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Have you taken your Daily Step
Sometimes the step may be a long one, a leap even, however, life is still taken "One step at a time!"
Add one Godly thought a day and in a year you will have taken 365 steps closer to Him!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
"The Rabbi Speaks"
5:1When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.
2He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,
3"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:1-3 NAS
Matthew chapters five, six and seven form a body of scripture called the "Sermon on the Mount." Some great discipleship lessons come from these verses. "The Sermon" begins with the "Beatitudes," Matthew 5:1-12. These are the "beautiful" attitudes. These are the "best settings" for your attitude in life. Over the next weeks will go through these attitudes and work on putting them into action. Come and sit at Jesus' feet and listen.
Just imagine what it must have felt like to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to Him teach! Whether on a mountainside, in the desert, on a beach, in a garden, in your home or the city streets Jesus speaks and teaches. Sometime it was even in the church.
On this day Jesus has gone up the mountain to teach the disciples how to live as Godly servants. He begins simply with their attitudes. How they are to think about things and to approach His children with the gospel truth.
Notice how Jesus turns things upside down and inside out. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Sudden poor is not the bad thing we suppose, but something to be accepted as positive. A "poor" spirit is a hungry spirit. It knows what it is to be without. It knows humbleness. It knows that it does not have what it takes to succeed in filling that hunger. The poor in spirit will knowingly rely on God. Those whose spirit is proud will try to stand on their own and do things their own way while the truth is that only God's spirit stands on its own. We all need Him.
The poor spirit is blessed by being granted access to the kingdom. Only kingdom attitudes may go there. It also about having the kingdom attitude in us today as we go about serving the Lord.
Prayer: "Holy Spirit I need You in my attitudes. Grant me an attitude of love and of joy today. place in my heart an attitude of peace and mercy toward others. Grant me self-control in my attitude. That patience, respect, grace and thankfulness would guide my every thought. May my attitude be made into an image of Yours, Jesus. Amen"
Copyright © 2007 Rev. Leslie A. Johnson
Things to Ponder
1) Just imagine sitting at Jesus' feet in any of the places mentioned in the right column. What does it take to sit at Jesus' feet?
2) Think about your attitudes. What is a bad attitude? What is a good attitude?
3) Sometimes attitudes are not so much "bad" as misguided. Hard headedness is good if you are resisting a temptation offered to you. However, it is not good if you are resisting good intended toward you. Like the advice of a friend or family. Do you have any attitudes than are being misused?
4) What does receiving the kingdom of heaven mean to you?
Copyright © 2007 Rev. Leslie A. Johnson
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