NIPTO, Day 344

Hey-o! Today's been pretty chill. Just school... I took my physics test that had been haunting me over the weekend. I was glad to get that over with. And I did well on it too :)

Mom and Dad took Hannah back to Kent after dinner (Mac&Cheese (home-made), ham, glazed carrots, and crescent rolls) and now I'm watching Chuck. It's SO GOOD! And I just ate a brownie. And now Chuck is sad. But not too sad. Just, ya know, sad enough. And now it's over :( Next week shall be awesome!

NIPTO and then bed, methinks.
I'm starting the Timothys today :)

1 Timothy 1:1-7

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

 ² To Timothy my true son in the faith:

   Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul wrote this letter to Timothy. He wrote this as instructions to Timothy, who was a young man/Christian who was also a leader at the time. 

Timothy Charged to Oppose False Teachers

 ³ As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer ⁴ or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God’s work—which is by faith.


Paul encouraged Timothy to stay in Ephesus so that he could teach people who were believing wrong doctrines. These people were believing and devoting themselves to myths and genealogies. Believing those things encouraged speculation rather than faith.




⁵ The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. ⁶ Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. ⁷ They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.


The goal of the command that Paul gave was love. Love that comes from a pure heart with a good conscience and sincere faith. Some people had turned away from love and turned to gossip and meaningless words. Those people wanted to be teachers of the law, but they had no idea what they were talking about or endorsing. 
Hm. Interesting.




I'm going to go to bed. And write more tomorrow. My first ballet class is tomorrow, and I'm a little freaked out! Ha. Prayers are greatly appreciated. It's the first class, so I'm not too worried about being super productive. But getting rules established and whatnot is important, I guess.
Alright. Sleep. 
G'night!

NIPTO, Day 343

Wow. I'm approaching the 1 year mark of blogging. Every day. 3 weeks tomorrow. WOW.

Today, a once in a blue moon thing happened: we went to one church service and didn't have to do anything. Except for Dad who always takes notes/records the sermon. So that was normal "stuff to do," but this was almost unprecedented. I didn't have small group, Mom wasn't in the nursery, we weren't doing music... so we were free to go to one service. So we slept in and headed to church at 10:30. Got to church, hung out with people and chatted and whatnot before the service started. Church happened. Hung out with people some more. Talked and whatnot. Came home and ate lunch (leftover pizza from Coccia house!), looked through Katie's pictures that she took in FRANCE, and now Dad's watching football, Hannah and Mom are getting stuff together for Hannah to take back to school tonight, and I'm blogging. Exciting, eh?

NIPTO? Yes! (Last day of Haggai)
Haggai 2:20-23
²⁰ The word of the LORD came to Haggai a second time on the twenty-fourth day of the month: ²¹ “Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I am going to shake the heavens and the earth. ²² I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother.

God came and told Haggai to tell the governor a couple things. #1 from God: I'm going to shake the earth. Booyah. And God was going to overturn the throne of royalty and he was going to completely destroy the foreign kingdoms. He was going to overthrow the armies. I wonder what the governor thought about that...

 ²³ “‘On that day,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

#2 thing that God told the governor: When the armies are overthrown, God was going to take Zerubbabel and he would make him "like my signet ring." Wow. Signet rings showed importance. The person who had the signet ring had power. 

So that was important. God had chosen Zerubbabel. Good for 

I must away to get ready to go. So I will blog tomorrow!

Adios!

NIPTO, Day 342

Whew! Today has been a whirlwind!
I got up and got ready for the day and then headed to Brandon's house for youth leadership. We planned a bunch of stuff for the next couple of months. So that's exciting!
After that we went to Wooster to meet up with Uncle Randy, Aunt Mary Jo, Kata, and Troy! It was super fun to catch up with everyone :)
After we caught up with them, we went to Coccia House for dinner. Awesomesauce pizza. Seriously, the sauce was awesome. Super good pizza. And then we came home. And I had officially been gone for 10 hours.
So we watched some TV (What Not To Wear and Psych) and now I'm blogging. And will probably go to bed after this.

Sooooo NIPTO?

Haggai 2:10-19
 ¹⁰ On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai: ¹¹ “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: ¹² If someone carries consecrated meat in the fold of their garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, olive oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’”

   The priests answered, “No.”

God decided to ask the priests some questions. And here's what he asked them: If someone carries "holy" food of some sort, does what they're carrying it with become holy? The answer... uhhh no. 

 ¹³ Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?”

   “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.”

Then God (through Haggai) asked if a person who was defiled by touching a dead person touches something else, does whatever that person touch become defiled? The answer: Yes, yes it does. 

