Was visiting the Apple site tonight when I found the following AMAZING new things from Apple!!! Wow!!!

It used to be that the iPod was “too expensive” because you could get an MP3 player for $150 or so. NOW, ipod makes an MP3 player that is the size of a little USB jump drive, that holds 4x as many songs for only $99!!!! WHAT!??! 🙂 This little thing looks AMAZING! There are two sizes (drives) – 512 MB and 1 GB. Wow.

Click above to learn more!

And perhaps even better than that…

One of the biggest knocks on Apple has always been, SURE, they’re better… but I just can’t afford it. The PC machines win because of their bottom line. But they get there by building cheap pieces of junk! NOW, Apple has come up with an AMAZING 6.5 X 6.5 X 2 inch computer that weighs 2.9 pounds and out-performs MOST mid-high end PCs! 🙂 (I can’t really back that one up, but check out the stats, you’ll see what I mean…) Look below at the new MacMini…

WOW! AND, they start at $499!!!!!! FOUR HUNDRED NINETY-NINE DOLLARS. Whoa. Nice. More photos below. Click the photos to learn more at the apple site.

For more on the amazing stuff Apple is doing lately, you can watch a Quicktime presentation from a recent conference. Click here.

(Can you tell I am a fan of Apple computers? 🙂

Every once in a while I look back on where I have come in life, and mindset along the way. Whenever I am here, in the now, I pretty much think I have stuff figured out. I like to. I want to. And I am pretty good at having an overall grasp on life.

But the older I get, or perhaps just the wiser, I really am seeing that the more I think I know, the less I actually know.

Sometimes I can’t believe how “arrogant” I have been in the past. It was not an in-your-face kind of arrogant. At least not in my heart. But it was an arrogance of perceived knowledge. I am just feeling today like I don’t really know anything, and I feel better about that than I do about the grasp on truth that I used to try hard to have.

I don’t need to know everything. I don’t need to understand. I don’t need to eliminate as many unknowns as possible. I don’t need to see in black and white.

Why? Aren’t those all good things?

Yes, they are. But they all fall seriously short. They all rely on me. And I know that I fall short. When I actually know that I know very little if anything about life, that leaves a lot more room for the Truth to exist in my life. For the Truth to permeate my life. In grace and truth.

I will never have all the answers. I never really thought that. But I am now enjoying quite a bit more simplistic view of truth. There is one Truth. He is Jesus. I want to follow him. Not a rigid creed, but a living person. Jesus.

1 Cor 8:1 says, “We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

Less may just be better. Simpler. More.

There is a bunch of talk in the NT about dying to yourself, or being crucified with Christ, or losing your life to gain it, or dying to the world… all very cryptic, esoteric phrases that can seem too mystical to have any real value.

We drove all day today, and listened to a bunch of MP3s on the iPod from Wayne Jacobsen. He was emphasizing this idea in a few of the sessions we listened to, and he said this:

“When you have nothing left to gain, nothing left to lose and nothing left to prove… now you’re really ready to be a vessel for God in the world.”

I think this is one of the most essential truths to life. It is woven throughout all of my songs. I mention it in most every thing I say from any stage I speak from. I teach my kids about it. I write about it. I actually hope to gather all of my random thought about this one thing into a book.

Now listen closely, because I’m going to state it clearly and concisely right here. A truth so profound, an abundance of books have not scratched the surface of its depth. So lend an ear… listen up…

It’s not about you.

That’s it. It’s not about you. When we can get to the point, as Wayne said, where we have nothing to gain, nothing to lose and nothing to prove… life is simple. Life is FUN! Life is right. Our life is not about our appearance, or our pride, or our agenda, or anything about us at all really. Then we can know the abundant life God has planned for us.

Freedom abounds when we can really grasp this truth. It comes from trust as mentioned in an earlier blog. It comes from relationship. It comes from a complete focus on others, and God… NOT on you.

I realized when he said that how much my life is still about me. And how I don’t want it to be. So, look out! I am going to work on focusing on Jesus even more, and when I do, I bet YOU will come into focus even more.

“Just trust me!”

A phrase that is usually first met with MORE skepticism than was first present in the trustee. When you hear the phrase, “Just trust me”, it usually makes you wonder if you should. We are, by nature, not trusting.

