The Life And Death In Christmas

Merry Christmas everybody! Okay, I'm a little late, but you might as well listen to me anyway.
Yesterday at church, Mr. Fowler stressed that even though we traditionally celebrate Christ's birth on this
holiday, It is his death that we are commanded to proclaim, because without his death and resurrection,
all is vanity (1 Corinthians 15:17).
  We should rejoice in his birth, but even more so we should rejoice in his death and resurrection, for those
bring about divine forgiveness and new life in all those who believe. We should tell others about "the reason
for the season", but we must never omit the core reason for His coming, which was "to seek and to save
that which was lost" (Luke 19:10)! He came to die the death, and suffer the wrath, that we all deserved
(Romans 5:8-11). So in this Holiday season, as we offer thanks to God for Christ's birth, let us continually
praise Him for the reason that He came, for the life that is freely given to all who repent of their sins and
believe in Him; that He is the only Savior, the only Way, Truth and Life!

          "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
           should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to
           condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever
           believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already,
           because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
             And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the
           darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does
           wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be
           exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly
           seen that his works have been carried out in God." - John 3:16-21

New Music From The Wretched Bros.

The Wretched Brothers recorded another song yesterday at church, this time a bluesy version of
the old hymn, "God Be Merciful To Me". We rehearsed it only four or five times, so the ending
was a little sketchy. B)

(Thanks to Blane for making this video!)



And remember, all credit goes to God for our music!

P.S. - Be sure and listen good to those words... good stuff.

Home Sweet Home!

I bet all you dear Internet people think I have simply fallen off the very edge of the world, but that's just
not true. You see, about a month ago we had some guys come and look at some (you guessed it) mold
under our floor that came from a refrigerator-water line leak, and they thought it was...

Anyway, to make a long story short, we've been out of our house for the last month, and we just got

back today to an empty house, because we had taken all the furniture out of the kitchen and living
room so the flooring guys could replace part of, and refinish, the floor.
God has been so faithful in this, and He has provided for all our needs abundantly!

I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule soon, but until then, Remember that God is faithful! 

P.S.- Everybody remember to pray for Tim and Allison Meredith, who have visited our 

church once, as he has recently had a stomach aneurysm. He is in critical care at the hospital,

but has improved as of late. He was not expected to survive the ambulance ride.

They have a bunch of young kids, and of course, it's been difficult for all of them.

(EDIT 10/4/12: Tim has since made a miraculous recovery, returned to his family, and visited our church again,
which was a huge blessing. Praise God!) 

I'm Alive...and God is Good

Yes folks, I'm back. I got sick Monday night, stayed in bed all day Tuesday, and recouped Wednesday.
And I do believe that along with my energy, the "horrible bug" robbed me of my blogger brains, hence
the long break. B) Oh, and yes, God is good! 

  And that just made me think, what should we do with that? First, it must drive us to the cross! God is
good(perfect), and "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", says Romans 3:23. In other words,
we ain't it. We completely and utterly fail, and in doing so fall under just condemnation! The only one to whom we can turn for help is Jesus Christ. (Acts 4:11-12, John 14:6)

  Second, it should cause us to praise Him always, for our God is not like men, that He should deal falsely
with us, and He always rules over His people with mercy and grace. (Deuteronomy 7:9, 32:4, Psalm 86:15)
  Third, it ought to spur us to always examine our lives and our hearts, to look in the mirror of His word
and see what we lack, to then seek after it with prayer and faith, and to say with the psalmist; "Lead me in
the path of your commandments, for I delight in it." We should be continually seeking to reform our lives
according to God's word, and to "pursue righteousness". (Proverbs 21:21, Psalm 119:33-35, Matthew 6:33)

Well, that's all I've got for now, so until next time, semper reformandum, people!

Somethin' to Chew On

I was reading in J.C. Ryle's Thoughts for Young Men the other day, and I came across a
great quote that I had to share:

         "Live as in the sight of God. This is what Abraham did, he walked before
          Him. This is what Enoch did, He walked with Him. This is what heaven
          itself will be, the eternal presence of God. Do nothing that you would not
          like God to see. Say nothing you would not like God to hear. Write nothing
          you would not like God to read. Go no place where you would not like
          God to find you. Read no book of which you would not like God to say,
          'Show it to Me.' Never spend your time in such a way that you would not
          like to have God say, 'What are you doing?'"

...I'll just let that speak for itself. B)

Happy Reformation Day!

Join me in celebrating God's providence and grace with a great song!

It may be familiar...

Rockin'!

Blane Jr made this great "video" from an improvised jam session we had on Sunday...



...And yes, I like Freddie King. B)

One More Year...

