Coloring Pages Bible Quotes

He looked up at the round, stained glass window in front of him, a blurred kaleidoscope backlit in the morning sun. It glowed. The color of heaven. Of her hair. He sat back and cracked open the dry, leather cover of a pew Bible, and a mixture of sweat and tears christened its pristine pages.

Born in the East, and clothed in Oriental form and imagery, the Bible walks the ways of all the world with familiar feet, and enters land after land to find its own everywhere. It has learned to speak in hundreds of languages to the heart of man. It comes into the palace to tell the monarch that he is the servant of the Most High, and into the cottage to assure the peasant that he is the son of God. Children listen to its stories with wonder and delight, and wisemen ponder them as parables of life. It has a word of peace for the time of peril, the hour of darkness. Its oracles are repeated in the assembly of the people, and its counsels whispered in the ear of the lonely. The wise and the proud tremble at its warnings, but to the wounded and penitent it has a mother's voice. The wilderness and the solitary place have been made glad by it, and the fire on the hearth has lighted the reading of its well-worn pages. It has woven itself into our deepest affections, and colored our dearest dreams; so that love and friendship, sympathy and devotion, memory and hope, put on the beautiful garments of its treasured speech, breathing of frankincense and myrrh. Above the cradle and beside the grave its great words come to us uncalled. They fill our prayers with power larger than we know, and the beauty of them lingers in our ear long after the sermons which they have adorned have been forgotten. They return to us swiftly and quietly, like birds flying from far away. They surprise us with new meanings, like springs of water breaking forth from the mountain beside a long-forgotten path. They grow richer, as pearls do when they are worn near the heart. No man is poor or desolate who has this treasure for his own. When the landscape darkens and the trembling pilgrim comes to the valley named the shadow, he is not afraid to enter; he takes the rod and staff of Scripture in his hand; he says to friend and comrade, "Good-by, we shall meet again"; and comforted by that support, he goes toward the lonely pass as one who climbs through darkness into light.

Markers to look like a Book of Hours or a medieval Bible. Miniature designs crowded the pages. Bubblegum angels swooped from top margins, or scraped their wings between teeming paragraphs. Maidens with golden hair dripped sea-blue tears into the book's spine. Grape-colored whales spouted blood around a newspaper item (pasted in) listing arrivals to the endangered species list. Six hatchlings cried from shattered shells near an entry made on Easter. Cecilia had filled the pages with a profusion of colors and curlicues, Candyland ladders and striped shamrocks

We didn’t understand why Cecilia had killed herself the first time and we understood even less when she did it twice. Her diary, which the police inspected as part of the customary investigation, didn’t confirm the supposition of unrequited love. Dominic Palazzolo was mentioned only once in that tiny rice-paper journal illuminated with colored Magic Markers to look like a Book of Hours or a medieval Bible. Miniature designs crowded the pages. Bubblegum angels swooped from top margins, or scraped their wings between teeming paragraphs. Maidens with golden hair dripped sea-blue tears into the book’s spine.

Retired missionaries taught us Arts & Crafts each July at Bible Camp: how to glue the kidney, navy, and pinto bean into mosaics, and how to tool the stenciled butterfly on copper sheets they'd cut for us. At night, after hymns, they'd cut the lights and show us slides: wide-spread trees, studded with corsage; saved women tucking T-shirts into wrap-around batiks; a thatched church whitewashed in the equator's light. Above the hum of the projector I could hear the insects flick their heads against the wind screens, aiming for the brightness of that Africa. If Jesus knocks on your heart, be ready to say, "Send me, O Lord, send me," a teacher told us confidentially, doling out her baggies of dried corn. I bent my head, concentrating hard on my tweezers as I glued each colored kernel into a rooster for Mother's kitchen wall. But Jesus noticed me and started to knock. Already saved, I looked for signs to show me what else He would require. At rest hour, I closed my eyes and flipped my Bible open, slid my finger, ouija-like, down the page, and there was His command: Go and do ye likewise— Let the earth and all it contains hear— Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire—. Thursday night, at revival service, I held out through Trust and Obey, Standing on the Promises, Nothing But the Blood, but crumpled on Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling, promising God, cross my heart, I'd witness to Rhodesia. Down the makeshift aisle I walked with the other weeping girls and stood before the little bit of congregation left singing in their metal chairs. The bathhouse that night was silent, young Baptists moving from shower to sink with the stricken look of nuns. Inside a stall, I stripped, slipped my clothes outside the curtain, and turned for the faucet— but there, splayed on the shower's wall, was a luna moth, the eye of its wings fixed on me. It shimmered against the cement block: sherbet-green, plumed, a flamboyant verse lodged in a page of drab ink. I waved my hands to scare it out, but, blinkless, it stayed latched on. It let me move so close my breath stroked the fur on its animal back. One by one the showers cranked dry. The bathhouse door slammed a final time. I pulled my clothes back over my sweat, drew the curtain shut, and walked into a dark pricked by the lightening bugs' inscrutable morse.

