Where do you stand on life and death issues? Without the unchanging principles of the Lord deeply rooted in your heart and those principles made the foundation on which you build your life’s decisions, it will be very easy to be swayed by today’s anti-God, anti-life attitudes in which we are inundated.

Are you willing to find the answers needed to restore the sanctity and dignity of life to every stage of life? God is the final judge, but how will history judge our culture on its values and how we treat people? I see total confusion! On the one hand, we have policies and directives that support the needs and comforts of life for the unfortunate, like free food, housing, transportation, medical care, heck, even free phones! On the other hand, we have policies and directives that allow the death and destruction of a life before it can even have a chance with the current abortion on demand! We support one life, yet so easily dispose of another. What message does that send to our youth? I think we’re finding out and it’s not a message most of us want blaring in their ears.

I smell a rat in the cookie jar, folks! All this deception and bait-and-switch moral tactics is so evil that it points only to one source…the straight-out-of-hell adversary! Just look at the slick language used when offering a viewpoint against that of the Lord. If you want a fetus/infant to live and not be destroyed pre-birth or shortly after it, then you are called “pro-life”. That’s true and simple and clearly explains the position. But if you approve of killing a fetus/infant pre-birth or shortly after, you are not called “pro-death” but rather are called, “Pro-choice”. Now that’s pretty slick, don’t you think. The label itself changes and distorts the true subject and then deflects the attention away from the killing of a human life. That slickness just screams deception.

Look at the language used by politicians, by the media, by educational institutions: “pro-choice”, “termination of the pregnancy”, “reproductive rights”…all soft, glossy words that do not describe what is really happening. Get a revelation, oh, half-asleep country…abortion is purposely killing a baby human; a human being who has no chance to object, no chance to have a “choice”, and no right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Some readers may be jumping ship right now because I touched on a very volatile subject. This is not meant to disparage anyone who has had an abortion, nor is there any political intent in these comments. It is just a shout from the hill to look at the reality of what is going on in our own country in 2012. We allow abortion; it is advertised, encouraged, condoned, and accepted. What a disservice to our young men and women, as they start out in their lives with this attitude toward the value and dignity of life. No wonder we have fetuses found in trash cans in the ladies’ rooms!

Are we so cold a society that we have chosen the comfort and convenience of the mother over the life of the child? I can surely understand the pressures involved in unwanted, unplanned pregnancies…even due to rape and incest. But why do the precious, little unborn have to pay the ultimate price for the sins and poor decisions of others? Why can’t we promote the benefit of at least birthing the baby and then giving it up for adoption? As unsavory a choice as that may be, isn’t adoption or even foster parenting a higher calling and more humane answer than killing the child?

How in the world did we get to the point that the preferred “choice” for an unwanted pregnancy is death? The mother gets up and walks away from the procedure, but the baby is dismembered, accosted with chemicals or pulled out, even sometime alive, then left to die! We need to re-think this folks! Over 54.5 million future American citizens, workers, moms, dads, engineers, doctors, laborers, inventors, entrepreneurs and entertainers have been killed as a result of our abortion debacle? What a disgrace! We can do better than that.

I leave us today with wording of the dedication of Dr. Koop’s’ book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race”? “To those who were robbed of life, the unborn, the weak, the sick, the old, during the dark ages of madness, selfishness, lust and greed for which the last decades of the twentieth century are remembered”.

Sadly, those words are just as applicable today in the twenty-first century! God help us! Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I will quote some information you may not have ever heard. It is from that book, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” by Dr. C. Everett Koop. He noted that in 1982, in America, over 1.6 million unborn children were killed inside their mother’s womb. Some updated figures I retrieved today from the Guttmacher Institute (www.guttmacher.org) indicate that from 1973-2008 there were more than 50 million legal abortions in the U.S. The National Right to Life site (www.nrlc.org) shows statistics up through 2011 and that number is an astounding 54,559,615 legal abortions in U.S…over 54.5 MILLION babies killed legally in our country!!!!

Even worse, some doctors and lawyers have even suggested that we have a waiting period of several days for all newborn infants before we certify them “truly human.” According to their thought process, we could then kill “imperfect” children during the first few days of life with no penalty under law. Now, we’re not there yet, thank God; but how close are we? Well, in England a death pill for the aged has been introduced; in Sweden one doctor wants to open a “suicide clinic” to help fellow Swedes learn how to kill themselves.

As Dr. Koop says, “We are witnessing the devaluation and destruction of innocent human lives on a massive scale…But events do not happen in a vacuum…We are told that man is not accountable to God and that we can remake man in our own image.” He goes on to say, “Every age has its moral issues that define it…Abortion and infanticide are only the beginning steps on a slippery slope that will lead to death for all but the planned and the perfect members of our society.”

