{"id":8027,"date":"2021-12-05T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-05T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/?p=8027"},"modified":"2021-11-26T15:21:58","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T20:21:58","slug":"a-new-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/a-new-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Direction!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe title=\"A New Direction! 12\/05\/21\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=454hg-113fe4a-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=1&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Arial&#038;skin=1&#038;font-color=auto&#038;btn-skin=7\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You won\u2019t find John the Baptist at any manger scenes or on a Hallmark card, not even Advent cards. He wears a dusty camel\u2019s hair coat, lives on locust and honey and smells of poverty.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If he showed up today, we would call the police, lock our doors and hide the children. But on this Second Sunday of Advent we meet this unpleasant prophet in today\u2019s Gospel.<\/em> (Luke 3: 1-6).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We have never received a Christmas card depicting John the Baptist:\u00a0<em>\u201cGreetings from our house to your house, you brood of vipers. Every tree that does not bear fruit will be thrown into the fire\u2026.Merry Christmas!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0 We prefer the round, jolly fellow in the red, velour suit with a bag full of gifts for those who have too much already.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>But for 2,000 years the Church has been telling us that if you want to get to the joy of Christmas, you have to go through the Jordan River where John the Baptist is baptizing. If you want to see the Christ child in the manger, you must first confront this crazy prophet. No Jesus without John!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why? Because John\u2019s message boils down to one word \u2013 one word that hits us between the eyes and explodes in our ears \u2013 REPENT!!  Everything else is window-dressing.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>John is telling us: 1. You don\u2019t just repent because you got caught. 2. You don\u2019t say, \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d because it\u2019s politically correct or it\u2019s forced on you. 3. Repent is not just saying, \u201cLord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy, Lord, have mercy.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>REPENT!  Means to turn your life around and to head in a whole new direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What new direction in YOUR life do YOU now need to take this Advent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>REMEMBER, IF YOU\u2019RE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, GOD ALLOWS FOR U-TURNS!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You won\u2019t find John the Baptist at any manger scenes or on a Hallmark card, not even Advent cards. He wears a dusty camel\u2019s hair coat, lives on locust and honey and smells of poverty.&nbsp; If he showed up today, we would call the police, lock our doors and hide the children. But on this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8029,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"qubely_global_settings":"","qubely_interactions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"qubely_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"ocean-thumb-m":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"ocean-thumb-ml":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"ocean-thumb-l":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"qubely_landscape":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"qubely_portrait":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer.png",260,172,false],"qubely_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer-140x100.png",140,100,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Man-Kneeling-in-Prayer-45x45.png",45,45,true]},"qubely_author":{"display_name":"Medard Laz","author_link":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/author\/medlaz\/"},"qubely_comment":0,"qubely_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/category\/weekly-messages\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Weekly Messages<\/a>","qubely_excerpt":"You won\u2019t find John the Baptist at any manger scenes or on a Hallmark card, not even Advent cards. He wears a dusty camel\u2019s hair coat, lives on locust and honey and smells of poverty.&nbsp; If he showed up today, we would call the police, lock our doors and hide the children. But on this&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8030,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8027\/revisions\/8030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.treatsforthesoul.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}