http://www.archive.org/details/PureJoy10-23-2011

Join the Forum discussion on this post

In the meantime, here is the link to my profile on YouNow, where you can browse my collection of reruns.

http://www.younow.com/userProfile.php?visible=1&userId=1659

And here is the replay of my very first YouNow concert!

   I’ve found another competition opportunity that I’m excited about. It is called (as you may have guessed by the graphic) the YouNow Songwriting Competition. It calls for three songs, so right away, I uploaded my three favorites and went for it. I’ve included my three submissions in widget form on the bottom of this post. They are all embed-able, so please feel free to share them, or use the AddThis share link above this post to pass the news along to your favorite social networks.

   I’m very excited about these three songs. They all have done well in other mediums and venues, so I hope to see good results here. A little more about each song:

It Is Time – Awarded the Platinum Auddy by Uplaya’s Hit Song Science™ system for hit potential. According to their system “The underlying patterns of this song are similar to songs that have been hits for a long time.” Let’s hope that really means something!

Hypocrite – Placed 14th in Indaba’s Blue Microphones Songwriting competition by popular vote.

We All Fall – An old song of mine, played in an old band of mine – a group of guys I really love. We All Fall did really well on the Acidplanet charts back in 2004 (I can’t believe it’s been that long!)

I so appreciate you reading, listening, and hopefully sharing. Thank you! Here are the widgets:

P.S. If you’re wondering about voting, there will be an opportunity for audience voting on the groups that get invited to play the live online concert on http://www.younow.com/ . I will post when that is decided if I am invited to play.

I’ve got a new song up for free download on Soundcloud entitled ‘It Is Time.’ You can listen, share, or download using this widget:

It Is Time by havenyates

I hope you enjoy it, and I strongly encourage and appreciate sharing wherever you can. Another quick update: my song ‘Inherited Bride’ is still in the competition in the Modern Rock channel on OurStage. Here is a link to how it is doing, and where you can vote for it:

You’ve heard the nursery rhyme: “Ring around the rosies, pocket full of posies…” right? You know how it goes.

It’s true that we all fall down, like the song says, as we walk in life we make mistakes; some small, and some huge, but the question always is: Will we get back up?

I am reminded of The Fall of Mankind – do you know the story? Adam and Eve live in a perfect world in perfect fellowship with God, till they break the only rule God gave them, eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that fellowship is broken. Many of us know this as a story of God’s anger at our failures, but it is really a story of the Gospel, and God’s abundant love for us! Check it out (The reference links refer you to blueletterbible.org – one of the coolest Bible sites) :

	Gen 3:21	And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
	Gen 3:22	Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever–”
	Gen 3:23	therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
	Gen 3:24	He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

Adam and Eve were ashamed, but God didn’t shame them. God covered them. And throughout the Old Testament, this covering always required sacrifice. Sin brings death, and in this case, in addition to the eventual physical death of Adam and Eve, it brought death to the animal that was slain to cover them. The Bible states:

Rom 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So there is good news for us – that is what the Gospel is; it is the good news that no matter how far we’ve fallen, Jesus has died that death for us on the Cross, when God poured His wrath on Jesus in our place. Here’s what Jesus had to say in the book of John, predicting His own death as prophesied in scripture:

	Jhn 3:16	“For God so loved the world, [fn] that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
	Jhn 3:17	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.
	Jhn 3:18	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.
	Jhn 3:19	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.
	Jhn 3:20	For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
	Jhn 3:21	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.”

The sad reality is that we are all evil, all born into sin since the fall, there is none righteous, no not one. But Jesus is righteous, and He wants you, He loves you, and He is pursuing you, offering to cover you with His righteousness, by His sacrifice. There is no amount of work we can do to enter in to heaven but we can enter in through Jesus, Who said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” My encouragement would be, if you haven’t already, decide at this moment you are tired of living in darkness, believe in Jesus, ask Him to robe you in His righteousness.

Call Him now and believe with even the tiniest hint of faith, and He will save you, and make you whole in this instant. Christians, never stray from this simple truth: Jesus lived a perfect life to transfer its rewards to you, by taking your wages of death for you on the cross in exchange for His, then He was killed and put in the grave, but He rose again. He conquered sin and death, and now He reaches out to all who wish to share in that victory.

Yeah, we all fall, but He can lift us all the way up to Heaven.

I hope the new version is much better. Please, check out the entry and see for yourself. It can be frustrating at times, but also very rewarding, working as I do in the “home studio” with the level of recording equipment I use.

For you musicians, if you like the recording, be encouraged knowing I’m using the cheapest of cheap stuff: A Shure SM58, Xenyx502 mixer, Echo Darla card (old and outdated interface), Cakewalk Music Creator, $15 Sony in ear headphones, and some free VST plugins. For this song after mixing down, I tried the trial version of the Auto Audio Mastering System.

Listeners and readers, I really could use your help in this competition. This contest will have a listener voting period from Feb. 8th through Feb. 22nd, then the winner will be picked by the judges out of the top entries. You can listen here, and I thank you so much for your vote!

Mark 14 41 by havenyates

The sermon at church this Sunday morning once again was so moving and inspired. We were studying through the passage in Mark where Jesus is on His way to the cross. If you didn’t have the privilege of attending service, please check it out here:

http://heritagefellowship.net/2011/01/mark-1441-52-the-gap-01-23-10

I so love this verse!

Mar 14:41

And he cometh the third time, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take [your] rest: it is enough, the hour is come; behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

The thing I always think about when I read this is the rest God speaks of in the book of Hebrews.

Hbr 4:9		There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.
Hbr 4:10		For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God [did] from his.

As pastor Jeff referenced in his message, we are commanded to grow in grace. And it is this grace that gives us the rest our soul so longs for.