{"id":38441,"date":"2025-12-09T22:00:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=38441"},"modified":"2025-12-03T00:48:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:48:19","slug":"251210-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/251210-best\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Is Yet to Be"},"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\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: right;\">by Max Lucado<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-38443 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251210_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251210_1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/251210_1-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In Matthew 1:23, <strong>God called himself\u00a0<em>Immanuel<\/em>, which means God with us<\/strong>. Not just God made us. Not just God thinks about us. Not just God above us. But God\u00a0<strong><em>with<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0us. God where we are. He breathed our air and walked this earth. God\u2026with\u2026us!<\/p>\n<p>Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus has promised a repeat performance. Bethlehem, Act 2. No silent night this time, however. The skies will open, and trumpets will blast, and a new kingdom will begin. He will empty the tombs and melt the winter of death. Death, you die! Life, you reign! The manger dares us to believe the best is yet to be. I love Christmas because it reminds us how \u201cGod causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God\u201d (Romans 8:28).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"CToWUd\" src=\"https:\/\/ci3.googleusercontent.com\/meips\/ADKq_Nacdpqkovykp3qmKY48--a1853N9-3mNYosk0oal5UdQh_LKwpx-f5cIslljmbQfSYRYw9LlQkVFYT-RW3ieJ1p7a18zKqPCmIqd63Vs_Gp=s0-d-e1-ft#https:\/\/maxlucado.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bob-1-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"Because of Bethlehem\" width=\"100\" height=\"152.284263959\" border=\"0\" data-bit=\"iit\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Read more\u00a0<a title=\"Because of Bethlehem\" href=\"https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=bed511e434184985961d50fcb&amp;id=7190eac6d9&amp;e=0716428f80\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/maxlucado.us2.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u%3Dbed511e434184985961d50fcb%26id%3D7190eac6d9%26e%3D0716428f80&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1764831712501000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0X2mSZTzNlEyEqAQWc5pdB\"><em>Because of Bethlehem<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Matthew 1:23, God called himself\u00a0Immanuel, which means God with us. Not just God made us. Not just God thinks about us. Not just God above us. But God\u00a0with\u00a0us. God where we are. He breathed our air and walked this earth. God\u2026with\u2026us!<\/p>\n<p>Bethlehem was just the beginning. Jesus has promised a repeat performance. Bethlehem, Act 2. No silent night this time, however. The skies will open, and trumpets will blast, and a new kingdom will begin. He will empty the tombs and melt the winter of death. Death, you die! Life, you reign! The manger dares us to believe the best is yet to be. I love Christmas because it reminds us how \u201cGod causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God\u201d (Romans 8:28).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38441"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38444,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38441\/revisions\/38444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}