Skip to main content

There Was An Attempt

   Mathis Rust was a teenager with a big dream, to end the Cold War. In 1987, he wanted to do something to reduce the tension with the Soviet Union. This desire became a plan. As an amateur pilot, he wanted to fly from Finland to Moscow to create an ‘imaginary bridge’ to the east. It seemed like a good way to get shot down by the supposedly impenetrable Russian air defense system. Yet Rust was able to make the flight landing in the middle of Red Square.

  Rust’s flight didn’t quite have the effect he had hope. He ended up with a 4-year prison sentence. The incident was a joke among the Muscovites as they started to refer to Red Square as the third terminal of their airport. Yet, it may have helped end the Cold War.

  The fiasco forced major changes in the military. Many questioned the senior officer’s inability to stop an inexperienced teenage pilot from landing in the capital.  This allowed the reform-minded Mikhail Gorbachev to replace those officials, officials that also happened to be against his policies. Those policies would eventually bring down the regime’s power base and topple the communist state.

 


  Life has a funny way of working out.

 

  I think we sometimes think our actions have no repercussion. Either the bad things we do won’t come back to haunt us, or the good we do will be forgotten. However, God is an excellent scorekeeper. In Galatians 6:7-8 we read; “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

  Actions have consequences, even if they take time to come about and even if they were not what he thought they might be. That why we need to make sure our actions are not ruled by the flesh but by the spirit.  Being spiritual-minded causes actions that will bring spiritual rewards. Being fleshy-minded causes actions that are ruinous.

  If we want things to work out for the good it starts by adopting the right mindset.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Until Midnight

    In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back.       I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mighty Gulf

  It is hard to get people on two sides of an issue to come together. Each has their own viewpoint, their perceptive, their own foibles, their own understanding.  To gain any common ground there must be something in common. Something or someone that can bridge the gulf between the two.   Could there be a greater gulf than there was between God and man? How could a holy perfect God find a way to connect to the fallen, imperfect mankind? How can one without temptation connect to those who are beset by it? How could limited mortal beings understand an omnipotent eternal God?   In 1 Timothy 2:5, we read, “ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus .” The phrase mediator here describes a person that bridges the gap, a go-between. Jesus was one who could stand in both worlds. A perfect holy one who can understand our temptations, a man who would die yet live eternally, One who was God yet became flesh and dwelt among us. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

  Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair   It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission.  It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...
Post a Comment
Read more