This is Jimmy Internet.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Just a second.
Not Annette today.
Yep, that's right, folks.
Annette has actually been sick at home and she is in bed.
So I came up to the BCF studio just to do a podcast today.
We actually did shoot a video for our church, a welcome video where me as a lead pastor
did this video to welcome people to our church who click on this link type of thing.
So I thought, you know what, I'm up here.
In fact, Annette even said, you know, you should go ahead and do a podcast by yourself.
I'm like, by myself?
That's just weird because it's always Jimmy and Annette, not Jimmy or Annette.
And it's also our guest, Mr. Chevy.
So this is kind of a whole new vibe.
I'm up here by myself today.
But I did want to go ahead and come to you and first of all, wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Hope you had a wonderful Christmas.
We had a fantastic Christmas.
And by the way, my name is Jimmy Pruitt and my other half Annette is home in bed, hopefully
taking a nap this afternoon.
That was my orders when I left, but we'll see how that goes because she was up all night
coughing.
And so she said, hey, since you're going to be up the church shooting some film, go ahead
and do the podcast because let people know we're still alive.
And so, hey, we're still alive and kicking just barely.
I've gotten a lot of reports from other people who listen to the podcast, who've been sick
and even one family, friends of ours in another state all got COVID.
I mean, over the holidays, you know, kind of a hyped up version of a cold.
So they're doing okay and recovering.
But my goodness, there's a lot of stuff going around right now.
But I want to welcome you to our podcast.
It's called Living Up in a Down World.
My name is Jimmy Pruitt.
I'm also a lead pastor of the Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
And so I'm here in our new studio.
We just got it finished.
Well, almost finished.
We got some more soundproofing to do, which there's never enough of that unless you just
build a foam fort around you.
But anyway, I think it's sounding pretty good and we're getting there.
We'll see how the video came out today as well.
So anyway, it's just going to be me today.
So I wanted to bring some things to you.
This will be a shorter podcast than normal just because I wanted to make sure you knew
that we're still alive and we're okay.
So I'm calling this episode, How Low Can You Go?
And my answer to that is I can go solo.
That means I'm by myself.
And so again, thanks for listening to the podcast and got some things I want to share
with you.
First of all, Annette, that's the big news.
She's been sick and fighting off this cold and this infection that's going on.
She's in the middle of a Z-Pak and hopefully we'll be on the backside of that soon and
be with me the next time we record.
One of the things I wanted to bring up and talk to you about is my one word for 2024.
A number of years ago, like everybody else, we used to do resolution lists.
I know I would try to come up with 10 each year and about honestly three weeks to a month
into it, I misplaced it or I put it in my Bible and couldn't find it or it just didn't
go well or I'd review it in a month or two or three and go, you know, that's really not.
And sometimes I just felt forced to come up with something.
And then a number of years ago, I heard about this thing called My One Word.
There's actually a website to it.
I don't know if it's still in existence or not, but it's been a few years ago.
And what it is, you come up with a one word theme instead of trying to come up with 10
resolutions.
I think I've mentioned this on a prior podcast, but I wanted to review that with you because
it's kind of where I'm going this Sunday for the message at Bridge Church where I pastor.
And by the way, you can check out all of our sermons online and all of our resources online.
It's at the email or the web address is bridgefbg.com.
Check it out on that front landing page when you land there.
If you'll scroll down, you'll see where all of our messages and sermons and everything's
there for you.
And you can pull those up and look through them.
We even include the worship on the front end of it and then right into the message.
So be glad to have you jump on with that and check it out.
Also, you can find us, JimmyInnet, at livingupinadownworld.com.
That is our website.
One more time, livingupinadownworld.com.
I do a daily blog on there, which is my Godshot or my Devo that I've been writing for years
and years every morning, hot off the press, fresh in the morning.
It's the download I get for the morning.
And I've done this every day for 20 years.
So I have several thousands of those.
Now on the website, we just started the website this last year and it just dawned on us just
a couple of days ago, isn't it?
And I were talking about the podcast.
We're coming up on one year, I think in January or February.
I think January, we started with our first podcast.
So it'd be interesting maybe to go back and review a little bit of the topics that we
started with a year ago.
We were doing them every other week and then we decided to do it every week for a while.
Now, FYI, some of you have asked and even reached out to our friends, Adam and Tina
Curry of Curry and the Keeper, hey, what's going on with Jimmy and Ned?
