It is so easy to forget the sacrifice of others\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Your parents time in raising & training you, work in housing & feeding you, money in educating & clothing you\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Your grandparents who spent time with you, teachers who went the extra mile for you, bosses who overlooked your mistakes\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
And even if that is not your reality, there are hundreds of thousands of people that willingly sacrificed for you:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Separated from their families & friends
Living in horrendous conditions, no beds, out in the cold \/ rain, not even taking their boots & socks off for weeks at a time
Working like slaves\u00a0
Suffering injuries & sickness\u00a0
Being shot at constantly
Watching close colleagues die
Having to kill other humans\u00a0
Finally suffering death<\/p>\n
All this so that you, your country would not be under the oppressive rule of a regime that was racist, killing anyone who didn\u2019t line up with their definition of \u2018superior\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The freedom you have cost an *incredibly* high price – what are you doing with it? Is your life, your cause, worthy of their sacrifice?\u00a0<\/p>\n
And what about the One who awakened humanity to the intrinsic value of *all* human life? Before His appearance, nations were truly barbaric where only the \u2018chosen\u2019 were safe, the rest were fair game.\u00a0
But He came preaching that all humans, no matter of colour or creed or sex had value – utmost value – simply because they were human & made in God\u2019s image.\u00a0<\/p>\n
More than \u2018just\u2019 preaching a message, He modelled what true love is: obedience and sacrifice. Paying the ultimate price, suffering & dying a shameful criminals death, He purchased life – *true life* – for you.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAre you living from and for *that* reality? Is your life worthy of His sacrifice & calling? Mine neither.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Ephesians 4:1 (NLT)<\/strong> Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.<\/em><\/p>\n
Lord, please convict me & enable me to live daily according to Your plan & purpose\u00a0<\/em>
ThankYou for the gift & sacrifice of Your Son Jesus, help me live like Him and for Him. ThankYou for the promise & security of eternal life, simply based on our reaction to Jesus.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n2 Thessalonians 1:11 (NLT)<\/strong> 11 So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do.<\/em><\/p>\n
Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)<\/strong> 10 For we are God\u2019s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is so easy to forget the sacrifice of others\u2026\u00a0 Your parents time in raising & training you, work in housing & feeding you, money in educating & clothing you\u2026\u00a0 Your grandparents who spent time with you, teachers who went the extra mile for you, bosses who overlooked your mistakes\u2026\u00a0 And even if that is not your reality, there are hundreds of thousands of people that willingly sacrificed for you:\u00a0 Separated from their families & friendsLiving in horrendous conditions, no beds, out in the cold \/ rain, not even taking their boots & socks off for weeks at a timeWorking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[100,128],"class_list":["post-2177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-for-thought","tag-gods-love","tag-love"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/screenshot_272.jpg?fit=770%2C644&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasDCW-z7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2179,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions\/2179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wildeden.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}