{"id":1815,"date":"2011-12-23T10:45:45","date_gmt":"2011-12-23T14:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1815"},"modified":"2011-12-23T10:45:45","modified_gmt":"2011-12-23T14:45:45","slug":"good-news-of-great-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1815","title":{"rendered":"Good News of Great Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>\u201cAnd in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.\u00a0And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.\u00a0And the angel said to them, &#8220;Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.\u00a0For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.\u00a0And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.&#8221;\u00a0And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Glory to God in the highest,<br \/>\nand on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!&#8221;\u201d \u2013 Luke 2:8-14 (ESV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><em>As we rush around trying to put all of the finishing touches on our Christmas celebration preparations, we need to keep in our hearts the true meaning of the season. \u00a0Two thousand years ago, brought into the world in the most humble of circumstances, God sent us His only begotten Son; to teach us, and guide us, and finally to die for us that we might be released from our bondage of sin.\u00a0 Christmas isn\u2019t about presents, or lights, or festive holiday parties\u2026 It\u2019s about a Child, divine made incarnate, born to save the world.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAnd in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.\u00a0And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear.\u00a0And the angel said to them, &#8220;Fear not, for behold, I bring you good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2088],"tags":[2405,2404,266,2403,3194,2406,1745,686,269,2402,476],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-inspirations","tag-bondage-of-sin","tag-christ-the-lord","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-celebration","tag-daily-inspirations","tag-divine-made-incarnate","tag-gospel-of-luke","tag-guide","tag-jesus","tag-meaning-of-christmas","tag-teach"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-th","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions\/1817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}