{"id":20197,"date":"2024-06-08T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=20197"},"modified":"2024-06-06T13:51:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:51:01","slug":"gods-surprises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=20197","title":{"rendered":"God’s Surprises"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A surprise of monumental proportions was when God raised Jesus from the dead! And God keeps surprising us \u2013 sometimes when we aren\u2019t so crazy about the unexpected, learning-our-lessons-well ones!

But then there are times when He surprises us with a big hug, like the one we received a few days ago. My Carl was attending his men’s breakfast meeting. Their first order of business is to go around the table and share “something good ” from last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the men, Bill, said: “I’ve had a great week! Would anyone like tickets to the “Lionel Richie and Earth, Wind & Fire” concert tonight?\u201d Carl\u2019s hand went up quickly! And, what a blessing it was for us to have paid parking plus a night of hearing legendary songs, getting our \u201cgroove on\u201d, as we sang along!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of my guilty pleasures has been watching American Idol for years. And, with Lionel Richie being a judge and appreciating his music, I have also enjoyed the wisdom that he offers to the contestants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I enjoyed reading Lionel\u2019s story. He seriously considered studying divinity to become a priest in the Episcopal Church. But, as a talented musician, he ultimately opted for a musical career. A career where he has sold over 100 million records, became one of the most successful recording artists of all time and a multi-millionaire in the process. Guessing he made the right decision!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He explained in an interview that he came from a very poor background but started to make good money from his singing. It was his father\u2019s birthday and Lionel gave him a huge box that contained his present. As his father took off the wrapping paper and opened the box to layers upon layers of paper, he saw a tiny piece of paper that said: “All debts paid.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father asked, “You\u2019ve paid my credit card debt?\u2019 Lionel said, “Yes, your credit card debt, plus your car, plus your mortgage.\u201d All his father\u2019s debts were paid. That made me appreciate him even more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Now to the crux of this blog. It is about \u201cdebt paid\u201d! How wonderful that sounds! As great as Lionel\u2019s story is \u2013 nothing compares to the ALL DEBTS PAID that Jesus Christ did for you and me on the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you’re a bit skeptical about Jesus\u2019 resurrection. You\u2019ve heard of the Christians who celebrate Jesus\u2019 rising from the dead and those whose lives have been changed by the risen Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, the fearful disciples didn’t believe Jesus had risen. They had to go see for themselves. Maybe that\u2019s you. You\u2019re ready to start looking for yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps there\u2019s that lingering thought in your mind that Jesus could be real and that He loves you so much that He paid your debt off in full. All He asks for in return is for you to surrender your life to Him and spend eternity with Him forever and ever. Best. Surprise. Party. Ever!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A surprise of monumental proportions was when God raised Jesus from the dead! And God keeps surprising us \u2013 sometimes when we aren\u2019t so crazy about the unexpected, learning-our-lessons-well ones! But then there are times when He surprises us with a big hug, like the one we received a few days ago. My Carl was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3737,29891,1210,1769,20265,29889,29887,29888,1392,5165,20264,40,29884,29890,29886,29885,24749,8708],"class_list":["post-20197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-idol","tag-best-surprise-party","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-debts-paid","tag-debts-paid-in-full","tag-earth-wind-fire","tag-episcopal-church","tag-facebook","tag-gods-surprises","tag-guilty-pleasure","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus-raised-from-the-dead","tag-jesus-resurrection","tag-lionel-richel","tag-mens-breakfast-meeting","tag-priest","tag-something-good"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20201,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20197\/revisions\/20201"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}