May 28

 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:38  (ESV)

May 27

 O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. -Isaiah 25:1

Mediation

 

Today’s Meditation

"Walking by faith, let us do good works. In these let there be a free love of God for His own sake and an active love for our neighbor. For there is nothing we can do for God. But because we have something we can do for our neighbor, we shall by our good offices to the needy gain the favor of Him Who is the source of all abundance. Let us then do what we can for others; let us freely bestow upon the needy out of our abundance." —St. Augustine

May 26

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved. -Ephesians 1:3-6

Today's Meditation

 

Today’s Meditation

"Most persons have temptations to anger. There is hardly anyone who does not at times become peevish, irritable, or impatient; and these are the beginning of more serious faults. Now we all know the harm and very serious results of anger. There is no example that makes clearer its ruinous effects than the Crucifixion of Our Lord...We have also seen how anger has brought families into discord and even permanent separation. We have read how nations have been led to war. The surprising fact is that though each and every one has had brought to his attention the fruits of anger—the sufferings, the discord, the unhappiness—sill there is much that could be sought by most persons in regard to meekness and something of meekness that could be sought by everybody." —Matt Fradd,

May 21

 Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart, who also do no wrong, but walk in his ways! -Psalm 119:1-3

May 20

 

Daily Verse

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ. -Ephesians 2:13

Mediation

 

Today’s Meditation

"I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things . . . Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light." —C.S. Lewis

May 13

 And he said, 'Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' -Job 1:21

May 12

I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body but after that can do no more. I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one. -Luke 12:4-5 

May 11

 The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit. -Psalm 34: 15-18

Meditation

 

Today’s Meditation

"Without doubt, Jesus Christ could have abolished pain at a single stroke, and, by virtue of the infinite grace of the Redemption, restored man to the state of complete, unmixed bliss that he enjoyed in the paradise of innocence. He did not so wish. He judged that, for some, suffering would be a source of merit, a gain, a source of glory, and a means of renewal and triumph; that, for the greater number, it would be a necessary expiation. He therefore maintained suffering, but purified, ennobled, and transfigured it by taking it upon Himself. He became the man of sorrows, virum dolorum, in the strict and absolute sense of these words." —Fr. Charles Arminjon

May 10

 Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And let perseverance be perfect, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. -James 1:2-4

Meditation

 

Today’s Meditation

"Finally—and this is perhaps the most difficult aspect of what concerns the practice of conformity to the will of God—we should desire virtue itself and the degrees of grace only insofar as God wishes to give them, and not desire more. Our whole ambition should be to attain the degree of perfection that has been appointed for us, since it has not been given to everybody to reach the same height. It is obvious that however well we may correspond with the graces given us, we can never equal the humility, charity and other virtues of the Blessed Virgin. And who can even presume to imagine that he can reach the same heights as the Apostles? Who can equal St. John the Baptist whom Christ called the greatest of the children of men? Or St. Joseph to whom God entrusted His Son? In this we must as in all else submit to the will of God. He must be able to say of us, My will is in them; it rules and governs everything. So when we hear or read that God in a short time has brought some souls to a very high degree of perfection and shown them signal favors, enlightened their understanding and imbued their hearts with His love, we should repress any desire to be treated likewise so as not to fall short in pure love of conformity to His Will. We should even unite ourselves still more closely to His Will by saying, 'I praise Thee, O Lord, and bless Thee for deigning to show Thyself with so great love and familiarity to the souls Thou has chosen ...'" —Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure

May 9

The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord; he is their refuge in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked, and saves them, because they take refuge in him. -Psalm 37:39-40 

Worth reading and thinking on

 Every commentary I bought said "meaning uncertain" next to the same verse until I found out the explanation wasn't missing, it was removed.

I was in a men's Bible study group. Tuesday nights. We'd been meeting for three years. Going through the New Testament verse by verse.

We got to Jude. Fourteen verses into this tiny book, someone read verse 14 out loud.

"Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: 'See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones.'"

The guy leading the study paused. Looked up from his Bible.

"Wait. Which book is that from?"

We all flipped to the table of contents. Genesis. Exodus. All the way through Malachi. No Enoch.

I pulled out my phone. Googled it right there at the table.

"The Book of Enoch. It's not in the Protestant Bible."

Silence.

Then someone said, "Well, if it's not in the Bible, why is the Bible quoting it?"

Good question.

The leader smiled. Moved on. "Let's not get sidetracked. The point of the passage is about false teachers."

But I couldn't let it go.

If Jude—an apostle, the brother of James, writing under divine inspiration—quoted this book by name and called it prophecy, how is it not scripture?

I went home that night and started digging.

Turns out Jude isn't the only one. Peter references it. Paul alludes to it. Jesus Himself used language that echoes Enoch when He talked about the "Son of Man."

The early church fathers quoted it constantly. Tertullian called it scripture. Irenaeus referenced it. Clement of Alexandria cited it in his writings.

For the first 400 years of Christianity, the Book of Enoch was considered authoritative.

Then it disappeared from Western Bibles. Not because scholars proved it was false. Not because new evidence emerged. It just... stopped being included.

I found out that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church never removed it. They've had the same 88-book Bible for over 1,500 years. Same collection. No edits. No deletions.

While Europe was fighting over which books belonged and which didn't, Ethiopia just kept reading the Bible they'd always had.

The same Bible that predates the Council of Nicaea. The same Bible that the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 would have known when Philip baptized him.

And they didn't just keep the extra books. They kept God's true name — Yahweh — on every page. The same name that was stripped out of the King James Bible over 6,800 times and replaced with "Lord."

That hit me differently than the Dead Sea Scrolls revelation hit some people.

Because Ethiopia didn't just preserve Enoch. They preserved Jubilees, which explains the entire Genesis timeline. They preserved the Wisdom of Solomon, which Paul quoted in Romans. They preserved 1 Maccabees, which explains where the Pharisees came from and why the Jewish world looked the way it did when Jesus arrived.

These aren't random religious texts. They're the books the apostles read. The books Jesus studied. The books that make the gaps in the Old Testament finally make sense.

And when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, the oldest biblical manuscripts ever found didn't match the western Protestant Bible.

They matched Ethiopia's.

For 2,000 years, the world read 66 books while Ethiopia quietly protected all 88. Not because they were heretics. Because they were never conquered. The only Christian nation never colonized by a foreign power. The only nation that claims to guard the Ark of the Covenant to this day.

I started noticing things I'd always glossed over.

Genesis 6 mentions the Nephilim—giants born when the "sons of God" married human women. Then it just moves on to the flood. No explanation. No context.

For years, I'd heard the "sons of Seth" interpretation. That the "sons of God" were just the godly line of Seth marrying the ungodly line of Cain.

It never made sense. Why would that produce giants? Why would that cause God to destroy the world?

The Book of Enoch explains it. In detail. Names the angels who fell. Describes what they taught humanity. Explains why the flood was necessary.

Suddenly, Genesis 6 wasn't a confusing fragment. It was the summary of a much longer story.

Hebrews 11 mentions people who were "sawn in two" for their faith. That story isn't in the Protestant Old Testament. It's in the Apocrypha.

Paul talks about the "pillar of cloud" and the "spiritual rock" that followed Israel. Those details come from Jubilees and the Wisdom texts, not from the five books of Moses alone.

The New Testament assumes you know these books.

But I didn't. Because they weren't in my Bible.

I brought it up again in the men's group a few weeks later. Tried to be casual about it.

"Has anyone ever read the Book of Enoch? I've been looking into it."

One guy said, "I think that's the one with all the weird angel stuff. Probably not inspired."

Another said, "If God wanted us to have it, it would be in the Bible."