They haven't had a podcast.
It didn't show up this week.
Well, part of the reason is because, A, and that was getting sick, but more so at that
point, we were extremely busy.
Just so you know, for pastors and teams and staffs of church, a lot of times if you're
in a little bit medium to a larger size church, it really could be any size church, Christmas
and Easter are kind of the Super Bowl Sundays for us.
And so a lot of work goes into those.
And so no different from us.
We were doing two full services on Christmas Eve and there's just a lot that goes into
that and a lot of intensity.
And then December, we looked up one day and our schedule somehow just all of a sudden
filled up.
And going into December, we were hoping, okay, maybe a couple of parties, meet with some
friends, have dinner.
It just seemed like as the month progressed, just more and more things.
Part of the reason for that is our church is growing, which is exciting.
We're adding more staff and we're doing a lot of construction, build out things on our
building and that takes a lot of energy and time as well.
Onboarding new staff, stewarding our space and meeting with contractors.
It's just a lot going on.
So we were like, we've got to gain some margin because we looked up and almost every night,
every day and night was taken up for us.
And we don't typically roll like that.
As we've gotten older, we're like, okay, let's get some margin.
So we decided to just go every other week and that was the plan and then Annette got
sick.
So that's why it's been more of an extended period than we would like.
And Annette said, please just do it today by yourself.
That way people will know we're still alive.
We haven't gone anywhere.
We're coming back.
We're going to come back in 2024 stronger than ever.
So back to my one word.
My one word for 2024 is the word engage.
And that came, there's a lot of reasons why I chose that word.
Now what I tend to do is about October, November, I start thinking about the new year a little
bit.
I'm starting to look out into the new year and I'm thinking about, you know, what would
be a good word to capture where I want to go for the next year?
And that's kind of how I do it as a theme.
Like what I'm projecting, almost prophesying, like where do I want to go?
I mean, what do I want to lean into?
And I'll pray about it and think about it.
Annette and I talk about it and kick it around.
A lot of times I'll come up with mine.
She'll come up with a word as well.
And then over the last two or three years, she decided, you know, every time you come
up with a word, it's really something I'm doing with you.
And it's something we're doing together.
Because like I always say, it's not Jimmy or Annette, it's always Jimmy and Annette,
except for today.
And so she tends to just adopt and will agree upon a word.
So when I was talking to her about what I was sensing and feeling about 2024, and I
came up with engage, and it's just this, for me, it's a mindset.
It's action oriented, but it's also a mindset and a mentality of not hesitating, not holding
back, not being silent, not being quiet, not being shy, but literally, whatever it is I'm
moving toward, instead of being hesitant, or having trepidation, or even fear in some
cases, my attitude is I'm going to go all in and I'm going to go straight for it, whatever
that is, and whatever it happens to be.
And so that's my word for the new year, engage.
And what's interesting, as soon as I came up with that word, I wrote it in my journal,
shared it with some friends, it's like immediately I started doing it.
So there's something powerful about a word that's action oriented, that's compelling.
And so I don't know if you've done a one word.
In fact, a lot of people have already come to me and said, yeah, I've got my one word.
In fact, Adam Curry wrote me, I think it was yesterday, we do a text back and forth every
morning, I send my God shot over to him, my daily Devo in the morning while he's drinking
his coffee and getting his day going.
And he wrote back and said that his word is encourage.
And so he is an encourager, this will be easy for him.
He's already that on steroids.
So it'll be cool to watch him be more intentional.
And really, that's what a my one word is about.
It's being intentional, and leaning in and leaning toward that theme that you choose.
So if you're interested in doing that, it sure beats doing resolutions, which I forget
are misplaced.
But every since we started the my one word, it has been really helpful for me to have
a one year theme.
And look, there's no hard fast rules, you may get into it for several months and something
else comes to you and you're like, wow, I really feel stronger about that than I did
that.
There's no rules.
I mean, this isn't it isn't a contest.
So you may come up on a word that you want to adopt and adapt right into your into your
my one word for the set the back half of the year or whatever.
Like I said, no hard rules, but it's just a way to kind of lean into something and be
intentional.
I like the idea of intentional living, living life on purpose.
In fact, one of the things I say to people a lot is have a good day on purpose, have
a great day on purpose.
I'll say that to the cashier or to the barista or whatever.
Have a great day on purpose.
