11 Sunday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christian Poetry, Christ-centered poetry, Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Holy Bible, Inspirational, Exalting Jesus Christ

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Dear Reader,

I was recently blessed and honored to return to the beloved and precious campus of Bob Jones University, where I was blessed to grow up, for the funeral of my beloved mother. She served as a Professor there for 54 years in Speech and Drama. Our family was moved beyond measure as we were surrounded by comfort, love, care, concern, and provision. It was as if Jesus Himself was wrapping us in His tender mercies, comfort, and love. What a beautiful picture of how the body of Christ is meant to treat one another.

What a contrast this is with the world, where such surrounding care is indeed not the case. And how tragic it is when, even among the Saints of God, we fail to guard our tongues—when gossip, slander, harsh criticism, murmuring, and cutting speech replace the kindness, encouragement, appreciation, gratitude, and love that should mark true believers.

These genuine words and deeds that we experienced are treasures that money cannot buy. May the Lord sanctify our words, our speech, and our deeds, that we might better reflect Jesus Christ and the tender mercies we have received.

With grace,
The Poet

Proverbs 16:24 —

Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

Genuine words and deeds
of kindness, encouragement,
appreciation, gratitude, and love
are treasures that money cannot buy.

Kind words are not small.
They settle like light
on weary shoulders,
naming what is good
when it is easy to miss.

Encouragement costs little
and returns multiplied—
a hand on the back,
a sentence that steadies,
a refusal to join the tearing-down.

Gratitude, spoken or shown,
rewrites the atmosphere
of a room, a church, a home.
Love that is patient with speech
refuses the easy cut
and chooses the harder, kinder path.

Such gifts should be seen in all
true believers. Yet lack of tongue control
is so prevalent in the Saints of God
today—gossip, slander, harsh criticism,
murmuring, and cutting speech.

These remain the marks
that money never measures
and that true believers
are still called to carry.
How tragic is this! How tragic!

Sanctify our words,
our speech, our deeds.

The Quiet Rooms Where the Old Works Stayed: A Poem Against the Destruction of True Beauty By Godless, Christless Ideologies by Debbie Harris

11 Sunday Oct 2026

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Dear Reader,

These lines were written under the conviction that beauty is not a human invention but a reflection of the One who made all things “very good,” and that the face of Christ is the true Image of the invisible God. The Cross stands as both the measure of love and the judgment of every lesser standard.

Where, then, are the artists in the line of Michelangelo—those who still love to paint, to draw, and to sculpt the sacred? Where are the hands that once labored for years over a single ceiling or a single figure because they believed the visible could bear witness to the Word made flesh? The ideologies named in the poem did more than prefer new styles. They taught many to distrust proportion, skill, and the long attention that once let sacred images speak of Christ. In doing so they turned from the very gifts by which the Church has, for centuries, sought to make the invisible visible.

If this poem calls to mind any work that still points beyond itself to Christ, or any face that refuses to be reduced to theory, then it has served its small purpose. The true Image remains. He is not waiting for our permission.

—The Poet

They came with manifestos, sharp as knives,
Progress’s prophets, liberalism’s scribes,
And Marx’s heirs who measured every line
By class and creed instead of the divine.

They called the marble cold, the oil too bright,
The sonnet’s form a cage that blocked the light.
True proportion was a bourgeois lie,
And harmony a tool to pacify.

They smashed the icons, stripped the altar bare,
Declared the painted Word a snare,
And taught that flesh made God was mythic claim—
Too particular, too bound by name.
The face of Christ became a problem:
Too human, too untheorized, too solemn.

They prized the broken, elevated pain,
Declared the beautiful a tool of gain.
A body that once bore the weight of sin
And rose was now a symbol to begin
Again in pure abstraction—form erased
Lest anyone should meet a living face.

Yet in the quiet rooms the old works stayed,
Unmoved by theory, still by light arrayed.
The hand that carved the thorn-crowned brow
Still speaks what every manifesto disavows.
The eye that sought proportion, line, and grace
Finds in the Cross the measure of true space.

They tried to bury truth beneath the new,
But beauty answers only what is true.
The Word made flesh does not require their vote.
He stands where every theory falls remote—
The Image of the Father, once despised,
Still drawing every eye that looks and sees.

So Much Greater by Debbie Harris

09 Friday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Grief, Bereavement, Loss, Inspirational, Praise

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Dear reader,

This line was set down because grief can feel like the last word, and it is not. Christ has already entered the grave and come forth. The cross took the full measure of sorrow; the empty tomb answered it. Grace is not a gentler feeling beside the loss—it is the risen Lord Himself, greater than every grave He has overcome.If these words find you in a hard hour, let them stand as they are: grief may be great, yet in Christ grace is triumphantly greater. The victory is already His, and therefore already yours.

