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

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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

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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.

What God Hath Called Thee, When All the Earth Hath Spoken Otherwise by Debbie Harris

30 Wednesday Sep 2026

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

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A Note to the Reader

Dear Reader,

We are living in sobering and sometimes cruel times. Words are cheap, and they are also sharp. Names are given lightly—some in jest, some in scorn, some in fear—and they can follow a soul farther than they should.

This poem was written for that weather.

It does not pretend the earth is kind, or that every tongue is just. It only dares to say that the last word is not the world’s. What God hath called His own still stands when lesser voices have spent themselves.

If you come here bruised by what has been said of you, read slowly. The names that matter were spoken before the morning stars, and they have not been withdrawn.

Go forth in joy; thy name is sure.

—The Poet

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

Let earth still speak, if speak it will;

the Father’s naming holds thee still.

He calls thee Mine, as ones He keeps

when waters rise and darkness creeps.

He calls thee known, and precious too—

not spent like dust the wind blows through.

Beloved, held ere light was made,

ere morning stars in joy were laid.

Chosen in Christ, before the sun,

holy and blameless, not by run

of works, but by His own delight.

Accepted in the Beloved’s right.

A child of God, of Spirit born;

no foundling left, no name outworn.

Not slave, but child; with Christ made heir—

the Father’s portion thou shalt share.

Redeemed, not with corruptible gold,

but with the blood the prophets told.

Forgiven, far as east from west.

Made righteous, justified, and blessed.

A new creation—old things past;

the former life is overcast

and gone. A saint, because He called.

Sealed till the day the graves are walled

no more. A temple, living, His,

wherein the Spirit dwells and is.

His workmanship. A citizen

of heaven, not the dust of men.

Hid with Christ in God. His friend.

His sheep, whom none shall pluck or rend.

A royal priesthood. Salt and light.

A branch that liveth by His life.

More than a conqueror, through the love

that will not let thee go thereof.

So let the lesser tongues still say

what names they will, and pass away.

Go forth in joy; thy name is sure:

Beloved, chosen, Mine evermore.

Christ-Centered Sojourners Who Will Not Bargain with the Age, Faithful to Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords by Debbie Harris

28 Monday Sep 2026

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To the Reader,

Dear Reader,

This little piece was not written to flatter the age, nor to furnish it with a prettier name for what it already loves. It was written for those who would belong to Christ when belonging costs something.

The world has always had its own liturgies: self as sovereign, appetite as oracle, the present hour as the only court of appeal. Against these the gospel does not negotiate. It calls men strangers in the land they inhabit, pilgrims toward a city they have not built, and servants of a Lord the nations still refuse.

If the lines that follow seem severe, it is because the narrow way is severe. If they seem glad, it is because the One who walked it first is alive. Read them not as a banner against your neighbor, but as a reminder to yourself: when the culture turns from Christ, the church must not turn with it.

May He who is holy keep you holy.

May His word outlast every fashion.

And may you lose the world’s applause, and find in Christ the life that no man can take from you.

—The Poet

We walk as strangers through a borrowed age,
Though streets and markets cry to make us kin;
Men raise their towers on a crumbling stage—
We seek the city God has founded in.

Not of this world, though breathing in its dust,
His kingdom comes without the tyrant’s drum;
He chose the hidden well, the downward thrust,
And made the last the first when He had come.

The age enthrones the self and names it true,
And drinks a sweetness that will leave it dry;
But He who left the glory that He knew
Said, Lose this life, and find the life on high.

Salt of the earth, yet never lost in brine,
A city set that darkness cannot hide;
The cross still cuts across the world’s design,
The Lamb still walks where every Caesar died.

As Noah built while laughter filled the plain,
As Daniel kept the fast they could not break,
We keep a feast the age will not sustain,
And wear the shame that makes the wise ones quake.

When culture turns and sets its face to war
Against the Lord, His word, His holy Name,
We will not bow, nor bargain at the door,
Nor sell His truth to keep the world’s acclaim.

Speak The Name Of Jesus Christ, Name Above All Names, King Of Kings And Lord Of Lords by Debbie Harris

27 Sunday Sep 2026

Posted by in Christ-centered poetry, Christian Poetry, Exalting Jesus Christ, Inspirational, Jesus Christ, King of Kings, Pleasing God Not Man, Royally Redeemed, salvation, Triumphant

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Dear Reader,

The church cannot be quiet anymore. What was given as a charge has been treated as a secret. We were never told to keep the Name in the sanctuary and leave it at the door. Speak the name of Jesus everywhere you go. No other name can save a soul from sin. What darkness lives in any rule that seals that precious Name and will not let it in? They have called it wisdom: the heinous, untrue, demonic idea of a wall between church and state. It is not even historically true. It was never the gospel’s idea that Christ should be confessed in private and denied in public. Silence is the gift the enemy wants most. Saints, do not grow quiet. The church was never meant to whisper this. Speak the name of Jesus.

From the Poet

Speak the name of Jesus everywhere you go.
No other name can save a soul from sin.
What darkness lives in any rule that seals
that precious Name and will not let it in.

Speak the name of Jesus.

Speak it in the valley when the dark is close.
Speak it on the mountain when the air is thin.
Speak it at the kitchen table, in the hospital hall,
at the graveside, in the boardroom, in the street.

Speak the name of Jesus.

There is no name like Jesus—
name above all names,
King of kings and Lord of lords.
Let every tongue confess it. Let every fear give way.

Speak the name of Jesus.

Saints, do not grow quiet.
The church was never meant to whisper this.
Silence is the gift the enemy wants most.

So go—
and speak the name of Jesus wherever you go.

**To God be the glory always and only.