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You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says Yahweh, and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh; and I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive. Jeremiah 29:13–14 WEB. Israel was on a slow...

He said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus said to him, "Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." Luke 23:42–43 WEB. As they hung there bleeding on the crosses they had been nailed to, one of the two thieves beside Jesus asked Him to remember him when He came into His kingdom. Jesus replied, "Today, you will be with Me in paradise." So even...

I have said these things to you, while still living with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you. John 14:25–26 WEB. My heart was racing, and I had no answers. Then I mindlessly rested my hand on the little box, and another light came on. When I moved my hand away, it went out. The...

Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin. A bondservant doesn't live in the house forever. A son remains forever. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." John 8:34–36 WEB. As I dropped the heavy luggage in the hotel lobby, the sound echoed through the room. I had lugged it nearly a mile in the August heat, and I was...

Holy Week from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo. Today marks the beginning of Holy Week—the week leading up to the most important events in Jesus' life. Tradition tells us that Holy Week began on Palm Sunday, around 33 AD. At that time, Jesus was in his early thirties. We use the BC/AD dating system, which was established around his birth,...

I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. John 10:28–29 WEB. We often worry about so many things in this life, but when all is stripped away, the fact remains that we are held in God's strong hands. When you give your life to Jesus,...

God said to Abraham, "As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but her name shall be Sarah. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. Yes, I will bless her, and she will be a mother of nations. Kings of peoples will come from her." Then Abraham fell on his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, "Will a child be born to him who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah,...

Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water." But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. John 7:37–39 WEB. It gets really hot here in South Carolina during late summer. The air conditioners...

He said to the woman, "Yes, has God said, You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?" The woman said to the serpent, "Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die." The serpent said to the woman, "You won't surely die, for God knows that in the day...

Yahweh appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you. Jeremiah 31:3 WEB. So many times in my life, I've stumbled in some way. Then I began to feel that I had let God down, failed Him, and should just give up. I felt like He was disappointed in me anyway. I would sulk and walk away like a puppy with his tail between his...

Gideon said to God, If you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken, behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor; if there be dew on the fleece only, and it be dry on all the ground, then shall I know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have spoken. It was so; for he rose up early on the next day, and pressed the fleece together, and wrung the dew out of the fleece, a...

The God of the Valley from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo. The human brain is a natural gap-filler—it quickly fills in missing details even when we don't give it the whole picture. For instance, if I simply say "dog," you likely picture an image in your mind based on your own experiences, even before I mention the breed. The same applies...

Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the form of his appearance was changed against ccc. He spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their...

So Hannah rose up after they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh. Now Eli the priest was sitting on his seat by the doorpost of Yahweh's temple. She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to Yahweh, weeping bitterly. 1 Samuel 1:9–10 WEB. Hannah poured out her heart to the Lord. She wanted a child so badly that the rest of her life seemed empty, and nothing else mattered. Her husband, Elkanah,...

When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters were taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep. David's two wives were taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite. David was greatly distressed, for the...

Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said; but make me a little cake from it first, and bring it out to me, and afterward make some for you and for your son. For Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, 'The jar of meal will not run out, and the jar of oil will not fail, until the day that Yahweh sends rain on the earth.' " She went and did according to the saying of Elijah; and she,...

Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can't bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:4–5 WEB. The ministry of Jesus, from the first recorded miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding...

Moses said to the people, "Don't be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of Yahweh, which he will work for you today: for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall never see them again. Yahweh will fight for you, and you shall be still." Yahweh said to Moses, "Why do you cry to me? Speak to the children of Israel, that they go forward." Exodus 14:13–15 WEB. Moses and the Israelite...

Who Was Matthew from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo. How much do we know about Matthew, who became one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus? We know that Matthew was the son of Alphaeus (Mark 2:14). Another of Jesus' disciples, James the Lesser, is also identified as the son of Alphaeus. However, it seems unlikely that the two were closely related....

The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' "But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let's eat and celebrate; for this, my son, was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.' Then they...

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. He ate nothing in those days. Afterward, when they were completed, he was hungry. Luke 4:1-2 WEB. In music, harmony is one of the most beautiful sounds. There is nothing like it when a band has worked hard to blend the backing vocals and some instruments...

The Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and to the animals of the field." Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you and take...

He said, "What is God's Kingdom like? To what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and put in his own garden. It grew and became a large tree, and the birds of the sky live in its branches." Luke 13:18-19 WEB. I can look at the magnificent oak tree in our yard and remember what it looked like forty years ago when we first moved here. It was a small, skinny thing...

He said, "Come!" Peter stepped down from the boat, and walked on the waters to come to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was strong, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and said to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matthew 14:29–31 WEB. The wind suddenly grew stronger as Peter walked...

Jesus therefore answered them, "Most certainly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing. For whatever things he does, these the Son also does likewise. John 5:19 WEB. Their eyes welled up with tears as I handed them the envelope. They knew what was inside it, for though they had told no one, they had silently prayed for help. All the while, they were trying...

The Shadow from Refreshing Hope Ministries on Vimeo. When I was around ten, a well-meaning soul took me bar-hopping after a long day of fishing. Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and I do believe that's what they would have liked done to them. It was a fairly common occurrence. That was a school day, so they stopped in,...

Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" He said, "Certainly...

He told them this parable. "Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn't leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?" Luke 15:3–4 WEB. One night, I had a vivid dream where a person who had attended our church was suffering and in great pain. In the dream, they had huge painful sores covering their body. I held...

God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, filled the bottle with water, and gave the boy drink. Genesis 21:19 WEB. The hours passed by while I struggled with a bug in a computer program I had written. I finally gave up and walked out of the room to get away from it for a bit. Why did this have to be so annoyingly difficult today, I thought. It should have been a ten-minute job, but...

Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. Daniel 6:23 WEB. Daniel had spent a long night in a lion's den. The stench of rotting meat and lion poo had to be pretty intense in there. Daniel was just trying to serve God as best as he could...