What Can Christians Do?
“Perhaps you were made for such a time as this.” These were Mordecai’s words to his cousin, Queen Esther, when she was debating whether or not to get involved in the fight for the Jews’ lives. Mordecai reminded her that, in reality, she didn’t have much of a choice. Not only was it her moral duty to get involved, but she was also one of the them. It was her people that were going to die. Her life hung in the balance with theirs.
If only we could look at abortion that way. Sometimes, even as “good Christians,” we are hesitant to get involved in the fight for the lives of the unborn. We are afraid such a move would be viewed as “political” or “right wing.” The truth is that being pro-life is not a political statement at all; it is our moral duty. In Psalm 82:3 God confronts unjust leaders, saying, “Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.” Similarly, Proverbs 31:8-9 commands us to speak up for the voiceless. And, just as Esther’s life was entangled with the Jews, so our lives are connected to our unborn children. After all, we are one of them. Each of us were as they are at some point in our lives. Perhaps you were made for such a time as this.
It’s time for Christians to see the pro-life cause as not just another political or Conservative cause, but as a practical application of living out Christian love. James 1:27 says, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” So, how can we practice pure religion in our world today? Let’s look at four practical ways that Christians can help women and babies in their communities.
Love. In I Corinthians 13:3, the apostle tells us that our good deeds are ineffectual without love. Love is the foundation and motivation for our pro-life work. It was love that compelled Christ to go to the cross for us, and it is love that compels us to follow in His footsteps. Jesus said that we are to love as He has loved us (John 13:34). And how has Jesus loved us? Jesus served with humility (John 13:3-15 ), and Jesus sacrificed Himself for others (John 19:30). We can love as Jesus did when we serve women in their unplanned or unwanted pregnancies.
While good deeds are useless without love, love is still expressed through good deeds. As I John 3:17-18 says, “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue;, but in deed and in truth.” So, our loving women and babies will look like action.
For starters, we cannot love someone if we have not listened to their story and gotten to know them. Understanding them will help us to know how to better serve them. If we put ourselves in her shoes, we can think of many acts of service that could improve the quality of life for mom and baby. Perhaps you could offer to babysit a woman’s other children or help her with some housework. Maybe you could make some meals, clean the house, or do repair work for an overwhelmed expectant mother. Offering to counsel her on child-care before and after her baby is born is another way to serve and sacrifice. Loving babies and their mothers will require that we serve them with humility and sacrifice our time and energy in seeking their best interest.
Pray. From Christ’s example, we can also see that love motivated prayer. In the garden of Gethsemane, in His hour of greatest anguish, Jesus prayed for the best interest of His disciples and of the ones who would later become His disciples (John 17). If we are going to love like Jesus, that means we must pray for women and their babies. We must pray that God will change the hearts of abortion-vulnerable women, that God will protect the lives of the unborn, and that God will provide hope and help for women in unplanned or unwanted pregnancies. We can pray for the strengthening of our fellow pro-life advocates. And we can pray for wisdom about our part in all of this.
In Luke 18, Jesus told a parable about a woman who persisted in asking an unjust judge to advocate on her behalf until he finally relented and answered her request. What was the lesson Jesus wanted us to learn from this story? We “ought always to pray, and not to faint.” If we are always praying, that doesn’t leave us much time to feel sorry for ourselves and give up, does it? As long as we are praying, we will not be fainting. We are to persist in prayer. After all, if an unjust judge would answer the request of a persistent woman, how much more likely is it that our loving Father in heaven would answer our prayers? Furthermore, we can have confidence that God will answer when we are asking within His will (I John 5:14-15). Certainly, it is God’s will for women to come to Him with their lives and the lives of their children. Let’s love like Jesus by praying boldly and persistently for lives to be saved, restored, and regenerated by the gospel.
Give. Being pro-life is not just about being pro-birth (Psalm 139:13-16). It is also about being pro-life-after-birth (James 1:27). It also means being pro-eternal life and pro-abundant life (John 11:25). This means that we are to be encouraging women to keep their babies, but also providing them with the resources to take care of that child and themselves after they give birth. It means that we are to be counseling new mothers and discipling new Christians so that they can have eternal life and an abundant life today.
If any people should be giving their money, resources, time, and energies to the unborn and their mothers, it is the Church. Jesus said that we all have something to give. The apostle Paul exhorted the elders of Ephesus with this truth in Acts 20:35, saying, “I have shewed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.” We may not have much money, but we all have enough to give. We may not have many resources, but we all have something to offer. We may not have an abundance of “free time,” but we can choose how we use that time. Our giving may look like donating to a local pregnancy center or pro-life organization. It could mean volunteering some of your time to help at a pro-life event or local pregnancy center. Perhaps it would look like donating baby clothes or other supplies to your local pregnancy center. Or it could mean investing time, energy, and creativity into throwing a baby shower for an expectant mother who has decided to carry her child.
We can give our support, our time, our resources, and our counsel to these women. If you stop to think about it, you will find that you actually have much to offer because it is Christ who gives through you. Let’s not miss out on sheer joy of giving.
Vote. While we understand that our hope is not in politics, laws still do matter. They matter because they affect real flesh-and-blood people—people like vulnerable women and their unborn children. As Christians, we are called to influence our societies for good. Jesus said that we are the salt of the earth, meaning we are to preserve righteousness in the space we occupy (Matthew 5:13). And He said that we are the light of the world, meaning that we are to expose corruption wherever it is found and exemplify godliness wherever we go (Matthew 5:14-15). As American Christians, we are blessed with the freedom to have a say in our laws. It is our responsibility to be good stewards of our voice. We can do this by voting for candidates that will oppose pro-abortion legislation and promote pro-life legislation. Another way we can do this is by informing ourselves and others about the legislation in our own states.
We are all praying for a world without Roe. And it looks like that prayer could be answered in the summer of 2022. Whatever the outcome, we must be prepared to offer a loving alternative to abortion. The Church should be on the front lines of the pro-life movement, sharing the gospel, loving and counseling women, protecting and providing for their children. There are so many ways to be involved in this work. Let’s get busy because God put us here for such a time as this.