Daily devotion – Anzac Day
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
Australia did not conscript any soldiers to fight in the Great War – all Australian soldiers were volunteers…..
The First World War had a devastating impact on Australia. In 1914 the male population of Australia was less than 3 million, yet almost 400, 000 of them volunteered to fight in the war. As many as 60,000 died and tens of thousands more were wounded.
In 1939 Australia with a population of just 6.9 million people, 40,000 young Australians made the ultimate sacrifice in WW 11 with another 40,000 wounded.
Australian war dead of the First and Second World Wars total 102,256.
WW2 – a young Aussie Digger wrote, “I prayed a lot, I believe in prayer. I knew my parents and grandparents were praying for me so that helped me lot. And of course, I had my mates. When you have good friends, good mates, you don’t leave them. It was a brotherhood. We got a message from Port Moresby that . . . we had to stay there and fight to the death. That was horrifying. I thought, ‘Well, I won’t see my family again, I won’t see Australia again.’ But I was prepared, like the rest of us, to stay there and fight to the finish.”
As we draw close to Anzac Day 2023….we give thanks once again for those who gave their lives in battle.
Each time we gather together in fellowship here at CCSH, I do not take for granted the freedom we currently enjoy to worship Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us not forget!