Yes, it's my birthday, I turned sixteen today. DUN-DUN-DUH!

The Lord has done a lot in my life during the past year. He's taught me a lot of lessons,
and He's made me do some hard stuff, but I know that every thing that happens to me is
worked out by Him to make me more like Christ, so I rejoice! I know that I've got some
growing up to do, more lessons to learn, and more hard stuff to do, but I also know that
God is watching over me and guiding my steps with His Holy Spirit. By the way, here's
a good ol' proverb that really applies:

Braving the Perils of Guitar Maintenance

So, I've been telling myself forever that I needed to clean up my acoustic, but today I
finally did it! HAHA!! Actually, it started out as adjusting the truss rod in order to
lower the string height, but I started reading online and found out that a better way to
do that would be to remove the saddle from the bridge and file down the bottom,
thereby lowering the strings. As I did that, I went ahead and cleaned it up while the
strings were off.
  First, I took the strings off and pulled the saddle out:

Some Acoustic Goodness

These guys are regulars on my "Phil Keaggy" Pandora radio station... 

Anybody feel inadequate yet?  B)

Just in case you haven't been impressed yet, try this video on Dan Philips' 

great blog, Biblical Christianity.

If It's Broke, Don't Try to Fix It...

Well, I was shooting my air rifle earlier, and all of a sudden, the bolt started cocking
weird and the BB wouldn't come out when I shot it. Once inside, we took the side off
and looked around, and it seemed fine, so we put it back together. We tested the bolt,
and it cocked normally, but when I took it outside and pumped it with a BB in it, the
very same thing as before happened.
   Right now, it's sitting up on my shelf, waiting for us to find out what's wrong with it.
Why am I writing about this? You see, I've been asking God to give me something to
write about, and KABAM, there it is! Isn't it just awesome how He works stuff out?

Am I Glorifying God?

         "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit
          within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
          for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."
           - 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

In this world it's easy to forget that I am not my own. It's easy to brush off the Holy

Spirit's warnings (at least for a little while!) and explain away things which are known

to me as not only inglorious to God, but even as sin.

The Cataloochee Buglers

Yesterday, we all got to go with the Blevins to Cataloochee to see the elks bugling and

perhaps fighting (because it's mating season), though none fought while we were there.
Anyway, We all had a great time just talking and watching the elks. Well, here's some
pictures...

We had plenty of food!

Faith in the Valley

"Saline Valley" by Kirk Kittell on Flickr

Lots of times, I think we Christians have a tendency to, how shall I say it, cling to
our "mountaintop experiences" and despair when those lofty feelings leave and
we find ourselves right smack dab in the middle of everyday life, with all its cares
and, often, just plain blandness. We may wonder how in the world God can use
us in such an ordinary and sometimes dark place.

It's About Jesus, Not Religion

 

"Miserable Christians" by Randy Willis Photos on Flickr 

Jesus saves. Not church, not theology, not "doing good stuff". Oh, people can
masquerade, they can say the creeds, they can go to church, but if they have no
relationship with Jesus Christ, they are lost. This doesn't mean that you have to
feel a warm and fuzzy closeness with Him all the time to be saved, it means that
if you have not personally repented of your sins and trusted in Him, if your life
is not guided by what He says, if you take Him out of the closet for Sunday, and
then forsake Him the rest of the week, You are lost. Beware of placing your trust
in a way of life, rather than the Giver of Life, lest this should be said to you on
the last day:

Diggin' Them Shins!

You know, we've been up here in the mountains for nine years and never have gone

to Shindig on the Green, but we got the opportunity to go yesterday, so I took my 

trusty '70s Yamaha FG-160 to pick along with. B) I was pretty nervous about going

over there with all those other people and playing, but as I started playing along, it 

became very fun!

  They had a bunch of local bands play, and there was plenty of clogging and square
dancing. (None of which, by the way, was done by me. HA HA!) Actually, no one
really took notice of me, except one guy that was sitting in front of us that recognized
the tone of my guitar as a Yamaha that he'd owned a while back! He said that he had
purchased expensive Martins and Taylors, but he always loved that Yamaha.
I really enjoyed being able to just sit back in obscurity and play along with all the
bands, and it was a pretty good test of my dexterity! I'm sorry to say, though, that we
forgot the camera, so no pictures here, but you can see some at the Citizen-Times 
Website. We got there at about seven, and left around nine, but I could have stayed
longer! B)  It was all around a good time, and I expect we'll go again sometime...

(BTW, I'm thinking of getting some fingerpicks, any advice?)

New Name Alert!

