I don’t want to be called anti-abortion. That name glorifies abortion and makes it sound like anyone who doesn’t agree with it is on the wrong side of an issue that everyone should support.

I believe life begins at conception. This is a valid argument and worldview in and of itself that defies the self-righteous labels both sides have given themselves and others. Maybe we should call ourselves conceptionists.

• Week 1: Being Pro Life- Believing that life is precious and has value means all life is precious and has value. You cannot bolster your shiny new gun and go out killing people you disagree with. You also shouldn’t blow up their places of business. Also, if you believe in protecting the second amendment, that’s great—but you might want to consider why a person who is pro-life would want to own a device that can take life. Oh, and if you are pro-life, you may want to really look into the annoying contradiction of calling yourself pro-life while supporting the death penalty.
• Week 2: Marriage- You can’t go around telling homosexuals that marriage is a sacred spiritual bond between a man and a woman until you start treating it as sacred. Fix your own marriages and bring your own divorce rate down, have fewer broken families than the rest of the world and maybe the rest of the world will be more apt to listen to you. Change always comes from within.
• Week 3: Poverty- Politically, you may have a point about it not being the government’s job to meet everyone else’s needs. However, as a Christian, Christ has commanded you to give your money to the poor. So, whether you give in the form of taxes or donations, you’re giving. Hoarding is not an option that is available to you.
• Week 4: Stewardship- All you have belongs to God. All you have is going to burn one day to make way for a new Heavens and a new Earth. When Jesus says don’t store up treasures on earth, there is a very good chance He means that if you have two houses, one of which you only use for a few weeks out of the year and there are people in your community who don’t have any houses, you may have a bit of a stewardship problem.
• Week 5: Politics- Jesus did not come to set up an Earthly kingdom and He didn’t send you into the world to set one up either. We serve an eternal Heavenly Kingdom. Political involvement is important, but it is always secondary to the Kingdom of Heaven, which operates under completely opposite and paradoxical rules than the Kingdom of this world.
• Week 6: Judging- If God had appointed you as the judge of the world, you’d have been born with a black robe, an tacky wig and perfect. If you didn’t pop out of your momma’s womb with these three attributes, then you are a worker in Christ’s field, which means you must sow the fruits of the spirit. In case you forgot, those are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
• Week 7: Sin- It does exist, and you do it too. If everything in life is a psychological problem we have no control over, or if everything we do wrong is just something society needs to learn to accept, then there is no need for a Savior. If there is no sin and there is no Savior, then we really don’t need to read the Bible or go to church anymore. We could instead devote our lives to debauchery, which is much more fun.
• Week 8: Unity- We don’t have to agree, but we should get along. Somewhere in the New Testament we’re told that we are all parts of one body. A body doesn’t function well if the hand is continually punching the nose or the right foot won’t stop kicking the left behind.

Get it? Got it? Good. Class dismissed.

Conservative Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of open borders, universal healthcare and embryonic stem-cell research, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?

Liberal Christians: If Jesus came back today and held a press conference and announced He was in favor of traditional marriage, denied global warming and was pro-life, would you find it hard to love Him? Would you try to persuade Him to your way of thinking?

Both sides: What is really the most important aspect of your belief system? Are those hills you are willing to die on as important to Christ as they are to you? Are they more important to you than He is?

Let’s look briefly at the church’s current areas of outrage. We’re upset about abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood, books that question the authenticity of our beliefs. We’ve been known to picket porn shops, adult video stores and strip clubs and we have a very special place in our sinful hearts for politics and political action.

Most Christians will begin weeping on the issue of abortion and will start screaming about a depraved nation when the topic of homosexuality is broached. We’re viewed by outsiders as being on the fringe or way over the cuckoos nest because of our passionate dislike of these issues.

It isn’t that we’re necessarily wrong. In fact, I think the concerns of the church on these issues are legitimate, but our expressions of those concerns are often off-the-wall and do not show the world the nature of our God.

The nature of our God is that He is all knowing and He is in control of the universe. God did not rest on the seventh day and like it so much that he left everything well enough alone until the present time. He is an active and powerful being who is the ruler over all we know, all we don’t know and all we can’t fathom.

God knows people have abortions, and God controls the world in which they have them. God is well-aware that homosexuals are getting married, and He is not shocked. The fact that Hollywood glorifies things that don’t glorify God does not knock God off His throne for even one millisecond. Attempts by authors to write books that question Christ’s existence do not change the reality of His existence and do not cause God to disappear. Porn shops, adult video stores and strip clubs don’t strip God of His power or His influence on the world He created, and the outcome of American elections never have and never will unseat the God of the universe.

Yet, the followers of this all-knowing and sovereign God, act as though the world is suddenly spinning out of control. We, who hold the hope that can save the entire world, act as though all is lost and the outcome is hopeless. We who call on the name of the One who is in control, who are told in His word to “be still, and know that I am God,” are shocked, outraged and thrown into despair by what we see around us—and we don’t need to be.

God is in control. God is not shocked. God is never surprised. God has sent us into a fallen world—a world He still controls—to spread His love and His truth with all who will listen, but He has not asked us to take the wheel or change the seas. He has never told us to take the reins. He has given us a gospel and said “Love one another and spread this love throughout all the world.” He specifically said, “Do not worry,” and “fear not.” And yet, His children live in fear and worry because they think this fallen world is absolutely falling apart and they have to be the ones to stop it.

Friends, if you could stop the course this world is on, there would have been absolutely no need for God to send His son to rescue the world. If God could send One He loved that much—with the love a father has for a son— to the cross without being shocked or outraged, you can go into the world and spread love without being shocked and outraged as well.