Big Ben’s Weblog

Here’s a new one, I haven’t had internet for a week.

Hey Guys, this is my favorite one so far… and the longest.

ENJOY!!!

So I think Im getting the hang of this stuff.  Here’s Number two!!!

I attend fellowship at Freedom Fellowship Church in Greer, South Carolina, and we have been doing a series called One Prayer.  One Prayer begs the question, “if you had one prayer for the church as a whole that you would want God to answer, what would it be.  My pastor prayed to “Make us Matter,” and brought up the question of if the world would miss the existence of the Church if it ceased to exist right now.  I wonder if anyone one would miss it, or even worse, be glad that it’s gone.  Then we watched videos of Craig Groeschel and Perry Noble, and their prayers were, “Make us One,” and “Make us Dangerous.”  Well right now, i’m on tour with my band, and when I woke up this Sunday morning, I did so, right as the Freedom service would be starting, well actually I was an hour ahead….crap.  Anyway, I started to think about what my one prayer for the Church would be.  ”MAKE US KNOW.”  I believe there is sooo much that we as the body of believers in Christ don’t know about His Love for us, and His Sacrifice for us, and our own stupidity.  This is not meant to look down on the dumb things that I and others do, I just want to emphasize what might happen if were to truly KNOW what the implications of what we read in the bible were, and if we were to truly KNOW how much time is wasted on little things, and how little effort we put into the things that do matter.  GOD MAKE US KNOWLEDGEABLE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE THE CHURCH, OPEN OUR EYES TO THE NEED IN THE WORLD AND THE GREED IN OUR LIVES.  

I was reading through Colossians today and I came across this passage that rattled my sphincter.   Colossians 2:12 – Having been BURIED with Him (Christ) in Baptism, and RAISED with Him through your Faith in the Power of God, who RAISED Him from the DEAD.  Up until this point in my life as a Christian, I have viewed Baptism as a public declaration of one’s decision to follow Christ, and I still know that to be true, but God just hit me with this: that We are dead without Him. PERIOD. And that THE ONLY reason that we can be Baptized is because of the complete Sacrifice that Christ made on the Cross for all, and we are Baptized in His Death, and made clean in His Resurrection.  IF WE TRULY KNEW, the price of the Cross, the world would be different.  I realize that many have an reasonable view of the pain that our Saviour felt on the cross, but still it is in no way the HATE, the PAIN, the LONELINESS, the GUILT, that He faced….for us.  GOD MAKE US KNOW EXACTLY WHAT HE FELT, because if we did, the world would not be the same.

One more thing that I am feeling led to share is something that I read in the book The Signature of Jesus, by Brennan Manning, and there is soo much that I could quote from this book,  I mean, the man spent seven months in a cave in Spain, not seeing a single person the entire time, in complete solitude with our Creator.  He stated this that hit me early on, “Power affects behavior; Love affects the Heart.”  I fear that we as the Church are trying to gain way too much power, in our communities, and in the world as a whole.  And power might affect behavior, I.E. everyone actin glike good Christians, but God seeks the renewal of the heart, and for that.  We must clothe ourselves in LOVE.  GOD MAKE US KNOW, THE POWER OF YOUR LOVE IN US, AND THROUGH US.  He then later writes, “If we preferred to be FAITHFUL, rather than successful, the walls of indifference to Jesus Christ would crumble.”  GOD MAKE US KNOW WHAT TRUE FAITHFULNESS IS.   

GOD MAKE US KNOW WHAT YOU WANT US TO TAKE FROM EVERYTHING, AND NOT JUST TAKE WHAT WE WANT TO SEE.

So yeah, I will puttin these links up every couple of days or so.  So check them out, and write encouraging things.  If you don’t know, and I was dumb enough to leave out, I play in a Christian hardcore band called Divide the Sea, and we are on tour….so yeah, this will tell you what is goin on, in our lives.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=5804691&blogID=404197818

Freakin sweet video.

So I haven’t blogged lately….So sue me.  A lot has been going on…Let’s recap.

I’ve been painting my grandmother’s house (outside and in) and that has taken up a lot of time.  I am doing this so that I can eat when I go on tour with my band , http://myspace.com/dividethesea.   In other news as far as music goes.   I created a new myspace for a little project that I have been working on called O’Brother, http://www.myspace.com/obrotherbandsc .  Whenever DTS (divide the sea) is not playing very often or practicing like crazy, I get ansy as far as writting and playing music, so I write acoustic type stuff, and I recently found that I could record it….so I did.  Sooooo go listen to it.

HUGE NEWSSSSSS.  This may be the last blog I ever write…… on a PC.  The reason for this is because on tuesday night, I ordered my brand new Macbook from the apple store, and it is on the road to be safely delivered to my hands and lap.  Check it out.

So yeah, its on its way, and I am furiously tracking it.  It left Memphis at 2 in the morning last night and is estimated to arrive tomorrow, friday the 13th……oh crap thats bad luck.  

Next week, we leave….for the rest of the summer.  First we tour up to cornerstone in Illinois, and then back down to pick up our buds Anacey (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=77815899) to go on another tour that will travel out to Colorado with like 14 other bands, so I am really pumped but also nervous. 

We seriously need your prayers, prayers for safety, nutrition, courage, faith, and discipline to spread the great news of Christ with everyone that we come in contact with.  I can’t wait to see how God is going to show Himself in acts of providence and splendor.  A personal prayer that I need is discipline to do good on my summer school German course.  It definitely ain’t easy.  So pray that I do good…well.

Well I guess that that is all that’s been going on….have a good one.

OK, Blake you freakin win. I broke down and bought another cd off of itunes. The CD is the new Weezer cd called “The Red Album.” Its freakin amazing. I love weezer. The only reason i did this was for the bonus songs……..sooooooo go and buy the cd and listen to the Greatest Man that Ever Lived, and make sure to listen to the whole thing.

Several nights ago, my band played a hometown show at our favorite venue that we haven’t played in like two months or more. There was a ton of kids there and I had an awesome time, we played with After the End, Anacey, and Flynn. Good stuff. My favorite part was that a bunch of my friends from church came to check out what my band was all about, and they liked it. That really meant a lot to me.

I watched the end of a movie last night called I’m Not There, and it was about the different life stages of my man Bob Dylan. Ok, so I don’t really know him, but i like his music. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty weird, but I like wierd movies. The music in the movie was amazing, and this was my favorite scene……

YOU SHOULD READ CRAZY LOVE. I finished this book this past weekend at the lake, it was written by Francis Chan, and it talks about the undescribable Love of God that He has towards all of us….His creation. Also, how we should Love Him. Towards the end, Chan shares several stories about people who have lived or are living there lives radically for Christ. One dude was serving overseas, and got a toothache that caused him so much pain that he had to come back to America to get it worked on…….now, get this……he was so peeved that he had to leave his the mission field, he had the dentist remove all of his teeth so that he wouldn’t have any problem after that.

-Christ, I want to pull my teeth out for you!

I’m Not There Yet.