Regarding the Central American children spilling over our border illegally, we need to remember–as so many others are keen to remind us–that church and state are not the same. We have different callings and responsibilities. Christians ought to respond to these visitors with all compassion. Government, however, needs to respond by enforcing the law. There is a difference between mercy and justice.

President Obama, with his reflexive moral equivalence, is missing an opportunity to demand that Vladimir Putin and Russia stop funding and supporting the so-called “Russian separatists” in Ukraine. The shootdown of the Malaysian jetliner, though an outrage and a horror, presents the president with a perfect opportunity to take the moral high ground and demand that Putin cease and desist from his illegal and deadly land grab. Instead, all he can demand is that the thugs stop messing with the crash scene. Unbelievable.

The key question in golf is no longer “Can Tiger catch Jack?” Tiger’s best days clearly are behind him. With all his injuries, he’s an older golfer than he is a man, with lots of fairway mileage on him. Tiger reminds me of an old, formerly great golfer who can put a good round or two together but can no longer sustain it in the clutch. Tiger needs to worry more about Rory than he does Jack. The key question, it seems to me, is this: “Is Jack’s record of 18 major victories under more threat now from Tiger, who has 14, or Rory, who has three?” The eye test tells me that Rory now is more likely to catch Jack than Tiger is.

If your ultimate goal in life is (as it was for Jonathan Edwards) seeking God’s glory, and your circumstances change, then nothing really has changed. You can equally seek His glory in good times and in bad.

Barack Obama apparently doesn’t realize this elementary fact–that even if the United States stops acting around the globe, the world doesn’t stop. The costs to the photo-op president’s inaction continue to rise in Ukraine, Israel, the border with Mexico, Benghazi, Iraq, Syria, and so on. Whether the president realizes it or not, the world is a safer place when the U.S. takes a leading role, a more dangerous and bloody place when it doesn’t.