If there is one thing the war in Ukraine has done, it has shocked the living daylights out of us.

The scenes of bombing and bloodshed in all of social media’s cinematic array churned our stomachs in real time.

The abject fear of the people trying to run for their lives was palpable. The chill of their desperation made our hair stand on end.

Did we wonder in disbelief how much worse it might get as our eyes stayed glued to our screens? Did we think about how much longer we could endure the unending livestream of raw emotion playing out before our very eyes?

Does it matter?

Life matters

It does.

Because life matters. It is a gift of God. (Genesis 2:7)

Indifference sows its own seeds of desolation, and apathy digs its own abyss.

It has been said over and over, in multiple forms and for different functions, that the first acrimonious strike by Russia on Ukraine on February 24, 2022, unleashed untold consequences for the entire world, the full-on effects of which we have yet to see.

Less has been said about the spiritual reality much anticipated or largely ignored but fast approaching on the long-prophesied horizon. (Matthew 24:6-8)

Truth is, every single one of the urgent news flashes should have gripped our consciousness into recognising that to be anywhere in Ukraine is to be in a hell on earth.

The doomsday seer of old might have said something like: Take heed to yourself and consider your ways, there is an as-yet unseen hell to come, infinitesimally worse than what you’re seeing.

Thank God, that pulpit is His alone – God, who loved the world enough to send His Son to save it from its depravity (John 3:16), even though it held Him in complete disregard.

Today, if you will hear His voice, He still speaks. To a spiritually complacent world, the reminder is:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.

“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. They have no fear of God before their eyes.” (Romans 3:10-18)

It is clear: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

But to each of us, God offers justification by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

That sort of life is eternal, and it is a here-and-now provision to anyone who would accept, in faith, the gospel truth that stands for all time: Christ died for our sins, was buried, was raised on the third day. (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Jesus lives. That matters, because there is salvation in no other name. (Acts 4:21) And salvation is what we truly need in our lives and for our world.

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