Birthdays are usually about gifts and gains and growth. They can also be about losses. Shortly after Jesus\u2019 twelfth birthday, his parents took Him to Jerusalem and lost Him. In the midst of the return caravan, they discovered Him missing and hurried back to Jerusalem to look for Him. They found Him in the Temple, among the people of God (Luke 2:41-52). This week Americans celebrate a national birthday \u2013 4th of July, we call it. There will be gifts and gains and growth, but perhaps there are losses as well. Maybe we\u2019ve lost a little more of Jesus in the past year. As we journey along, it may become more apparent that Jesus is no longer with as He once was. What will we do then? Hopefully, we will return to where we last experienced Him and find Him there among the people of God. Have we lost Jesus as a nation? Time will tell. If so, it is time to seek Him again. We will find Him among the people of God.<\/p>\n
Pray with me this week for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 A missionary in an east Asian country who has just recently arrived back on the field and is re-adjusting to her living conditions after some time in the U.S.
\n\u2022 Missionaries in France whose young son needs a place in a specialized school for the coming school year.
\n\u2022 A team of sixty International World Changers who will spend July 5-12 in Moravia.
\n\u2022 A third world missionary whose visa was extended until the end of August, but needs a Residency Card to remain in her country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Birthdays are usually about gifts and gains and growth. They can also be about losses. Shortly after Jesus\u2019 twelfth birthday, his parents took Him to Jerusalem and lost Him. In the midst of the return caravan, they discovered Him missing and hurried back to Jerusalem to look for Him. They found Him in the Temple,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}