{"id":2275,"date":"2018-12-19T02:07:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T02:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/?p=2275"},"modified":"2018-12-26T03:40:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T03:40:36","slug":"the-shadow-of-the-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/?p=2275","title":{"rendered":"The Shadow of the Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Just about everyone in our country will celebrate Christmas this year, but not all for the same reason.\u00a0 For some it is the peak time of the year for their business.\u00a0 For some it is time for a few days off;\u00a0a break from work.\u00a0 For some it is the time to get what you want.\u00a0 Many will celebrate with lights, decorations, and seasonal music. Many will celebrate with good eating and family.\u00a0 For some it is all about baby Jesus, the shepherds and wise men. The manger scene will be the focal point for many religious people.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Each of these scenes carry with them various motives for celebrating Christmas.\u00a0 For some it is recreating the many fond memories of Christmas with family.\u00a0 It is sentimentality.\u00a0 For some it is as basic as getting stuff.\u00a0 It is all about me!\u00a0 For some it is all about the music of Christmas, not necessarily Christian music.\u00a0 It is emotion.\u00a0 For some it is the setting, a white Christmas.\u00a0 It is an ideal.\u00a0 For many it is about feeling good.\u00a0 It is giving and helping others.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Christmas can consist of all these things, but in reality, it is a time of revelation and of sobriety.\u00a0 It is a time to remember that God, our Creator, clothed Himself with humanity in order that He might redeem us from our sin by His substitutionary* death, burial and resurrection.\u00a0 It took a perfect life to fulfill the demands of the law and\u00a0to satisfy the justice of God.\u00a0 He provided this Himself in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Humanity somehow misses this revelation.\u00a0 We cannot get past the manger scene which rests in the shadow of the cross.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>*Substitute &#8211; One that takes the place of another.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just about everyone in our country will celebrate Christmas this year, but not all for the same reason.\u00a0 For some it is the peak time of the year for their business.\u00a0 For some it is time for a few days off;\u00a0a break from work.\u00a0 For some it is the time to get what you want.\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/?p=2275\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Shadow of the Cross<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2286,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions\/2286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leadinghorsestowater.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}