Cody Thomas

What happens when you combine a Fender Rhodes piano, a DD-5 delay effects unit, GarageBand, and an hour of free time?

Find out here.

That built-in MacBook microphone isn’t so bad…

Well, I don’t have a job yet right now, but my summer months are already starting to fill up! I can’t reveal on here just yet all the plans, but I can say that this summer is going to be…”off the chain.” Or maybe “off the heezy?” Let’s just go with… “SWEET!!!” I might get some awesome chances to lead worship for tons of crazy teens this summer! I am so excited about those opportunities. I loved traveling on “The Difference” worship band through college, and this summer, I will get to continue rocking out at some youth camps! Once some more concrete decisions are made, I’ll post it all on here!

I’m excited about summer!

So here’s my game plan for creating better physical disciplines.  There are three main areas I am focusing on: 1) exercise, 2) nutrition, and 3) sleeping patterns.

Exercise:

• Go to the gym 5 days a week
• Put in  30 minutes minimum on the treadmill
• Lift weights, rotating muscle groups through the week

Nutrition:

• Eat only at meal times (no snacking)
• Eat smaller and better portions (less meat, more veggies, more fruit)
• No eating after 9pm (sorry, Huddle House)
• Drink at least 40 oz. of water each day (in addition to juices, green tea, and diet sodas)
• Sweet foods, desserts, etc. only on Sundays
• Still no sugar sodas

Sleeping Patterns:

• Go to bed no later than 1 am (I have to be somewhat reasonable…)
•  Wake up no later than 7 am (I’m hoping that this rule will force me to go to bed earlier at night)

So here’s my disciplines to start.  I forced myself out of bed this morning by 6:45 am (the original goal was 6 am) and I really was glad that I did that.  I’ve been able to be quite productive this morning.  Chuck, a mentor of mine, gets up each morning around 4 am to do a routine list of getting things done in the morning (responding to emails, sending out a devotional thought to a list of people, reading the Bible, spending time in prayer, getting ready, dressed, etc.).  Getting up early is the key to getting that stuff done for him.  I’m trying to take the same approach.  If I put those sorts of disciplines off until evening, they won’t get done.  I’m not getting up at 4 am yet, but I’m working on it!

I’ll keep updates on here of my progress with my new physical disciplines.  Then, I’ll add on the next group of disciplines: mental/intellectual disciplines.

As part of my Old Testament Intro course I’m doing through Asbury, I had to read through Leviticus this week (along with Numbers, Deuteronomy, and two corresponding books with them). I’ve read some of Leviticus before, but I was blown away reading it this time. I started imagining what these scenes would truly look like. I started to imagine what it would be like to have to perform these sacrifices with my own hands. Read these passages and imagine doing this with your own hands.

If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He is to slaughter the young bull before the LORD, and then Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and sprinkle it against the altar on all sides at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. He is to skin the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. The sons of Aaron the priest are to put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the pieces, including the head and the fat, on the burning wood that is on the altar. He is to wash the inner parts and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar.
:: Leviticus 1:3-9

He is to lay his hand on the head of his offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall sprinkle the blood against the altar on all sides. From the fellowship offering he is to bring a sacrifice made to the LORD by fire: all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys.
:: Leviticus 3:2-4

From the fellowship offering he is to bring a sacrifice made to the LORD by fire: its fat, the entire fat tail cut off close to the backbone, all the fat that covers the inner parts or is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will remove with the kidneys.
:: Leviticus 3:9-10

All this just sounds disgusting!  I wouldn’t stand a chance getting through a sacrifice.  I’d throw up all over it!  Just imagine the smell!  Blood and internal organs everywhere.  Having to handle them with your bare hands.  I just threw up in my mouth a little.

This was a good reminder for me though.  It gave me a chance to realize how disgusting our sin really is to God.  Look at how much of a disgusting mess the sacrifices were!  That much mess was caused by the disgusting mess of sin in people’s lives!  They couldn’t just say they were sorry and move on like nothing happened.  They had to sacrifice something that they owned (something that cost them something…or even more, something that was part of their families’ livelihood) and SLAUGHTER it!  They had to make a disgusting mess of blood, flesh, organs, and fat to cover the mess that they caused in their lives.  This is a reality check!  This is how disgusting our sin really is in God’s eyes.  It’s not something light.  It can’t be brushed off and forgotten.  It has to be dealt with, mourned over, and it has to cost us our repentance as we lean on Jesus’ sacrifice to cover our sin and move toward living more like Him.

Take some time and read through Leviticus.  Look and see how big and dirty our sin really is and that God doesn’t want us to live in it.  God has something more for us.  He has a far better way of life for us than we could even imagine!  Let’s count the cost, take up our crosses, and through the power of the Spirit, rid ourselves of the nastiness of sin and learn to love and serve and be holy as He is holy.

I’d have to say that many times I view the word discipline as profanity. I hate discipline. I hate it because it’s hard. It takes effort, work and intentionality. It takes patience to see results of discipline. It takes time for discipline to become habits and a lifestyle.