— the poet

When grief

is great, grace

is triumphantly

so much greater!

The Civilization That Lives on a Vine It Hates by Debbie Harris

08 Thursday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christ-centered poetry, Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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Dear Reader,

These lines do not quarrel with compassion, nor with law, nor with the care of the weak. The poem grants them. It speaks instead against a quieter treason: to live on the fruit of a faith and refuse the root that bore it. A people may walk for years in the shade Christ planted—compassion, restraint, the worth of the small—and still lift the axe against the Vine. The stanzas ask only what remains when the source is severed and the harvest is still demanded, as if sweetness could outlive the life that made it.

The Poet

John 15:1–6 (KJV)


I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

They love the mercy Christians learned to show,
the care of weak and poor, the ordered peace,
the schools and laws by which the nations grow,
the hope that tells the captive to release.

They walk the orchards older faith had planted,
and praise the fruit, and call the harvest good;
they drink the wells where charity was granted,
and take the sweetness as their native food.

Yet when the root is named—the wounded Lord,
the cross that fed the branches from its side—
they turn, as if the very name were sword,
and scorn the life by which the fruit is tied.

They keep the apples, cut the living tree,
and wonder why the orchard starts to die;
for fruit cannot outlast the source, nor be
itself once faith and root are set aside.

The Neutral Stance That Smiles and Yields the Field by Debbie Harris

08 Thursday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christ-centered poetry, Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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Dear Reader,

This poem is about Christ, not about manners. He is not one claim among others, set beside the markets and the state for us to weigh at our ease. He spoke of the cross, the empty tomb, and the blood, and He asked for love or hate, not a courteous distance. Stand for everything and you stand for nothing at all. To hear Him and still call neutrality fairness is to step back from Him while smiling, and to yield the field that belongs to Him.

Where is Biblical boldness? We need those who will be bold and take a stand for Jesus Christ no matter what the cost!

The poem is not against kindness to persons. It is against the silence that refuses Christ and names the refusal wisdom.

— The Poet

Neutrality, when the faith is named and known,
is not a pause between two equal claims.
It is the step that leaves the standard down
and calls the silence wisdom, not a shame.

The creed was never offered as a mood
to set beside the markets and the state.
It spoke of cross and empty tomb and blood,
and asked the hearer either love or hate.

To stand apart and judge both sides the same
is still to choose: the choice is not to stand.
The gate is narrow; drifting has a name.
It borrows light and will not take the hand.

So call the neutral stance what it has been:
a quieter treason, smiling while it yields.

A Hymn Of Provision by Debbie Harris

06 Tuesday Oct 2026

Posted by in Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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Dear Reader,

Have you ever been overwhelmed by the provision of God? Not the idea of it, but the thing itself arriving when the jar was low, the day already spoken for, the map still saying sand. A morning portion. A meal that outlasted the worry. Rain on a field you had already given up.

This poem is a record of that habit. It keeps to an older measure, the heroic couplet, because provision often comes in pairs: enough, and then enough again. The figures are mostly the old ones—manna, ravens, the jar, the lilies, the later rain—not because the present is empty, but because those stories already know the shape of what still happens.If you have been carried that way, you will recognize the portions.

If you are in the stretch before the morning, the poem is not an argument. It is a place to set the empty cup and wait for the hand that still sets the table.

—the poet

Matthew 6:28–30, in the King James Version:

**And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Before the field is broken by the hand,
the cloud is loaded and the season planned.
He sends the rain the way a house sends bread,
and wakes the seed that lay as good as dead.
The desert, which has nothing of its own,
finds in the morning what the night had sown:
a thin white covering no sickle cut,
enough to answer hunger, not to glut.
What yesterday could save will fail by noon;
the faithfulness is measured to the sun.
The ravens find the man no road can reach,
and leave their portion, and return to each
their ordinary sky. They do not know
the name they carry, only where to go.
A widow’s jar, drawn down almost to dust,
will not admit that this must be the last.
The flask keeps pace with what the cooking needs;
the flame continues after worry pleads.
What holds here is not wealth laid up in grain,
but oil that answers oil, and meal that answers meal.
See how the lilies take their cloth and wear
what no one wove, and finer than a king could bear.
The sparrow does not plant or bind or keep,
and still is fed, and still is not too cheap
to count. He dresses grass that burns to smoke,
and fills the throat that has no word it spoke.
If field and bird are answered without speech,
what finer need is set beyond His reach?
The table laid in front of those who hate
is not a show of surplus, but of state.
The later rain arrives when mouths are dry,
and barns that stood wide open crowd the sky.
A river breaks where every map said sand;
the rock, once struck, becomes a watered land.
He leads beside the streams that bring men back,
and spreads a pasture where the ground was black.
The cup is not a measure, but a tide;
it climbs the rim, and does not drop, and does not hide.
What we call extra, heaven counts as due—
the faithfulness that keeps, and starts anew.

