Yesterday I was able to join in the March for Life in Washington, a public witness to the sanctity of life, held annually to mark the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision on abortion. It was a joy to go on the bus from Truro Church, joining with their chapter of Anglicans for Life and folks from a number of our churches. I was heartened to see both in our group and throughout the Mall that more and more young people—young adults, teens and families with young children—are standing for life.

We wanted to share with you an important statement signed by Archbishop Duncan and other religious leaders: “Marriage and Religious Freedom: Fundamental Goods That Stand or Fall Together.”

As we enter the New Year, many people in our culture are thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. New Year’s Resolutions are usually things that are externally motivated; that is, they are things we feel we ought to do, but which we haven’t really owned, we haven’t really counted the cost and chosen them with our whole heart and mind and strength. And so when it gets tough to keep them, we fall away. Think of our under-used work-out equipment or fitness club memberships, half-done projects, partly-read books, abandoned hobbies and neglected honey-do lists! My concern is not to get you to finish those projects—it is rather to exhort you not to treat Jesus that way. Don’t let your relationship with Jesus be just one more thing you began because you thought you ought to, and then drifted away from, lost interest in, stopped working at.

But the Lord’s greatest promise was not merely about architecture, but it was a promise that He Himself would be there, abiding with His people. “I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst” (2:5). He would be their protection outside the city, since Jerusalem had no walls of defense. And His very presence would be within the city as He once again came to dwell among them.

He advised us to make time in our materialistic world to be with God, and to let the Lord speak to us through Scripture. He cautioned, “Your ability receive God’s word is determined by our willingness to do what he says.” “He will reveal His will to you if you truly seek it.”

Here is one testimony, from St. Brendan’s in the City, offered by Jason, a 26 year-old with a life filled with broken relationships, addiction and prison, who has been touched and transformed by Jesus Christ through the ministry of His people.