{"id":9924,"date":"2021-10-05T06:37:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-05T11:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-3\/"},"modified":"2021-10-02T13:01:07","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T18:01:07","slug":"devotional-on-matthew-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Matthew"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15643\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15643\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289-768x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" class=\"size-large wp-image-15643\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289-768x1024.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289-225x300.jpg 225w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/P5029289.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15643\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Arches National Park, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Trinity<\/p>\n<p>Mathew 3: Jesus came up&#8230;God\u2019s Spirit&#8230;descended&#8230;a voice&#8230; \u201cThis is my Son.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For a brief moment in time John\u2019s light shines brighter than all others.  His rough appearance and demeanor only add to his mystique and people can\u2019t get enough of him.  John spends a lot of time talking about repentance but he also proclaims the coming of the Messiah.  On this day it all comes together.  His cousin, Jesus, makes his way to the riverside and asks to be baptized.  With uncharacteristic timidity John backs down, acknowledging that Jesus is closer to God than he is.  If there\u2019s any baptizing to be done, it\u2019s Jesus who should baptize him.  When Jesus insists, John yields and the result is a moment frozen in time.  Jesus comes up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends, and the Voice of the Father is heard.  You might call this a \u201cTrinity moment.\u201d  That\u2019s not to say that this event solves the mystery of the Person of Jesus once and for all.  For hundreds of years at the beginning of Christianity godly people will struggle with the divinity\/humanity of the Lord.  This passage will remain a big player in that discussion.  Somehow, we have Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Father all acting in individual, complementary ways.  Somehow, Jesus, Holy Spirit, and Father are one.  Finally, after centuries of debate the Church arrived at the doctrine of the Trinity: Three in One.  That isn\u2019t to say the Church came up with a simple, easy to understand explanation of it all.  Rather, it\u2019s just an effort at stating a mystery and, really, in the end, it\u2019s simply a matter of faith.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: Ultimately our religion and specifics concerning it are about faith and not about proof.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trinity Mathew 3: Jesus came up&#8230;God\u2019s Spirit&#8230;descended&#8230;a voice&#8230; \u201cThis is my Son.\u201d For a brief moment in time John\u2019s light shines brighter than all others. His rough appearance and demeanor only add to his mystique and people can\u2019t get enough of him. John spends a lot of time talking about repentance but he also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1518,1428],"tags":[1188,340,1192,1191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15645,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9924\/revisions\/15645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}