Think about the last time you gave a gift to someone you really care about. Maybe it was a Christmas present for a friend, an anniversary gift for your spouse, or a birthday present for your child. Whatever the circumstances, it\u2019s likely that you intended that gift to be an expression of your care and love for that person.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, my (Mike\u2019s) wife made me a blanket out of a bunch of my favorite old band t-shirts. Every time I see the blanket in my office, I\u2019m reminded of how much time and care and effort went into making that gift. I really treasure the gift\u2014not just because it\u2019s the perfect size and weight for a blanket, but because Karen made it for me as an expression of her love.<\/p>\n
What if I loved the blanket but never connected it back to Karen in my heart? What if I enjoyed the gift whenever I was reading a book and my office was a bit chilly, but I never thought of her and her kindness and love? Would you think that the purpose of the gift had been fully achieved? On one level, the blanket keeps me warm,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When you see a church or ministry that talks about God\u2019s gifts but spends relatively little time talking about God\u2019s character or our need to respond to him in repentance and faith, then you can be pretty sure you\u2019re dealing with the prosperity gospel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[321],"class_list":["post-46734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-evangelism-gospel","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46734"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46736,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46734\/revisions\/46736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}