It certainly feels like we have a tighter grasp on what is best for us than anyone else could. How could we trust the advice of someone else when it goes against what we would do? Why would we allow our power of choice-making to fall into the hands of anyone else?

Because we trust them.

Sometimes, other people know things we don’t. Especially the more seasoned among us. It is not universally true of everyone who has more time under their belt, but in general, the more experience in life, the more wisdom. And sometimes, the wisdom from another does not fit snugly with the choice we are about to make, or would like to make.

Whether in the form of a warning, or an admonition, or any sort of advice given, we tend to be skeptical of words of wisdom from people other than ourselves.

Is that natural? Is that normal? In a way. We should be skeptical of Joe Blow on the street who offers his two cents. No matter how wise it may sound, there is no reason for you to believe him. We should be skeptical of Joe Preacher on the TV who offers us his advice. No matter how sweet it may sound, there is no relationship to back it up.

Therein lies the key.

Trust comes only from relationship. The closer the relationship, the tighter the bond, the deeper and freer the trust. I can not think of a relationship where I implicitly trust, no questions asked, and that is an indication that everyone in my life has somehow “lost” my trust along the way. OR, that I still think that I am all-knowing.

All of us are fallible, so the first part is certainly true, however I do believe that a majority of the blame for my mistrust of others falls on my shoulders. I do not trust others because I still think I know best.

In the garden of Eden, Eve sinned, and Adam sinned, not because they were evil people, but at the root, they sinned because they did not trust God. They were egged on by the snake… but ultimately, they ate the fruit God asked them not to because they did not trust him. He didn’t really mean not to… It couldn’t really be that bad… Maybe he’s just trying to keep us down! I won’t die…

But they did. And we did. And we will.

All because they could not trust him. And we continue that heritage every day. Every sin is rooted in our level of trust of our Father. Whether it is a big bold breakage of one of the heralded Ten Commandments, or something undetectable to the rest of the world, our level of trust determines our behavior.

The cool thing is, as damning as that sounds, the ultimate culpability is not on us. The blame was placed squarely, and voluntarily, on Jesus’ shoulders.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that we might become his righteousness.

We have the opportunity to become, to be the righteousness of God. That is not something we can attain, but rather something given to us. And in 1 Peter, we’re told that, “As we know Jesus better, his divine power has given us everything we need for living a godly life.” HIS divine power. Sinlessness is not something we can attain, but something he has given to us.

That is not an unknowable thing. I believe that sin is directly related to our level of trust in him. That means the more I trust my Father, the less I will sin. So do I just decide to trust? No. That’s not what trust is. Trust is developed over time, through relationship. As we know Jesus better… Perhaps that is what Peter was talking about? Perhaps all of life hinges on this? On knowing Jesus?

John 17:3 – And this is the way to have eternal life: to know you the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Jesus seemed to think that was pretty important. Relationship is the key. The more we know him, the more we trust him, the less we sin, the more we trust him, the more we know him, etc, etc, etc.

Repentance from sin is definitely our choice. But thankfully, the responsibility to clean up our act does not ultimately rest on us. God is the one who makes us clean. Righteousness comes from him. All we need to do is get to know him better, and the righteousness that is visible to others (and to us) will follow in direct proportion to our trust. Perhaps even greater proportion!

Life is better when we live it with our Father, our Creator, our friend. There is no better way. Everything else falls short.

Trust me.

There are many seasons in life. They exist for a time. Some are extremely hard, challenging, not at all pleasant to traverse. Some are so amazingly joyous, you wish they could never end.

And still they pass.

Today, we witnessed the end of a season. A season full of hope and excitement and great joy and heart-warming pride. A season, as mentioned above, that we hoped would endure forever.

But alas, in heart-breaking fashion…

The Bills lost.

See ya in the fall, boys!

You have seen the title before. It is the title of our latest CD. Our Christmas CD. So, it has been marketed, e-mailed and e-mailed, posted on webpages, plastered on posters, and made its presence known in various retail locations across upstate NY and various other locales in the good ol’ US of A.

But they are not just catchy commercialism. Not simply marketing genius.

They aren’t even really my ideas. 🙂

Yes, I wrote the song “God Came” way back in 1994. And yes, we recorded the CD this year, and it is AWESOME (one more shameless plug there…)

But that’s neither the beginning, nor the end of this wonderful story.