And I mean that be purposeful and be intentional.
And so that's my one word engage.
And I hope you've got one.
And if you do share it with us, you can always go to our website, living up in a down world
dot com and you can write in it.
We have the contact box right there on the main page.
Actually, it's on every page and you can contact us.
And we love hearing from you, by the way, your feedback.
You have no idea how much that means to us.
I shared this a while back, but we went to a podcast conference this last year with Adam
and Tina Curry.
And Adam received a lifetime achievement award as a podcaster, podcaster of the year.
I mean, it's really cool.
And he was the keynote speaker.
So it was really fun riding along with them and hanging out.
But what was interesting is that every person that took the stage to talk about podcasting,
whether they were they talked about different elements of it, you know, the technical side
of it, the the why behind the what side of it, the motive, why we do what we do.
It was really interesting.
All the speakers were great.
Every one of them said the same thing at one point in and maybe a little different way.
But it was basically this is that they have periods of time that they go through as podcasters
where they wonder, is anyone really listening?
And boy, and that and I hit that wall a couple of times.
Didn't know we would because I mean, it was our first year of podcasting.
And you know, when I'm preaching, I get instant feedback.
If you think about it, I'm standing up before, you know, on a given Sunday now around here,
about 500 plus people.
And so the 500 people give you feedback, good or bad.
You're going to get feedback.
You know, you're going to say, man, hey, stay on that.
Bring out the book.
I mean, it's just we have a vocal church and I liked it.
I love the interplay and the interaction.
I like the interactivity of a room where you're face to face with people.
So speaking into a mic is a whole different ballgame, totally different ballgame.
And so, yeah, and I hit that wall a few times this last year.
We're like, gosh, is anyone really listening?
Well, listen, you can help us out by that.
And you are so good at it, by the way.
I'm going to share some things here in just a few minutes of people that wrote in and
things that have been sent in just giving us feedback.
And it's so helpful because we want to help you.
That's our heart, mine and Annette's heart and Mr. Chevy, by the way, our heart is to
help.
And so the reason we do this is because we want to help you.
And that doesn't mean we know more than you or we've got anything more figured out.
It's just sometimes we can bring a different perspective.
We're always going to come from a faith based perspective because that's who we are.
We're followers of Jesus.
We're unapologetic.
And speaking in terms of engage, we engage our faith full on.
And so we're not quite about that.
But we feel like if we come and give you a perspective that's from a biblical worldview
and a biblical point of view, it may help you in your life as you navigate the problems,
issues, difficulties and the complexities of this world and this life.
And so we're here to help you.
We're here to encourage you.
But it helps us to have feedback and feel free to float topics our way.
I mean, you can even just write us in and say, hey, have you thought about covering
this topic or what about this or what does it mean in the Bible to do this?
And many of you have written in and asked questions, which I always try to respond as
quickly as possible because we want to keep you engaged.
But give us feedback because it really helps us shape the show into something that will
help you and encourage you and build you up.
Well, here's another thing.
We actually, I'm clicking these off as I go through them again solo, but we finished our
office studio here at the church.
We're calling it BCS Studio.
Super excited about it.
I'm sitting in it right now.
It's Friday afternoon.
There's nobody here in the building.
And so it's just me and you.
And I'm looking around this room and just so, so thankful and so grateful that our people
gave.
We did a lot of work and we actually gave up our offices during COVID.
We couldn't be here.
So our church was growing and we knew that we needed space for children's ministry.
And so where our offices were located, that whole wing was really perfect for children's
area and a big meeting room.
And so we gave that up so that they could have more space and it worked out great.
But ever since then, which now coming up on four years, right?
Starting in January, that'll be four years since that thing broke out.
We were officing with backpacks.
I mean, every one of us had a bag or a backpack that we carried and we'd all sit in one big
room during the day and without any privacy or phones or anything like that.
So it, and at first it was okay for a long time because we're like, Hey, it's all right.
It's just price you pay.
But as we've been able to continue to build our building out, we found space and we were
able to reconfigure things so that it gave us some space to build out what I'm calling
a studio slash office or office slash studio.
And so this is where we'll be doing our podcasts from, we'll be doing our YouTube channel,
which is called Meet Pray Love.
And it's about the carnivore lifestyle and about a total life wellness approach, mind,
body, spirit.
So that's going to be happening right here.
In fact, I met with my tech engineer who is also my youngest daughter, Faith.
