Last Day in Ukraine - Kiev

This is our last day in Ukraine: for this trip! We travelled to Kiev on Monday leaving Lutsk at 0521 and arrived at around 1200. The journey was uneventful mainly because I slept for ma lot of it. 

We went out to McD’s for a bite of lunch and then booked into our rooms at 1400. The room was lovely but we had to request a change of room as workmen were drilling through the wall next door and we were told they wouldn’t be finished until 1700. We couldn’t doze or work with the racket so we moved. 

Later in the day we went out for a walk to see the sights. You can see from the pictures the slogan that caught my eye - ‘Freedom is our religion’. In Liverpool the football fans have a saying ‘Football is our religion, Anfield is our church’. 

I find these slogans quite enlightening: what makes people tick? What are the drivers in their life? What are the driving forces in your life?

Religion today is often perceived as a bad thing. It’s a man made way of doing things. The biblical definition of religion is stated in James chapter 1 verse 27, ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’ If we lived by that standard of religion things would be a lot better. 

My main question is, is the statement ‘Freedom is our religion’ a valid one. You have to ask how is that freedom achieved and what is the reason we didn’t have it in the first place. If you don’t fix the problem at the root then it will continue to reappear in every generation.

The problem is sin and rebellion in our hearts : ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and -- desperately wicked: who can know it,?’ Jeremiah 17:9. 

The solution is Jesus, the Son of God. 

Ephesians chapter 2 verse 14 states, ‘For he is our peace’. The Christian message is defined in Acts chapter 10 verse 36

‘The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)’. The basis of true freedom and peace is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, 1 Corinthians 15. This is a freedom which starts in the heart and affects everything. 

My prayer is that you come to know this peace today. It starts with ‘repentance toward God’ and is completed by ‘faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Acts 20:21. 

I’m off travelling. See you back in Liverpool.