{"id":29216,"date":"2023-12-14T13:10:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2023-theway-copy\/"},"modified":"2023-12-14T13:17:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T20:17:59","slug":"2023-savior","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/gospel-express\/2023-savior\/","title":{"rendered":"God Sent a Savior"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-0  avia-builder-el-no-sibling  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/CreativeWork\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>God Sent a Savior<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Christmas cards. Punctuated promises. Can I share words from my favorite Christmas cards?<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>He became like us, so we could become like Him<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>Angels still sing and the star still beckons<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And from Isaiah 9, verse 6: \u201c<strong>God has given a Son to us. His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Powerful God, and Prince of Peace<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And my favorite: \u201cIf our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator. If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist. If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist. But since our greatest need was forgiveness, God sent us a Savior.\u201d Merry Christmas, everybody.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-29217 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"564\" height=\"846\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-1.jpg 564w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-1-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-1-470x705.jpg 470w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 564px) 100vw, 564px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-29139 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/bluebullet2.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"47\" height=\"44\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Linger Near the Manger<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Christianity was born in one big heavenly interruption. Just ask the Bethlehem shepherds.\u00a0They had no expectations of excitement. These are sheep they\u2019re watching. We count sheep to go to sleep! Shepherds, however, treasured the predictable. This was the night shift. Any excitement was bad excitement\u2014wolves, lions, poachers. Just because they wanted a calm night, didn\u2019t mean they would get it.<\/p>\n<p>Luke says, \u201cThen an angel of the Lord stood before them. The glory of the Lord shining around them, and they became very frightened.\u201d We always assume the worst before we look for the best. Good thing the shepherds lingered. Otherwise they might have missed the second verse: \u201cToday your Savior was born in the town of David. He is Christ the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I hope you\u2019ll do what the shepherds did\u2014linger near the manger!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-29218 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"564\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-2.jpg 564w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-2-235x300.jpg 235w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/savior-2-552x705.jpg 552w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 564px) 100vw, 564px\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":29217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","tags":[],"portfolio_entries":[29],"class_list":["post-29216","portfolio","type-portfolio","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_entries-29"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/29216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portfolio"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/29216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29219,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio\/29216\/revisions\/29219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29216"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_entries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_entries?post=29216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}