{"id":10948,"date":"2023-07-23T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=10948"},"modified":"2023-07-19T09:59:04","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:59:04","slug":"special","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/?p=10948","title":{"rendered":"Special?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Special Favours<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For the Righteous, Really?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Sunday, July 23, 2023<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We May See the Obstacles.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

God Shows Us the Light<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

that Gives Life Abundant to All.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Psalm 5:1<\/strong>2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 John 5:18<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words of Grace For Today<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it just ain\u2019t so, as Scripture seems to tell us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The righteous are not blessed with special favours. In fact there are few if any really righteous people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And all people seem to get the same challenges and shafts, enough to send us to the grave happy to escape this mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except the wealthy, powerful, and privileged seem to get away with \u2018blessings\u2019 that are really not theirs to have, stealing the necessities of life from others so that they can live in comfort and privilege they certainly do not deserve, unless evil rewards them so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, this is the first EXCEPT:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We do not make ourselves righteous. Only God can do that, and God did do that, in our baptisms, as promised through the life, teaching, healing, death and resurrection of God\u2019s son, Jesus, the Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the righteous do get special favours, not that we\u2019ve earned them, but that God has chosen us and chosen to favour us, even though we do not deserve anything but death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the evil one touching us … well, we remain sinners and therein the evil one gets us each day, also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we live blessed and captured by the evil one, both at the same time, all the time, fully so both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder life never seems simple, except<\/p>\n\n\n\n

except when God has us see clearly, God\u2019s grace, God\u2019s love, God\u2019s mercy, and God\u2019s will for us … to share all the blessings we have with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing all we have with others is the foremost special favour God shows us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply Wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply Beautiful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Favours For the Righteous, Really? Sunday, July 23, 2023 We May See the Obstacles. God Shows Us the Light that Gives Life Abundant to All. Psalm 5:12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord; you cover them with favour as with a shield. 1 John 5:18 We know that those who are born of … Continue reading “Special?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,83,18,88,34,39,70,47,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breathe","category-dark-and-light","category-grace","category-love-and-hope","category-sacramental-mystic","category-sky","category-sunrise","category-trees","category-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10951,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10948\/revisions\/10951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mysticphoto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}