Jim Uttley
By the way, how was your New Year's Celebration? Now that the celebrations are over and we've returned to a regular routine of living how do you feel about your life and the shape our world is in?
At the conclusion of one year and beginning of the next, it's good to reflect back on where we were and where we're heading. For many, a New Year is nothing more than changing calendars. But it's also a good time to evaluate life's situations and what we need to change.
Think of it as though life is like floating downstream in a boat. We need to consider each New Year as not only a new beginning but also another warning sign as we drift along on the stream of life toward imminent danger.
Let's take a look at where our world is at as we begin 2014. There is information that ought to "wake us up". If we aren't already concerned, we should be. Take a look at this.
Divorce is on the increase. More people are living together outside of marriage. What the Bible calls fornication is now just 'living together'. Fifty percent of children grow up in fatherless homes. This is becoming known as the 'orphaned generation.'
More than 110 million people in the United States are suffering from venereal disease. That's according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
In just 40 years, more than 55 million unborn babies have been killed in North America. That's almost ten times the number of people killed during Hitler's Holocaust. The desecration of life continues at a feverish pace.
Marriage traditions have changed drastically and now those who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman are under attack. New laws and teaching in schools are making it more and more difficult to believe in traditional marriage.
Second only to death from unintentional injury (car accidents, fires, drownings), suicide is now the leading cause of death among youth. This is all the more serious because First Nations' suicide rate was already three times higher than in the dominant society.
Pornography is rampant. Children are able to access it on computers and mobile devices far and wide, putting children and marriages at risk.
With the growing trend to legalize marijuana (now legal in Washington and Colorado), support for legalization has increased from 12 percent in 1969 to 58 percent today.
North America's financial debt (more than $17 trillion in the U.S.) is leading to an economic collapse which will inevitably severely affect economies around the world.
That says nothing about our spiritual debt.
Why paint such a gloomy picture, you ask? Well, as a former Secret Service bodyguard to U.S. President Barack Obama recently stated, "It's worse than people know." This is a man who was privileged to hear many secret conversations in the Oval Office, so he's someone who knows what he's talking about. He also commented "I'm not trying to scare you either."
Now all is not gloom and doom. For no matter how bleak it appears, one thing we must always remember: our Creator is in control. He has a plan for us in 2014.
There are those who believe that there is going to be a new hunger for the Word of God throughout the lands. And while there's going to be a shaking of the nations in the coming days and years, the nations of this world will become the Kingdom of our God.
We believe God is raising up His followers as an unstoppable force of transformation and this generation will be called God's generation.
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!
