Carrie's 2 cents

I wrote this days ago regarding abortion and the love of Christ, didn't have time to finish it before Gavin went to bed, and so didn't post it. I'm not trying to re-start any debate, I just have some concern for some women who might have read the original blog (I used to work at a crisis pregnancy center):

I would add fear as a main motivator for abortion. Gavin says he shouldn't have put "self righteous" in his sentence about abortions being done in the name of convenience [You'll note he's since then removed those words.]. We know there are many women who have found abortion anything but convenient, suffering from agonizing doubt beforehand and trauma and remorse afterward. And while we believe that Scripture teaches us "a person's a person no matter how small" (see Psalm 139), and a woman's rights can never overrule the rights of another life growing inside of her, I would also hasten to reassure anyone who has already aborted/selectively reduced a child that Jesus Christ will never turn away anyone who comes to Him (John 6:37).

John 6:28-29 says the only "good work" necessary and sufficient for our salvation is to believe in the One the Father has sent. Jesus came to take the punishment for ALL of our sins - and that includes gossip, jealousy, pettiness, abortions, murder, anything at all that falls short of God's glory.

It's like trying to leap across the Grand Canyon when it comes to trying to measure up to God's holiness and perfection on our own. The greatest Olympic long-jumper would way out-jump me, but he's still going to fall far short to his death. One person's good works might be much more evident than another's, but the most right acts of any of us are like filthy rags compared to God's righteousness (Isaiah 64:6).

For several years I felt like too much of a let-down in God's eyes to even come to Him, despite having accepted Christ's sacrifice as a four-year-old. I will always remember sitting on a couch in our apartment and working on memorizing these verses from Romans 8 when the truth of them struck me to the heart and caused me to sob with gratitude!:

 1So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2And because you belong to him, the power^a of the life-giving Spirit has freed you^bfrom the power of sin that leads to death. 3The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.^c So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

Love and gratitude to you all for caring and sharing in so many, many ways,
Carrie