The Problem of Persistent Unkindness:Why Mean Christians Are A Failure, Not A Contradiction by Debbie Harris

05 Monday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christ-centered poetry, Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational, Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Triumphal Entry

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Dear Reader,

Christians are commanded to be kind. Scripture names kindness among the fruit of the Spirit, along with love, patience, and gentleness, and it tells believers to put away anger, malice, and a cutting tongue. When a Christian stays unkind, that is a real failure, not a small one.This poem does not excuse that failure. It only rejects a shortcut: the idea that a mean Christian is a contradiction in terms, or proof that no one is truly in Christ. The Bible holds both things at once. It commands the fruit of the Spirit, and it also says believers still struggle, still sin, and still need correction. Some who claim the name do not live it. Others do, and remain unfinished.So persistent unkindness is a problem. It is not, by itself, proof the claim was empty.

May all Christians seek to cultivate consistent, Christlike kindness.

The Poet

Ephesians 4:31–32, King James Version:

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.

Jude 1:22 (KJV)

And of some have compassion, making a difference.

The claim and the conduct do not agree
as neatly as the tidy phrases do.
To stand in Christ is not to stand set free
from every bitter word that still rings true.

The old man lingers in the borrowed name,
and tongues that bless can still be edged with spite;
the vineyard shows both fruit and stubborn flame,
and branches green may cast a crooked light.

Yet oxymoron asks too clean a break,
as if the grafted life were finished art.
The letters warn of wolves, and also make
the saints confess the war inside the heart.

A Christian ought to be kind; that duty stands.
If kindness never comes, is Christ within that heart?

Audience Of One by Debbie Harris

03 Saturday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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The one who lives before the eyes of God

does not arrange a face for mortal praise,

nor seek the wages of a watching crowd,

nor fear the loss of man’s approving gaze.

For Christ has borne the judgment in his stead;

the cross has closed the books that men would keep.

What once was hidden now is fully read,

and still the Shepherd calls the scattered sheep.

No gain remains to win by human art,

no proof to offer at another’s throne;

the life is hid with Christ, and from the heart

it serves the Lord, and serves the Lord alone.

Let every other audience fall away—

no verdict holds but his, and his stands still.

A People of the Narrow Way by Debbie Harris

03 Saturday Oct 2026

Posted by in Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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Dear reader,

This note comes only to say what the lines were meant to hold: a hope that we might be a people who think upon the narrow way, who choose it, and who love it. Scripture gives the reasons. The way is narrow, and few find it, yet it leads to life (Matthew 7:13–14). The righteousness that fits us for that way is not our own; it is the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Christ (Philippians 3:9; Romans 3:21–22), the very righteousness in which He clothes those who are His (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are called to set our minds on things above (Colossians 3:2) and to choose, as Israel was charged to choose, the path of life rather than the path of death (Deuteronomy 30:19). The words were shaped as a prayer more than a display. If they help turn the mind toward Him, they have done what they were written to do.

The Poet

May we be souls who set their thoughts upon

the narrow way our Savior chose to tread,

who love the path His righteousness has won,

and choose the road where selfish hopes lie dead.

Not wide and smooth, where careless crowds may go,

but strait and steep beneath His guiding light,

a way whose stones His faithful mercies know,

whose turns are kept by cross and boundless might.

We fix our minds on Him who is the gate,

and clothe our days in what His blood has bought;

we leave the ease of every open state

to follow where His wounded feet have taught.

So may we think, and choose, and love this way,

till narrow paths give place to endless day.

**To God be the glory always and only.

Beloved, Chosen, Mine by Debbie Harris

30 Wednesday Sep 2026

Posted by in Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Holy Bible, Inspirational

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Note to the Reader

Dear Reader,

We are living in sobering and sometimes cruel times. Words are cheap, and they are also sharp. This quatrain was written for that weather: not to deny what earth may say, but to remember that God hath already named His own.

“Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”

—Isaiah 43:1

“Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”

—Romans 8:33

—The Poet

Let earth still speak, if speak it will;

the Father’s naming holds thee sure.

Beloved, chosen, Mine be still—

go forth in joy, for evermore.