flew airplanes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, Rosenberg was working on a novel about Islamofacists attacking an American city.

He’s not a genius or a psychic; he reads and understands biblical prophecy.

In Epicenter, Rosenberg tells the story of how he came to write fiction based on biblical prophecies. In 1992, he read Coming Peace in the Middle East, by Tim LaHaye of Left Behind fame. The book was about the future rise of a military alliance between Iran and Russia and a period of peace and prosperity in Israel. As Rosenberg notes, the former seemed ludicrous. In the early 1990s, the Soviet Union was no more. With its missiles dismantled, it was hardly a threat to anyone, especially Israel. Where did Tim LaHaye get such an idea?

Ezekiel 36 and 37.

Allow me to digress. Even if you only scan defense news headlines, you know Russia is resurgent, and something’s brewing between the former Soviet Union and Iran. Additionally, the U.S. has signed agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to build missile defense shields in those countries to protect them if Iran attacks. Russia has threatened to deploy missiles to the Polish border if the U.S. continues its course of action. So far, President Barack Obama, unlike President George Bush, appears ready to appease Russia.

I’ll bet you didn’t know Cold War II was underway, did you? I ghost-blog about missile defense, so I’m knee-deep in the muck.

Back to Rosenberg. People are accustomed to analyzing world events through the lenses of economics and politics, he says. But there’s a third lens we can’t afford to ignore: Scripture. Bible-believing and reading Christians know what God teaches about the fate of Israel and her enemies. God promised that Israel would become a nation again, and a prosperous one, and that’s exactly what happened. In 1948, after 2,000 years of dispersal, the State of Israel was established. Jews from all over the world poured into their homeland. The nation is rebuilding former desolate cities and has become wealthy.

Ezekiel prophesied that Israel would be wealthier than even King Solomon. LaHaye speculated that Israel would discover oil. Rosenberg thought it was ridiculous, but in 2000, LaHaye’s prediction came true.

Much, much more to say on this, of course, but I want you to read it for yourselves. Looking through the lenses of economics, politics, and Scripture, Rosenberg lays out and analyzes ten future headlines about events in the Middle East. He isn’t the first to look to Scripture to understand world events, of course, but his foreign policy experience and engaging writing style makes it all the more…interesting, to use a generic word. Buy a copy of Epicenter today.

Update: More stories like this, please: Tass Saada, a former Muslim and hater of Jews and Christians, was redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. (Hat tip: Digital Karen via Twitter)