NIPTO and Encounter were very interesting tonight.
I'm sitting in Panera right now. They're closed. They're having a staff meeting. I'm listening, b'cause I'm really cool like that. Either that, or my sister didn't have time to drive me home before it started. :P
You decide what happened.
(I feel like I can't look at them! Because I feel like it would be creeeepy. But it wouldn't be. But I don't want to attract attention. EEK! haha... I am hoping to get hired here... hm...) It's really interesting to listen to what's goin' on.
They're done. Kinda. I looked over. I don't feel creepy. But I do feel like I attracted a little bit of attention. Wow. I'm over analyzing this. A lot. I don't think it really matters.
So I took electronic notes tonight (aka I brought my laptop and typed. WOOHOO) so it should be slightly easier to work on this tonight. Not as much actual remembering as referencing. (Someone *cough*Brandon*cough* was impressed that I could look elsewhere when I type. I stated the fact that I type a lot. And he pointed out that I blog every single day. Massive amounts. "One post is about how much I blog in an entire YEAR!" Yup.)
Okay. I'm home now. The day's stories have been mostly told. I'm sure they will be told over and over again. I love youth group stories. And I'll tell you one right now.
Tonight, for our game, we had a Karaoke-off. Team 1 (Hannah, Katie, and Jessica) sang "In The Jungle", Team 2 (Sam, Matt, and Ashley) sang Leave (Get out) by Jojo... no one knew it well besides Brandon, and Team 3 (Me, Meg, and Connie) sang "A Whole New World."
Team 1 won, probably because of Hannah's harmonizing. But I think I had the most fun singing "A Whole New World" because it has to be one of my favorite Disney songs. In fact, because I love it so much, it's going to be a YouTube video today! BOOYAHHHHH. You might have to turn it up a little bit. But that's okay. It's sooooo worth it!
Did you watch it? If you didn't. CLICK ON PLAY! haha.
Today is Day 21 (beginning of week 3!) of 100 Days of Holiness! Woot! This was a good devotional.Go read it. It's good. (I'm going to demand that you do a lot of reading tonight. It's a long'un. So be prepared)
Okay. So for NIPTO tonight, we read through
Revelation 2:18-29
18"To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. 19I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first. 20Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. 23I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. 24Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): 25Only hold on to what you have until I come. 26To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—
27'He will rule them with an iron scepter;
he will dash them to pieces like pottery'— just as I have received authority from my Father. 28I will also give him the morning star. 29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Okay. So I didn't write anything. You should've just read that through straight. Okay?
Now, I'm going to go back through it and interject Brandon's, Erin's, Hannah's, and my thoughts into this. (It is taking me forever to write this! I feel like I'm having an intense bout of ADD... not to mention that it feels like it's about 50 bazillion degrees in here b/c I'm sitting on my bed (warm) with my laptop (REALLY HOT) on my lap. I'm going to go get a fan. Maybe it'll help.(elapse about 2 minutes) Oh my goodness. It got cooler&cooler with every step going down... and hotter and hotter with every step coming up. But now I have a nice breeze from the fan blowing on me. And I don't have my laptop on my lap any more. But my eyeballs feel like they're about to fall out after having contacts in all day... and wearing mascara. And now there's dry air blowing on my face. I'll survive I guess. =P OKAY. Done rambling!)
Revelation 2:18-29
18"To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
I'm coming back to this. Meet me at the bottom after you've finished reading this. (Yes. that was a super-secret-spy-mission like Morgan gets on Chuck! ha! (Lost finale tonight is nothing. Well, maybe it is. I mean, it is the series finale. But there is a 2 hour Chuck finale tomorrow night that I am STOKED for!) Back to your spy mission: read the rest of this, and
19I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.
Okay. Just in case you've forgotten how the "Revelation structure/outline" goes, here's a brief rundown: Intro/who Jesus is, where the church currently is, overcomer statement. (That's basically it.)
This was one of the verses that stuck out to me. God knows what's goin' on. He knows when we're going through tough things and we stay faithful. Which is amazing. He knows when we're trying and when we're not. He knows when we're not being challenged enough, and he'll give us something that might seem like too much. But it never is! Crazy.
20Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. 21I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. 22So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.
Something that was a pattern in every single letter that Jesus is writing through John was a call to repentance. Repentance was something that we talked about a lot tonight. If the people reading these letters hadn't realized that this was about repentance, they probably would've gotten it then. Because this was crazzzzy. Like. Seriously. Keep reading. It gets crazier.