All month long, we presented the amazing truth of how God loved us so much that he decided to give up his role as King of the universe and be born as a baby, grow up and give his life for us. We should have died, but instead, our King gave his life. Incredbile. Too amazing. Incomprehensible.

And it is. But, Paul prayed this:

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.

Attainable, yet unattainable. A goal within reach that we will never fully reach. How can that be? Paradox. But paradise. A love that goes beyond what we could ever experience from anyone else.

Let me try to reveal it further.

Eph 1:4-5 says, “Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.”

Before he even made the world, God had planned to be born in a barn. Before he spoke the cosmos into existence, he was thinking of YOU. He knew that we would leave him. He knew we would choose our own way, that we would need help to break free from the bondage of sin. He knew that we couldn’t do it on our own.

So, he emptied himself (Phil 2) of all his rights as God and became like a servant. Like one of us. So that through his sinless life, and his victory of sin and death, we could live the life that He had planned for us… even before he made the world.

The part we most often miss in all of that is how God did it. I don’t mean the deep theological discourse on the propitiatory ramifications of the salvific events on Golgotha. (I did learn SOMETHING at Bible college…) I mean we miss his joy! He actually WANTED to come. He wanted to be held in a young mother’s arms. To be fed by her. To have his diapers changed by her. To grow up in the awkward body of a adolescent. To hear the taunts of the other kids. To feel the pain of a scraped knee. To know the hurt of words thrown carelessly around. To even know the sting of death. (Some think he lost his father, Joseph, at a fairly early age.)

Knowing all of that… it says that this plan, “gave him great pleasure.”

That blows me away.

We all know John 3:16. It’s at all the football games. It’s graffitied on overpass bridge supports on the highway. It’s memorized by anyone who’s ever been near a Bible.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.

But what does verse 17 say? Something rather important, wouldn’t you think? Following the verse that sums up all of human history? It has to be at least close in significance. Yet, when I ask the question of any group of believers, the hands are much more sparse than for the previous verse. 🙂

God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.

How often do we thank God in amazement for his gift of salvation, our ticket to heaven, but then as we continue in our life, we begin to fear failing him. We feel we must continue to improve, or risk losing his love. Perhaps in some sort of celestial dog house. On God’s bad side.

But Romans assures us this is not the case. God’s love toward us – his non-condemnation – is not a once, so-we-can-get-in-and-turned-around kind of love. It is constant. It is for all time. It was long before the world was formed. It was even while we were still his enemies. Listen to the following lines from Paul’s letter to the Romans…

Romans 3:23-24

For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God and are justified freely by his grave through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (NIV)

Romans 5:7-11

Now, no one is likely to die for a good person, though someone might be willing to die for someone who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s judgment. For since we were restored to friendship with God through the death of his son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be delivered from eternal punishment by his life. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God – all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us in making us friends of God.

Romans 8:1

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:31

What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

Romans 8 continues to say that we can never lose God’s love. We never did anything to earn it. God doesn’t love me because I am such a good songwriter. Or a singer. Or a web-page builder. Or a good husband, father, son, brother, neighbor…

That’s not why he loves us.

God loves me just because he made me. I was messed up. I still am. But he knew he could fix it. He came. And it gave him great pleasure.

That is the story of Christmas. God became man. The eternal lived in the temporal. He lived just like we did, yet was faultless. And in that way, he paid our way to eternal life.

Jesus said, “And this is the way to have eternal life, to know you the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

That’s it. His offer is good to any who would accept it. Life like it oughta be. With the one who invented it.. Made right by that same one. Made perfect.

The bumps will still come. Death still has a limp grasp on us. Just look at the catastrophic death that people are dealing with in Asia from the tsunami disasters. People will still lose their jobs, their spouses, their houses. But God came. He proved once and for all that he loves us, by not only coming to endure life in a messed up world, but by willingly dying for me. For you.

If God is for you, then who – or what – could ever be against you?

Think about these things as we close 2004. Think about his love that surpasses understanding.

When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.

We had quite a December! 21 concerts in 22 days. Thankfully 2 of those were canceled. But at one point, we had 11 concerts in 8 days. That’ll be plenty, thank you very much! 🙂

BUT, with all of that activity, comes plenty of blog-fodder… 🙂

So, in a year-end sort of way…

BEST LINE

This one already made the blog page… so, click here to open the blog in a new window.