She's 23 and brilliant with all things digital.
And so when we shot the video today, we were talking about what that looks like and ideas
of camera angles and various things like that.
So getting all of our gear together for that and we'll be doing that soon, maybe next week
is what I'm hoping to shoot our first real video with me and Annette.
So that's coming up as well.
But we're super excited that we're able to finish the office.
I'm going to post pictures.
Actually, I did in the last newsletter.
And if you haven't subscribed to our newsletter, go to our website and you could subscribe
on there.
Subscribe button on livingupinadoworld.com.
Click on that and I will add your name to the list.
And so once I get that, I put it right on there immediately and you'll start getting
that.
And those go out about a day before we do the next podcast.
And that's just a way to give you a heads up of what's coming.
Always like to give you some behind the scenes pictures and what's going on in our life.
And so anyway, that's before each podcast.
So anyway, studio's done.
I say done, almost done.
I did detect a little bit of echo.
So we're going to do some more soundproofing, but for the most part, it's done and we could
not be happier with it.
And this feels good to have space that's dedicated and kind of get it out of our house so we
can kind of have our work life balance back a little bit anyway.
It's hard though, because we love what we do so much that it doesn't always feel like
work to us.
But anyway, so big things happening.
I was listening to Curry and the Keeper, their latest episode yesterday, Adam and Tina, and
they were talking about the Tannenbaum Ball.
That is a huge event here in Fredericksburg and it's an annual event.
It's always a Christmas orientated theme.
And it is actually to raise money for our museums here in town, the Pacific Museum of
the Pacific War.
Man, it is an amazing world class museum.
I mean, world class.
And I recently went through it.
In fact, Adam and I went through it together.
I'd never been.
He said, hey, let's do it.
So he and I took some few hours one day and we barely got through, we barely scratched
the surface of what all they have because there's so much there.
And so much, I was reminded of how bad my history classes were growing up in college
and in high school and middle school because there were so many wars and fights and battles
and issues and things that I was completely unaware of.
So anyway, it's a brilliant thing.
And so this is the annual fundraiser for that.
It's kind of the who's who of our community, Fredericksburg, Gillespie County here in Texas,
show up to that.
And I was blown away because half the place was people from our church that I didn't even
realize were a part of that or whatever.
So anyway, that was our first time to go.
We'll definitely go next year.
It was a phenomenal event.
Truly, truly, so many God conversations with people, not just people from my church.
Although there were a lot of people coming up to me and me and Adam are hanging out a
lot.
And in David, he talks about David, the ER doc, surgeon general, he goes to our church
as well.
We all hung out and spent time together.
And people kept coming up to me and saying, Hey, my name is so and so by the way, I go
to the bridge, I go to your church.
I'm like, Oh my gosh, I've never met you before.
And so it's kind of the hazards of growth.
Sometimes we're growing pretty fast.
So there's a lot of new people coming in.
So you don't always catch names or see faces.
And so anyway, and then I've started at the end of every service going out in our four
year and just meeting people.
It's like a it's like a mosh pit party out there.
That's really where the party is happening.
But we're just meeting people right and left and just having a blast with that.
But anyway, it was so cool being at this ball.
And a lot of the people that were there go to our church.
And it was like, this is our church outside the walls.
And it was beautiful to watch our people laughing and connecting and hanging out with other
people and enjoying good food and good music.
They had a crazy good band there from Austin that was killing it with Motown and all kinds
of full horn section.
I mean, these guys were amazing, amazingly talented.
And they did every kind of music from my past and growing up that you can imagine everything
from rock to to pop and Motown and rhythm and blues and just so cool, so cool and so
much fun.
And again, always so good hanging out with Adam, Tina.
And the weird part is we were not at the same table because they were a part of another
table.
We were invited by another table.
And so we were like, this is like not right.
We're not even at the same table.
What's up with that?
You know, so it felt kind of weird.
But anyway, well, we all end up hanging out anyway, because that's just what we do.
So that was an amazing event.
And then we had a sweet, sweet dinner with Gary and Maggie Cleansing.
And they own a restaurant here in town called Crossroads, which is an amazing steakhouse.
And they know they know we do meat.
And so we went out and had steak with them as the first time we got to hang out with
them.
And they're long term, long term Fredericksburg folks.
And they do a lot of builds and a lot of projects around Fredericksburg and really just continue
to bring the quality of life up here in Fredericksburg.
