{"id":508,"date":"2007-11-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html"},"modified":"2007-11-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-25T00:00:00","slug":"monday-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html","title":{"rendered":"Something Better Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title<\/a> (Tyndale 2007).
\nThe journal has 26 entries, which will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure to start your own journal within your Beliefnet profile or in a notebook to respond to Nancy’s prompts. <\/i>
\nDay 1: Introduction<\/strong>
\nJesus said, \u201cI am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly\u201d (John 10:10). So it can seem so terribly unspiritual to admit that the Christian life, as we\u2019ve experienced it so far, does not seem to really be what Jesus was promising. It often feels as if we\u2019ve missed it somehow, that everybody else must be experiencing something we can\u2019t seem to achieve, but we don\u2019t want to admit it to ourselves or anyone else.
\nWe find ourselves living with a nagging hope for something better. We want something better than the \u201cchurchianity\u201d of our parents and grandparents, something better than the vague and uncertain spirituality of our neighbors, something better than guilt-induced, holier-than-thou morality, something better than here-and-now, health-and-wealth promises, something more than going-through-the-motions religiosity or the latest-fad religious experience. We are hoping for something authentic\u2014something worth opening our hearts to and filling our minds with and giving our lives for.
\nIn this guided journal we\u2019ll walk through the book of Hebrews in the New Testament on a search for something better than we\u2019ve known and experienced so far. The book of Hebrews was actually a letter sent to Jewish believers (and almost-believers) who likely met in a house church in or around Rome about 60 to 70 A.D. As a result of believing in Jesus, they had been ostracized from the center of Jewish life\u2014the Temple. They were estranged from their families; their businesses were blacklisted, their homes and possessions were fair game. It was beginning to cost to follow Jesus.
\nAnd they began to wonder if following Jesus was really worth it. They wondered if they really needed to give up so much of what had defined them so long. So the writer to the Hebrews sent them a letter so they would understand clearly why Jesus is worth it\u2014what makes following him and trusting him better than the religious roads they had traveled so far. And it can teach us the same thing.
\n–Nancy Guthrie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007). The journal has 26 entries, which will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hoping-for-something-better"],"yoast_head":"\nSomething Better Day 1 - Content Feeds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Something Better Day 1 - Content Feeds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007). The journal has 26 entries, which will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Content Feeds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-11-25T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jana Melpolder\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Something Better Day 1 - Content Feeds","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Something Better Day 1 - Content Feeds","og_description":"Welcome to Nancy Guthrie’s guided journal “Hoping for Something Better,” which she based on her book of the same title (Tyndale 2007). The journal has 26 entries, which will appear in your profile Monday-Saturday. If you missed any so far, stay subscribed to this feed and you can begin when it starts over. Be sure…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html","og_site_name":"Content Feeds","article_published_time":"2007-11-25T00:00:00+00:00","author":"Jana Melpolder","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html","name":"Something Better Day 1 - Content Feeds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-11-25T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-11-25T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/#\/schema\/person\/ed4df2f4c08a1cb26b9e488226ab83af"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/2007\/11\/monday-introduction.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Something Better Day 1"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/","name":"Content Feeds","description":"Beliefnet Content Feeds","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/#\/schema\/person\/ed4df2f4c08a1cb26b9e488226ab83af","name":"Jana Melpolder","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7b0\/7b06445eb7242dad0695efa8bc034da4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7b0\/7b06445eb7242dad0695efa8bc034da4x96.jpg","caption":"Jana Melpolder"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/author\/jmelpolder"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/contentfeeds\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}