I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Ezekiel 16.

    Ezekiel condemns the people of Jerusalem for their idolatry. He calls it a form of adultery and prostitution. They took the good things which God gave them and offered them in worship to idols. Not only did they fail to acknowledge that God had given them the many good things which they had, they used them to curry favor with gods which were not gods. As I read this passage I thought of us today. The people of the United States have been blessed by God (I live in the U.S., if you live elsewhere you will have to decide for yourself how much this applies to where you live), but they have chosen not to acknowledge that fact. Just as Ezekiel says of the people of Jerusalem, they believe that their beauty, fame, wealth, and power are their own to use as they please. So, instead of using those to serve God’s will, they have used them to satisfy their lusts and pleasures. Ezekiel tells us that the people of Jerusalem were not satisfied with offering the good things from God to other gods. No, they sacrificed the very children God had given into their care. Those children were not possessions to do with as they chose. Those were God’s children whom they murdered to further their own pleasures.

    Our society does the same thing, only even worse. Those of our own children which we do not offer up to the god of convenience through abortion we give over to the government to shape and mold. I want to state that I do not have any children. I do not have children because i did not seek to have children. And I did not seek to have children because I did not value them as I should. This does not mean that everyone who does not have children made the choices that led them to that point for poor reasons. However, it is true for me. I am not saying that I made the wrong decisions. Just that I made them for the wrong reasons. Our children are not ours to dispose of as we see fit. They are God’s, made in His image, to be cultivated and cared for so as to fulfill His purpose for them. Raising children is a responsibility given to parents from God. You cannot shuffle that responsibility off on the government or someone else. Some parents receive that responsibility through the function of their biological processes. Some parents have voluntarily shouldered that responsibility by adopting children whose biological parents are unable to fulfill that responsibility. I want to be perfectly clear that I fully support the decision of any parent to put their child up for adoption if they feel for any reason whatsoever that they cannot fulfill the responsibility for raising the child(ren) God gave into their care (even if only for a short period of time).