{"id":9929,"date":"2021-10-10T06:37:22","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T11:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-8\/"},"modified":"2021-10-02T13:08:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-02T18:08:13","slug":"devotional-on-matthew-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-matthew-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Matthew"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2014 – Arches National Park, Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The banquet table of God\u2019s grace <\/p>\n

Matthew 8: This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions.<\/p>\n

In these early days of our Lord\u2019s public ministry his popularity and reputation soars. He\u2019s not only preaching the greatest message ever heard but he\u2019s also performing miracle after miracle. His name\u2019s on everyone\u2019s lips. In Capernaum a Roman officer comes to ask Jesus to help his servant. This man, a conqueror, impresses us with his humility and his love for his slave. Even more impressive, though, is his faith. When Jesus offers to accompany the Roman to see his slave the Roman suggests that Jesus just give the command, then and there. Jesus is surprised at such a depth of faith from an \u201coutsider.\u201d Later in this same chapter he\u2019ll chastise his Jewish disciples for being afraid in a storm; after all they\u2019re supposed to know more about how God works. This officer, though, surprises Jesus with his simple trust. Not only does Jesus do a \u201clong distance\u201d act of healing, he also comments that this Roman soldier is among the first of what will be a flood of \u201coutsiders\u201d who’ll place their faith in him and be counted among heroes of the faith like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I love this story because it\u2019s about me. You see, that Roman captain might have been one of the first, but I\u2019m one of those who followed his lead. Jesus predicted this and now I\u2019m one of the outsiders who have made their way to that \u201cbanquet table of grace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take Away: How blessed to be invited to the banquet table of God\u2019s grace.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The banquet table of God\u2019s grace Matthew 8: This man is the vanguard of many outsiders who will soon be coming from all directions. In these early days of our Lord\u2019s public ministry his popularity and reputation soars. He\u2019s not only preaching the greatest message ever heard but he\u2019s also performing miracle after miracle. His […]<\/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":[1188,518,536,941],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929"}],"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=9929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15655,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9929\/revisions\/15655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}