WORST ATTENDANCE

We had an event at a familiar place, where we have played quite often, and are always warmly welcomed. We were very much looking forward to our evening there. You can usually expect 50-100 people there. It was a good Sunday night event.

Well, as we were setting up, the senior minister and we were talking a bit, and he referred to some recent poor attendance at events such as ours. I thought nothing of it, as I mentioned above, our events had always been great with this church, and I wasn’t really expecting anything different…

Well, by 7:05pm, there was a total of 9 people in the building and 5 of them were us! 🙂 Add the senior minister, the sound guy, and two elders who were there to help out, and, you have the entire compliment! 🙂

I think that may be the first time we have ever had NO ONE show up for a concert at a church 🙂

But, it turned out great, actually. It’s always good to catch up with old friends and see how God is leading in their lives. We had a good chance to chat, and at the end of the evening… instead of a “love offering”, they sent us home with a LARGE rubbermaid tub full of FOOD! Even a frozen turkey! Amazing!

BEST ATTENDANCE

Probably our best attended event in the Christmas season was on Christmas Eve. We were in North Syracuse, NY, helping with a decent portion of their service. We had left a bit late, trying to get lots done before we left. We were trying to get there at 5:45 for a 7:00 concert, but we strolled into the parking lot at around 6:03pm.

Much to our surprise, at that early hour, the parking lot was full! It looked like everyone was there! My first thought was predicated by an unnerving event earlier in my Christmas Eve history… allow me a quick flashback…

[CHR EVE, 1998 – Victor, NY] I was the college age minister for a church in upstate NY, and for the Christmas Eve service, was singing a song along with my then quite pregnant bride, somewhere in the middle of the service. We arrived to our quaint little old country church building about 1 hour before showtime… and MUCH to my amazement then, as I came in the room to set up my guitar… EVERYONE was already there. And not only were they there… they were in their SEATS!!!!!

The most odd part about that? The seats faced the door where you came in. 🙂 So, I waved… and went up on the stage to set up my guitar. 🙂 (What else could I do??) 🙂

[We now return to our regularly scheduled programming…]

SO, you can imagine, I was amazed, but not too concerned. A bit weirded out by the passion exhibited by these Christmas Eve die-hards, but not concerned. 🙂

BUT, I was proven wrong. I checked the sheet with all the info for that night, and sure enough…

It said 6:00pm. 🙂

So we had over 300 people waiting for us to arrive. Our best crowd. Under very interesting circumstances. Again, I think that is a first for us as well. We have shown up late for an event or two, but due to inclement weather or other events beyond our control… never just had the wrong time! HA HA!!!

MOST FUN

Now, not really wanting to exclude anyone or seem ungrateful for any of the fun that we had at any of our December events… I still thought there was one day that stood out to me.

On Dec 18, we sang at a WALMART! It was our second one… it was “our” WalMart. We sang in the WalMart in Newark, right in the area where people walk in. It was just fun to see people’s faces light up, smile, cheer up, and enjoy the season as they came in to some smilin’ faces singing live music. We saw a few folks we knew there, and we also were seen by lots more who knew us. 🙂 (That’s always interesting…)

But overall, I’d have to say that was a most excellent day!

EARLIEST DAY!!!

Without a doubt, singing for the K-8th graders at East Palmyra Christian School was our earliest gig. It felt like another TIME ZONE. 🙂 We had to start at 8:30am so we had to be there BEFORE eight o’clock AM. That is too early. 🙂

BUT, even with the early start, this was a close runner up for most fun. The kids were great!

MOST BAND-A-LICIUOUS!

As many of you know, when we perform live, it is usually two voices accompanied by only an acoustic guitar (or keyboard of some sort). Well not on Dec 17th! Crosswinds hosted our sort of CD Release Party for God Came. It was a blast! So fun to play with such amazing musicians. May I mention them here?

(Of course I can! It’s my blog page!!!) 🙂

E. Guitar: Mike Muscarella (our amazing guitar man!)

Bass: Ben Schoenfelder (now becoming a basic regular! and also amazing!)

Drums: Todd Haschmann (a fill-in who is welcome ANY time!)

