{"id":12403,"date":"2014-12-01T23:13:10","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T23:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=12403"},"modified":"2014-12-01T23:17:41","modified_gmt":"2014-12-01T23:17:41","slug":"you-cant-give%e2%80%a6what-you-dont-have%e2%80%a6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=12403","title":{"rendered":"You can&#8217;t give\u2026what you don&#8217;t have\u2026."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?attachment_id=12404\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12404\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-Blog Post Image wp-image-12404\" title=\"Screen Shot 2014-12-01 at 5.59.16 PM\" src=\"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-580x385.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"580\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-580x385.png 580w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-150x99.png 150w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-270x179.png 270w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-960x637.png 960w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-600x398.png 600w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-880x584.png 880w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-350x232.png 350w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-400x265.png 400w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-370x245.png 370w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-500x332.png 500w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM-750x498.png 750w, https:\/\/billfortney.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Screen-Shot-2014-12-01-at-5.59.16-PM.png 1949w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>My pastor preached a sermon on Sunday about giving. \u00a0As we enter the season of giving, I have put a lot of thought into that sentence! \u00a0Let me approach it from a spiritual perspective. \u00a0I think there are basically two kinds of people, those that care about others, and those that don&#8217;t. \u00a0That may seem harsh and judgmental, but we have all seen and known people that truly think of others almost all the time, \u00a0and and others that seem to seldom consider anyone but themselves. \u00a0Those that truly have little concern for anyone else are some of the poorest people I know. \u00a0The richest people I know have invested themselves fully in others.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So what does this have to do with giving gifts? \u00a0The greatest gift we have to give is love, which is concern, and which is compassion and grace. \u00a0After all those are the greatest gifts our Heavenly Father has given to us. \u00a0Christmas is the celebration of God&#8217;s love for us. \u00a0He loved us so much that He sent His only Son to teach us, and then die for us, that we might be forgiven and saved!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I used to wristband that has the initials WWJD, (What Would Jesus Do?) \u00a0We we don&#8217;t have to ask because we know what He did! \u00a0He spent His entire life on earth reaching out to those that needed what He had to offer. \u00a0A redeeming love.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Whatever else you give those you love, and care about for Christmas, give them the best gift mankind ever received. \u00a0Love. \u00a0For those that don&#8217;t seem to care, love them with an extra measure of love, that is how Jesus won their hearts.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Blessings,<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>the pilgrim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; My pastor preached a sermon on Sunday about giving. \u00a0As we enter the season of giving, I have put a lot of thought into that sentence! \u00a0Let me approach it from a spiritual perspective. \u00a0I think there are basically two kinds of people, those that care about others, and those that don&#8217;t. \u00a0That may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12403"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12409,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12403\/revisions\/12409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}