All of Life

About 15 years ago I heard a sermon by Stuart Briscoe on the 6th commandment, which he entitled Valuing All of Life. His main thrust was on the tragedy and horror of abortion, but he had other, very relevant sub points as well. In general, those sub points could be summed up like this. All of life is precious, whether it is in the womb, in the crisis pregnancy center, in the food shelter, or on skid row.

This weekend in the area where I live, two people were killed as they were closing their shop for the day. I don't know them, but somebody does. There is now a wife without a husband and kids without a dad. There is a mom whose lost a son and siblings without their brother. There are possible grandchildren who will never know grandpa. And there is a possible wife and children that are never to be.

As I considered this, it reminded me of Briscoe's thesis: All of life is precious.

Perhaps what strikes me about this the most is the intentionality of it. Lives are lost in accidents and natural disasters with the same or similar consequences. Yet in those instances, the loss of life was beyond human control. But this weekend, lives were taken deliberately. Clearly, at that point, those lives were not precious and had little value to the one who took them.

I'm sharing all of this ask a very direct question: what value to we place on the lives God has created? Not just the lives that are precious to us, our spouses and kids and relatives and friends. What about the ordinary people we meet? What about the people we don't particularly like? What about the people we would rather not think about? What about the life in the womb, the crisis pregnancy center, the food shelter or on skid row?

One of the hard things about reading the gospels is that Jesus ministered to all of life. He had no racial barriers. He had no gender barriers. He had no religious barriers. He had no social barriers. He had no age barriers. How are we doing in imitating Him?

Personally, my grade is pretty poor.

The great thing about grace, is that if we are surrender our lives to Christ and trust Him alone for our salvation, we are forgiven. Falling short on His call to follow Him, as regrettable as it is, does not separate us from Him any longer. But, it doesn't absolve us either. The call is still there. The call to give a cold cup of water to the least of God's children is still in effect.

Daunted? I am. The need far exceeds the supply. Yet, the other great thing about the gospel is that I am not in this alone. And neither are you. First and foremost, we have the Holy Spirit to encourage and empower and exhort us. But also have each other. We are, after all, the body of Christ. Let us serve Him together.

And, by our service to Jesus, let us show that there is value in All of Life.

To God Alone be the Glory