In addition to creating a scholarship fund for families of the shooting victims, the community decided to create such a fund for the children of the killer since they were now without a father. People were stunned.

What is this? "Those people are nuts!" one church goer was quoted as saying. Isn't it peculiar that when people start actually to apply the teaching of Jesus to their real lives and circumstances (love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, forgive as the Father has forgiven you, etc.) that fellow Christians react with such shock and bewilderment? It makes one ask, "Beyond being baptized and professing a creed of beliefs, how exactly do you define what it means to live as a Christian?"

The problem is that many or most church goers have decided, consciously or subconsciously, what they can and cannot do or will or will not do when it comes to living a Christian life. I will get my revenge if you cross me. I will be sexually active outside of marriage. I will never forgive this or that person.

We replace the standard of the Gospel and settle on being "good and reasonable people." God's standard is effectively written off as an impossible ideal. Well, Jesus makes this very point: "For man it is impossible, but not for God." Maybe, it was the Amish people's dependence on God rather than themselves that made the impossible ~ possible for them!