Repeating Repentence

Steve Pickel preached on something this morning that I thought was very interesting, and made me wonder. There are those people who think that they can do whatever they want, and know they can just ask GOD for forgiveness later. Yes, you can do that, but why would you? Just because you can say you are sorry for drinking or cursing or whatever it is, and GOD will give forgiveness, doesn't mean you always should. "Repenting is a gift", Steve said this morning. If you use a gift too much beyond its advantage, you are going to loose it. Forgiveness only goes so far. So here is the picture I'm trying to create. You can ask GOD for repentence, but when you sin intentionally, just so you can ask for that thankfulness, I don't think thats right. What are your thoughts on the issue?

PEN15 and Birds of Prey

Well, I haven't posted in over a month, so sorry for not giving you stuff to read. School starts back on Tuesday, and I could not be more dreadful. I get to be a sophmore this year, which has its pros and cons. I won't get made fun of nearly as much as a freshman, I get to have better classes, my day is going to seem a lot shorter, and I'm used to the routine. The downside is that I get thrown out into the high school field to deal with all the jerks in the entire school, I will have to work a lot harder, and I have a career center class (that may not seem bad, but I get sick on bus rides, so I'm probably going to get sick on the way up there every day). It could be a lot worse, but I just have to get in my mind that GOD is going to be right there by my side, and that i have nothing to be worried about (except for the fact that Lindsey is in the homeroom next to me, which is anybody's biggest nightmare. JK). So I will try and blog more often, but with school coming around, I seriously doubt it.

Initiation

Tonight, Matt was issuing everyone challenges. Almost all of them regarded the opposite sex. Shawn has a month to get a date. Jen and Hannah had 15 minutes to take 5 pictures with 5 different guys, and barely passed. Evan had to get three girls' numbers, but didn't, so he failed. I personally passed my challenge in two minutes; I had the whole night. I had to take a pic with a hot girl that Matt, Jacob, and Shawn all approved of. I was happy, Matt owes me an ice cream!

Camp Stories Part Two: WWE

In our room, we had brawls out the bunghole. There were various things including tackles, drop kicks, and wrestling. Jacob even introduced us to a game of nutball(email me for the rules). Also, we had chicken fights where two guys would run from one side of the room to the other, and just barrel into each other. Thats all I got, but its something none of the girls knew!

Camp Stories Part One: I Need A Towel

Thursday Night, all the campers were hanging out outside in the pouring down rain. Curfew comes comes around at midnight and it is raining the hardest I have ever seen. Olivia comes to our door and asks for a towel. Now knowing Jacob, since this was his bad-boy idea, he always does the exact opposite. Instead of getting a towel, he gets a bucket of water, and throws it on Olivia, when she asks for a towel. Michael Mosley comes in giving us all fives, saying that it was the best prank all camp, and I agree. More stories coming later!

A Magician Couldn't Even Get These Off!

At church Wednesday night, we were continuing our series "Prisonbreak". Matt started off the service by putting on handcuffs. He then said that Kristen was going to unlock him from the cuffs, as a symbol of GOD releasing the cuffs. When Kristen went to unlock the cuffs, she held the key eye level, as both her and Matt glared at it intently, the key was broke! The key had been broken inside the lock on the cuffs, causing Matt to be trapped in these things until he could get loose. He decided to end service early and go outside to hang out. After about an hour, most of the Youth leave and go to Sonic, while Matt and Kris go to the Police Department to get him free. After a half hour or so, Matt and Kris come to Sonic, with Matt only having off one cuff. Since the key had been lodged in one of the locks, he couldn't get one free. Luckily, my uncle was there with a grinder(for dummies, thats a circular blade attached to an engine to make it spin fast). My uncle put a glove between Matt's arm and the cuff, and started shredding. Matt is in pain since the metal is hot, we are all taking picture, all the time we are in the parking lot of a Sonic. Well, Matt finally gets free, with a few blisters, and a funny story that will have him scarred at Youth Camp! Email for pictures: jesusfreakx@bellsouth.net

The Waterfalls of No Existance

Yesterday, Shawn, Hannah, Kristen, Lindsey, Jen, and I all went up to Table Rock to hike to the waterfalls. When we got there, everyone gave there phone to Lindsey, who kept a gym bag with water and other various items. When we started hiking, we realized that everyone had been to the waterfalls plenty of time to know where it was, so Shawn, Hannah, and I took off jogging to get a head start. We stop about 3 minutes from the waterfalls(the waterfalls are in sight), and wait for the other three girls to catch up. About 15 minutes pass and we get no answer. So we hike back down and discover that they not only aren't on the trail, but that they have been hiking for an hour on the wrong trail heading the other direction(keep in mind that it is KRISTEN, JEN, AND LINDSEY). We call them on Shawn's phone, which was left in the car in case of an emergency, and tell them to turn around and that Shawn and I would go get them. Hannah stayed at the cars for fear of an allergic reaction to something in the woods. We start running up the hill, and get about 30 minutes in and find the girls. They honestly thought that they were headed to the waterfalls. At this point, me and Shawn have our shirts off, we are drained off all our energy, and Hannah has been sitting at the cars with an minor allergic reaction to something, by herself for half an hour. We get back to the cars, head back to our house, and watch a movie, never once accomplishing our goal of going to the waterfalls.


