In fact, it's just another ordinary day...

No New Year's Day to celebrate
No chocolate covered candy hearts to give away
No first of spring, no song to sing
In fact, here's just another ordinary day

No April rain, no flowers bloom
No wedding Saturday within the month of June
But what it is, is something true
Made up of these three words that I must say to you

I just called to say I love you
I just called to say how much I care
I just called to say I love you
And I mean it from the bottom of my heart

No summer's high, no warm July
No harvest moon to light one tender August night
No autumn breeze, no falling leaves
Not even time for birds to fly to southern skies

No Libra sun, no Halloween
No giving thanks to all the Christmas joy you bring
But what it is, though old, so new... will fill your heart like those three words could never do...   ~`Stevie Wonder.

Today, be quiet and know that He Is?  1 John 4:

4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

⁴ You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit^[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

New International Version (NIV).

 Howard Long found reason in the 1950s to reach others with an "updated" King James version of the Bible.  An engineer by trade, he waned to share his strengths and the process of putting together a Bible that speaks today's language was quite the peer-reviewed undertaking...

“Everywhere I go, in Canada, the U.S., anywhere, there are people who would like to read their Bible to their children at night,” Long thought. “And they don’t have something the children can grasp.”

When these long-simmering frustrations finally boiled over, Long told his pastor, the Reverend Peter DeJong, “We’ve translated the Bible into hundreds, a couple thousand tongues, and when we run out of tongues to translate it into, someday we’re going to translate it into English.”

Inspired by the great need they both felt for a Bible in contemporary English, the two men prepared a petition for a new translation with their Seattle church for the denomination at large, the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). After initial rejection and deferral, the CRC endorsed a committee to investigate the issue in 1957.  The CRC would eventually join forces with The National Association of Evangelicals and others in the evangelical world. In August 1965, a broad spectrum of evangelical scholars, leaders and churches commissioned a new, contemporary English translation of the Bible by evangelical scholars.

Long saw his vision grow from one man, to one church, to one denomination, to a broad evangelical coalition. Ultimately, it became a reality. The New International Version of the New Testament was completed in 1973, and in 1978, the full version of the NIV Bible was published.

Today, the NIV is the most widely read Bible in contemporary English, offering readers both accuracy and readability.

“The NIV has been a godsend; it has been a lifesaver,” Long said in 1986. “It’s something people can understand.”