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Every Memorial Day I slip the Saving Private Ryan DVD into the player and watch the last scene for the film. \u00a0It is always and emotional moment for me, to remember the lives that were sacrificed so that we can have the freedoms we enjoy. \u00a0An old Private Ryan says I’ve tried to “earn it” which were the last words his commanding officer had said to him as he died, “earn this”. \u00a0On this sacred occasion we all need to ask ourselves, have we earned it! \u00a0Freedom is not free, it was purchased, at a high price, with the lives of many thousands of men and women that gave their lives up, freely, so that our way of life can continue! \u00a0Please take a few moments this weekend to remember that sacrifice and commit to earn it by being a better man or woman, a better citizen, and more committed to our country.<\/p>\n
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Our spiritual lives are another matter. \u00a0Jesus did not ask us to earn it, He asked us to accept his sacrifice, forgiveness and him, and then He gave us eternal life. \u00a0We could never earn what He did for us, but we can try to live a life \u00a0that is an example of His life. Of course, that is not possible, but with Him all things are possible, only through His power can love instead of hate, forgive instead of condemn and care instead of display indifference. \u00a0We get a new chance everyday to start again, anew, and live the life we were meant to live. \u00a0We owe it to Him to do just that!<\/p>\n
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Happy Memorial Day Weekend, be blessed,<\/p>\n
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the pilgrim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Every Memorial Day I slip the Saving Private Ryan DVD into the player and watch the last scene for the film. \u00a0It is always and emotional moment for me, to remember the lives that were sacrificed so that we can have the freedoms we enjoy. \u00a0An old Private Ryan says I’ve tried to “earn […]<\/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":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26168","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=26168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26170,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26168\/revisions\/26170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}