{"id":39466,"date":"2026-03-02T22:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=39466"},"modified":"2026-03-02T17:32:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:32:45","slug":"260303-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/260303-cross\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gifts of the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Max Lucado<\/p>\n

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Have you ever wondered why God gives us so much? We could exist on far less. God could have left the world flat and gray\u2014we wouldn\u2019t have known the difference\u2014but he didn\u2019t. Why give the flower a fragrance? Why give food its taste?\u00a0Jesus asked, \u201cIf you hardhearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won\u2019t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them?\u201d (Matthew 7:11).<\/p>\n

Every gift reveals God\u2019s love, but no gift reveals his love more than the gifts of the cross. They came, not wrapped in paper, but in passion.\u00a0 Not covered with ribbons, but sprinkled with blood. The gifts of the cross!\u00a0 Have you taken time to open these gifts? If you do, perhaps you will hear him whisper, \u201cI did it just for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"Read more\u00a0He Chose the Nails: What God Did to Win Your Heart<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered why God gives us so much? We could exist on far less. God could have left the world flat and gray\u2014we wouldn\u2019t have known the difference\u2014but he didn\u2019t. Why give the flower a fragrance? Why give food its taste? Jesus asked, \u201cIf you hardhearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won\u2019t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them?\u201d (Matthew 7:11).<\/p>\n

Every gift reveals God\u2019s love, but no gift reveals his love more than the gifts of the cross. They came, not wrapped in paper, but in passion. Not covered with ribbons, but sprinkled with blood. The gifts of the cross! Have you taken time to open these gifts? If you do, perhaps you will hear him whisper, \u201cI did it just for you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39466","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\/39466","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=39466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39469,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39466\/revisions\/39469"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}