23I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
Are you serious, John?!?! Striking children dead?!?! Yes. Striking the children of the one who didn't repent dead. Notice verse 21. That's not in this section. But scroll up. Read it. Go. Now.
Okay, are you back? yeah. okay. good. It says that he gave her time to repent. But she didn't.
Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds. UHM. RIDICULOUS! God is crazy ridiculous. He searches hearts and minds. "... and I will repay each of you according to your deeds." That, my dear readers, is called judgment.
Earlier tonight, I wrote this: God is judging by proving that he saw hearts and minds. He wasn't messing around. God doesn't play games. He was serious.
And it's true. It's important to remember that one day we will stand accountable for our actions. And if we haven't accepted the fact that Jesus died to save us, we will be punished for our actions. But if we believe that Jesus died for us, he'll step in between and take our punishment. He already took our punishment while he was hanging on the cross. He died so we wouldn't have to. Ridiculous.
24Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan's so-called deep secrets (I will not impose any other burden on you): 25Only hold on to what you have until I come.
He's basically saying "Keep on keepin' on!" You're doing well so far. Just keep doing what you're doing. Hold on to what you have. Hold on until I come. I'm coming. [As surely as the sun will rise, you'll come for us. Certain as the dawn appears]
26To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations—
27'He will rule them with an iron scepter;
he will dash them to pieces like pottery'— just as I have received authority from my Father. 28I will also give him the morning star.
OVERCOMER STATEMENT! These tend to be a favorite point of discussion during NIPTO. This one especially. Brandon had Hannah read it. She read verse 26. And then he made her stop. Authority. Over the NATIONS. Okay. Keep reading: Verse 27. SCEPTER! OH SNAP! We get scepters! I'm sitting here laughing. Because it was funny. I love NIPTO/Encounter/youth group. It's always really encouraging.
Then there's this mysterious "morning star" thing. Hannah is supposed to be googling/reading up/researching that this week. I'll let you know if she finds anything interesting. As Brandon said "if it's something we're getting, we might want to know what it is!" Amen to that! haha
29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Do you have ears? Yeah. Okay. Then you have no excuse to not hear what the Spirit said to the churches. Because it's there. All you have to do is listen.
Oh, hey! Remember your super-secret-spy-mission? Yeah. I almost forgot about it! OOPS. But I didn't, so I guess that's all that matters =P
18"To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
Okay. So the picture of Jesus that is presented to this church has eyes like blazing fire. We were talking about how this really kind of corresponds to verse 23. His eyes that are like blazing fire search our hearts and minds. I think it's a crazy kind of picture to imagine. But does that make sense? Would you agree with that?
One of the heavily discussed points tonight was Forgiveness vs. Repentance.
Is God's forgiveness conditional based on repentance?
What's your opinion? I have a few answers that I'll probably throw into tomorrow's post, or next week's post. (I think I might start a tag that's something along the lines of NIPTO Sundays or something like that so all of these Revelation posts go together for easy referencing.)
That's all for tonight. The talk at Encounter was interesting. We're going through the Summer Lovin' series. It's about sex and relationships and whatnot. Tonight was about homosexuality. There were some interesting points brought up. I'm not going to address anything right now. Because it's late and I want to sleep. But if you're really curious, e-mail me or facebook me, or comment on this and I'll give you a rundown of what went down :)
(Speaking of Summer Lovin', last year we did a "Late Night Encounter" where we watched a movie and discussed the theme of love throughout it. This movie just happened to be one of my favorite movies of all time. Do you know what it is?
The Princess Bride. And I was reminded of it because I have this gorgeous black&white photograph of Westley and Buttercup standing together before Westley leaves to sail the ocean blue. And it's so cute. And it reminds me of love. (Is this a Kissing Book?) And that's all. Well. Not quite. If you've never seen The Princess Bride, GO GET IT. Or ask me to borrow it. We have the VHS and DVD. Soooo you can borrow one or the other :) Okay. Now I'm done with that)
Today, when we drove to church, it was SUPER foggy. Like, when we drove over the bridge in Akron, you couldn't see anything. It was like driving through a white tunnel! It was crazy! I wish I had gotten my camera out to take pictures, but I didn't. Speaking of pictures, I'll try to put the grad party pictures up on facebook tomorrow. I'll link them here. It takes too much time to upload them all on here. But I'll try to write a post about the party. Because it was awesome!
Goodnight lovely blog readers. Let me know if I forgot anything important. I'm tired. It's late. I'm getting kinda bug eyed... HEH. Love you all!
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