Sure Hope Gazette

Hi guys. we were recently encouraged during these challenging times to always hang on tight to the Rock of our Salvation. A dear friend sent us these Scriptures as a reminder. Dear Lord please encourage all who read Your Word and help us all to remember always to hold on to You. Help us not to worry, but to rest, knowing Your Word reassures us that we have no reason to fear or worry. For anyone reading this post, searching for the meaning of life and Sure Hope, please stir their hearts and draw them to You Lord Jesus. Help them to know that being a Christian is a relationship with Jesus and not following a religion. They Jesus loves everyone, inspire of what we may feel. Thank You Father for your love and forgiveness. Please bless all who read Your Word, helping them wherever they need help. We love you Lord. In Jesus' Name I pray, Amen [ Jhn 16:33 NLT ] 33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart...

[Jhn 1:14 NLT] 14 So the Word became human and made His home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son.

Our other blog is called Walking, Way Overrated, about our life in general. The desire to share this is to hopefully, encourage whoever may need it, if anyone. Since I have been encouraged by others on the world wide web during trying times, hopefully someone out there may need to hear this. Only God knows. watch Part 1 watch Part 2

God's Word is full of prophecies about what is to come. Many prophecies, the most important the ones about the coming Anointed One or Messiah, Who is Jesus Christ have been fulfilled. So those who are waiting for their Saviour, He is Here! One of my favourite prophecies was written  about 600-700 years BC! It is so Awesome to read about what was to happen,  happened.... [Isa 53:7-12 ESV] 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to g...

The Bible According To Hollywood i s a great presentation from T.A. McMahon from the  The Berean Call  ministry, about the recent surge of "Bible Based" productions. Thankfully, a Christian who is equally concerned about why miss representing the Bible in Hollywood isn't a great thing at all. Sadly, there have been many Christian leaders who have promoted and endorsed these productions. They believe it is at least something about the Bible, that maybe it will get people reading the Bible. That of course could happen, God can use anything to spur us to open His Word.  However, these productions are so blasphemous and distorted, it causes more concern than hopefulness. When we checked them out for research purposes, knowing they are Hollywood born, we are aware that they will not be biblically accurate. In fact, we only watch them so we can critique them to know just how much  they are misinterpreting the Bible and warn those who want to know about them. Tragica...

As an artist, my hands are generally busy creating. Something that I find valuable is listening to audio Bibles. I know before I was talking about the whole, "which english translation is best," debate and the King James was winning out at the time. But since then, I am here to say that as of now, I believe God has provided His preserved perfect Word. Regardless of the translation, as long as they all have the same heart or meaning, then it is good to read. English wasn't even around when the earliest Biblical manuscripts were penned by God through men. So I have given up the battle and all the anxiety that was stirring within, worrying about doing the right thing. It is great to read the KJV, if you can understand it. But, so are many other (not all) translations. In fact the one I am about to share, the New Living Translation, apparently is a paraphrase. So even though I love the flow of words and ease of comprehension, I know I need to keep it next to a literal or ...

GENESIS Audio bible link GENESIS Audio bible link

"Inductive"  simply means  to use logic induction and reasoning by examining the particulars, facts, and essence of a text, such as context and word meanings first before making any conclusions. "  Have you ever listened to or read someone's testimony or teaching about their relationship with Jesus Christ and their words affected your heart, stirring that longing to be as close as you possibly can with Jesus? So you vow from that moment on to get studying and reading, praying and learning. You even buy a new Bible, a note book and some fancy new coloured highlighting pencils! Then the sun rises on the next day and before you even got started, there you are distracted with life. In my case, whatever impulse that has caught my attention, be it sewing, organizing, drawing, yapping, creating, writing, watching cooking videos...whatever it may be. Poof, the sun sets and my new notebook is unmarked. Thankfully, we can't earn favour with God and He knows our hearts...

Translation Matters? Have you ever cared about what Bible translation you read? When I first became a Christian I never even knew there were over two hundred Bible translations. My first Bible was what I later learned is called a "paraphrase," called the Good News version. Easy to understand and it even had simple illustrations. It was a gift from my dear Grandma when I turned thirteen. At the time, I was foolishly  Grade 12 Graduation and my dear Grandma - 1984   disappointed that I got a Bible for my birthday.  At thirteen, narcissistic was me! Uninterested in the meaning of life that year, busy trying to be cool, a tad narcissistic, busy smoking in the school yard, wearing my first pair of "La Cullotier" jeans, over plucking my eye brows, and using my trusty, handy dandy tape recorder, to record the 580 CKPR  top ten countdown, oh yes, and writing, "Anita loves Allan" on every surface I could find. Ashamedly, I ignored the precious gift of l...

Wares For Sale If you live in a house, it is quite likely that you have had visitors rap at your door who are selling something, be it energy, vacuums, or avon. As we know, sales people make their livelihood from what they sell, so as unnerving as it can be sometimes, it's understandable why they often talk to you as if they hear nothing you say, especially after you have told them, "no, not interested." In fact these days, be it by phone call or a home visit, I am not very polite because, even while they are speaking, I will firmly declare, "I am not interested, have a good day, BYE!" Hanging up the phone without their acknowledgement, in fact as they are speaking - it is a sure way to avoid being lured into whatever product/service it is they are offering. Door To Door But when you are face to face with a stranger, standing in your open doorway, (opened often, without being invited in, with one foot on your threshold) and they insist on continuing their...

Wow, the more I study God's Word to find the answers to so many things, I am in awe. In fact, the more I hear Christian leaders who talk as if we can't know the answers to the big questions in life, that we are left to speculate on topics such as death, heaven and hell and such, the more I say, "not true!" I am not sure what Bible they are reading, I assume it is the same one as I read, but why don't they see it? God tells us exactly what He wants us to know. Just go to an online Bible such as  http://www.blueletterbible.org  and check it out for yourself. Don't depend on others, God already covered it all. Sure there are some things we don't know for sure, but we trust Him enough to know, that He knows what He is doing. He is worth all of our trust, let Him have His mysteries because after all, He is God and He knows what we can handle and what we can't.  And actually, those who are claiming we can never know the answers to key questions, so we ca...

2Cr 5:14-21 NLT - Whatever we do, it is because Christ's love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for everyone, we also believe that we have all died to the old life we used to live.  He died for everyone so that those who receive His New Life will no longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though He were merely a human being. How differently I think about Him now!   What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A New Life has begun!  All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting ...