Don't get down when you're seeing the worst, because the last will be the first. What a day, I'm telling you, all things will be new. Living up in a down world. Yeah, we're living, yeah, we're living, living up in a down world. Oh! This is Jimmy and Annette, and we are coming to you live. Well, sort of live, but we're going to be live, well, sort of live, it's kind of recorded, but we're live right now. Wait, you're like screaming at me. I'm not screaming at you, I'm just trying to get over it.
Wow, you're excited this morning. I'm actually very sleepy this morning, I'm super tired. I'm barely awake because we had dinner plans last night that kept us up late. And who were we out late with last night? The Maseranos and the Currys. Partying like it was 1999. Right. We went to the most wonderful place. I told Tina, it's called the Revel Kitchen in Fredericksburg. You've got to check it out. They have these dinners that they do.
It's an outdoor venue, and they do it like three days a week every now and then. I don't know how often they do it. But they bring you meat on a skewer, and well, you have appetizers, drinks, all kinds of stuff, but then when they bring you, they bring you a little bit of the entrees. It was like a Brazilian steakhouse. If I would say it reminded me of something, it's when we have gone to a Brazilian steakhouse, and they bring all you can eat. It was phenomenal.
Fredericksburg is so blessed to have a high-end restaurant of this caliber here that's kind of casual, too. You don't have to feel like you have to dress up in your after-five outfit. But we were sitting outside. It was phenomenal. But under this really cool, it's like a pop-up restaurant, I think they call it, and it was under this awning thing. It's hard to explain. It was an outdoor, indoor thing. It's because they built this outdoor venue as a part of their catering.
They're actually a catering company, but their chef is from Argentina. His name is Max. Max, and his wife is, I can't remember her name, but anyway, amazing, amazing food and amazing company. We were out late on a Tuesday night. So we went out with? I already said, the Maseranos and the Currys. You're not listening to me. I'm trying to get with it.
But I'm just like, I think I have a food hangover because the food, I mean, you can't go to a place like that, and we were blessed, we were honored that people took us out. So I wasn't going to not partake in all the food and not just the meat. We don't want to hurt people's feelings. So carnivore, now I would say it was carnivore heavy for me. Very carnivore heavy. For the most part. Or Ketovore heavy.
There's something fun about eating meat that's come right off the fire, massive grill, off the fire with, is it Argentinian or? He's Argentinian. Okay, so spiced up, amazing spices. But it was like eating, it was like going primitive, like Philistines or something. Like there were these, the skewers were like swords. Yes. And oh man, it was amazing. I could go to something like this every week and be happy. Of course, who couldn't?
We couldn't, we'd go broke, but still I would go at least once a month to something like this because it's not usual for a little town, but our town is not typical small town. No, not at all. We are a small town that's acting like a big city. For one, in Gillespie County where we live, it's the highest per capita millionaires in Texas. We don't get included in that. Hey, we get to run around with people though. We get to run around with people. Our friends. It's just an amazing place to live.
We're very, very blessed. So anybody that's deciding they want to look for some place to go in Texas that's not far from where you live, I'm telling you, come to Fredericksburg, get an Airbnb, which is much better than the hotels that you can go to anywhere, and do it around the Revel Kitchen, the times that they have. You can find them online, obviously. Just look up Revel Kitchen, Fredericksburg. It doesn't show. You have to get a Rock and Vine magazine to show when it is.
It was not advertised. Wow. I know. I looked it up because I was like, what are we going to eat? It's like a hidden gem. And it's online, but it doesn't show their opening times. And it's real off the beaten path in the middle of town, almost a neighborhood kind of thing where all of a sudden you come upon this really nice metal building. But you can get on their mailing list and they'll tell you their times that they have these specials. Did we get on their mailing list?
Tina's going to put us on the mailing list. Because I said, oh, no, we have to do that. We've been here nine years. I don't think it's been open, but just a few years. We ran into another couple? I knew about the catering part, but I didn't know they offered actual dinner with appetizers and everything the way they do. It's just, it was phenomenal. But I've hangover from the food because it was some of the tastiest food I've ever.
I mean, I ate things that you know, I don't eat like beets, roasted cabbage. I don't like that kind of stuff. It was phenomenal. You had your fair share of bread too. I did have a, well, no, they were little bitty. I only had a couple of little pieces. The other bread was not bread. It was egg and cheese. There was no flour in it. Those little round, that you were afraid to eat. And I ate three of those. No, I had two of those. I was afraid. You lied to me. You said one. I don't know.
