Be The Teacher

Welcome, friends! Happy Sunday! I hope that you've rested, spent time with family and gathered together with other believers today. This week is our 4th week in our closer look at the Fruit of the Spirit. Before I begin, let me tell you that the Lord allowed me to be tested on the peace that I blogged about last week. I so cheerily hit the post button last Sunday night feeling calm, cool and collected. Then came Monday. Monday tested my peace like no other day I've had in a very long time. Thank goodness the rest of the week eased up a bit but Monday proved to me that if I'm going to have the guts to put it out there (even on a blog), I better have the guts to back up my talk with some action. I also proved to myself that the peace of Christ does live in me and I'm never alone. So on to this week's fruit! Patience. For the first time in my entire life I practiced patience by being really "patient" in researching our topic this week. Ok. So I procrastinated...

Peace. What comes to mind when you hear the word? Go ahead and say the word out loud and formulate a thought in your mind. Did you say it? What came to mind? Some of you may have thought of a beauty pageant contestant speaking on world peace. You may have thought of a peace sign or a bell bottomed someone holding two fingers in the air. Or maybe you thought of a sleeping baby or a rolling stream. Maybe your mind took you the opposite direction and you thought of the lack of peace we have in our world. Political unrest. Wars. Famine. Racism. Peace is one of those things that everyone wants but no one really knows how to get. And if they do figure out how to get it, they can't figure out how to keep it. Lots of people think that living a peaceful life is living a life without problems.  If we could just get rid of our stress, if we could get our finances in order, if we could get away from that annoying family member/coworker. But, this can't be further away from the Biblical vi...

This is the second post in our fruit of the spirit "teaching style" series. And today we're talking all about JOY! First let's talk a little bit about what joy actually is. I think a lot of us get joy and happiness confused. Having joy is so much more than just being happy. Happiness can waver with your moods and emotions. Happiness can be easily taken away depending on situations and circumstances. But joy, my friends, is rooted in something much deeper than our feelings or our experiences. True joy is rooted in Christ. And when you have a joy that is rooted in Jesus, with that joy comes hope; with hope comes assurance; and with assurance comes peace. When we live lives full of peace, assurance, and hope in who we are because of Who we serve, joy is ours for the taking.  John 15:11 says, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." This passage speaks of two joys. The joy of Jesus and our own joy. And Jesus implies ...