Tuesday Readings - Oct-25 [Recap]

Whoops...missed two weeks. More on that later.


Reading for October 25 was Isaiah 50-52, 1 Thessalonians 5.

Isaiah 50-52:
Finally - some good news for Israel!

• The "Servant Songs" - songs about the listening servant who will comfort the listening people, songs leading to the Messiah and his being beaten for our transgressions. (52 and 53)
• The Lord comforts Zion - reminder of the passing of the Red Sea and the exodus, reminds them that He laid the foundation of the earth, that "You are my people," the time has come for the "cup of staggering" to be put into the hands of Israel's tormentors (chapter 51)
• The defeat of God's people "has brought shame upon his name," "therefore he will vindicate Himself with unmistakable clarity, for His own glory." (52:5-6 - notes)

 1 Thessalonians 5

•  Starts off speaking about Jesus' second coming - like a thief in the night. In the Bible's notes, it talks about how Paul is probably saying this to comfort the Thessalonians who may be concerned that they will not be ready for the second coming. Though the time may come unknowingly we are not "in darkness," so this should not be a surprise for those of us who know the truth, anticipate it and live in the light.
• Paul's final instructions - to respect, speak well of one another, do not let evil become you, help those who are weak, be patient, do not despise prophecy but do not blindly accept it, either. These are good instructions for all Christians, for all of the church.

 
Reading for November 15, 2011 
Jeremiah 43-45, Hebrews 5

Tuesday Readings - Oct 18-11 [recap]

The reading for today was Isaiah 34-36 and Colossians 2. I wasn't as prompt with this reading - I finished it up right before I started this post!

The reading from Isaiah was another weird one and the first two chapters a little hard to get through. I did enjoy the last chapter more though, hearing about how the Israelites were challenged by the Assyrian king on their trust in God. They stood firm and did not respond to the Assyrians, even when they were promised food and their own land (while they were starving, waiting for God to deliver them). One thing the notes in my ESV Bible pointed out was how the Assyrian king continually put God on the same level as the gods of the other nations, saying their gods didn't deliver them, why would your God deliver you? You have to go on to read chapter 37 to know that God does in fact deliver the Israelites by killing almost two hundred Assyrians, and later on the Assyrian king is killed by his own sons!

The reading in Colossians reminded me to always be on guard, even if you are doing well spiritual (probably more so!). The Colossians were being told by some of their leaders that certain rituals, traditions, etc. from before Jesus came were still to be upheld and that they must need to be done to be complete in their spiritual well-being. Paul warns against this that Jesus's death and resurrection was enough for us - we do not need anything else! I also identified with verses 12-13 on baptism - that the rite of baptism is identification w/ Christ's death and resurrection. We had a few people get baptized in church on Sunday who spoke about how they were excited to show everyone they believe in Christ as their Savior and that this baptism was THEIR choice.

I also wanted to share a song that we did on Sunday as a special. We just finished up a series called "Can Smart People Believe in God?" The song is by Sara Groves and is called Maybe There's a Loving God. It resonated with me so hard during the first service that I broke into tears and couldn't finish the last few lines of the song! I held it together more during the second service, but I just love the words the song ends with. Please check out the video.

These were the words that got me - nearly every time I listened to and practiced the song:
    Maybe this was made for me...
    For lying on my back in the middle of a field.
    Maybe that's a selfish thought...
    Maybe there's a loving God.
    Maybe I was made this way -
    To think and to reason and to question and to pray
    And I have never prayed a lot
    But maybe there's a loving God.
    And that may be a foolish thought -
    But maybe there is a God.



Let me know if you read this week as well!


Reading for October 25, 2011  
Isaiah 50-52, 1 Thessalonians 5

Tuesday Readings - Oct 11-11 [recap]

This past week's reading was Isaiah 17-19, Ephesians 5:17-33

I'm proud to say I got this week's reading all done by Wednesday! 

I love reading from my ESV Study Bible. Half the pages are notes or maps regarding the passages. It really gives you a different look at the scriptures that I often times miss.


The reading from Isaiah was a hard one to get through as is a lot of the Old Testament I find. It always seems difficult to find something to relate to. With the study Bible, there were a few notes that sparked my interest in the passage:

• 19:12 - "Human expertise, however brilliant, fails before the overruling purpose of God." Something I need to be daily reminded of - whatever intelligence or wisdom I have in life is always surpassed by God's perfect will and purpose for me.

The reading from Ephesians (I'm going to just write these down as bullets like how I had written them in my notes)

• 5:17 - Understand the "will" of God - is saying we must understand general guidelines, not that we should try to understand his hidden will that we cannot know.
• 5:20 - Giving thanks always and for everything.
• 5:22 - Wives submit to your husbands - means submitting to the "ultimate leadership of the husband for the health and harmonious working of the marriage relationship." [From the notes.] This gives a different perspective on the often "sexist" view that some people get from this passage.
• 5:25 - Husband's love - "husband is bound by love to ensure the wife finds their marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the Lord."  [From the notes.] I like this perspective! Sometimes I think in this day and age we think it's wrong to believe your husband should be your provider and protector. Although I think that many things in a marriage should be equal - a partnership - I am happy to say my husband is the head of our household - though we are still early in our marriage years, we haven't crossed every mountain yet!
• 5:26-27 - Husbands cannot sanctify wives (only Christ can), but they should promote holiness.

