Wed. Night Impact

Last night I continued speaking on the Fruits of the Spirit. I've broken it down into three sections, so I'm going to cover 3 of the fruits in each of the talks. So, last night I spoke about love, joy, and peace.
Living a life of love. Love should flow out of us onto others. That sounds nice and makes people happy. But is that really possible. What about when somebody hurts you? What about when somebody hurts your family? In October of 2006, a man went in to an Amish school, tied up the kids, and then murdered five of them, before committing suicide. The Amish community was devastated. But here's how they reacted. First, they went to the killer's family and forgave them. They comforted the family for THEIR loss. One of the Amish fathers hugged the killer's crying father for an hour. They also set up a Charitable fund for the killer's family. Yes, they were sad, but they had so much compassion and love...and they extended it out even to the family of the man who hurt them and their community so much. THAT IS LOVE. That's crazy love. But, I admire that and hope that one day I can be there. It's easy for me to love people as long as they behave and don't hurt me or my family. Honestly, right now, I can't imagine forgiving a person who could hurt and kill my son. Really, I don't even want to think about it. But I feel that this is a love that we are to strive for, a love that goes beyond ourselves.
Living a life of Joy. I Thessalonians 5:16 says "Be joyful always." How is that possible when your life begins to turn into a country song. Your dog ran away, your friends betray you, you lose your job. Joy DOES NOT equal happiness. Joy is a lifestyle. Christian joy doesn't mean that you have to go around whistling Zip-a-dee-do-da out your rear end (taken from Christmas Vacation). Christian joy is the result of the triumph of faith over the hard circumstances in our life. It comes from trust that God is going to take care of us and that He loves us. It comes from the hope that he is going to fulfill all of His promises to us. So, even though we are going through a hard time, we will still have a joyful heart.
Living a life of peace. This "peace" means a calmness with God. It comes from our faith in Jesus, and because of that faith, God doesn't have to hold any sin against us. We have peace with him. And out of that peace with God, we should pass it on to others. So, what if somebody just keeps coming up to you and keeps giving you a hard time, treating you worse than a rat. Where it would be easier to get into a fight than to continue to take abuse. We are to live peaceful.
Now, these are fruit that should be evident in Believers. They're not easy. They're way easier to read about or sing about than to live out. But God is going to give us the strength for it. God is going to take care of us. So, when we come to a trying circumstance, and we're tempted to act out of our emotion or flesh, we have to choose to live by the Spirit.
I added a lot of funny stories to make it a little lighter. I talked about people in my life who I see walk by the Spirit, so that the kids know that it is possible to live out the fruits of the Spirit even when it seems impossible. I think it was a good Wed. night.