But that’s what I have to do. Over the past couple weeks, I have been dwelling deeply on the fact that I have little to no discipline in tons of areas of my life! It’s sad and sickening to see that. It’s one of the hardest things to do: to look at yourself and realize you are not the man you meant to be, and you have a list of reasons why.

Before in my life, I’ve tried to write out a list of all the areas of my life that need work, all the bad habits I wanted to rid myself of, and all the good practices I wanted to start. That list would be the difference between the man I was and the man I wanted to be. However, stupid me, I would gather all my strength and excitement and attack that whole list…all at once. I attempted to change all sorts of things in my life all at once. I tried to change everything, and so, as you can probably see where this is going, I finished with nothing changing. It was like me taking on the North Carolina basketball team…all of them…all at once…and hoping to even make a lay-up!

After a much needed discussion over lunch with Chuck, a mentor of mine (who, by the way, is one of the greatest men on the planet), I have decided a game plan for strategically tackling my list of life disciplines that I want to implement, change, modify, eliminate, etc. I will take three weeks at a time to focus on changing ONE area of my life. As much as it will bother me not to focus on changing the other areas as well, I will have to force myself to let those areas stay how they have been so that I can give as much attention to the focused area of change. I am hoping that focusing on one area for three weeks will allow those disciplines to become good habits. Then, after three weeks are done on one area of disciplines, I will move my focus to the next area and try changing my disciplines in that area WHILE keeping the habits formed in the first area from the prior three weeks. Although I’m not done compiling and sorting out my list of areas in my life that need to be checked, here is the list so far:

1. Physical – exercising, eating well, nutrition, sleeping patterns, etc.
2. Mental/Intellectual – reading books, learning, musicianship (writing and growing as a musician), even blogging
3. Spiritual – reading Scripture, praying, building my relationship with God
4. Relational – good relationships with family and friends, balanced social habits, good conversation, meeting people, pouring into people, encouraging people, serving in community
5. Emotional – this will be affected, determined and gauged by all the other areas

Although each area is vitally important, and each area even overlaps with every other area, I decided that I would start with the one area of my life that was most “out of whack,” the one that needed the most work and attention, the one that I thought was farthest from where it needs to be. So I decided to start on my physical disciplines.

Starting tomorrow, I will implement new disciplines and rules to allow me to live a better life physically (and lose weight!). I will write again tomorrow (I hope) about what I will be doing specifically to gain discipline in the physical arena of my life.

No more writing blog posts at 2 am after tonight… at least not on a regular basis!

PLEASE check out these videos!  These are portions of two sermons from Pastor Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in the Phoenix area.  According to their website,

“We are a local New Testament church reaching the Phoenix Area with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Don’t expect anything contemporary or liberal. We are an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible only, separated Baptist church and not ashamed to say so!”

Here’s the video links:

This video is Steven’s opinion of NewSpring Church.  So, I’m assuming he’s maybe not a huge fan?

This video is about our country’s greatest problem: men sitting down to urinate.  Wow.  I could have sworn our plummeting economy might have been slightly above our choices of urination positions on the list of problems.

On a last side note, according to their website, here’s Pastor Steven’s credentials for exegeting the Scriptures:

“Pastor Anderson holds no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible committed to memory, including half of the New Testament.”

I guess that means I can memorize an anatomy book and then perform surgery!  Yes!

Here’s the best finds I’ve found on the internet this week.  All the blog posts that I list weren’t written this week.  I just happened to stumble across them this week.

• Read this post by Gary Lamb (pastor of Revolution Church) about what ministry REALLY looks like.  Ministry is messy.
• Check out this post by Tony Morgan about why leaders critique (and why it can be okay).
• Read this post by Perry Noble entitled, “Five Things You Should Never Hear From A Staff Member” (although I doubt ANY pastor should ever say this!)
• Check out this post by Tim Stevens (executive pastor at Granger Community Church) about wise decisions with your money!  GREAT advice!  Once I get a job and income, I’m going to implement this advice ASAP!
• Here’s an AMAZING post by Vicky Beeching (worship leader/artist) digging into the issue of recording worship artists and the effects of the Church making them into “worship pop stars.”
• For you intellectual types (a.k.a. “nerds”…don’t worry, I’m one too), check out Ben Witherington’s post considering the possibility of Lazarus as the “beloved disciple,” and even more, the author of the Gospel of John

Have fun in the blog world with this week’s wi-finds!

“Psycho T” and the boys finished out a great season, finishing number #1 in the country and in the ACC as they beat the Blue Devils in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Duke’s senior night.  They finished out at 76-68, with Hansbrough finishing yet another double-double game (16 points, 15 rebounds) and Danny Green having a high scoring game of 18 points.  Now it’s time for the real fun to begin!  First, we take it all in Charlotte at the ACC tourney and then we make our way to take it all in San Antonio!

In other news, with inspiration from reading Tony Morgan’s thoughts on facebook, I finally did what I’ve been thinking about doing for awhile.  I closed my myspace account.  I have been sick of all the trash, spam, and garbage that has taken over myspace.  I am keeping my music page on myspace, in case I start writing some more of my own material, but my personal page is history.  Sorry to any of you myspace addicts.  All I can say is get out of myspace and just start blogging!

Tony, I’m still not ready to give up on facebook!