Wow—pretty sobering thoughts. And I just want you to know, I’m not trying to sell his book for him; I am just noting some facts and observations of the times we live in and the questions we must answer to one another. Will we restore the dignity and sanctity of life at every stage, or will we just drift into the horrors of life determined by ever the changing humanist doctrines that degrade the value of life. We’ll have to continue this conversation tomorrow. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

Did you ever look around you and think, “What has happened to our society?” I do. TV shows with nudity and crudity, magazines with the same; fourteen year olds getting abortions without parental consent. Where are we going with all this?

I am reading a book by Dr. C. Everett Koop, the former U.S. Surgeon General, called, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” Even though published back in the 1980’s, it poses some scary questions and even scarier is how some of those questions have been answered in the reality of current government policies and laws and the lowered moral principles seen today.

I encourage you to read the book and digest it thoroughly…you will be shocked at what is going on behind the scenes, as well as the policies and social changes being shoved down our throats today. If you think moral relativism is just some liberal professor’s theory, you’re dead wrong. It is the shaky foundation upon which our young people are innocently, and often inadvertently, building their future. Building a house on sand assures disaster at the first big storm! Follow along with tomorrow’s blog, too, where I’ll quote some information from the book. It is a guarantee you will be shocked. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

Sometimes I feel like my head will explode knowing all the things I have to do and the shortness of the time in which to do them. Pressure builds up and, before you know it, confusion, forgetfulness, impatience, anger, etc., are spewing out all over. What the heck just happened to my nicely planned day? The unplanned phone calls, the unexpected visit for prayer and counsel, the equally unexpected visit to the ICU, the leaking water pipe, the stalled car and dead battery…that’s what happened!

Then, if it’s not some crazy set of emergencies, it’s the dragging monotony of the banal details of life! Then there is the laundry, banking, yard work, shopping, cooking, and cleaning…all boringly repeated tasks. How do you deal with that?

What I just described was a lifeless, endless daze of details and darkness…so…follow me here on this point…dark is countered with...c’mon…with…light! Bingo! As I looked back on what seemed dark, foreboding or even fruitless days, I saw a common thread—I did not spend time with the Lord for the pure pleasure of His company. Can you imagine what would happen if we did to our loved ones what we do to God? What love would it convey to them if we only went to them in an emergency or when we needed money? What intimacy would be developed if, after we spent a few aloof, distracted moments with them, we said, “Gee, I’m glad that 'duty' is over with so now I can get on with my day?”

The words of an old song pop into my head right now, “Stop, in the name of love, before you break my heart”. We need to stop treating God in this way! His presence in our lives can brighten up the gloomiest of days and bring some bling to the most routine tasks of daily life.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to run around in life unfocused and stalling out in “neutral”. I want the vibrant life God talks about, not some directionless confusion. Light me up, Lord, light me up! And, wonderfully so, He does just that! Psalm 63:7, “Because You are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings.” Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

You might think God is pretty brazen to say, “Fear not”, in a fear-filled world. He is not brazen in saying that…He’s right in saying that! When fearful things come upon you, He’s not telling you to hide your head in the sand, or pretend the situation is not happening. Living in a fantasy world about your circumstances is probably as bad as living fearfully about them!

God is telling us not to let these fears throw away everything you know about that big, oh yeah, very big God you serve. In the midst of your mess…trust Him. In the midst of your mess…call on His peace to rise up in you. In the midst of your mess…stand strong on His promises, detach yourself from the hold the details have on you. In your most stressful times, don’t even try to maintain control and order. In calling out on Him, and His peace rising up in you, you will have the peace that surpasses all understanding!

John 16:33 tells you that God revealed His wisdom to you so you could have peace when the world’s troubles surround you. He also reminds you to take heart because He has overcome the world! Duh—I guess it’s easy to forget that, huh? Try not to forget and remember that God can be brazen in speaking to all of us because He is right and powerful and in control. So, “…don’t let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” (John 14:27). Now that’s what I call a smack down, Satan. Yeah!   Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

Fear is one of Satan’s favorite weapons. You lose your job—fear fills you about finances. A loved one is diagnosed with cancer—fear fills you about death and dying. You just graduated from college—fear fills you because you still don’t know what path to take. Over and over and in many ways, fear plays out in our lives repeatedly, even in the face of God Himself saying to “fear not!”

It’s probably because we live in this post-Adam, cursed mess down here in which Satan is out to rob, kill and destroy. So what can we do? I think of the old saying of “whistling through the graveyard.” I guess it was sort of a way to calm your fears while going through a scary place.