And so hanging out with Gary, Maggie, and we went with one purpose and at night and
that was to listen.
So often we're doing all the talking.
I'm doing it all the day, which just feels weird.
But we're doing all the talking.
And sometimes we don't get to hear other people's stories.
So we sat down.
The first thing we said to them is, hey, we want to hear your story.
We want to hear about your life.
And oh my gosh, what a wild, wild adventure that was.
And we spent.
Have you ever been with people and you look up and it's three and a half hours later and
you're like, didn't even it felt like 15 minutes.
We were there for three and a half hours at their restaurant.
And it was so wild because time flew because we were just listening and they were telling
us these stories about their life.
It was so life giving and so enriching.
And so just a shout out to Gary and Maggie just for blessing us with a wonderful evening
at Crossroads and also just a sweet time together with them.
And then also to a lot of our friends, the friends that provided the opportunity for
us to attend the Tanenbaum Ball.
Man, just we have such a great group of friends from the bridge.
And I'm afraid to name names because I'll forget somebody and leave somebody out.
But they really it was a joint effort for them to bless us with that evening.
And I just want to give a great shout out to all of them because there's just so much
love in that group.
And the girls call themselves the bridge posse, which is hilarious.
And they're just amazing, amazing group of ladies.
And they're the ones who put the ball on.
I mean, they're the one who put it all together.
So big shout out to them.
So I'm just going down the list here.
Christmas Eve services at the bridge.
Of course, like I said earlier is that, you know, it's the Super Bowl for us.
I mean, we always know we're going to have a lot of people that usually don't come to
church, come to a Christmas Eve service.
And we did our regular morning service times because Christmas Eve actually fell on Sunday
this year.
You know, every seven years it rotates and we'll get it in seven years again.
And so this year, this was the year for Christmas Eve.
So instead of doing Christmas Eve, Eve services, we kept our services at the same time in the
morning and it worked out great.
We had 600 people in attendance.
Which is more than normal.
We're typically about 500.
So we saw a bunch of new people here and it was wonderful.
Our worship team was killer, kept it all, is very Christmas oriented.
And we had such a sweet time.
And I told the story and I've told it on here on the podcast of my brother getting hit by
a car during the Christmas holidays.
And just, we nearly lost him that year and it was a terrible tragedy because it was a
hit and run.
And so I told that story at length.
And so if you want to hear that story, if you're interested in that, because I mean,
it was a game changer for my family.
And it was really one of the first times anyone had really introduced me to Jesus Christ as
a 10, 11 year old kid.
I think it was 11.
And anyway, I told that story in detail and you can find that on our website from last
Sunday, either the 9 or the 10 45 a.m. service.
I told the same story in both services.
But we had a wonderful, wonderful time.
And I was so reminded on Christmas Eve being with our spiritual family, our church family,
how blessed we are to have community here in Fredericksburg, not just the community
of Fredericksburg, the city itself, but community, a community of faith and a community of people
who love each other and are trying to walk out their faith life everywhere they live
and where they work and where they play.
And it was such a beautiful, beautiful time.
I was just reminded of the love that we have here.
And then on Christmas Day, talk about special.
We actually hung out with the Currys and they invited us over.
You know, we've been we've become family.
We're not just friends.
We're family.
And that's the good, the bad, the ugly.
We've all seen the good, bad, ugly of each of us.
And so and yet we're still best friends.
And that's what it's about is really learning to do life together, not just when it's great,
but when there's hard times, too.
But we ended up having just a beautiful, beautiful afternoon and evening with Adam and Tina and
their daughter, Ellen and her boyfriend, Jesse, were in from Chicago and just just stunning,
beautiful young people.
And man, just the next gen where when I see young people like this, I think, my gosh,
this is the next generation that's going to change the world.
They're going to make a difference and just both super sweet.
And Tina strategically placed me right in front of Ellen.
And so it was cool because I got to know her and she actually separated me and Adam because
she knew what would happen.
Me and Adam would get in a gab fest about God, the world and other things.
So that was very strategic, well played, Tina.
And so it was me and Ellen.
And so I just engaged Ellen and started talking to her and asking questions about what motivates
her.
She's involved in government and city government there in Chicago.
And man, you can imagine that's a battlefield in Chicago.
And so I was just curious about how she landed the job and what motivates her to do what
she does and what her future looks like.
