Don’t miss the “teachable moments” today! God will teach you through the circumstances of life  and use you to teach others! In Matthew 5:1-12 we find Jesus going up on a mountain and his disciples following and right there is the secret to taking advantage of teachable moments!  We must be willing to follow!

The reason so many of us often miss out on and fail to take advantage of teachable moments is because we have trouble with following. Our trouble is – we are not willing to follow or we are following the wrong leader.  We all need leadership – you cannot do life and do it right by yourself!  God created us to do life in partnership with Him and one another.  We need to make sure that we are following the right leader, because not just any leader will do.  You can’t go wrong in following Jesus!  He loves you and given his life for you and desires for you to grow and be blessed!

Another problem that we will encounter in following is when we become overly concerned with where we are going. If you have a good leader, you do not have to be worried about where he is taking you, because if he is a good leader, he will be taking you exactly where you need to be going.  This is exactly what Jesus does with us in the Beatitudes – he leads us to exactly where we need to be going.

Make the choice today to follow Jesus! Make the choice to be the attitudes that he is talking about!  Make the choice to not waste, but take advantage of the “teachable moments!”

Alright!  You made it back!  Great! I hope that you are excited about what God is going to do in and through our lives as we work our way through the Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-12!

1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus went up on the mountain, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them! Here is the simple truth we all need to grasp today:  There will always be something for us to learn! When we think we know it all – we rob ourselves of going to a whole new place that God has for us!

Realize and admit that you have much to learn and then pay attention to what Jesus is saying and think about what you can and will do about it. What do you need to learn today and how will what you learn make your life better?  Don’t forget to begin and end your day with Matthew 5:1-12 and try to memorize as much as possible and enjoy the journey!

I thought that I would start sharing a few closing thoughts about all that God has been up to and all that He is doing in my life and the life of our church as we get ready to end our Sunday and begin our work week!  I will try to do this each Sunday evening as a review for those of us that got to take part and as a reminder for those that might have missed out!

Bible Fellowship/Sunday School was down in attendance, but good in spirit!  I estimate we had at least a hundred people that were taking advantage of the long weekend and getting in one more vacation.  (We missed you guys and hope that you thought about us!)  I want to encourage everyone to make sure that you are working to make small group Bible study and fellowship a priority.  You need to make sure that you are here and doing all that you can to invite and bring others back with you!  Those of you that did get to enjoy a vacation this Sunday – work extra hard to bring someone with you next Sunday!  You know you can do it, so don’t just think about it – be intentional and make that call or ask that person you’ve been thinking about asking!  See ya next Sunday at 8:45 A.M.

Worship attendance was down, but the crowd that was here looked good and really seemed excited to be here.  We had a great time of praise that really helped and encouraged us to take our eyes off of ourselves and the frustrations of life.  I know that as the service began, I was just a little bummed for a variety of different reasons, but as my focus shifted off of myself and onto Jesus – I found my hope strengthened, my faith be enlarged and my excitement growing.

We started a new series this morning called “Be-Attitudes!”  I am really excited about this series of messages and the possibilities that it presents to us “Wooders!”  Today – we took a look at Matthew 5:1-12 and discovered eight attitudes that come with a promise of blessings from God.  Our goal over the next several weeks will be to incorporate and adopt these attitudes of Jesus as attitudes of our own.  Try to begin each day and end each day with a reading of and thinking through this Scripture.  It would be great if the whole congregation memorized these twelve verses over the next few weeks.  Even more important than memorizing these verses is living them out moment by moment and day by day.

See you back here tomorrow as we take some time to start working the Be-Attitudes into our lives!  Don’t just know the Beatitudes – Be Them!