- Rome is long gone. The church is still here. Invest my life into something that will not end up in ruins.
- Jesus entered into a world that was full of chaos, injustice; he lived under a brutal, murderous authoritarian regime. (So, what I experience is nothing new in history but a variation of the expression of the evil in the human heart.) Yet, Jesus didn’t focus on solving the political problems of his age. He focused on solving the root problem: the human heart-problem (“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” Je 17:9). The root of the problem is that our relationship is not restored with God and our evil heart is not transformed.
- Changed system will not create changed hearts, but changed hearts will create changed systems. Only the gospel message has the power to transform the heart. I need to share more of the gospel and less of my opinion.
- Evil is not something that exists on the other side or in the other person. Evil exists in every human heart. Including mine. I can’t judge others from a moral superiority.
- The world is very colorful. Black and white thinking is very dangerous and isolating. A complex world can’t be understood in simple rally calls. If I want to see colors, I need to avoid living in an echochamber. “Extend your borders, stretch your curtains” (Is 54:2-4), listen to other people’s stories, experiences and viewpoints. I don’t have all the knowledge, all the history, all the information. I don’t own the truth.
- “Every historical truth is an injustice from someone else’s perspective. These are destructive truths born from the absence of redemption.” (Andras Visky) Real redemption only comes through Jesus Christ.
- My enemy is not someone who is on the other side. My enemy is the one who is “that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world”. (Rev 12:9)
- I am susceptible to deception because the “deceiver of the whole world” wants to deceive me. I can be certain that the mainstream messages I hear are saturated with lies and deception. Do not underestimate how deceivable I am and how little I know.
- Our age produced the masses of self-proclaimed, media-manipulated, superficially informed Facebook-fighter ‘experts’ who sacrifice relationships over things they don’t have power to solve. If I can’t solve it, I should not fuss about it and especially I should not sacrifice my relationships over it. If I can’t solve it, then I can still pray about it.
- Social media continuously creates an illusion: a complex world interpreted in simple terms by media-manipulated couch-revolutionaries believing their opinion will change the world. My opinion will not change the world. I am not that important.
- The leaders of this world are trying to divide us into left and right, but the real division is between those few who are up (ruling elite) and those of us who are down. And those who are up will do everything to keep us divided so they could keep us down.
- All what we see and experience will be gone 100 years from now. The cemetery is full of people who thought they are “irreplaceable”. I am not that important. My opinion is not that important. God’s Kingdom and the church was doing really well before I was born and will be doing well when I’ll be gone. I need to be faithful in the small task God entrusted me with. I need to invest my life into something that is eternal: God, His Word and people.
Choose Your Pain
April 30, 2025