Who Are You Listening To?: Accepting the Truth
Friday, November 27, 2020
Living Free Every Day®
A ministry of LivingFree.org
Today's Scripture
“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NLT
Thoughts for Today
God knows we are sometimes faced with gut-wrenching, irrevocable decisions, so he tells us how to choose in a life-or-death decision (Deuteronomy 30:11-20). He tells us to choose life. In essence he has said we are without excuse on this matter because his commands are known to us—his desires are embedded in us by his design.
Our choices reveal whether we agree God has the right to tell us how to choose. The way we answer the command to obey God sums up how much we love him and worship him as God.
The lies of abortion: This is not a real person, not a baby, not a life. Listening to these lies makes us doubt the truth and then choose death.
Consider this …
Whether you doubt God as Eve did or ignore and deny needing him as I did after abortion, you must confront your choice. Although God put the truth within us, many of us chose to be deceived. Our wish to be free of the obligation of motherhood overrode our ability to discern the lies when others told us we were aborting tissue, not a baby.
Later in the emptiness of finding ourselves utterly alone, we may lament, "I didn't know. I didn't know." Even then, pride dies hard. We tell ourselves that somehow, we are still in charge and none of this matters. We continue in our self-reliant doubt ... without hope.
Now is the time to pause and recall that Jesus sees us through eyes of love and wants to help us move from the pain of the past and live with hope. Listen to God's voice of love. Talk to him and focus on the truth of his Word. Listening to God's voice will help you resist the temptation to condemn yourself. Believing the truth activates God's plan for your future. This begins by accepting the verdict that abortion is a sin because it is a choice for death, a choice that sheds innocent blood. Receive Jesus' forgiveness. Abortion is grievously wrong, but it is not an unforgivable sin. Jesus died for us, and with his blood covering our sins, God's forgiveness is complete. He has cradled our most sinful heart within his tender care.
Prayer
Father, I know having an abortion was a sin. I chose death instead of life for my unborn baby. I believe that Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for even the worst of sins. Please forgive me. From this point forward I choose life. I choose Jesus. In his name …
These thoughts were drawn from … Cradle My Heart: Finding God's LOVE After Abortion by Kim Ketola. In this book, Kim seeks to help those hurt by abortion to grieve with hope. Sharing her story and the stories of ten other women, she reveals that God's love is not a casualty of the abortive process. With an appendix of helpful resources and a study and discussion guide included, Cradle My Heart is a timely and important resource for the hurting woman, the counselor, and the church.
With an understanding and empathetic voice, Kim Ketola exposes the hurt in your heart, reveals the healing in God's heart, and brings the two together to create a whole heart where restoration and celebration are possible.
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