{"id":886,"date":"2021-03-17T01:14:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T01:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/?p=886"},"modified":"2021-03-15T15:17:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-15T15:17:39","slug":"an-undeserved-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/an-undeserved-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"An undeserved gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Wednesday, March 17<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>An undeserved gift\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jacob said, \u201cSwear to me now.\u201d So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. <strong>Genesis 25:33<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Have you ever been frustrated by the feeling that you were not getting what you deserved? Knowing that God intended to bless him, Jacob instead of waiting, took steps to secure that blessing for himself. And Esau, whose hunger for soup overruled his common sense, cooperated by selling his birthright.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps like Jacob, we often see God\u2019s blessing as something we should have\u2014or maybe even deserve\u2014and we think we need to seize it or \u00adsecure it by making some kind of deal or bargain. We often try to scheme our way to the blessings because we do not understand the move of God. Yes, like Jacob we can get to that place but if it is not the route God intended then the journey will be long.<\/p>\n<p>Blessings from God are an undeserved gift. We do not deserve it but, God sees it fit to give it to us. This means no matter how you position yourself, what is for you will be for you according to God. They cannot be purchased for any price other than the blood Christ gave for us on the cross. Yet as Jacob\u2019s story will show us, it can take a lifetime to set aside our human tendency to struggle against the work of God and to receive his love as a gift.<\/p>\n<p>Pray that God\u2019s Spirit will begin to help you learn that lesson today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prayer for today<\/strong>: <em>Loving Father, we often try to seize for ourselves what you delight to offer as a gift. Help us to look today to Christ, who has already paid the price of your blessing for us. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wednesday, March 17 An undeserved gift\u00a0 Jacob said, \u201cSwear to me now.\u201d So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Genesis 25:33 Have you ever been frustrated by the feeling that you were not getting what you deserved? Knowing that God intended to bless him, Jacob instead of waiting, took steps to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886","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=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}