And we had the greatest conversation.
And of course, I asked the golden question, which I've been asking everybody and I'm continuing
to do this everywhere I go is what are you thankful for?
What's the first thing comes to your head?
What the first thing off top of your head?
What are you thankful for?
And of course, that her and Jesse both had amazing things to say and beautiful things
to say and just just a lovely to use Tina's word, a lovely, lovely evening with people
that we love and care about.
And Phoebe was in great form.
She's doing fantastic.
That's their dog that had to go to boot camp because she almost bit my wife and that.
And so she's doing great.
So it was just one of those magical evenings to use a worldly term, but it was magical.
It was a beautiful, beautiful evening.
And we talked about God and we talked about the world and other things.
And it was amazing.
And so, so thankful for our friendship with this precious family.
And there were some tears here and there.
Just our conversations just went very deep and very real and very authentic.
And that's what friends and family are for is that you can go there and just being able
to hear about Jesse and about Ellen's life and what they're doing and how they're living
and their young couple trying to make it, trying to figure it out.
And so, gosh, it was such a, such a special, special time and just so loved that family
and so thankful for them.
Now, one of the things I wanted to share and talk about is just how, as you lean into this
new year, what do you have a vision for the new year?
For years and being a pastor, people always expect pastors to have a vision, you know,
like go up on the mountain, meet with God, get some new stone tablets, come back down,
beard's white, hair's white, and you're carrying the stone tablets, you know, like Moses in
the movie The Teen Commandments, you know, Charlton Heston.
It doesn't really work like that.
Just so you know, we don't have a mountain to go up to and we've never received stone
tablets.
And so, we get our messages from God just like you do.
And that may be a trade secret right there is we don't have a red line to God.
We don't have a hot hot line or a red phone that you don't.
We get it the same way you do and it's getting up and giving your day to God and saying,
good morning, Holy Spirit.
Good morning, Lord Jesus.
Good morning, Abba Father.
It's praying the Lord's model prayer, you know, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
I mean, it's we get it just like you do.
We get it by reading our Bible and our Bibles in different translations.
Now, because of our work and the nature of it, we spend more time because we have to
study and prepare to share and to give teach lessons and teach studies and preach sermons
and all that.
So, by nature of the job, it throws us deeper into it on an ongoing basis.
But we still we hear it just like you hear it.
We get impressions.
We write in journals.
We read things that speak to us.
We hear music that speaks to us.
We see nature that calls to us.
And so, I just want to encourage you to think about what would 2024 look like if you lived
life intentionally.
I mentioned this earlier and I want to revisit it before we go today because I want to encourage
you to live your life on purpose.
And that's why my word engage is an on purpose kind of word.
It is it's saying, I'm going to do something.
I'm going to not be quiet.
I'm going to not be silent.
I'm going to not not say anything.
I'm going to engage.
I'm going to engage this world.
I'm going to engage politics.
I'm going to engage the ills of the world and social mores from the pulpit.
I'm going to be fearless and brave and going to make a difference.
And so, I'm excited about a year of engagement.
So, my question for you is what is 2024 going to look like for you?
I read the headlines just like you do and most of the time I just look the other way
and you know you read stuff that's doom and gloom.
You know, oh 2024 is going to be a hard year for everybody financially.
It's going to be this and that or it's going to be dark or with all the political stuff
that's going on.
You know, it's going to be just constant battles.
But I don't, I choose not to live that way.
I choose to live up in a down world.
I'm living an intentional life and I want to challenge you and encourage you and really
call you out and say, you know what, you can live up in a down world too.
The world can be down but you don't have to.
The world can be lost but you don't have to be lost.
The world can be confused but you don't have to live confused because you've got the true
north.
That's God's word.
Bring out the book is what the people were telling Nehemiah and Ezra in the book of Nehemiah.
Bring out the book.
Bring out, they were chanting it.
Bring out the book.
And I want to encourage you to bring out the book in 2024 and be intentional.
I was just thinking about because a friend of mine has been doing a through the Bible
in a year.
I've got several people doing that.
In fact, Tina just did that.
She's gone through the Bible in a year.
Annette and I did something two, three years ago, we did a two-year version of that because
there's one in the U version Bible which is real handy and I want to encourage you to
get in the Bible.
Bring out the book.
Get into God's word.
Get into it every day.
It will make a difference in your life.