One, two, ten. Who knows? Oh my gosh. Who knows? Wow. Anyway, those were really good too. I was having a carb meltdown. No, but that wasn't a carb. There wasn't a carb in there. No, actually, it was a phenomenal experience. We ran into a couple that are new to our church, Mark and Pam Harmon. Super cool people. Had a great visit with them. He does real estate here in Fredericksburg. He's 64 years old and this dude is uber fit. He's literally like a rock. They met in a gym.
You were fanboying him because of his gym routines. He was saying the same thing about me, but I'm younger. Oh, not very much younger. You're about to have a birthday. Hello. We were sharing our stories. We met in a gym now 33 years ago. 32 and a half, whatever it is. Are you going to turn the air conditioner on? Don't fall down. Don't trip. You have this massive light fixture. It's a studio. I almost fell. We're in a studio. Workman's comp in our studio. Oh my gosh. You're the risk manager too.
Anyway, Mark and Pam, super neat couple. Got to know them. Had great conversations with them. Similar story to ours, they met 30 plus years ago in a gym. Isn't that funny? They invited us to dinner. We're going to take them up on it. We're going to tell them, hey, let's just meet at the Rebel kitchen. You're buying. That was cool. It was amazing. Great experience. So thankful to Adam and Tina blessing us. And the Maseranos. It was Pastor Appreciation Month. What a month we had.
It ends in two days. So we have in 40 years of ministry, you've had how many appreciation type events? Not much. Two or three? Maybe. Maybe. And Naomi, our precious Naomi, who is like a daughter to us. Our daughter basically. She put together because October all over has always been Pastor Appreciation Month. I remember you having a conversation with Zeke Pesina in Abilene. Pastor Zeke. Y'all were having a time together, you and many other pastors.
Y'all were all talking about, oh, it's Pastor Appreciation Month. And he said, yes. My congregation got me a car. A pickup. A pickup. And all the pastors there were like, oh, I didn't get anything. Thanks. Way to go, Zeke. Good for you. So our church went all out. They were fantastic. Many, many cards, videos. Gift cards to restaurants. To restaurants. To restaurants. Cash. Coffee. Checks. Black rifle coffee. It was amazing. Oh my gosh. But this is what I thought was funny.
In both services you said, thank you for the car. And everybody kind of looked at you like, we got you a car? I was going to see their reaction. And you said, I'm joking. I was messing with them. And so there could be a new car. You have two days, somebody. We don't need a car. We're good. But you still have two days left. You never know what could happen. The great thing about what Naomi did is she didn't just honor us, which she honored us huge. Every week we got, had goodies in our office.
Every Sunday we would come in and there's just all these goodies. But she honored the whole staff. All the pastoral staff, but also the administrative staff and our building engineer. Because she didn't want them to feel left out because a lot of times people outside of staff don't get the appreciation. We do. We pay them well. We give them bonuses. We are really good about that. You mean outside of the pastoral staff? Yeah. You said outside of the staff. Outside of the pastoral.
Because it's a pastoral appreciation. But what I'm saying is she wanted them to feel honored as well as us. And that was beautiful. Because most churches don't do that. It was. That's the way it should be. It should be. Everybody should be appreciated. So I loved it because some of the people, a couple of the cards we got said, for us it's not just October that's pastor appreciates. It's every day. And those kind of comments you go, thank you so much.
Yes. And we are true, our spiritual family, which I talked a lot, I taught on that last Wednesday night from our Walking with Jesus discipleship journey. You need to teach on it on Sunday morning too. Oh my goodness. It landed, it didn't land hard, it landed well with people. And just talking about the power of spiritual family and who we are. And so our church literally walked it out and proved it out with us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, your phone blowing up over there.
Work is calling me, but I'm going to put it off. They're going to have to wait. Yeah. It was just such a blessing and it feels amazing to be part of a church family like this. Our church is growing. Even people who just started coming to church wrote us notes about as if we are spiritual, as if they're already in and have been here two weeks. So that was amazing. I think one of my favorite things was the videos, Don and Jill and the Currys. Peggy Layden. Peggy Layden. Our friend Peggy.
And how they talked about how much you had changed their life with your sermons and your life. And just people who have been in church all their life from people who just started coming to church for the first time in 20 years like Jill, that was, we both just cried. I know. I teared up. I was like, wow. It meant so much. When people take the time, most people don't like doing their phone out and doing a video. I'm not good at that. I don't do it. I would rather write a note.
