It's not about you! The teaching of beatitudes

Maybe reading this before you go ahead and use the teaching of Beatitudes on this site would be a good reminder that Jesus didn’t come down to walk the earth for Him, no it was all about You.

However if we are to be like Him, then we must stop making it about us and more about Him. If we remember that the bible is gifted to us by God to teach us, to guide us and certainly not for us to jump into the narrative.

If we read it with the eyes that hear, how does this affect me? what is in this passage for me? aren’t we making it all about ourselves. I have to say that whenever I hear someone at the front of a church using phrases like “Who is your Goliath” I want to shout out - “I am NOT David”, that is not why God had that story written, for “you” to suddenly be the David in the Bible, you are not David, you are you. Everything is not about us, it is not all about you!

We are here, to learn God’s word, to spread God’s grace, to encourage people to follow Him and understand the supernatural power of His Holy Spirit. More than that we need to tell them about the greatest gift God gave us - life eternal.

Teaching Children that the whole world doesn’t revolve around them when in practice it probably does is a tough call. It is hard for small people to not understand that everything around them is not all about them. However, we are there to teach them, to equip them with God’s teaching of how to have a great attitude through the Beatitudes. I say to the children often in the 8 week teaching, we have to have a “bee attitude and not a Mee attitude”. By the end of the 8 weeks the children can repeat it back to me so I know it has permeated the thick outer layer that life has taught them up until then - how do we teach them to have this attitude - well we talk in opposites!

If we are teaching them Blessed are the merciful, which to children means it is the right attitude to forgive someone if they haven’t been kind. Then talk to the children about a time when someone they knew wasn’t kind and how they had to forgive them. If the week’s teaching is Blessed are the meek, talk to them about the opposite of meek - which is to show off, “Look at me, look at my new toy” they soon get the hang of it because these little hearts by design want to do the right thing which is to be humble.

We are trying to teach them about a man who never ever made it about himself. Jesus in his 30 years never had a me attitude, even when he left his parents and got lost, it still wasn’t about himself. We teach the children that Jesus was kind, merciful, loving and humble if you can get the children to understand these four traits and repeat them back to you - you have successfully passed on the Sermon on the Mount.

So, if we are to make it our mission to teach children how to not make it all about them, sometimes it is good to have a little examine of our own hearts and although we are busy people, working and serving in many areas, are there times when we still make it about us. We are grown up, big people, and we have to have our hearts right to serve the little hearts every Sunday. One way you can do it is to start with the great book - The purpose driven life by Rick Warren. He asks great questions like, “what on earth am I here for?” and more importantly, “what is life for?” is it a race, a competition, to be enjoyed, etc, etc, well one thing that life is not, it is not all about You! (although you do have exclusive rights to make it all about you on your birthday - surely this is ok).