SLED for Children of God

"The sense of distance we often feel between Christ and ourselves is a deception."

As I thought about the above, and the rest of Chapter 23 in Francis Frangipane's The Days of His Presence, I remembered the acronym SLED. This is to help one remember four counters to the abortionists’ arguments that a fetus is not a human being qualifying for the same protections as the rest of us. SLED stands for Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency. To briefly sum each up in my own words:

Size:
Unborn babies are smaller than the rest of us, but this does not make them any less a human being than it makes any of you who are shorter than my 6’1”, or that weigh less than my 190 lbs, less human than I am.
Level of Development:
Unborn babies are less developed than the rest of us, but this does not make them any less a human being than it makes a ten year old, whose brain is less developed than mine, less of a human being than I.
Environment:
Unborn babies live in a different environment from the rest of us, but this does not make them any less a human being than it makes someone any more or less human if they live in the jungle rather than in the desert, or space, or etc.
Degree of Dependency:
Unborn babies are more dependent on someone else’s care and resources than most human beings, but this does not make them any less a human being than it makes someone on kidney dialysis less of a human being than I.
(If you are interested in more on the SLED counter-arguments to abortion you can start with these links : http://arizonarighttolife.org/uploads/what_is_a_person_I.pdf
http://www.prolifetraining.com/)

What has this got to do with the quote with which I started out? Well, it occurred to me that Christ is no more or less distant from us because we are short or tall, thin or fat, light or heavy. He is no more or less distant from us because we are reading the Bible for the first time or for the 50th, have faith for $10 or for $1,000,000, are 10 years old or 60. He is no more or less distant from us because we live in the USA or in Africa, in the city or in the country, in a hut or in a large house. He is no more or less distant from us because we are poor or rich, on medicine or not, need frequent encouragement from others or not. None of these things, in and of themselves, affect how close Christ is to you or to me.

Now, I’ve got to throw in that I think that, along with sin, some of these things may affect how much we seek to draw near to Him, which may in turn affect how near He is to us (James 4:8). Jesus talked about how riches and the things of this world can pull us away from God (e.g. Mark 10:24-25). Further, anything that we put above Him in our priorities puts distance between us and Him (e.g. Luke 14:26-7; 16:13).

Having said this, the point of what I quoted is that feelings based on any sort of physical or mental “reality” are not a trustworthy measure of our closeness to the Lord. No matter what your physical, mental, or spiritual size, level of development, environment, or degree of dependency you are no more nor less a Child of the Living God than anyone else is, once you have believed in Jesus and made Him your Lord (Rom 10:9-13).