{"id":29413,"date":"2020-12-23T03:30:26","date_gmt":"2020-12-23T11:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=29413"},"modified":"2020-12-18T11:14:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-18T19:14:30","slug":"december-23-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2020\/12\/23\/december-23-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"December 23, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 fusion-parallax-none nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-background-position:center top;--awb-background-repeat:repeat-y;--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-background-image:url(&quot;https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Dec-2020-Devo-Template.jpg&quot;);--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_6 1_6 fusion-one-sixth fusion-column-first\" style=\"--awb-bg-size:cover;width:16.666666666667%;width:calc(16.666666666667% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.16666666666667 ) );margin-right: 4%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\"><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-1 fusion_builder_column_3_4 3_4 fusion-three-fourth fusion-column-last\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:40px;--awb-padding-right:10px;--awb-padding-bottom:40px;--awb-padding-left:10px;--awb-bg-size:cover;width:75%;width:calc(75% - ( ( 4% ) * 0.75 ) );\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>&#8220;Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren, every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>James 1:16-17<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Good and Perfect Gift<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Christmas brings all sorts of festivities, programs, music, foods and sweets, performances, shopping, cleaning, wrapping, and decorating.\u00a0There are lights and parades and carols and jolly ol&#8217; St. Nick. Don&#8217;t forget elves and stockings and reindeer with red noses. We do love to celebrate Christmas! I am not knocking any of these things, but at the same time, I don&#8217;t want to miss the true Christmas, the eternal reality of a divine love expressed so miraculously and so tenderly in the coming of the Christ Child.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;&#8230;Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God&#8221; <\/em>(1 John 4:2). What makes Christmas so marvelous is that Jesus came in the flesh as that wee babe of the stable. Do you sense the wonder of that moment? That night changed history forever.\u00a0That expression of the Father&#8217;s love unto helpless and hopeless mankind opened eternity for us.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him&#8221; <\/em>(1 John 4:9).\u00a0I see Christmas all over these verses.\u00a0God made His love known in flesh and blood terms that we could understand. Flesh and blood that we could see with our eyes and look upon and hear with our ears and handle with our hands. He became as we are, so that we might be changed from glory to glory into His image. He was born unto Mary that we might live through Him.<\/p>\n<p>This is life! This is the delight of the ages. Jesus, the matchless gift to humanity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15) Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-7Ep","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29415,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29413\/revisions\/29415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}