The words of this Book have a way of filling in the missing pieces, of bridging the gaps, of turning the tarnished colors of our life to jewel-like brilliance. Learn to take your every problem to the Bible. Within its pages you will find the correct answer.

I am prone to prefer people who are like me-- in color, culture, heritage and history..the creation of man and woman in the image of God with equal dignity before God..this means that no human being is more or less human that another..for in the process of discussing our diversity in terms of different "races," we are undercutting our unity in the human race..instead of being strictly tied to biology, ethnicity is much more fluid, factoring in social, cultural, lingual, historical, and even religious characteristics..The pages of the Bible and human history are thus filled with an evil affinity for ethnic animosity..God promises to bless these ethnic Israelites, but the purpose of his blessing extends far beyond them..[it is] his desire for all nations to behold his greatness and experience his grace..When Jesus comes to the earth in the New Testament, we are quickly introduced to him as an immigrant..he nevertheless reaches beyond national boundaries at critical moments to love, serve, teach, heal, and save Canaanites and Samaritans, Greeks and Romans..he came as Savior and Lord over all..Though Gentiles were finally accepted into the church, they felt at best like second-class Christians..the Bible doesn't deny the obvious ethnic, cultural, and historical differences that distinguish us from one another..diversifies humanity according to clans and lands as a creative reflection of his grace and glory in distinct groups of people. In highlighting the beauty of such diversity, the gospel thus counters the mistaken cultural illusion that the path to unity is paved by minimizing what makes us unique. Instead, the gospel compels us to celebrate our ethnic distinctions, value our cultural differences, and acknowledge our historical diversity..(In reference to Galations 3:28) some people might misconstrue this verse..to say that our differences don't matter. But they do..It is not my aim here to stereotype migrant workers..It is also not my aim to oversimplify either the plight of immigrants in our country or the predicament of how to provide for them..Consequently, followers of Christ must see immigrants not as problems to be solved but as people to be loved. The gospel compels us in our culture to decry any and all forms of oppression, exploitation, bigotry, or harassment of immigrants..[we] will stand as one redeemed race to give glory to the Father who calls us not sojourners or exiles, but sons and daughters.

Pray your words, old man.” The priest licked his lips and glanced fearfully at the crowd of savages around them. Perhaps it was the stark contrast of black robes against pallid flesh, but Loretta thought he was losing color at an alarming rate. Indeed, he looked as if he might faint. “Say the God words, old man!” Hunter snarled again. “Don’t you dare bully him,” Loretta hissed. “He’s a man of God, Hunter! You don’t roar at a man of God.” “It’s qu-quite all right, child, quite all right.” The priest, his face dripping sweat, made haste to open his Bible. “Merciful Father,” he muttered, clearly praying for deliverance. With a strangled cough, he began leafing through pages, turning slightly so the light from the fire was thrown across the small print. “I beg your forgiveness. I don’t usually need to use the book--” He coughed again and waved away smoke. “For some reason, the words have fled my mind. Ah, yes, here we are.” Infuriated, Loretta jerked her arm from Hunter’s grasp. “Father, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I assure you.” Hunter reclaimed her arm in a biting grip that made her swing around to face him. Bending his head, he whispered, “Blue Eyes, you test my temper. I will blow hard at you like the wind.” “Blow, then!” She tried to twist her arm free. “You’re hurting me.” “I will beat you. Then you will know a hurt. Now be silent!” Loretta’s eyes flared to a fiery blue. “I’m not going to marry you. Beat me senseless! Go ahead.” Hunter sent her a look that would have scared her to death a month ago. “Loh-rhett-ah, you will be silent and let him say the God words.” “He can say the God words until snowballs melt in--” She broke off and blushed. “I’m the one who has to say the words, Hunter, and I won’t. Do you understand?” “My dear child,” the priest inserted, “it’s not often one of these”--he threw a meaningful glance at Hunter--“gentlemen offers to make an honorable woman of a captive. Wouldn’t it be wise to accept?” “I’m in no need of matrimony, Father. I still have my honor.

One of the best ways to do that is to cultivate the morning ritual of ignoring your phone until after you have found the gaze of God in Scripture. Going to Scripture before we go to our smartphones is another small way to pattern the morning in the reality of God’s love. But given the black-hole allure of the smartphone, it is probably one of the most radical habits of the household you can cling to. In turning our gaze to Scripture, we turn our gaze to the face of God, and find him looking back at us. In a house full of children, this will look as messy as everything else does. Ideally, the pattern of Scripture before smartphone means I’m up before them, having a few minutes to read and reflect before they wake. But of course that is not always the reality, and it is important to know that that is fine. Sometimes, that is even better, because one of the ways we teach the habits of the household is by letting children observe our habits and inviting them into them. Some mornings this looks like listening to a psalm while holding a kid who is holding a sippy cup of milk on my lap.8 He is invited into the routine. Occasionally it means reading a Bible story out loud to one of them. Many, many mornings it means they also get a book, or a coloring page, and we have some minutes of quiet before we start breakfast.

As you begin to read, ask Holy Spirit to read it to you.

Let your heart embrace Him, and allow Him lift you into your place of expressing His divine nature.