IN HER BOOK Mystery on the Desert, Maria Reiche describes a series of strange lines made by the Nazca in the plains of Peru, some of them covering many square miles…

For years, people assumed these lines were the remnants of ancient irrigation ditches.  Then in 1939, Dr. Paul Kosok of Long Island University discovered their true meaning could only be seen from high in the air.  When viewed from an airplane, these seemingly random lines form enormous drawings of birds, insects, and animals.

Similarly, people often think of the Bible as a series of separate, unrelated stories.  When we view the Scriptures as a whole, however, we discover that they form one great story of redemption–from the first “In the Beginning” of Genesis to the final “Amen of Revelation.  Weaving through all the diverse strands of the Bible is a divine story line, the overarching story of how God has rescued, redeemed, and restored humanity, from the first nanosecond of creation through the final cry of victory at the end of time.  (Mike Macintosh)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.”  Ephesians 1:3-10

–Mike Benson