Hope you did the reading along with me! Let me know if you did! I'm looking forward to next week's reading!

Reading for October 18, 2011  
Isaiah 34-36, Colossians 2

Tuesday Readings - Oct 4-11

Okay! So it took weeks, but I've finally figured out how to get this blog + Bible reading thing going. It is going to be called "Tuesday Readings."

I will probably be getting my passages from BibleGateway.com under their "Reading Plans" section. I've chosen the Old/New Testament to pick readings from. They post them daily, sections from both the Old and New Testament, and it's technically a one-year study on the entire Bible. I'm not going to lie - I'm no good at reading and studying the Bible, so we're going to work up slow - one section of a few passages per week.

On Tuesdays I'll post about the past week's passage and I'll post what the next week's reading will be (I'm going to try to be consistent and put this at the end of each Tuesday post). If you want, feel free to follow along with me and link up (except I'm not quite sure how this works - I think you just click the "Links to this Post" on the bottom and enter your info? Someone who knows more about this - HELP!!). You can do whatever you want here - write a whole post dedicated to the reading, link up and mention you're doing this with me, or just stop by my blog on Tuesdays and tell me about your thoughts on the passage!

As there was no reading last week, there is no "about the passage" for this week. Some days the "about the passage" might be a lot. Might be in-depth and hard to work through. Other times it will be quick, short and it might not feel like much.

The point of this study is for me and a few of my blogging fellow lady friends out there to keep ourselves accountable and get reading! As I've explained before, I want this to be geared towards young women bloggers, specifically married without children. Again, I'm not trying to exclude anyone, just trying to reach out to ladies out there like me!

These are the friends of mine who have expressed interest!
Alisun from the In-between
Bethany from lee & bethany
Hannah from Unraveling Perfection
Meg from henning love
Staci from SuperYay!
if I missed you - let me know!


So. Let's do this!

Reading for October 11, 2011 
Isaiah 17-19, Ephesians 5:17-33

mid-week update

Some things I've been thinking about this week:

• Tonight I babysat my sweet niece Chloe and got to spend some time chatting with my brother-in-law, Brian. It was nice catching up with him and it's so awesome to be able to get along with my sister and her hubby so well and to call them friends - not just family.
• I'm still definitely interested in doing some sort of Bloggers-Bible something. I'm really hoping to focus this for women - specifically young/young-married and currently without children. I'm not trying to squeeze people out, but I'd like to do internet-Bible-study-type thing with like-minded females who are in the same situations as I am. I have three ladies interested so far, so if you are also interested let me know! I've been tossing ideas around in my head on how we can do this. My thoughts are to have passages to read weekly and to encourage one post a week - about the passages, what you learned, what you question, etc. Anyway - more on this when I get my head wrapped around it.
• My husband is great. He works hard to provide for us and keeps us in check. He doesn't have the benefit of two days a week off, so spending three days with him this past weekend was just so wonderful. 
• I've been really feeling like I need to get my eating and health under control recently. I have a hate-hate relationship with exercise and a love-love-love relationship with food, so it's quite a struggle. I wish I could get motivated about exercise and eating healthy, but what excites me is napping and chocolate.
• This weekend I have a baby shower for a friend of mine that I worked closely with for 2 1/2 years. I also have plans this weekend to see a friend of mine (and her new baby) that I was close with years, but probably haven't seen in almost 2 years!

So. That's what's been going on in my head this week. What's been going on with you?

Bloggers Bible Club?

Lately I've been really feeling the effects of not reading my Bible like I should - and feeling the guilt, though not really doing anything to change it. I had a kind of serious break down this weekend over something ridiculous and I've been struggling with envy/jealousy a lot lately as well, not to mention a general lack of guidance for my career path. I know that my lack of Bible-reading isn't the reason these things are happening, but I'm sure it isn't helping.

I know I don't talk a lot about God or my faith on this blog. It's not that I want it to be a secret, it's just that I've tried to keep a focus on this blog, and it has always been an outlet for my other passions - food and design - while I felt like my God-passion was satisfied through church on Sundays, being in the worship/praise band and occasionally attending small group.

I've always had Christian girlfriends, but as I've been growing up I've noticed most of these friends are no longer my age and are at different stages of life - most are my sister's friends or have kids. The small group I attended with my sister went through it's own changes and is full of married friends now with kids. Most of the friends Josh and I have at church that are our age are in small groups already, and due to his more hectic work schedule, it's hard for us to meet regularly with others.

I've been meeting new blogger friends recently across the globe and it got me to thinking. Is there some sort of Blogging-Bible-Club-Study any of you are a part of or is it something you might be interested in? I'm not even sure how it would work, so I'm definitely open to suggestions. Maybe a certain portion to read weekly and it can be posted about (if you want) or discussed via email? Or maybe even a new blog that anyone in the "club" can contribute too and discussed in the comments?

Please let me know your thoughts or if you have any suggestions of reading plans that you may follow. I know as we get into fall and then winter...that seasonal depression is going to kick in and I need to be prepared and motivated before that gets here!