I told Naomi not to be upset that not very many people did videos because not everybody is a video taker and they're not. So it was a lot to ask people to do that. The ones we got were phenomenal. We were blessed. We are blessed. It just, it only confirms what we say all the time that we get to do this and we're honored to serve this church body and to be a part of what God's up to. That's what's exciting. And now we get to bring a bunch of people with us on this amazing journey.
And it blows my mind every week. I say it every day. We get to do this. I really mean it. Because every week we drive up, you get in the pulpit and you're like, who's going to show up today? Not anymore. Wow, I'm shocked. You're over it. Okay. Well, that's a good thing. I was going to say maybe longer. Most pastors do struggle with that. It's like, is anybody going to show up this week? Do I have anything to say that people want to hear? I don't worry about that. That's awesome. I'm glad.
I'm glad. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean, I think God's Word and God's Word matters. And it doesn't matter if one person or 10,000 people are there. It really doesn't. Because if you can change one life, which I have to give you kudos because you really heard the Holy Spirit Sunday morning at the end of the service. You told everybody, don't bow your head. Don't close your eyes. Keep your eyes open.
And if you gave a little gospel presentation, and if you want Jesus, if this is your first time to add to your life, to ask Jesus to come into your life and be your Lord, I want you to stand. And three men stood, stood. I was in shock because you always see those people that stand every single time. We didn't have that. We always see young people like kids, which we don't really have many kids in the sanctuary anymore. But these were older men who said, I'm ready.
And they're going to get baptized. To me, that's worth everything. If those three men were the only ones in the sanctuary and they asked for that, no one else showed up, it would be worth it. It would be worth it because three lives were changed in one day.
The reason I did it that way, and thank you for saying that, the reason I did it that way is because if they won't stand up in church in front of people who are going to cheer them on, 250 in each service or three, whatever it was, 500 something, if they won't stand up in front of a group that loves them, is going to value them and cheer them on, they will not stand up out there on Tuesday afternoon on the job or in their home or out where they're playing, their hobby.
So I'm just kind of over trying to make this so easy that all you have to do is quietly, secretly check a box and quietly, secretly escape out of the church without telling anybody. We've got to raise the bar of expectation. Typically, you have people raise their hands and we close our eyes, but then you ask them to come forward and they don't. This, you ask them to come forward after service was over and speak with Brian and they did. Well, I made it clear because I made Brian raise his hand.
I said, I want you, I said, I want each of you to come talk to him right after the service. And I said it because we want to walk with you. This was the most clarity I've ever heard. You give the gospel and that opportunity and people respond. It was very clear. I don't want to diminish when people make decisions in church and they check a box or anything because everybody's different. However, flip side of that coin is, I'll just say it that way.
A lot of people that do it quietly, they live their Christian life with that level of expectation. That's what they live up to, being quiet. They live up to not being out loud, not saying I'm a believer, I'm a follower of Jesus and I want everybody to know it. So if we raise the bar of expectation, say if you enter in at this level of public profession of faith, because it's what it is, it's a public profession, then you're going to be more likely to stay with it.
You're going to be more likely to engage others at the level you came in, if that makes sense. And that just really hit me on Sunday. I mean, really this has been coming for a year and a half where God just is doing things in me about standing up, about being bold, about being outspoken. Courageous, courageous, revelation. All of that. Talks about... The courageous, he says, you're going to sit with me in heaven. But the cowardly, you're going to end up in the lake of fire.
Courageous is the opposite of cowardly. Exactly. We have got to become bold for Christ. I mean, if you really...I love The Chosen because what they have created in this series, now they're going to seven seasons and they're about to have their fifth online, but they've given us a visual of people, the disciples and others that come to Christ, walking with Jesus and what they did. That is our lens to how we're supposed to walk with Jesus.
And they gave up everything and they didn't have the trappings that we have here. But I'm telling you, to me it's a great visual of the expectation of a Christian not come to church on a Sunday, read your Bible on Sunday only, not have your life reflect who he is on a daily basis at your work, where you work, play. And we've got to raise the bar so that we're not complacent as a church. And I say as a church, and that means the body of Christ, not just our church, but the body of Christ.
It's time to suit up, basically. Suit up and show up. Yeah, exactly. It's really important. Let me segue off of what you just said right into...let's talk about what everyone's talking about, but I don't want to talk about it from the angle that the news is talking about it. I want to talk about it from a biblical worldview. So what is everyone talking about right now at this point in history? The election. The election. I mean, it is insane. Are we at the end of the world because end of times?
