Risen indeed?

He is risen!

Is he?

Is he risen indeed?

If you have an annual income of £25,000 you are in the top 2% richest people in the world. There are 6 Billion people poorer than you. If you have an annual income of £10,000 you are in the top 10% richest people in the world. There are 5.3 Billion people poorer than you. If you have an annual income of £4,000 you are in the top 14% richest people in the world. There are 5 billion people poorer than you.

Britons gambled £50 billion last year - more than the state spent on defence and transport combined. That represents more than £800 for every man, woman and child and is a seven-fold increase on the total gambled in 2001. That’s £3,200 for a family of 4 – If you had an annual income of £3,200 you would be in the top 14% of people in the world. There would be 5 billion people poorer than you.

Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than 75 pence a day

The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.

20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods

A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and none of these 12 percent do not live in the developing World.

Of the 1.9 billion children on the planet 400 million do not have access to safe water and 640 million are homeless.

Last year Europeans spent £5 billion on ice cream and £45 billion on alcoholic drinks.

12 Million children a year die before reaching 5, mostly from preventable diseases and starvation (4 times the number of Tsunami victims per month).

In the UK, children begin to worry about being too fat by the age of 8.

1,000,000 Children work in the Asian sex trade.

1,000,000 children worldwide have been born HIV-positive.

By age 15, between 20-25 per cent of British children have tried solvents or other drugs.

Unless Christ lives in me, unless I embrace poverty to feed the hungry, unless I surrender all to save the lost, unless I live a life of unrestrained and extreme service to those who have nothing, unless I stand in the firing line for those who are abused and victimised and rescue them - then Christ remains in the tomb and as for me…

I see my children battle with their misery,
I see the poor with nothing left to spend,
I see their torment and their painful tragedy
I see them all and wonder who to send?

I see the blind and feel their disability,
I see the lonely looking for a friend,
I see the bound and feel their loss of liberty,
I see them all and wonder who to send?

I see the starving looking for a crumb to eat.
I see the homeless trying to defend
His cardboard house against the rain and sleet,
I see them all and wonder who to send?

I see the nations fighting when there could be peace
Pushed on by greed that seems to have no end.
I see their envy and their lust for land increase
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see poor countries held by needless poverty
I see rich lands on whom they should depend
Press on regardless of their neighbour's misery
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see the weak held low by harmful frailty
Beneath their heavy loads I watch them bend
I see the strong ignore their fearful insecurity
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see my children trapped by immorality
Into the dark I watch their hopes descend
I see their thrill and their impending misery
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see the unloved child with nowhere else to go
Get in the car he hopes is driven by a friend
He risks abuse or death to get out of the snow
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see my word unheard or even worse passed by
The little left I see turned on its end.
I see the truth dressed up and dancing like a lie
I see it all and wonder who to send?

I see eternal life without the light of me,
I see the hearts my people failed to mend,
I see their wealth and shameless apathy
Then I see hell and wonder who to send?

Yours irrepressibly under Christ and over the devil

Andrew