WE live in an increasingly dangerous world.

You don’t need me to tell you that…it is all over our newspapers and television screens. Man’s hatred toward his neighbour is showing up in so many parts of the world.

It’s as if they have thrown away everything about living in harmony and peace, loving their neighbour rather than hating them and showing true love to each other, putting the other one first.

How many thousands and thousands of households have lost a family member, killed in pursuit of what? Bringing grief beyond belief across the world.

I understand that one of my grandfathers, whom I never met, died of a broken heart just after the Second World War ended as a result of a son of his being killed in action. I lost an older brother to illness when he was only in his thirties and it took me so long to be able to deal with it…we were very close…and years before I could freely speak about it. Derek...I love you.

We were given so long ago ten commandments, passed by God to Moses and we dismiss them to our peril. They gave us a compass and a moral code, not now heeded by so many.

Yet Jesus knew all along this would happen. In the gospel of Matthew, we read ‘And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.’

Jesus goes on to say we who are His will be hated as we stand up for truth and righteousness, and, today, in many parts of the world Christians suffer much for their faith.

Yet it is time for us who are Christians to stand up and be counted. To pray as never before and bring the good news and the love from God that through coming to Jesus and repenting of their wrongdoing they will inherit eternal life both here and in the world to come. Plus, peace beyond their understanding.