“Evildoers do not understand what is right, but those who seek the Lord understand it fully.”

It used to frustrate me a great deal to watch lost people do mean, foolish, destructive, or hurtful things. Often, they did those things to others, which not only frustrated me but also angered me. Out of that anger often came a desire to get even or at least see something bad happen to them. It wasn’t until later in my Christian life that I realized they were lost and simply didn’t know any better. Truly lost people do lost-people stuff. I didn’t excuse what they did or accept it as anything less than the product of a broken lifestyle that hurt those around them as well as themselves. But my anger began to turn into sadness and compassion. With that came a desire to see those people come to know Christ and be set free from living like lost people. As Solomon tells us in this passage, they truly had no comprehension of what right living looked like. Even more, they genuinely believed the way they lived was right—even though it was diametrically opposed to God’s law and His truth. Love and compassion were not their motivation, yet many would have sworn to their graves that it was. We need to recognize that when followers of Christ live like the lost, they have no excuse. In this passage, we fully understand what His followers should look like as they live in this broken world: they reflect Him through the fruit of His Spirit—love, joy, peace, and all the qualities Paul describes in Galatians 5. Today, live like His children and bless the world. #BeTheEdge

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” Galatians 5:22 NIV