But how do you know God doesn't want you to have it when the apostles clearly had it and quoted it?

I felt stuck. I wanted to read these books, but every version I found online felt wrong.

The academic translations were dense and unreadable. Footnotes longer than the verses. Written for scholars, not for people who just wanted to understand their faith better.

The "sacred name" Bibles replaced every familiar word with Hebrew transliterations I couldn't pronounce. Jesus became Yahusha. Lord became Yahuah. It felt like joining a different religion just to read a book.

The cheap print-on-demand versions had microscopic fonts and paper so thin you could see through it. They felt like bootleg copies.

Amazon was flooded with counterfeits. Missing chapters. Pages that conveniently skipped the most important parts. Versions that claimed to be "complete" but weren't even close.

I wanted something readable. Something complete. Something that treated these texts with the respect they deserved.

Then I found the Complete Ethiopian Bible by The Living Word.

It wasn't being pushed by some YouTube conspiracy channel. Just a straightforward description. The full 88-book canon used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Modern English. Actual readable formatting. Nothing removed. Nothing edited. Nothing censored. Yahweh's true name on every page, not replaced with "Lord."

I read the reviews. Over 15,000 people had already ordered it. People said it was clear, faithful, and respectful. It wasn't trying to replace anything. It was offering the full library.

I ordered it.

When it arrived, I didn't tell anyone at first. I felt like I was doing something I shouldn't be doing, even though I knew that was ridiculous.

The first night, I opened to the Book of Jubilees.

It's basically an expanded version of Genesis. It gives you the timeline. The dates. The names of people who aren't mentioned in Genesis but who mattered to the story.

It explained why Abraham knew to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah. It explained where the demons came from. It explained the calendar the Israelites used and why the feasts fell on the days they did.

It wasn't strange or mystical. It was just... more detail. The kind of detail that makes the rest of the Bible make sense.

I kept reading. The Wisdom of Sirach felt like Proverbs on steroids—practical wisdom about family, friendship, work, and honoring God.

First Maccabees was a historical narrative that explained the 400 years between Malachi and Matthew. It showed how the Pharisees and Sadducees formed. It showed why the Jewish people hated Roman occupation so much by the time Jesus arrived.

These weren't "extra" books. They were the missing chapters.

A few weeks later, I finally read Enoch.

The book Jude quoted. The book found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The book the early church used.

It described the rebellion of the Watchers—200 angels who descended on Mount Hermon and corrupted humanity. It named them. Azazel. Semjaza. Baraqiel.

It explained what they taught: sorcery, astrology, weapon-making, cosmetics. The knowledge that led to the violence and corruption that required the flood.

It described Enoch's tours of heaven and hell. The chambers of the winds. The tree of life. The place where the spirits of the dead wait for judgment.

And it prophesied about the Messiah—the "Son of Man" who would come with thousands of holy ones to execute judgment.

The exact prophecy Jude quoted.

Suddenly, when Jesus called Himself the "Son of Man" over and over in the Gospels, it wasn't just a humble title. It was a claim. He was identifying Himself as the figure Enoch saw in his visions.

I didn't know it. Because I didn't have the book.

The Bible I'd been reading my whole life wasn't wrong. It just wasn't complete.

Like watching a movie where someone edited out the first act and all the flashback scenes. You can follow the plot, but you miss half the meaning.

I still love the King James Version. I still read it. I'm not trying to replace it.

But now I also read the books the apostles read. The books that were in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The books that Ethiopia never removed. The books with God's true name still on every page.

And I don't feel like I'm reading the Western church's version of the faith anymore.

I feel like I'm reading the faith.

Last month, the guy who leads our Bible study asked if he could borrow the book. He'd been thinking about our conversation. About Jude quoting Enoch.

"I just want to see what it says," he told me.

I lent it to him.

A week later, he texted me a link. He'd ordered his own copy from The Living Word.

I'm not here to tell anyone their Bible is wrong. I'm not trying to start some movement.

