The Ukraine Crisis and the Russian takeover of the Crimea continue to dominate the attention of the world and will likely have a big impact on world affairs for the future. It is not the first time this has happened with Crimea. To understand the present crisis and its potential impact on the future, a study of the impact of the Crimean War of 1853-1856 should be done. One of the main factors of this war was the conflict of the religions in the region, which will prove to be a major factor for the present conflict as well.

In every country I visit I usually have at least one meeting with pastors, business and government leaders. In the last few months, I think I have been asked one common question in every one of these meetings. The question is concerning what I think about the situation in Iraq—if I think it was a just war, and what I think the future is going to be there.

The stages in the development of an army are the following:

PHASE 1: The Call or Mobilization – The call into the Lord’s army begins with our own redemption, salvation, and devotion to live for the Lord and His purposes.

          The Lord Jesus said that we could not be trusted with the true riches of the kingdom until we learned to handle earthly riches. It has been estimated that from one-third to one-half of the biblical teachings on righteousness have to do with stewardship.

This week we will look at Ephesians 4:20-24:

The primary way we get to know the voice of the Lord is by being with Him, yet some principles we learn in our own personal relationship with Him can be helpful to others. He relates to each of His people in a unique and personal way. This is not because He is changing, but because we are all unique, an attribute He seems to especially love in His creation. This is why He gave a different word to each of the seven churches in the Book of Revelation. Even though they all existed at the same time and in the same region, they were all unique.

The kingdom economy is built on trusting more in the principles of the kingdom of God as taught in the Scriptures than in the trends and principles of this world’s economy. Of course, there are many areas in which the principles of both overlap, or are at least similar, but there are many areas where they are diametrically opposed. We will examine a few of the most basic ones here.

As we close out 2007, many will certainly be saying “good riddance!” to it. As someone once said, “Life is hard, and then you die.” As we recently heard in our Disaster Response training, the mortality rate still hovers somewhere around 100 percent, so basically we are all terminally ill. It is true that life is hard for everyone, but what are the alternatives?