{"id":12984,"date":"2026-06-21T20:01:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/?page_id=12984"},"modified":"2026-06-21T20:05:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:05:40","slug":"no-strings-attached-thursday-june-25-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/no-strings-attached-thursday-june-25-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"No Strings Attached &#8211; Thursday, June 25, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">That thine alms may be in secret: and thy\u00a0Father\u00a0which\u00a0seeth\u00a0in secret himself shall reward thee openly \u2013 <span style=\"color: #008000;\"><strong>Matthew 6:4<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>He only needed one more<\/em>, the teenager thought as he walked a path lined with homes. However, his pace quickened at the sight of a woman working in her yard. &#8220;I&#8217;m willing to trim your hedge for free,&#8221; he rapidly announced. The woman, though initially reluctant, relented. Nearly thirty minutes later, she was thoroughly pleased. Before leaving, the teenager requested her signature to confirm the work performed, as it was needed to verify eight hours of community service to have his privileges reinstated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWas the service performed by the teenager entirely free, or were their strings attached?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The answer can be traced to Luke 6:35 with emphasis on: \u201cdo good, and lend, hoping for nothing again.\u201d The reference to \u201clend\u201d doesn\u2019t have to be money; it can consist of time and service.\u00a0\u00a0Yet, no matter how well-intended, the lines can become blurred, and it can be hard to distinguish between motives: pure or self-serving.<\/p>\n<p>Recognizing the difference between reaping benefits from showing kindness and striving to gain benefits from acts of kindness helps evaluate one\u2019s heart.\u00a0\u00a0However, trusting God\u2019s promise to reward selfless behavior makes it easier to perform acts of kindness with no strings attached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That thine alms may be in secret: and thy\u00a0Father\u00a0which\u00a0seeth\u00a0in secret himself shall reward thee openly \u2013 Matthew 6:4 He only needed one more, the teenager thought as he walked a path lined with homes. However, his pace quickened at the sight of a woman working in her yard. &#8220;I&#8217;m willing to trim your hedge for &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/no-strings-attached-thursday-june-25-2026\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;No Strings Attached &#8211; Thursday, June 25, 2026&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12984","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12987,"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12984\/revisions\/12987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/2beencouraged.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}