Ta-Da! As you can probably see by now, I have changed the name of my blog,
I hope it isn't cheesy or anything! Anyway, thanks to Sunny for coming up with
the idea, and thanks Blane jr. for the suggestions and advice!
 I'll try to post later tonight about going to Shindig on the Green...

Just Checking

I've been trying to add a custom favicon to my blog, (for any of you that don't know,
that's the little icon that shows up either in the adress bar or on the tab of your browser)
and after lots of trial and error, I got it up!
So what's the point of this post? Actually, I'd like you all to check your browser and
see if the favicon looks like this:
If it's not showing up, you may need delete your browser's cache.

Anyway, happy surfing!

I Done Did it!!

Yessir, I went and really did it, I got baptized today! I've been saved for about
six years now, but I always used the excuse of my "disliking" the water to not do it.

 Anyway, several Sundays ago, Blane Sr. was talking about baptism and gave
the exhortation and invitation to approach him or Philip about doing so.
I finally realized that I just plain had to do it! So, we made plans for the date,
and had the pool filled up ahead of time so it'd be warm. B)
Malachi Hodges got baptized right after me, I'm so glad he did it, and I'll be
prayin' for him!

Announcing...

I'm trying to think up a new name for my blog, and, well, refer to the picture above.
HA HA. Anyway, since I can't think of anything, I'll be taking suggestions for a new
name 'till Monday, August 22. Please leave any ideas you have in the comments,
and if/when one is chosen, the person that thought it up will receive a very special
prize: A well earned, guaranteed, certified, straight-from-the-blog-writer-himself
thank you comment! B)

'Till the Twenty-second!

We're Baaack!

Salutations and fond greetings to all, the Williams family has landed! We had a

wonderful (albeit hot) trip, and while I was kind of nervous about going to the
farm, I had a great time! I am tired right now, hence the short post.
Sunny plans on posting on our family blog about the trip later, so tune in!

Grace and Peace...

Back in a Few!

We're heading down to Florida Thursday for My parent's fortieth high school
reunion, and we'll be staying at a friend's farm in in Cairo, Georgia. We'll
be heading back on Sunday, and believe me, we're gonna miss going to Church!
Anyway, we're packing and cleaning and everything tomorrow, and we don't
have a laptop, so I won't be posting 'till we get back.

         "But on taking leave of them he said, 'I will return to you
          if God wills,' and he set sail from Ephesus.''
          - Acts 18:21

Thankful for Fleas?

Link to picture: http://www.richsoil.com/flea-control.jsp

Last week I mentioned an Otto Koning message in which he spoke about

doing certain things that God requires of us through sheer faith, going against

all human reason, etc. What I didn't mention was that he was talking about

praising God in, you guessed it, all things!

A Capella, A Capella...

Just a quick post to show you this amazing performance by GLAD.

They take the hymn ''Leaning on the Everlasting Arms'' and sing it

in several different styles, from a classical fugue to modern jazz.

These guys really are talented, and praise the Lord, they're using their 

gifts to serve Him!

The Gift of Surrender

I saw this video on wretchedradio.com, and boy, does 

this guy know how to preach it!

(I think he's really like forty years old, though)

You can check out his website here.

Also, I just read a great post on ''Pastor Smarty Pants'' R.W. Glenn's 

blog, check it out here.

Birthdays, Books, and Audio Files

YES as a birthday cake #2 by like_the_grand_canyon

Yesterday, we all had a surprise birthday party for Daniel over at the Hodges'

house, and his family was able to come up. We had burgers and hot dogs,
Emily made a wonderful cake (half of my piece ended up on the floor), and a
good time was had by all! Blane Jr. took some pictures, you can see them here.
  Today at church, the Mounts and the Blevins were able to come, and we
had a whole mess o' burgers and cake that were left over from the party.
(Y'all come agin now, y'hear?!)

The Bible is for YOU!

Uncle-sam-1280 by JongWoo Chung

Earlier this week, I tried putting my name in different Bible passages just to
see what it's all about, because I'd heard of it but never tried it.
And you know what? It really did make a difference, it made it, well, more
personal! (I really am going somewhere with this, so hang on!)

2011: A Blog Odyssey

Well, this is my first ever blog, so please cut me some slack whilst I get it sorted. B)


The first purpose of this blog is to be a light and a witness (hopefully) for
the Saviour of my soul, Jesus Christ (Matthew 5:13-16).
  The second purpose is to be a ''life journal'' so to speak, for the writing down of
important thoughts and experiences. Moving on, if you read this blog and find any
heresy, blatant and inappropriate buffoonery, or you just think it's a horrible blog,
let me know. Also, please note that any trollish, mean, or generally bad
comments will be addressed and/or deleted.

So, tune in next time, and find out if I've got the right stuff! Only time will tell.

Grace and peace! B)