Some issues are MORE important

There are so many ideas swirling in my head right now.

I have been wanting to write this post for a long time.  On Saturday, I got the new Merchant Band cd, and there is a song on there that has basically made me start swirling inside (not in anger, just in passion).  I listen to it a couple times a day, and it just pushes me to want to write this all the sooner.

I must preface.  There is one God.  He dictates right and wrong, and His laws are perfect and they are absolute.  I realize that my views will make no sense if the reader doesn't understand that I fully believe that there is only one right answer.  Jesus Christ is the only way to God...the only way to heaven.  Some would call it intolerant to claim that the way you have decided on is right for everyone else.  I say that I am responsible before God for whether or not I stood for His truth.

Preface #2: I am not writing this blog out of concern for our economy, or foreign policy, although those things are very important.  Part of what I want to say, though, is that there are things that are MORE important.  I'm writing more out of the cry of my heart as I hold my five-day-old nephew and know that that are forty-eight million babies like him that are dead partly because our country chose to not stand for righteousness thirty-five years ago.

Some say it's wrong to be a one-issue voter.  When I hear that argument, I can't get away from the way I feel that problems in ideology aren't the root problem.  Spiritual problems, issues of the soul, are really at the root of the ways we think and act.  Because of this belief, I can't imagine that someone like Obama who is so wrong on an issue like abortion can be trusted with everything else.  It's not because he couldn't figure out how to do things right, or have good advisors who can give him smart ideas about how to deal with Iran...it's because he's wrong in such a VITAL way, that I can't imagine trusting him with other issues.  {Not that I think McCain is necessarily a Christian, but at least he stands for LIFE and has, more importantly to me, chosen a running partner who understands the reality of this issue}

Abortion IS a vital issue.  Proverbs 6 says:

There are six things that the LORD hates,

   seven that are an abomination to him:

 haughty eyes, a lying tongue,

   and hands that shed innocent blood,

 a heart that devises wicked plans,

    feet that make haste to run to evil,

 a false witness who breathes out lies,

   and one who sows discord among brothers.

Life begins at conception.  God told Jeremiah:

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,and before you were born I consecrated you;I appointed you a prophet to the nations." [Jer. 1:5]

These "festuses" are not groups of chemicals that are formed by evolution or purely physical things...God says that HE is the one who forms us in the womb.  When an abortion is performed, a life and body that God was in the midst of knitting together is destroyed.

Having established that abortion takes a life, and that God hates when innocent blood is shed, the questions obviously move to the state of things now...  How does God see it?  God is perfectly just and mind-blowingly merciful.  He HATES the shedding of innocent blood.  How can we expect him to sit back and not respond?  

FORTY-EIGHT MILLION BABIES.  God knew each and every one.  Can we really expect Him to remain silent?  God's judgment is as real as His mercy.  We cannot forget it.

So...what should we do?  Pray.  Ask the Lord for mercy.  But I think we can also understand that mercy might look different than we could expect.  I believe it will be His mercy if He turns the hearts of our nation to want to choose righteousness.  Shaking, however, can also be mercy...it can be God's way of giving humans a chance to choose Him.

But on the political side: I believe it's more important for us to vote on the issue of abortion than on energy independence or homeland security.  We are responsible before God for what has happened in our country.  Whoever we elect will answer to God for the decisions they make.

I want to point out that this isn't at all about our nation being a Christian nation or making everyone be a Christian.  I hope that as many people as possible will choose Jesus, but it's not about forcing people to.  I'm writing about the reality that we are ALL accountable to God for our actions, whether we are a Christian, a Buddhist, the President or Chief Justice of the United States, or the President of Peru.  A nation doesn't have to be a Christian nation to be responsible before God for the choices it makes.  It is a reality that everyone will stand before this God, the only God, the God of the Bible (who is NOT the same as Allah, or Buddha, or Krishna) and answer to him...everyone will at some point acknowledge that Jesus is Lord...hopefully that point will be before their time on this earth is over.  You don't have to be a Christian nation to be guilty before God for making choices that don't match His precepts.

And we are guilty.  We are.  On OUR watch, millions of babies have been killed.  

I understand the argument that even if we outlaw abortion, they will happen illegally.  I want to say that outlawing abortion is about more than making sure women don't make the choice to have one performed.  It's partly about honoring God...our country, our courts, our President, need to make choices that honor God.  Not doing so will have terrible consequences.  We damage ourselves when we choose to live in rebellion against God.  It is partly His mercy that leads Him to judgment...because we send ourselves down such a terrible path when we try to walk apart from Him.

It's not that I love McCain...I don't. I wasn't excited that he was the pick.  But I know that we cannot elect Obama.  We cannot because he is so wrong in his stance on issues of paramount importance to God.  The shedding of innocent blood cannot go unpunished.  

Please don't think that I am curled up on my couch, in fear of Obama being elected, and believing that if only we can keep him out of the White House, our world will be perfect again.  Definitely not.  I don't think McCain is perfect.  But I think it will be a terrible reality check of the desperate place our country is in if Obama gets elected.  Sin will be around until Jesus comes back, but our choices STILL MATTER.  

There is much more to say.  About adoption as part of the solution, about the issue of Proposition 8, about whether or not peace really is possible.  But I think this is long enough.  I hope I've expressed these ideas clearly.

Please click HERE and visit Merchant Band's myspace page and listen to the song "Standing in the Gap".  I remember the onething conference where the LIFE prayer was begun after the dream.  Now, I work for TheCall, and my mind is constantly reminded of this.  Our next gathering is November 1 in San Diego.  There is a 40 Day Fast going on right now focusing on praying for the election, and for breakthrough in California.

Please let me know what you think...I will probably write again about stuff like this...

Jesus, I plead your blood over my sins and the sins of my nation.  God, end abortion and send revival to America.