Yeah. Are we in the end times or is this the end of an epic or an end of an era, end of an empire? I've heard all that verbiage used. And I've even used some of that verbiage of, wow, could it be? But here's the thing. I want to come from a little bit different angle. First of all, I want to come from an eternal perspective and a heavenly perspective. Jesus said that we're responsible for bringing the culture of heaven to earth.
So in the prayer that he taught his disciples and us to pray, he says, your kingdom come, we're to pray to God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Later in the Great Commission, Matthew 28, he talks about, as you are going, disciple nations, and as you're doing that, teach them everything I've taught you. I want you to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And by the way, I'm going to be with you the whole time you're doing this.
I'll never leave you. So that's the Great Commission put in King Jimmy version. You know, my version, my little translation, paraphrase. But tell me your thoughts. Just let's pitch this back and forth. Let me riff on a little bit. In terms of, from a spiritual perspective, how should we approach the election? Because people are losing their minds over this thing. Well, again, you've preached this. We've heard others speak on this is we're not voting for our Valentine.
We're not voting for our best friend, our pastor, our elder. We're not voting for Jesus. We're voting for a platform that most aligns with biblical values. And we'll never have one that aligns 100%, never. Well, then I'm just not going to vote because I'm a Christian. And if neither one of the candidates live up to my moral expectations and my values, then I... Then you know who's going to end up winning is evil. Because evil will prevail if Christians don't stand out and do something and vote.
You've got to vote. I mean, Jesus voted. I mean, you read that. You spoke on it. You actually did a whole sermon on did Jesus vote. Vote like Jesus. And it was great. And it was very enlightening for a lot of people. There are still people out there though, Christians, that are... They really don't care for Trump at all. And so therefore they won't vote for him because they don't like him. They don't like his hair. They don't like his mannerism. They think it's a character issue.
But you have to look at the policies, his policies versus Harris's policies. He is... While he says he's not going to just cut out abortion altogether, he wants to give it to the states and let them decide. There will still be less babies killed than with Harris who says, we're going to take away... Oh, yeah. It's a campaign of murder. Roe versus Wade's going to be reversed and anybody can kill their baby.
You're probably going to get me booted off of some social media thing again because I got booted off of something, yes, Metta. Yeah, you did. Yeah, yeah. My reel did because I was talking about some of this stuff. So to me, as a Christian, we have the honor, but we also... We are supposed to vote. We're mandated to vote for things that are going to bring life to our country, and that's going to bring death if we vote for someone who's... Or if we don't vote. What?
Somebody else will backfill our vote. Somebody else will backfill it, yes. And in 2020, that's what happened. The evangelical church didn't show up in America because they thought, oh, this is a slam dunk. Of course, they're going to reelect Trump. Of course, this is going to happen. And then what happened didn't, is because 30... Million. Nearly 40... Between 30 and 40 million. 30 and 40 million. I've heard various... Stayed home and didn't vote.
Stayed home, and the enemy backfilled those votes. I think there's people that don't care. I do, too. They profess to be Christians. They're lazy and apathetic. But the great thing right now is we're finding out that more people are voting, have already voted, early voting already before the election than any... Than the last two presidential election years. I was at a county commissioner's meeting here in our community of Fredericksburg, Texas, and I opened it up with prayer.
They invited me to do that, which was a great honor. And I sat with Jim Riley, who serves as part of our city. And Jim was inviting me. He said, would you come, Pastor Jimmy, and let me just give you a tour and show you what we're doing here? Because some people, we get a bad rap over here, but I want you to know the good things we're doing. We're doing some good things. I said, I will take you up on that. So we traded phone numbers. So I'm going to take him up on that soon.
The other thing was he handed me an email from our county commissioner. And he said, I want you to see what's going on. This is an internal memo. And he was just encouraged because of the turnout for the early voting. In Fredericksburg. As of three days ago, in our town of 12,000, we're a whopping big city, right? Here, 12,000 people. We've already had nearly 70, well, now by now, over 7,500, probably over 8,000. But at least 7,500 people have already voted. That's unprecedented.
Which would account for most of the adults here, because honestly, you can't count children because they can't vote. Exactly. So to me, it is very shocking. So in terms of who's eligible to vote, I mean, we're looking upwards of 80 plus percent. Right. But the thing is, who are they voting for is what I want to know. Because we are a very diverse community. We are a very diverse community. And so, yeah, it's going to be a heated moment.