I just know what I found.

The Bible quotes books that modern Protestantism doesn't include. The apostles used texts we don't have. The Ethiopian church preserved a canon we abandoned. And when the oldest manuscripts in existence were finally discovered, they matched what Ethiopia had been protecting all along.

And when I read the complete collection, the Bible I've loved my whole life finally made complete sense.

Not different sense. Complete sense.

If you've ever wondered why Jude quotes a prophet you've never heard of, or why the apostles reference stories that aren't in your Old Testament, or why there's a 400-year gap between the testaments that nobody explains, you're not alone.

The answers exist.

They've been preserved. In Ethiopia. In the Dead Sea caves. In the ancient manuscripts the early church used.

Someone just decided, a long time ago, that you didn't need them.

I needed them.

And now I have them.

.

If you want to read the same complete scripture, here's what I'd tell you.

The version I found — the Complete Ethiopian Bible by The Living Word — is the only one I've seen that gets it right. All 88 books. Nothing removed. Nothing edited. Yahweh's true name on every page, not replaced with "Lord."

It includes the Book of Enoch — the one Jude quoted. Jubilees. Maccabees. Sirach. The Wisdom of Solomon. Every text I mentioned above. The books the apostles quoted. The books that make the 400-year gap finally make sense.

The Living Word is a small publisher. No corporate backing. No big distribution deal. Just one woman who believed people deserved access to the complete canon and not just the version that survived budget cuts and printing shortcuts.

She's selling it for a fraction of what it normally costs. Not to make money, but because she believes more people should have it.

Over 15,000 people have already ordered their copy. Every order comes with a 90-day money-back guarantee. If you read it and it doesn't change the way you understand scripture, send it back. No questions asked.

I'll leave a link to their website below

https://thelivingword.shop/pages/ethiopian-5

Here's the only thing I'd flag: The Living Word is a small operation and these aren't mass-produced. They restock in batches, and I've seen them sell out more than once. If the link above works, copies are available. If it doesn't, they'll restock in about two months.

I'm not in a rush to pressure anyone. This isn't that kind of post.

But if you've ever sat in a Bible study and heard someone quote a verse from a book that isn't in your Bible — and nobody could explain why — the answer is in this book.

It's been there for 2,000 years.

Someone just kept it from you.

I'll leave the link below

https://thelivingword.shop/pages/ethiopian-5

P.S. I'm not paid to write this. I'm not affiliated with The Living Word. I'm just a Christian who spent decades reading the abridged edition and didn't know it. I want other people to have what I found.

P.P.S If you're still seeing this post, copies are still available. I'll update this when they're not. See less

The Bible Quotes A Book That Isn't In Your Bible.

May 7th

 If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. -John 8:31-32

May 5th

 "And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful." -Colossians 3:14-15

meditation

 

Today’s Meditation

"I believe the life of Saint Joseph offers us a great example of strength and courage. I imagine there were many times when Joseph wondered what was in store for him and his family. Having to leave everything behind to find safety has the potential for causing great anxiety. Saint Joseph found courage in his profound faith. The life of this humble carpenter, chosen by God to be the spouse of Mary and foster father of Jesus, invites us to find our strength and courage by placing our complete trust in the Lord." –Elizabeth Kingsbury-Puscas

5th

 

May the 4th

 

May the 4th be with you

 "But to you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." -Luke 6:27-31

May 4

The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. -1 Samuel 16:7b 

Meditation

Today’s Meditation

"St. Augustine says, that to prevent the sheep from seeking assistance by her cries, the wolf seizes her by the neck, and thus securely carries her away and devours her. The Devil acts in a similar manner with the sheep of Jesus Christ. After having induced them to yield to sin, he seizes them by the throat, that they may not confess their guilt; and thus he securely brings them to Hell. For those who have sinned grievously, there is no means of salvation but the confession of their sins." —St. Alphonsus Liguori