You're holding a sign that says "Pray for an end to abortion" and standing on the curb facing all the drivers waiting for the stoplight at one of the main intersections of your city. In the building behind you babies are being ripped apart and flushed down the disposal by Planned Parenthood. Up the sidewalk a little way are Roman Catholics praying to Mary. Also one solitary shy woman standing in the parking lot trying to talk to mothers intent on murdering their unborn child as they walk over to the abortuary.
Time passes and you notice things...
Meeting the eyes of each person behind the wheel, you remember the categories. Some look ahead with a stoneface. Some look away, feigning disinterest. Some look at you quizzically. Some scowl and give the finger. Some open their window to shout obscenities, shoving their arm out the window to give you the most public finger possible.
But many, many more souls love you for your work. They mouth the words "God bless you" or "thank you," with the thumbs-up. Many women young and old. Many men young and old; but especially men who work with their hands for a living. Landscapers, concrete workers, guys driving tow trucks or pulling a trailer carrying a backhoe. Very few rich people encourage your work. Most of the godly are little people—harried mothers driving an old, ugly minivan and their working stiff husbands.
I was listening to Romans and I heard God's command through the Apostle Paul, "Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation" (Romans 12:16).
Oh how I wish every soul who loves Jesus would take a morning to come down and share in this work! It's such a privilege. It gives such a wonderful reward, filling you with joy. It is one of the few things we can do in this sinful world that we know pleases God.
Jesus said "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brothers, ye have done it to Me."
John stood under the Cross and shared her Son's death agonies with Mary. We who picket abortuaries during the murder of little babies stand under their crosses sharing the death agonies of their sons and daughters with their mothers.
They know not what they do and we cry out, "Father forgive them."
If you're one of the vast majority of Christians who have never stood under this cross of Jesus; if you have never done this for Jesus, ask around and find out the next time they'll be killing babies at your local abortuary. Then get out a sharpie and a piece of cardboard and write something like "pray to end abortion" or "Jesus forgives" or "abortion is murder," and the next time the babies are being slaughtered, go stand under Jesus' cross.
Don't be wise in your own estimation. Associate with the lowly. Keep watch with Jesus as He dies.
Tim serves Clearnote Church, Bloomington, Indiana. He and Mary Lee have five children and big lots of grandchildren.
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