{"id":872,"date":"2020-12-25T22:02:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-25T22:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=872"},"modified":"2020-12-25T22:02:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T22:02:04","slug":"our-older-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Our Older Brother&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Absorbing God Word<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cFor those God foreknew\u00a0he also predestined\u00a0to be conformed to the image of his Son,\u00a0that he might be the firstborn\u00a0among many brothers and sisters.\u201d Romans 8:29<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Applying God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I type this Challenge, our nativity scene is just a few feet away. Some Christmases, I\u2019ve been Joseph, Mary, the Magi or a shepherd. Two days before Christmas, I was awakened by a message requesting that I be Jesus this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After praying about it, I realized that Jesus is portrayed as a newborn, surrounded by those who love Him. When I was spiritually reborn, I was surrounded by those who love me, too. You and I were predestined to be conformed to the image of Jesus, that He (our older brother) might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus doesn\u2019t remain an infant and He doesn\u2019t want us to either. He is calling us to grow and mature spiritually; to follow the example of our older brother (Him). He invites us to heal the sick, raise the dead<strong><sup>, <\/sup><\/strong>cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely we have received and freely we should give. (Matthew 10:8). He wants each of us to be Him this Christmas and every day for the rest of our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Accounting of God\u2019s Word<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have I accepted His \u201cChallenge\u201d to be Him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Absorbing God Word \u201cFor those God foreknew\u00a0he also predestined\u00a0to be conformed to the image of his Son,\u00a0that he might be the firstborn\u00a0among many brothers and sisters.\u201d Romans 8:29 Applying God\u2019s Word As I type this Challenge, our nativity scene is &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/?p=872\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-of-the-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.act-ministries.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}