Moral of the story: Don't hike with girls!

ETERNITY is an 8-Letter Reality

I was up late one night watching the Amazing Race, and something caught my eye. One of the tasks they had to do was to find a map and locate the George Washington bridge. One family stop to ask this truck driver for instructions. When they finished, the women immediatly, without hesistation asked the man if he knew Jesus. He answered with saying that he is his best friend. The women replied with this, "Thats wonderful! We will be spending eternity together". That phrase made me think about eternity in heaven, and to be honest, scared me a little. It scared me because living forever is just terrifying to me. It makes my living on Earth 50,000 times harder than before, phasing to me that if I mess/messed up somewhere, and The Rapture comes before I can fix it, I can't spend eternity with the greatest one of all and have to spend it with some loser satan in hell. That is why everyone needs to make sure they stay on the right path with GOD, an not resist into temptation, whenever it may occur. So that everyone, without a doubt, knows that they will be spending eternity with that trucker and the woman.

Ø

I watched a video recently on Youtube. IT was Family Force 5 performing Luv Addict on a news station out of Missouri. It stuck to me for two reasons: one was that ChapStique played the guitar with a dragon, which I found funny, and two because they always refered to them as a christian band. After the performance, the reporter asked Soul Glow, "Why do you label yourself as christians? When we hear that music, it certainly doesn't sound like christian music to me". Soul Glow replied with a good answer that every christian can abide by, "We love Jesus Christ with all our hearts. That doesn't mean that we don't have the freedom to have fun, like right now, I can wear pink sneckers and be fine with it." I found that piece of information interesting to my life!

Portable Sounds To Kill Your Ears

Tonight, I went to a concert, and my gosh has it been a while. People playing at the concert were TobyMac, Family Force 5, and Thousand Foot Krutch(Building 429 was also there, but they didn't really fit in). It reminded me so much of being at a convention though being up with all the people in the mosh, jumping around, and just having the time of my life. Somehow, every human being I knew ended up being there. SWU students, kids from school, ex-girlfriends, and even people I have seen before, but couldn't place. All in all though, I walked away with multiple aches and pains, mainly in the neck region, but I had the best time of my life!

A Mutual Agreement

I have come to a realization. Ashley and I tonight both decided(she inticed it, and I agreed with it)that we were better off as friends. In my opinion, I like it better because I have the greatest friends in the world, and now she can join them. I'm not sad or disappointed because this has made me realize that I'm not ready for a relationship yet. Short one, I know, but I was just letting people know so they weren't all, "OH MY GOSH!"

I am not Jim Hendrix's son

On Wednesday, I got called out of class for the monthly drug dog inspection, but somehow the dog hit on my bookbag(for dummies, that means the dog found something). I get called out of class so that he could tell me that he searched my bookbag and that they found nothing. I told the Youth Group that and now I have a running joke going that I'm a druggy. So if you hear anyone saying something like that, just chime in and make jokes, because I couldn't care-less. One more thing. My mom is growing tomatoes/onions in our house. When we had the crew over Friday, the new joke is now that I deal drugs along with grow them. Its actually pretty funny.

Lets Break Out The Shotguns, We're Going to Town

I was told the other day that I didn't look like the normal rocker and that I looked more like a farm boy than anything. There were multiple feelings in that statement. It was an insult because I don't look redneck and don't want to be associated as one. It was also a compliment. I don't look like the normal rocker because I'm not a normal rocker. A normal rocker does drugs and gets kicked out of school more times than Michael Jackson gets lawsuits. I don't wanna be one of them. I love rock music to death though, but I'm not really impressed with the rocker lifestyles of it though. People have looked at me because of the bands I listen to(Norma Jean, Underoath, etc.)and assume that I'm one of those bad preacher's kids that doesn't give a crap about church, but yet I just tell them that I listen to what I want, and if GOD doesn't like it, he will tell me, in which it would be the christian thing to do to stop and ask him what I need to listen to to best express my life as a christian. Just a random thought that I felt like expressing.

I Hate Missing Church

I woke up at about 2 this morning with a massive pain in my throat. I had to stay home from church. Im a little scared because I have never gotten a pain this sharp in my mouth. Just pray for me please!

The blog thing

Matt and Matt(Matt Rhodes and Matt Smith)have gotten me interested in this website, so I guess Im gonna start doing the blogging thing too. I wont do it everyday, but once in a while whenever I feel like saying something.