US and Ukraine agree to terms on minerals and reconstruction

Kyiv and Washington agreed yesterday on the terms of a draft minerals deal that Ukrainian officials hope will improve relations with the Trump administration and pave the way for long-term security commitments by the US. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky now plans to travel to Washington on Friday to see President Trump and formalize the deal.

There was a day when such incentives were ideological rather than economic as the West opposed the Soviet Union’s drive to impose Communism on the world. But Russia is not the USSR. It is a nation-state doing what Vladimir Putin thinks is in Russia’s (and his) best interest.

Understanding this shift from ideology to pragmatism is vital to understanding the world today—and finding peace with God, others, and ourselves.

“A reordering moment in international relations”

The Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker theorized that all human behavior consists of maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. As a result, the decision to commit or refrain from a crime depends entirely on our weighing the benefit against the expected punishment.

According to Becker, “Some persons become ‘criminals,’ therefore, not because their basic motivation differs from that of other persons, but because their benefits and costs differ.” Accordingly, there are no crimes in a moral sense, just violations of arbitrary laws.

This amoral approach to morality absent of objective authority applies not just to individuals but to nations as well.

In his famous book The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington predicted that group identities based on cultural distinctions would come to dominate geopolitics as the universalizing worldviews of the Cold War waned. In other words, the world would be dominated less by the conflict between Western values and Communist ideology than by nation-states pursuing their individual goals.

Recent years have proven him right. From Russia’s invasions of Ukraine to Iran’s aggression in the Middle East, China’s threats against Taiwan, India’s rising nationalism, and Europe’s growing populist movement, we are seeing what Foreign Policy calls “a reordering moment in international relations.” None of this is driven by what is objectively right; what seems to matter now is what is right for a particular nation (or ruler) in competition with the rest of the world.

“Temptation yielded to is lust deified”

I would very much like to claim that none of this applies to me personally. Since I know the Bible to be objectively true and biblical morality therefore to be incumbent upon me at all times in all circumstances, I strive always to do what is right because it is right and to refuse what is wrong because it is wrong.

But you already know that this is not really true for me any more than it is for you.

Paul’s transparent psychological reflections are helpful here. In Romans 7 he admitted: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (v. 15). We can all agree that we sometimes (perhaps more often than that) do the same.

But then he added: “Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good” (v. 16). This is interesting. The fact that I do not “want” to do what is wrong shows that I know it to be wrong and that I agree with the “law” in this regard. If I do not want to lie, cheat, and steal, this shows that I know lying, cheating, and stealing to be objectively wrong.

But such knowledge is not enough, as Paul admitted: “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out” (v. 18).

Oswald Chambers’ convicting observation is right: “Temptation yielded to is lust deified and is a proof that it was timidity that prevented the sin before.” The devil’s enticement is both simple and insidious: To make our supposed morality our fear of the consequences of immorality. Then we will do what we want to do, whether it is objectively right or wrong, based on what seems right or wrong for us at the time. And biblical truth and morality are jettisoned along the way.

So Becker is correct: Our behavior is often motivated by a fear of consequences rather than a commitment to biblical morality. What self-driven nation-states are doing in our fallen world, we are tempted to do as well.

Does any of this feel familiar to you?

“To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace”

The answer to our dilemma is not in being more religious or trying harder to do better. If that didn’t work for the Apostle Paul, it is unlikely to work for you and me.

Rather, it is embracing what Paul discovered: “The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). Jesus’ death paid the penalty for all our sins (v. 3). Now we can “walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v. 4). When we do, “to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (v. 6, my emphasis).

Here’s how I understand this process to work. If we submit each day to the Spirit of God, asking him to take control of our mind, emotions, and will (Ephesians 5:18), he will manifest his “fruit” in our lives (Galatians 5:22–23) as he molds us into the character of Christ (Romans 8:29). He empowers us to choose what is right because it is right, not simply to avoid the consequences of doing what is wrong. He enables us to live in victory over the temptations of the enemy (1 Corinthians 10:13) as “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

But we must stay submitted and connected to him. This is why we are urged to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and to “give thanks in all circumstances” (v. 18). It is why we are warned, “Do not quench the Spirit” (v. 19) through sinful thoughts, words, and actions (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:5).

“Cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers”

The Spirit enables us to experience God’s love for us and to love him in response (cf. Romans 5:5). And, as we noted yesterday, when we love someone, we want only their best—whatever the cost to ourselves.

It was because Paul loved the people he served that he assured them, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls” (2 Corinthians 12:15) and could even “wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3).

This is what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). It is what happens when the Spirit produces the “fruit” of love in our lives (Galatians 5:22).

This is the only cure for the self-centered amorality of our nations and our souls. As a result, it is the only path to true peace in our war-torn world. Accordingly, it explains the old aphorism,

“Know God, know peace. No God, no peace.”

Will you “know peace” today?

Quote for the day:

“We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.” —William E. Gladstone

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