The Apostle Paul wrote: "You, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap of the olive root..." (Romans 11:17 NIV) Oh, my apple trees! Their delicate pink and white, curled-up, wee buds are opening in the...
"The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23b NIV). The young person sat before me and said, "I stole watermelons only once." I don't recall even nodding before the rest of the story came out: "A group of us young people went in a car to...
"As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set his face toward Jerusalem" (Luke 9: 51: NIV). Early in his ministry, Jesus revealed who he was: John, the writer of the fourth gospel, shows us Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath Day, and...
"Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19 NIV). I'm not sure how I came so often to sit beside my grandmother when we had family gatherings. But I remember that sometimes she'd just quietly beckon me toward herself. Now Grandma always had...
"Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, 'Father?' 'Yes, my son,' Abraham replied. 'The fire and the...
"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth,...
"‘Am I only a God nearby,’ declares the Lord, ‘and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the Lord. ‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:23, 24 NIV). "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where...
“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’–which means ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:22 NIV). “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of...
God took of the earth and fashioned the first of human kind. As was the earth so are we created to be beautiful and useful. by Isabel Allison