{"id":19467,"date":"2014-05-07T00:20:13","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T04:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=19467"},"modified":"2014-05-06T22:16:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T02:16:55","slug":"take-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2014\/05\/07\/take-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Blessed are the\u00a0poor in spirit<\/span><\/em><\/strong>, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0those who mourn<\/span><\/strong><\/em>, for they shall be comforted. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0the meek<\/span>,<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0for they shall inherit the earth. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0those who hunger and thirst for righteousness<\/span><\/strong><\/em>, for they shall be satisfied. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0the mercifu<\/span><\/strong><\/em>l<\/span>, for they shall receive mercy. \u00a0Blessed are the\u00a0pure in heart<\/span><\/strong><\/em>,<\/span>\u00a0for they shall see God. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0the peacemakers<\/span><\/strong><\/em>,<\/span>\u00a0for they shall be called sons of God.\u00a0Blessed are\u00a0those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness<\/span><\/em><\/strong>, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Blessed are you\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/em>when\u00a0people\u00a0<\/b><\/i>insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all\u00a0<\/span>kinds of evil against you because of Me<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever been accused of doing something you did not<\/em> do? \u00a0It can be an occasion to become angry, confused, and desperate. \u00a0Jesus was foreshadowing how His life was going to play out. \u00a0Even though He knew the outcome of His life, He still chose to let others in on God’s basic plan. \u00a0God wanted His people, Israel to come back to Him. \u00a0From the time that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they have done nothing but whine and complain.<\/p>\n

In the New Testament we have Christ’s example to follow in order to honor Him. We also have the Apostle Paul and John the Baptist as examples of how to live and not become discouraged. Jesus was tasked to show and tell others about His Father in Heaven, about how to get to Heaven, and how to grow in our faith. \u00a0Paul showed us through his perseverance during his journey across the Middle East that teaching others about God’s love was more important than his own safety and comfort. While Paul was beaten, whipped, stranded, jailed, and shipwrecked, he never lost his passion and drive to share with others. The zeal he had used to persecute the Christians was the same he used to tell others the good news!<\/p>\n

John the Baptist is an example of sacrifice for his beliefs. God sent John to be a messenger for Jesus’ ministry. \u00a0John was raised with rules and a different purpose than most other kids. \u00a0Being taught Scripture by both parents, he was raised in a strict Nazarene lifestyle—set apart and different. \u00a0I am sure he was persecuted for the way he behaved and how he was different while he was young and definitely during his ministry. The Holy Spirit was with John while he preached the coming of the Messiah. He was able to discern the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and other religious leaders when they came to hear him speak.<\/p>\n

We all know the outcome of each of their lives. What is more important is how they lived. The desire to serve God was so overwhelming they could not stop themselves. I pray that we, also, would receive a desire like their’s to share the Lord’s love with others as we live our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blessed are the\u00a0poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0the meek,\u00a0for they shall inherit the earth. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. \u00a0Blessed are\u00a0the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. \u00a0Blessed are the\u00a0pure in heart,\u00a0for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"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":[127,3367,1287,425,554,5784,572,6241,2057,6184,6190,3174,1071],"class_list":["post-19467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-devotions","tag-beatitudes","tag-daily-devotions-2","tag-gch","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-jesus","tag-jesus-speaking","tag-john-the-baptist","tag-matthew-511-12","tag-paul","tag-persecuted","tag-persecution","tag-seeking-him-devotional","tag-tina-marin","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-53Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19467","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19467"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19525,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19467\/revisions\/19525"}],"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=19467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}