{"id":16298,"date":"2013-12-17T00:30:58","date_gmt":"2013-12-17T06:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=16298"},"modified":"2013-12-19T06:04:28","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T12:04:28","slug":"gift-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/12\/17\/gift-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Gift of Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeekingHimLogo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Each week during the season of Advent, our blogs will focus on a central theme which is associated with the coming of Christ\u2014His Advent. \u00a0This week\u2019s theme is\u00a0LOVE<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0 Christians throughout the world celebrate Advent. \u00a0Some light candles or sing songs; some give gifts or \u00a0hang\u00a0wreaths. \u00a0All of these are simple joyous\u00a0ways of extending the celebration\u00a0of Jesus\u2019s coming beyond a mere 24 hours on\u00a0December 25.\u00a0Our prayer is that these devotionals\u00a0throughout\u00a0this season of Advent would help you to celebrate His first Coming and anticipate with\u00a0the peace\u00a0and joy of His second Coming.<\/h3>\n

Love.<\/p>\n

Some things in life can only be shown or displayed in one or two ways.\u00a0\u00a0Love is a verb that has numerous forms…tons of ways of expression. Books have been written about it, songs have been sung, and poems have been penned. \u00a0Jewelry stores relay the message that their product is how husbands can show their wives they love them around Christmas time, car companies do the same for wives and toy companies do the same for parents. Love seems to be everywhere.<\/p>\n

Some people have the love language of receiving gifts—to some, material things help them to see how much you care for them and, to these people, Christmas is a great day of expressing how we feel. And to be honest, despite our attempts to say ‘I don\u2019t do this’ but I think all of us enjoy receiving gifts; we enjoy being thought about, appreciated and loved.<\/p>\n

But, as easy as it is to lose our peace and hope during this time of year due to the storm of holiday excitement, it is just as easy to lose sight of the one of the truest expressions of love—one of the greatest gifts we as a people have ever received.\u00a0 And that is the birth of Christ.\u00a0 I try to teach my kids that Christmas is a time of giving and it\u2019s also a time of receiving.\u00a0\u00a0But when they get caught up with a case of the \u201cI wants,\u201d I have to stop them\u00a0and ask\u00a0what Christmas is all about. I need to do this for myself as well; I need to remember the love of Christ that carries me not only through this season but through every day.<\/p>\n

\n

But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
\nnot by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
\nwhom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
\nthat having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
\nTitus 3:4-7<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Are there Scriptures\u00a0 or songs you turn to when you need to be reminded of Christ\u2019s love for you? How do you keep your eyes on the truest expression of love during this time of year?<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s pray: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your gift of Christmas.\u00a0\u00a0Thank You for the gift of Your Son and for the gift of love—Your love and the ability to show love to others. Please help us to see the things this season that will keep us close to You this holiday. Thank You, Father.\u00a0 In Jesus name we pray, amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                  Each week during the season of Advent, our blogs will focus on a central theme which is associated with the coming of Christ\u2014His Advent. \u00a0This week\u2019s theme is\u00a0LOVE.\u00a0 Christians throughout the world celebrate Advent. \u00a0Some light candles or sing songs; some give gifts or \u00a0hang\u00a0wreaths. \u00a0All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3020],"tags":[3173,1287,4815,425,4816,4817,3174,4814,1075],"class_list":["post-16298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-daily-devotional","tag-gch","tag-gift-of-love","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-jesus-is-gods-love","tag-love-language-of-gifts","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-titus-34-7","tag-tonya-ellison","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/SeekingHimLogo.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-4eS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16298"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16354,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16298\/revisions\/16354"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}