Posted on April 9, 2013 by Becca

Sign the Romeike petition!

Sign the Romeike petition!

Sign the Romeike petition!

You only have to be 13 to sign the petition!

http://wh.gov/sd2U

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Posted on April 1, 2013 by Becca

Χιαρετε εν Κυριω παντοτε. Παλιν ερω χιαρετε.

Rejoice in the Lord alway.  Again I say rejoice!  ~Philippians 4:4

Posted in Art, Encouragement, God's Word, Home Schooling, Photography | 4 Comments

Easter Blog Bash 2013

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Becca

Hi everyone!

Some friends and I are doing an Easter Blogging Bash – we’re all posting Easter posts on various topics today.  Check out the links at the bottom of this post to see the rest of the Easter Blog Bash posts!

Photo Credit

::The Significance of Christ’s Resurrection::

Easter is the time each year when we stop to celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead.  There are many aspects of Easter, but the focus of this post is the resurrection – specifically what is the signification of Christ’s resurrection?  Why does it matter?

Romans chapter six says,

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?  May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?  Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection…

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.  For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”

This post is about the resurrection, but obviously Christ’s death had to precede His resurrection.  According to this verse, if you have been baptized into Christ Jesus, you were baptized into His death.  You have died with Him and are release from sin.  Wow.  That’s great!  But it gets better, “so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” Having died with Christ we now, also live with Him.  Think about it.  If Christ was raised from the dead and therefore cannot die again, and if you died with Him and were therefore raised with Him, then death no longer has mastery over you just as it no longer has mastery over Him.  We are called to live in light of this truth and not allow sin to reign over us.

But it gets better still, Romans eight tells us that Christ was raised to the right hand of God and is interceding for us.  We don’t just have our sins forgiven we have this power that He gives us and we are assured that absolutely nothing can separate us from His love.  We are more than conquerors through Him!

Christ’s resurrection also proved that He was the Son of God (Ro 1:4), allows us to have a good conscience toward God (1Pe 3:21), and gives us a lively hope (1Pe 1:3).

Remember this as you celebrate Easter this year.  We truly have something worth celebrating!

More Easter Blog Bash 2013 posts:

The Signification of Christ’s Death

Easter Eggs

The History of Easter

Posted in God's Word | 2 Comments

Word Study ~ Baptize

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Becca

The sermon at church yesterday was on baptism.  Today during school I looked up the Greek word, here’s what I found:

βαπτίζω (baptizo) – I baptize, dip repeatedly, immerse, cleanse

This word should not be confused with baptô (911). The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (baptô) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizô) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change.

- From Blueletterbible.org

This is the word used in Matthew 1:11, 13-14 and Matthew 28:19 as well as 61 other places in the NT.

“The second…produces a permanent change.”  Isn’t that neat?

Posted in Bible Study, God's Word, Home Schooling | 3 Comments

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Becca

“It is a common temptation of Satan to make us give up the reading of the Word and prayer when our enjoyment is gone; as if it were of no use to read the Scriptures when we do not enjoy them, and as if it were no use to pray when we have no spirit of prayer. The truth is that in order to enjoy the Word, we ought to continue to read it, and the way to obtain a spirit of prayer is to continue praying. The less we read the Word of God, the less we desire to read it, and the less we pray, the less we desire to pray.”

– George Muller

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Two Teams going to State!!!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Becca

So proud of you boys!

More pictures coming. :-)

Posted in Family Happenings, Home Schooling | 5 Comments

Summary of Romans

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Becca

I’m continuing to enjoy studying Romans.  This is day # 40 for me.  I can’t recommend this enough.  Just taking the time to read a portion of scripture over and over can teach you SO much.  Romans is an especially important book for witnessing and understanding the gospel and our identity in Christ, but this could totally apply to any book – or part of a book – of the Bible.  So, here is my summary of the book.  Several other study methods that I’ve found helpful this time around are:

*word studies – looking up the word in the dictionary (especially Webster’s 1828) & then in Strong’s Concordance (look if you use a different translation than the KJV, like I do, then look up the number that goes with the word that is used there, so you can get an idea how the Greek word is used and what it means).  Blueletterbible.org is great for this!

