{"id":279,"date":"2009-12-15T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-15T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts.html"},"modified":"2009-12-15T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-15T06:00:00","slug":"advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts.html","title":{"rendered":"Advent Prayer, Day 17: Offering Him Our Best Gifts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tuesday, the third week of Advent<\/strong><\/p>\n<div><em>&#8220;A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.&#8221; Numbers 24:17 (2). <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;On entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.&#8221; Matthew 2:11<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The wise men followed a star. When <em>I<\/em> read this narrative I&#8217;m following the wise men, but end up finding a star. But do I see him as clearly as these learned men did? What do the gifts I offer the Lord say about my worship? Do I give him reverence and honor, rather than gold, gifts of the soul fit for a king. Do I offer him my most fervent, sincere prayers, rather than frankincense, knowing he is a priest who ever lives to intercede for me? And what about the myrrh? What a strange gift it was from the Magi. Myrrh was bitter, used for its medicinal properties. But it had another use: to embalm the dead. What can I offer Christ knowing he will die for my sins? The only thing I have that&#8217;s acceptable is my grateful heart, rejoicing in his saving grace.<\/p>\n<div><strong>Jesus my starlight,<\/strong><\/div>\n<div><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/div>\n<p><strong>I must follow you. Help me to worship you, as befitting to one so magnificent. You are my king. Help me to yield to you, and obey your every command. You are my salvation. The Magi offered you gold, frankincense and myrrh, but eventually they left you. Give me so much love that I stay before you always, continuing to adore you. You humbled yourself to receive a body like the one my soul resides in. Help me to offer you spiritual gifts more sublime than any earthly things. I want to thank you for all you do.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Come, Lord Jesus.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the third week of Advent &#8220;A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.&#8221; Numbers 24:17 (2). &#8220;On entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,46,14,25,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advent","category-advent-prayer","category-bible","category-jesus","category-prayer"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Advent Prayer, Day 17: Offering Him Our Best Gifts<\/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\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Advent Prayer, Day 17: Offering Him Our Best Gifts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the third week of Advent &#8220;A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.&#8221; Numbers 24:17 (2). &#8220;On entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-15T06:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Advent Prayer, Day 17: Offering Him Our Best Gifts","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\/prayerplainandsimple\/2009\/12\/advent-prayer-day-17-offering-him-our-best-gifts.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Advent Prayer, Day 17: Offering Him Our Best Gifts","og_description":"By Claudia Mair Burney Tuesday, the third week of Advent &#8220;A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel.&#8221; Numbers 24:17 (2). &#8220;On entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. 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A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}