{"id":814,"date":"2015-02-14T17:20:48","date_gmt":"2015-02-14T06:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/?p=814"},"modified":"2015-12-13T22:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T11:58:05","slug":"jesus-is-a-free-gift-martha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/jesus-is-a-free-gift-martha\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus is a free gift, Martha."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-813\" src=\"https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha-700x484.jpg\" alt=\"Maurice Denis Mary and Martha\" width=\"700\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha-700x484.jpg 700w, https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha-200x138.jpg 200w, https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha-433x300.jpg 433w, https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/wp-content\/Maurice-Denis-Mary-and-Martha.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a>I have struggled so often with the story of Mary and Martha, mainly because I suffer from the delusion that I could ever do enough to &#8220;earn&#8221; God&#8217;s extravagant love. Every so often I get the renewed flash of revelation:\u00a0Jesus is the gift, we do not have to do anything to earn him. Mary knew that and that is why she chose the better way, just sitting and accepting the gift, enjoying it. Martha felt she had to earn the gift. She knew that Jesus was the son of God &#8211; she said so elsewhere. But she thought she could &#8220;buy&#8221; God&#8217;s love, by preparing food.\u00a0Of course God&#8217;s love, his salvation, is so precious we could never afford it. But we don&#8217;t have to worry because we&#8217;ve been given it, through Jesus, for free.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have struggled so often with the story of Mary and Martha, mainly because I suffer from the delusion that I could ever do enough to &#8220;earn&#8221; God&#8217;s extravagant love. Every so often I get the renewed flash of revelation:\u00a0Jesus is the gift, we do not have to do anything to earn him. Mary knew [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[52,30,51],"class_list":["post-814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-give-us-this-day","tag-gods-love","tag-my-god","tag-renewal"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jesus is a free gift, Martha. - Bless Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blesspress.com\/journal\/jesus-is-a-free-gift-martha\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus is a free gift, Martha. - Bless Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have struggled so often with the story of Mary and Martha, mainly because I suffer from the delusion that I could ever do enough to &#8220;earn&#8221; God&#8217;s extravagant love. Every so often I get the renewed flash of revelation:\u00a0Jesus is the gift, we do not have to do anything to earn him. 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