Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our Reading titled, Raffed Into God's Family, was written by Nancy Gavalanus.

During a visit with my father to his beloved Ecuador a few years ago, we visited the family

farm where he grew up. I noticed a group of strange trees. My dad explained that when he was

feeling mischievous as a boy, he would take a discarded branch from one fruit tree, make slits

in a different kind of fruit tree, and tie the loose branch to the trunk like he saw

the grown-up stew. His pranks went unnoticed, until those trees started bearing different fruit

than expected. As my dad described the process of engrafting, I got a picture of what it means for us

to be grafted into God's family.

I know my late father is in heaven because he was grafted into God's family through faith in Jesus.

We can have the assurance of eventually being in heaven as well.

The Apostle Paul explained to the believers in Rome that God made a way for Gentiles or non-Jews to be reconciled with himself, saying in Romans chapter 11,

You, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root.

When we put our faith in Christ, we're grafted in with Him and become part of God's family.

John 155 reads,

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Similar to engrafted trees, when we place our trust in Christ, we become a new creation and can bear much fruit.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Romans chapter 11 versus 11 through 21.

Again, I ask, did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all. Rather, because of their

transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their

transgression means riches for the world and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much

greater riches will their full inclusion bring? I am talking to you Gentiles. And as much as

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