{"id":4013,"date":"2011-12-07T14:10:06","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T14:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=4013"},"modified":"2011-12-07T14:15:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T14:15:00","slug":"what-a-friend-we-have-in-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=4013","title":{"rendered":"What a Friend We Have In Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This mornings devotional from In Touch and Dr. Charles Stanley is too good to pass up, let me share it with you! \u00a0I will paraphrase;<\/p>\n

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John 15: 9-17<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

9<\/sup> \u201cI have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10<\/sup> When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father\u2019s commandments and remain in his love. 11<\/sup> I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12<\/sup> This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13<\/sup> There is no greater love than to lay down one\u2019s life for one\u2019s friends. 14<\/sup> You are my friends if you do what I command. 15<\/sup> I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn\u2019t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. 16<\/sup> You didn\u2019t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. 17<\/sup> This is my command: Love each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Jesus is the Messiah, the Creator, the Son of the Living God, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, He is the single most powerful figure in the universe, in existence. \u00a0The earth you stand on was created in His hands! \u00a0How unimaginable is it that He wants you to call Him, your friend! \u00a0 In His time on earth he stated over and over that we belong to Him and His Father and that we are no longer slaves, but His friends, His closest confidants, He held back no secrets from us. \u00a0 He wants to be with us, spend time with us, show us His love and grace.<\/p>\n

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When I was in college I took a physics class and the professor was explaining, or attempting to explain, the word infinity. and it’s meaning. He said that if you built a rocket that could go at the speed of light and you launched it into space, it would go on forever, because space is “endless”!! \u00a0I have never been able to completely grasp that concept, though it is obviously true. \u00a0If your rocket went a hundred trillion miles out into space and then came to a brick wall, what is on the other side of the brick wall???!!! \u00a0The reason we have such a hard time with this concept is that we, as human beings, live in a world of limits, dimensions, beginnings and endings. \u00a0Everything we know has limits. \u00a0God doesn’t! \u00a0God is limitless. \u00a0Limitless in His power, Majesty, Wisdom, and more important than all of that, His love for us!<\/p>\n

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Jesus said His Father wants nothing more than for us to be in His family! \u00a0Christmas is the season we celebrate the beginning of this “invitation from God” to join His family. \u00a0Jesus was born and lived to prepare a way for us to cross a chasm to deep for us to cross, the separation our sin created between us and God. \u00a0The penalty for sin is death, so God sent His only Son to die in our place, and then even after sacrificing His Son, He invited us to join His family.<\/p>\n

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Some wondeer aloud what the big deal is about Christmas, some fight to have the manger scene removed, or refuse to use the word Christmas and substitute, “Holidays” instead. \u00a0They do all of this in spite of what Christmas really means. \u00a0God sent His son to live and die for you, that you might have the greatest gift of all, eternal life with Him…. \u00a0Please accept that gift, today!<\/p>\n

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Merry Christmas<\/span>,<\/p>\n

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

    This mornings devotional from In Touch and Dr. Charles Stanley is too good to pass up, let me share it with you! \u00a0I will paraphrase;   John 15: 9-17 9 \u201cI have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain […]<\/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-4013","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\/4013","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=4013"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4017,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4013\/revisions\/4017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}