We basically played right through the CD… and the amazing thing was, we had no rehearsal! Those guys are THAT good! So fun!

It was…

BAND-A-LICIOUS!!!

===========================

Well, there are probably more stories, but I have one more blog I would like to type to end this year. So I will close this one, and begin the next.

Thanks to any of you who were at those events (or NOT in the case of the WORST ATTENDED one…) It was a pleasure to celebrate God’s love with you. And to have band-a-licious fun. And to drink Wassail. And all the other fun stuff. Thanks for a great Christmas season. 🙂

I was finally able to upgrade Jen’s old iMac G3 computer. It was a gift several years back from some friends of ours, and has served us quite well. It has now been wiped clean and reformatted as Ian’s computer! That’s so cool. We set up a little computer station with Ian’s new G3 iMac and Alex’s upgrade, a PowerMac 6500. Both computers have ethernet, so I networked to two for file sharing and printer sharing. NICE!

SO, here’s a run-down of the current Apple computer status of our house:

1st Floor

• Jen’s eMac 1.25Ghz G4 256MB 40GB Combo (NEW!!!)

• Alex’s OLD Performa 6216CD (old faithful!)

2nd Floor (The boys computer station!)

• Alex’s PowerMac 6500

• Ian’s iMac G3

• ethernet network, epson stylus C42 ink jet

3rd Floor (My OFFICE!)

• PowerMac G4 Dual 500Mhz 160GB 512MB SuperDrive

• PowerBook G4 1.25Ghz 512MB 80GB SuperDrive

• All-In-One G3 Mac 288MB 4GB Multi-Media Ports (TV Tuner)

• Collectables (Apple IIc, Apple IIgs), Parts (another All-In-One G3)

In addition to the shifting of computers, we also have a super cool wireless network happening here, sharing internet, files and even printer wirelessly between all the newer computers! Awesome!!!

I am having fun… can you tell? 🙂

This December has been abundantly “profitable” for us. I don’t like that word. I don’t like all of the baggage that goes with it. Any of you who know me, know that I am certainly not in it for “the profit” in any sort of way. But, unfortunately, money is necessary.

Well, we actually had in the past couple days more money than we knew what to do with! Haven’t really experienced that in a long time (or perhaps EVER?) So I was talking with Jen about the surplus and what we could do with it… it was a couple thousand dollars… and within 5 minutes I think we had plans for about $40,000…

🙂

There is never an end to the need for money. Thankfully, we don’t need to worry about the supply of money. Our Father loves us and will supply all we need. The part that gets us a bit squeemish is the schedule upon which said need-supplying is done. I sometimes wish we always had an abundance. It was fun to have all our regular bills paid and have such an abundant surplus. But we saw quickly how little security there is in our apparent abundance.

We now have a little over $100 in our checking account. We “spent” the surplus in about 24 hours. 🙂 We paid our mortgage for next month plus some extra and paid down a bunch of credit card debt. And, were able to purchase something that Jen has been wanting for a loooong time. (That will last a lot longer than the current one we have).

And you know what? I am almost happier to see the familiar skimpy account balance than the larger number. I do not want my confidence to be in the abundance of my checking account, but in the abundant love of my Father. Really. $2000 goes fast. But His supply never ends! That does not always come in the form of money (believe me, THAT is true!) but it always comes. We have never been in need beyond what he could handle. And I believe we never will be.

So, it was fun for a moment to see 4 digit figures in our bank account, but our true joy is in the abundant love of our Father. May you know that today, too.

We received a card in our P.O. Box yesterday (that’s our “basic mail”) that had no return address label. I did see it was post marked Toledo, OH. I was trying to figure out who it was from as I opened it.

Inside was a Christmas card, which contained two one-hundered dollar bills! And the only thing written on the card was:

“This is not because of your singing!”

🙂

When I first read it, I smiled… and I thought, that’s cool… just a little encouragement from an admirer who wanted to give us a gift…

Then I thought… “Hmm… NOT because of our singing… does that mean this person HATES our music (singing), but really wanted to give us some money… so, they thought they’d be SURE to let us know that it has NOTHING to do with our singing???”

Perhaps.

Well, whoever you may be… thanks for the Christmas gift. We have been careful to notate in all of our accounting places that it is in fact…

NOT BECAUSE OF OUR SINGING.

Thanks. 🙂