There's a Greek word that sounds like energy and it literally means that the word of God
is living and energy.
It's energy.
It's alive.
It's living and active and powerful.
And then it says it's sharper than any two-edged sword.
It literally pierces down into and reveals the intentions of the heart, the motives and
intents of the heart.
And so I want to encourage you to bring out the book this year.
Lean in and say, Lord, I'm going to dive into your word and I'm going to trust that you
will speak to me from your word because your Bible even says in the book of Hebrews that
your word is active and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.
It literally reveals the intents and purposes of my heart, my motives, everything.
And so I'm going to dive into that book and let it energize, rejuvenate, and enliven me.
So I want to encourage you.
Just commit to step into this new year to live life on purpose, to engage a new year
with living up in a down world, not living down in a down world, living up in a down
world, choosing life, choosing to be positive, choosing to see the good, choosing to reject
all the news media mess that's coming your way and propaganda and saying, I'm going to
believe God's word over what this world's telling me.
And you can dive in and start taking steps to live up in a down world.
And that's going to be our challenge all year long.
That's why we call this podcast, Living Up in a Down World, because we want to see you
win.
We want to see you go ahead above water.
We want to see you living up when everything else seems to be falling down.
So that's my heart for you.
That's my encouragement to you.
And that's our prayer for you as you listen to us.
Well, I want to thank a few folks real quick before we go.
Man, just got a great note from Ryan Tierney.
He sent in 77,777 stats.
That's a striper donation there.
And he writes this.
Jimmy and Annette, I started listening to your podcast when Tina and Adam first mentioned
it on Curry and the Keeper.
And it has been a real blessing in my life as I have rekindled my somewhat stagnant faith,
kickstarted by hearing the Currys discuss their own faith journey with such passion
and excitement.
Thank you both for shining his light so brightly.
Merry Christmas, Ryan Tierney from Virginia.
Ryan, first of all, thanks for the value for value and for the boost.
So appreciate the stats.
But more than that, we appreciate your encouragement and just thanks for saying thanks.
Thank you for writing this great note.
We want to encourage you to say Merry Christmas to you.
And man, get ready for a great New Year's.
You live up in a down world.
No matter what's happening in the world, we can live up in it.
And I want to encourage you in that, Ryan.
Thank you again.
And then secondly, also with 77,777 stats, Adam, the Podfather, Curry sent those in.
He said this and he's talking about our new studio, BCF Studio.
He says, the room already sounds great.
That's before we have the soundproofing in.
So we're a step up now.
He says, sounds great.
I'm sure it'll be perfect once the leather couch and Damonette's filets are in.
He knows our love.
We're all things meat.
We're carnivore, all to the core.
And so he knows Annette's love for filets.
But yes, the leather couch is in.
And so it helps too with the sound actually.
But Adam, appreciate you, man.
Love you.
You're my brother.
You're my friend.
You're my brother from another mother.
And I just love our friendship and how it just keeps getting better and keeps growing.
So looking forward to what 2024 is bringing for us and the adventures.
I wrote that when I boosted you and Tina on the Courier and the Keeper earlier today.
I'm looking forward to the God adventures that are going to happen in 2024 together.
So God bless you, my brother.
And then Robert Ludwig with 1100, well, 1111 sats.
He wrote this, a boost of bones for Mr. Chevy for Christmas.
Thank you for your uplifting podcast.
Robert Ludwig from Nevada, Iowa.
Robert, thank you so much.
And thank you for the boost for Mr. Chevy.
He doesn't get enough press time, but really appreciate that and appreciate the sats.
But more than that, just thank you for taking the time to write in and to encourage.
Man, we love and appreciate all you guys.
We're so honored to be able to do this walk with you.
Well, hey guys, say a prayer for Dame Annette as she continues to recover.
I'll be reaching out to her as soon as I hit the stop button and head home and just to
check on her and see how she's doing.
But say a prayer for her.
We really appreciate it.
And do write.
Do let us know you're listening.
Do let us know if there's any particular topic you'd like for us to address, scripturally
or otherwise.
We're always glad to talk about what's going on in the world.
So we'd love to hear from you.
And our prayer for you is that you will have an amazing day on purpose.
Well, that's it for episode number 48.
Can you believe it?
Coming up on a year.
Listen, Merry Christmas to you and to you.
A blessed and prosperous and amazing new year.
God bless you family.
We're out.