Video from Become
Ukraine and Russia and God
"Pray for Ukraine. In the confusion and uncertainty of this global moment it can be difficult to know what to do. I want to give you two questions that can help focus your mind on how to pause and reflect on what it means to follow Jesus, the Prince of Peace, in a violent world." from video introduction.
This is just as pertinent as it was when it was recorded several months ago - Andy
Genesis 6: 5-6
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.
Our Helter-Skelter Souls & World
"The man who prosecuted the infamous Manson family for their murders later wrote a book titled Helter-Skelter. This phrase was taken from a song performed by a well known rock-music group. Manson used it to characterize the state of confusion in which he kept his followers, and himself as well. In a state of helter-skelter nothing makes sense, and everything makes as much sense as anything else. So for example, when you cut someone's throat or stab them repeatedly and they die, you didn't really kill them and they didn't really die. This was Manson's teaching." Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard, page 39
We see this today in a huge way in our culture. We see it in politics when someone like trump with a twisted and evil mind keeps his followers slavishly hanging on every word and willing do criminal acts to please him. We see it on social media and in entertainment as people worship and follow actors and others.
Our souls are wicked and depraved! We must repent!
Transcript: Vladimir Putin’s Televised Address on Ukraine (Feb 2022)
"..Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people..." from the article: Transcript: Vladimir Putin’s Televised Address on Ukraine (Feb 2022)
Learning in Wartime by C.S. Lewis
"In 1938, Somerville College English Fellow Helen Darbishire told the Somerville Council in Oxford that “it would be advisable to ascertain, if possible, whether in the event of an international emergency, university education would continue, and, if so, on what basis.” One can imagine conversations between Darbishire, Lewis, and other English Fellows in Oxford that addressed this topic during a time when war seemed imminent.
That the possibility of war had been on everyone’s mind for quite some time, including Lewis’s, is clear from many sources, one of them a letter published by E. L. Mascall in Theology in January 1939, to which Lewis responded in May 1939.
In “The Christian and the Next War,” Mascall set forth six conditions for a just war. In his response, “The Conditions for a Just War,” Lewis argued that determining the justice of war was a complex issue best reserved for government officials who knew the full international political story. Then war broke out on September 1, 1939 with Germany’s invasion of Poland. England declared war on Germany on September 3, and the question of learning in war-time became prominent.
Since the fall term, Michaelmas, began in October, this sermon was delivered by Lewis, a veteran of World War One, quite early in the term. The wartime BBC broadcasts that would eventually become Mere Christianity were still a couple of years away. Lewis preached the sermon “Learning in War-Time” at St. Mary the Virgin Church, Oxford, on Sunday, October 22, 1939. “Learning in War-Time” presented Lewis’s defense of traditional humanistic learning at a time when many thought that educational pursuits were unnecessary in the light of the war, or worse, irresponsible. The sermon attempted to answer the question, “What is the use of beginning a task which we have so little chance of finishing?” When the world is advancing to heaven or hell, when the liberties of Europe hang in the balance, Lewis wrote, how can students and faculty spend time on what seem to be trivialities in comparison?.." from the website: cslewis.com
Pursue your daily humble calling before God!!!!!!
"..the war creates absolutely no new situation it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. This goes on every day people by the thousands by the millions they die little babies die of starvation needlessly. If there was generosity and wisdom it would not happen, people die of homicide and suicide and epidemic, horrible things go on every day but we're just used to it.." John Ortberg
Life has never been normal and as John Ortberg says we are called in this abnormal world to follow God.
So today pray for the people of the Ukraine, pray for Putin, and do whatever you can to serve those around you!
Pray for Peace!!
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