 ¹⁴ Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.

God saw the people of that time as defiled. Whatever they did and offered was seen as defiled because they weren't a holy and consecrated people.

 ¹⁵ “‘Now give careful thought to this from this day on—consider how things were before one stone was laid on another in the LORD’s temple. ¹⁶ When anyone came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When anyone went to a wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were only twenty. ¹⁷ I struck all the work of your hands with blight, mildew and hail, yet you did not return to me,’ declares the LORD.

Give careful thought. That is a phrase that is used a whole lot in this book. It seems like these people didn't think carefully about anything, really. But maybe they did. But God told them to think carefully and to think about how things were before anything had been laid for His temple. When things weren't as plentiful. God had plagued them, but they didn't go back to him.

¹⁸ ‘From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the LORD’s temple was laid. Give careful thought: ¹⁹ Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.

   “‘From this day on I will bless you.’”

God told them that, from that day on, they were to think carefully about the day when the foundation of the temple was laid. They were to think about what they had. Because from that day forward God said he would bless him. 

That is all for tonight.
May God bless you from this day on.

NIPTO, Day 341

Hola!

Today's been school, babysitting, dinner, cleaning up, trying to figure out what's wrong with "my" computer (not Mom's!), and now watching Benny & Joon! It's sooooooo good! So funny. But the Jack-In-The-Box is creepy. But I love Joon and Sam. They're cute.

That's all about today. Tomorrow I'm going to Youth Leadership at BK's house and then we're going to see Uncle Randy, Aunt Mary Jo, Kata, and Troy :) So that should be fun. I'll try to take lots of pictures.

NIPTO.
Haggai 2:1-9
 In the second year of King Darius, ¹ on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai:

God spoke to Haggai again. On the 21st day of the 7th month.



² “Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, to Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people. Ask them, ³ ‘Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing?


God told Haggai to speak to the governor and high priest and the people who were left. He told him to ask them who was left who saw the original temple. God told him to ask what they thought of it.




 ⁴ But now be strong, Zerubbabel,’ declares the LORD. ‘Be strong, Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ⁵ ‘This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’


God told them to be strong and to work. He was with them, therefore they had no reason to fear. 




 ⁶ “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. ⁷ I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.

God told them what he was going to do: he was going to shake the heavens and the earth. He was going to shake the nations. "And what is desired by all nations will come." What that means, I have no idea. But God was going to fill his house with glory.


⁸ ‘The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty. ⁹ ‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

God claimed the gold and silver. He told them that the glory of this new temple would be even greater than the last. And there he would grant peace. Peace was pretty big to those people, I'm guessing. I'm just guessing. 




And now I'm going to go to bed or something. I have to get up and leave at 9:30... booo Brandon boo. hah.
So goodnight (or good morning to Kate, if she reads this when she wakes up in France... hahah :)

NIPTO, Day 340

Heyoooo.

Today has been... busy.
Got up and got ready for the day and whatnot. Then did a tiny bit o' school. Then Angie brought Zakk, Derek, and Emily over. And so I did some kinda sorta school and held Em and eventually ended getting her to go to sleep. But I just wrote "getting her to go to school." Erm. I'm obviously not paying attention/I haven't gotten enough sleep. (Which is a tough thing to say, because I've been getting at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a night. Ha.)
So then I did school. And more school. And ate lunch. And worked on physics for FOREVER. Like I just finished after dinner. (Including working through babysitting. It was a long day of physics.) And I babysat. And came home and relaxed and watched part of an episode of Make It or Break It. And thennn ate dinner and worked on physics. And now I'm not working on physics any more. So yes. That's a good thing. I'm done with school for tonight!

For Hannah: What we had for dinner tonight: Leftover chicken rice soup with a grilled cheese for me. Soup for Mom with toast, and leftovers from last night for Dad.

And that's all for now. Sooo NIPTO.

Haggai 1:13-15
 ¹³ Then Haggai, the LORD’s messenger, gave this message of the LORD to the people: “I am with you,” declares the LORD.


So Haggai told all the people what God had told him to say. And what that was was "I am with you," declares the LORD. God is with us. And he'll never leave us. :)




¹⁴ So the LORD stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of the whole remnant of the people. They came and began to work on the house of the LORD Almighty, their God, ¹⁵ on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month.


God stirred up the spirit of the governor and the high priest AND "of the whole remnant of the people." And because he did that, they started to work on the temple. On the 24th day of the 6th month none the less ;)






I think I'm going to relax. Maybe watch some tv. Maybe work on some stuff for Student Leadership on Saturday... Who knows!