*marking in my Bible,

*and, of course, memorizing.

I’m still working on getting an outline that I’m happy with, but if I come up with one I’ll probably post it here.

Here’s my summary:

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul writes to the church at Rome.  He greets them and tells of his longing to visit them.  Paul them explains that God is clearly visible to all men in the things He has made, but men still choose to disobey Him and therefore bring His wrath on themselves.  He goes on to say that this even includes the Jews, who have God’s law, because the outward signs of the law are not enough.  It is the circumcision of the heart by the Holy Spirit that counts.  God is utterly faithful and jut, but all men have sinned – and sin brings death.  There is a solution though: we can be justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Paul, uses the example of Abraham to prove that just as Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness before he was circumcised (Genesis 15), we can also be justified by faith apart from works.  Because of this we – who have been justified by faith – now have peace, joy, and hope as a result of Christ’s sacrifice.  He explains that one man’s sin brought death into the world, but one man’s righteousness brought life.  having been baptized in Jesus we died with Him to sin, but are alive with Him to God.  There fore we should offer our bodies to God as “instruments of righteousness” instead of offering them to sin.  You are either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness.  And it is far better, Paul argues, to be a slave to righteousness, because it leads to holiness and eternal life while sin brings shame.  Through Christ Jesus we have also died to the law, so we now serve through the Spirit.  The law was holy and showed us what sin was, but sin put us to death through the law.  The law is now fulfilled in us who live by the Spirit.  We have the Spirit of Christ who is also the Spirit of Sonship and is interceding for us.  We have our minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The whole creation, Paul says, is groaning and waiting with us, but God is working for our good and nothing can separate us from His love.  We are truly more than conquerors through Him!

Posted in Bible Study, God's Word | 3 Comments

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Becca


Posted in Family Happenings, Home Schooling, Photography | 2 Comments

Studying Romans

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Becca

Last week my friend, Grace, asked me if I wanted to join her and some other friends who were reading through Romans 1-8 everyday for 50 days.  It is helpful to read all of those chapters together, so you can follow the ‘flow’ of thought and understand the verses in context and, of course, spending extra time in God’s Word is always beneficial.

It was actually really great timing for me, because I was already working on memorizing the beginning of Romans, so I decided to join them.  Today is day #9 for me and so far it has been great!  I’m looking forward to continuing to learn and understand more  about this passage that is so important for understanding the gospel.

Anyone want to join us?  Here’s Grace’s post about it.

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Making Yogurt

Posted on January 22, 2013 by Becca

Hi Everyone!

I’m making yogurt tonight and I thought I’d share our recipe with you all.  There are lots of different ways to make yogurt, but here’s how we do it.

Ingredients ~ We use 1/2 gallon of milk and 1/2 cup of store bought yogurt for starter.

We buy our milk from Chisholm Family Farm weekly.  We usually get it on Tuesday and so Tuesday night I make yogurt.

Heat the milk on low to 180 degrees. (We use a meat thermometer.) After you do it enough times you can tell when its getting close just by the way it looks.

Now, cool the milk to 110-120 degrees.  If you add the starter when it’s too hot it will kill the cultures you are trying to grow.

Mix 1 cup of cooled milk with your starter yogurt in a separate container and then add it back into the rest of the milk.  The goal is to introduce, but not incorporate the yogurt into the milk.  There should still be chunks.

Pour the whole mixture into a glass container.

Now you should rinse the pot out with cold water (this helps get rid of the milk) then fill it with very warm water and place your container of yogurt in the water to warm the container.

After 5-10 minutes take it out and incubate it (I put it in the oven with the light on.  You want it to be less than 200 degrees in there.) for about 12 hours.

Put it in the fridge to chill and it’s ready to eat!

Enjoy!

Posted in Cooking | 2 Comments