Well, people, this is a scary place, but God tells us what to do. When you feel that fear coming on, God says to remember to trust in Him…shout it out if you have to, for crying out loud. That would be your “whistling through the graveyard” method! Resist the devil; call down and be bathed in the presence of the Lord. When fear knocks on your door, don’t stand there and wet your pants! You’re a child of the King; forgiven and clean in His sight. Stand up and fight that old spirit of fear. Don’t fight, resist and then stop, for heaven’s sake--fight until it runs away.

Remember James 4:7, “…resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Isaiah 12:2 fills out the rest of your course of action against fear, “…I will trust (God) and not be afraid.” C’mon, you can do it. As the team cheer went, “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, w-a-a-a-a-y back!” Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

Did you ever wonder why people say “there are no atheists in foxholes”? Or why people who are “neutral” about God seem to be drawn to Him and get serious about Him during a crisis? It’s sort of like there’s something in everyone’s DNA that leans toward the “spiritual”.

I am reminded that God said He put a “light” into every man who has come into the world (John 1:9). It is that gift we either accept or reject. This “life”, this “light”, that is in each one of us is sort of like the starter mix for making sourdough bread. That starter has to be there to get the end product.

We have that “starter” in us and just need to add the ingredients of faith, hope and love…and those ingredients are found only in Jesus. He, too, is a gift, but it’s not a gift if it’s forced on you; you have to accept it. So, don’t wait until you’re in a foxhole facing imminent death or with a life altering crisis standing before you before you have “a little talk with Jesus”! Get serious with that little stirring inside you. God created the earth and all that is in it. And He put a little piece of Himself in all He made, so we would be surrounded with a world that cries out about His existence.

In Romans 1:19-20, “Because that which is known about God is evident within them…since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and Divine nature have been clearly seen…through what has been made.” That verse ends with saying, “They are without excuse”.

So don’t paint God what you may think He is or isn’t…give Him the brush and He’ll paint the picture! Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

I’ve previously covered some aspects of prayer and will continue to do so, because prayer is our connection with our great and magnificent God. I can study how to pray, where to pray, what to pray and when to pray; but what about the “why” of prayer? After all, God is big and I am little.

For starters, that’s a good reason right there—we desperately need Him and His “bigness” to fight our battles. But do you sometimes feel a bit dwarfed by that bigness? Does what “little” you say matter to that big God? Has God left the building, so to speak?

As I ponder these things, I keep being drawn back to Jesus. Jesus, one with “big God”, became “little”, just like us. What a picture for us to grasp! Jesus loved us enough to come out of the bigness, go into smallness and insignificance with us, to show God’s immense love for us. Jesus not only entered “smallness”, He suffered and died in it so we could be restored back to God; a God, who wants us, cherishes us and desires friendship with us.

Jesus, who is "big God", experienced all the problems of smallness that we do: vulnerability, rejection, physical hardship, lack, etc. And what was His response to it all? Jesus’ response to it all was always prayer.

He, being a part of the “big”, understood the vastness and power of God and knew how valued mankind is to Him. So when we are confused as to the “why” of prayer; may the simplicity of the fact that Jesus’ response to all things was prayer, give us pause to understand the answer to the question, “why pray?”…because Jesus did! Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

“God is great; God is good, let us thank Him for our food. Amen.” For some people, that is as close as they get to God; and that’s about as close as they get to prayer.

Let’s take a few moments today and really take a candid, no, let’s make it a brutal look at ourselves. Do we really trust God? Do we really know of His goodness, or is our spiritual life something we just “do” instead of “live”?

When we really know God, we will really love God. I mean a deep, I can’t wait to talk to You and You talk to me, kind of love. A love where we are thinking on Him in all we do; a love that brings a smile to our face and a twinkle in our eyes. A love that has us chomping at the bit to give Him whatever it is that pleases Him. A love that puts all our desires on the back burner…we’ll get to them later, after He is served.

Wow, I think we’d all want that kind of love towards God. To help us get there, just stop and think for a moment…He already has that kind of love toward us! Psalm 145 will express both of them for us. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!

“The Prince of the power of the air”; now that’s a great title to hold, huh? Satan owns the air…no substance…fake…false!

The old devil is slick, so we better watch out. That slickness is disguised in Satan’s deceit. He is the father of lies, the prince of dung and is out to rob, kill and destroy us…and we need to get that into the front of our heads!

There is the world, the flesh and the devil, but the devil is the one who misuses the other two and takes advantage of all their inherent weaknesses to make US weaker.

Our example is Jesus; who resisted every attempt of Satan to tempt Him. Sadly, far too many followers of Christ have given in to the temptations of having power and control. They give in and end up in false doctrines and sin.

So let Satan grasp at “air”—you stick to the solid, immovable, pure and glorious power of God to combat that world, flesh and devil. Endure the fire…it’s producing pure gold!