April 5, 2017

“They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14). “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34b).

Affirming life is hardly a party. Speaking the truth of God’s Word is no mere hobby. Showing the love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ isn’t just some preference or lifestyle. Our mission is more than personal interests or political issues. This service we undertake is struggle and battle. This labor we engage in is warfare. Respecting and protecting the gift of life is THE war, and it is OUR war. We are fighting for our culture, our conscience, our civilization. As Lutherans For Life we are fighting for our country, our loved ones, our neighbors, and our future. The time for simply standing by has passed. The luxury of only looking on left long ago.

God has entered our world as Jesus Christ! He has achieved victory of life over death for us. Now we get to announce it. And we get to enact it.

You and I have become witnesses and participants. Evil makes itself barest and boldest right in the middle of the matters we attend to. Souls entangled in these injuries and scars lie within our reach, with no less than their salvation at stake. Hearts strapped to failures and trapped by fears suffer beside us, with their very lives on the line. The devil’s deceptions about a person’s preciousness endanger the identities and realities of those near to us. They feel ashamed and anxious, artificial and all alone. They are our own flesh and blood—and there but for the grace of God go we.

Yet joy—relentless Christian joy—belongs on this battlefield. And hope—fierce Gospel hope—is made for these frontline moments.

Brothers and sisters, here we stand, with the sword of our Creator and Savior in hand! We are raising it up—as He has raised us up—not to smite opponents or slay competitors—but to sever chains and set oppressed and even condemned prisoners free!

You know what struggling, suffering, and crumpling sin’s smoldering gravity causes. And you know what deliverance, what emancipation, what blessed abandon the Gospel voice brings.

Will you enter the action alongside us? With your gift, we can plant the flag of Christ’s unconditional acceptance in their hearts!

Your gift sustains the jubilant resistance by enabling us to further equip Lutherans with greater Gospel motivation as voices for life. Your gift amplifies our message that the Lord’s loving actions—rather than any human abilities, efforts, accomplishments, or offerings—make every person priceless. Let’s lift high the cross in every congregation and every community until all together uphold the God-given blessing each human life is!

The attacks against life are launching quicker, landing closer, and claiming casualties among people we know.  

  • A politically driven study, conducted by a major university and published in a prominent journal, concluded in December that being denied a desired abortion affects women’s mental health more adversely than undergoing the trauma of abortion.

  • The city of Washington, D.C., succeeded in January at sanctioning physician-assisted suicide, making it the sixth jurisdiction (and the third in the last two years) to decriminalize intentional death.

  • French legislation enacted in February threatens fines and prison time for websites offering information about abortion’s negative physical or psychological aftereffects. (In November, French television officials forbade the airing of a video celebrating individuals with Down syndrome because it might “disturb” women who aborted because of such a diagnosis.)

  • Research collected in 2016 indicates that 76% of church-going post-abortive women felt their church had no influence on their abortion decision, and only 5.5% of Protestant pastors identified a life-affirming ministry in their church.

We are striving for more than stopping abortion and embryo destruction. We are aspiring to a higher aim than the end of suicide and sexual license. Our message and ministry proclaims a dying and rising with Christ that creates new hearts and new lives—and Easter guarantees that God’s love works and wins. 

  • As many as 300 callers a month (from women and men) find Gospel-healing through our counselor, Grace, at Word of Hope’s post-abortion hotline (630.990.0909; www.word-of-hope.org)!

  • Support for unborn life has decreased the demand for abortion so much that 76% of abortion clinics open in 1991 have closed—and six states have only one clinic left!

  • Lutherans For Life is recognized in more churches now than at any other time in our 40-year history as we work with seven life-affirming American Lutheran bodies—and others around the world!
  • Y4Life, our youth initiative, formed student-led Life Teams on six college campuses and has started developing similar relationships with Lutheran high schools!

The biblical Lutheran belief that God’s grace, not one’s own works, determines a person’s worth has not gone silent even after 500 years. In fact, it has only grown clearer! With your gift, we will improve and expand this life-saving voice and its harvest!

The enemy has gotten so weak that he only has force and violence left. Meanwhile, we continue to invite, embrace, encourage, and care for the victims and vulnerable ones. We rejoice to share with them the Gospel perspective that every life is a sacred gift and privilege—whether prebirth, post abortion, pro-choice, in pain, or approaching death. We’d love you to unite with us!

P.S. A gift to Lutherans For Life in a loved one’s name or in someone’s memory makes an elegant tribute. Our online giving tool makes such designations easy—along with monthly sponsorships, electronic transfers, and a variety of other options!