{"id":3638,"date":"2024-12-26T03:16:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T03:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/?p=3638"},"modified":"2024-12-20T19:30:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T19:30:07","slug":"a-joyful-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/a-joyful-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A Joyful Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Thursday, December 26<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A Joyful Christmas <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. <strong>Psalm 98:4<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Joy to the World <\/strong>is a widely published Christmas hymn in North America from the pen of Isaac Watts, a British pastor who grew up in a Christian family in England. When Watts began pastoring in London, he wanted to take the Psalms of David and paraphrase them into hymns tinged with New Testament reality, and in 1719, he published Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament. \u201cJoy to the World\u201d is Watt\u2019s rendition of Psalm 98: \u201c<em>Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises &#8230;. For He is coming to judge the earth<\/em>\u201d (verses 4, 9).<\/p>\n<p>This passage emphasizes Christ\u2019s reign, when our Lord will subdue nations, judge the earth, and reveal His righteousness in the sight of humanity. Think of the words, \u201cLet every heart prepare Him room.\u201d That first Christmas, many people made room for Jesus. Mary made room to physically carry the Savior. Joseph made room in his heart and lifestyle to care for the newborn. The Magi made room in their schedules to travel to Bethlehem. Make sure you are making room for Jesus Christ; that He\u2019s the dominant focus of your thoughts and primary force in your life.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday, December 26 A Joyful Christmas Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Psalm 98:4 Joy to the World is a widely published Christmas hymn in North America from the pen of Isaac Watts, a British pastor who grew up in a Christian family in England. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3638"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3645,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3638\/revisions\/3645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}