{"id":6552,"date":"2013-11-24T17:02:46","date_gmt":"2013-11-24T22:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6552"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"getter-giver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/getter-giver\/","title":{"rendered":"GETTER OR GIVER"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calvin<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Have you ever considered what kind of world this would be if God were a “getter” instead of a “giver?”\u00a0 What if God had made getting the chief goal of His creation so that everyone created in His image would have His encouragement toward a selfish life?\u00a0 There would be no such thing as sacrifice because the idea of a Savior-God would not exist.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forgiveness would be a relative matter depending on its ability to manipulate others.\u00a0 Love would only exist in the form of affection toward oneself.\u00a0 Faith would only express the confidence in one’s ability to succeed through accumulation.\u00a0 There would be no such thing as sharing with the less fortunate and the thought of dying for another would be repulsive to say the least.\u00a0 The concepts of church and ministry and caring for the hurts of humanity would be ideas foreign to the thoughts of a self-centered god.\u00a0 <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How horrible we say, if God had been oriented around getting instead of giving.\u00a0 How thankful we are that His word is a loving testimony of His sacrificial commitment to all humankind.\u00a0 With gratitude and praise we celebrate His divine compassion.\u00a0 We experience hope and peace as we trust His eternal kindness. <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are so impressed by His unselfish love that it becomes the theme for our songs and the inspiration for our sermons.\u00a0 We join Paul in giving thanks for His unspeakable Gift and all the gifts that are products of His selfless nature.\u00a0 Although we are grateful for a “giver” God we must take care not to let getting become the goal of our lives.\u00a0 Let us be done with our “getter” gods lest we lose the precious commodity of grace.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

     Have you ever considered what kind of world this would be if God were a “getter” instead of a “giver?”  What if God had made getting the chief goal of His creation so that everyone created in His image would have His encouragement toward a selfish life?  There would be no such thing as … Continue reading “GETTER OR GIVER”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[58,57],"class_list":["post-6552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-relationships","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19139,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6552\/revisions\/19139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}