Honestly, I'm ready to get this election over with because... I think everyone's ready. I think people are getting weary, a little tired. I feel a fatigue. But afterwards, we have more work to do. Absolutely. No matter how it lands. Because if it lands with Trump, people are still going to... There's going to be riots. There's still people that are going to hate the church. There's going to be so much persecution. We don't know. And if it goes with Harris, who knows what will happen?
There are people within the Republican Party and Independent that will come against Harris as well. And it's like, ah, if more people would just get on their knees and pray... There we go. ... rather than start riots and violence and all these things, we could turn this thing around. So we're just kicking the ball off now. But I'm telling you, after next week, no telling what's especially going to happen up until the inauguration. It's going to be scary times.
Yeah. Do you think that there's going to be potential even violence? Oh, yeah. We know there's going to be protests. 100%. I think no matter who gets elected, there's going to be violence because it's the nature of humans. Yeah. That don't get their way. And the more we don't get our way, and the longer we live, we see the evilness of people that they won't use good judgment. They'll totally get in their flesh and become belligerent over this. I'm a little nervous about it.
And I worry for Trump's life, but I also worry for Harris or Biden or whoever. Yeah, we don't want it. Because we don't want anyone to be assassinated or attempted assassination over something like this. It's horrific even the way people talk about these things. It is. They can go so primal so quickly and forget who they are. We need to be praying for our candidates. Absolutely. I mean, we need to be praying for their safety, but also for their salvation.
Trump and Harris, we don't know if Trump is saved. We know he's making policies as if he were, but that doesn't mean he's saved. But we need to be praying for anyone who is in office that they will seek God like we used to back in the day. And so I'm nervous about it. But I know God is still in control no matter what. Yeah, I want to share this scripture. It's a great insight, babe. And Proverbs, so I'm doing this thing where I read a Proverb a day.
So there's 31 Proverbs, and depending on the month, it lands right in there. And so it's an easy way to just do a real simple but structured Bible reading. And the Proverbs are just phenomenal. Read them in different translations. I use the New Living Translation, and then I'll switch over to the ESV, which has become my go-to. So in the English Standard Version, Proverbs chapter 29, so this was yesterday, listen to this.
Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice. A lot of people are putting hope in Trump. You know, if Trump wins, everything's going to go great. Or if Harris wins, oh, you know, finally we're going to be the democracy we've always wanted instead of this weird constitutional republic that people talk about, which we are. So, you know, but everybody's looking towards these individuals as though somehow they're going to fix everything. And we are-
We've got news for you. They're not going to fix everything. There's only one person that can fix. There's only one on the throne. I've been saying it in church, and it lands odd with people when I say Jesus is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. And in our vernacular day, he's the President of Presidents. And it's funny when I say it because I can feel the room that it lands strange to think of him that way.
But isn't that the same as saying if you're in an empire saying or a dynasty that he's the King of Kings? That's normal, right? Lord of Lords, normal. But I want to say President or Presidents- People are like, look at you funny. Okay, I never thought of it that way, but he is. He sits on the throne. Trump will not, Harris will not, whoever's pulling all the strings behind Harris and Biden, and we know it's not them.
It's the gates and the Soros and the Schwab and all these different ones that are pulling the strings. But at the end of the day, many seek the face of a ruler, and that's what happens. People run- even the children of Israel, when they had the judges, they said, it's not good enough. We want a king. Give us a king like the Philistines. Give us a king like the Parasites and the Hittites. We want a king like them. And God was like, you don't need a king. I've given you judges.
And he finally relented because they wouldn't stop asking. He gave them what they asked for. And there was a long lineage of evil kings, dark kings, because man does not do well handling power. We're just not good at it. Our character is not- Our pride gets in the way. Flesh and all of that. So anyway, I just wanted to share that scripture because that really landed well with me yesterday. I thought this is so true. Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice.
We need to quit looking to a president and looking to a government. Now, does it mean we don't participate in the process, that we don't learn the process? No, I love that. Navigate and play our part. We have to participate, but we don't put them on the pedestal. They're not our ultimate hope. Yeah, just like you don't put a pastor on the pedestal. Right, short term. Because you're going to let them down. Because you're human. They're a part of the larger plan, but we want righteous rulers.
We want to pray that God would, and in our part, participate to get righteous rulers and authority. Anyway, I just thought that was interesting because this is what everyone is talking about. It is. Even not even in America because other countries have a huge interest in- Oh, they're very interesting. Whether this grand experiment that's 248 and a half years old succeeds because we're the last bastion of freedom, true freedom with a constitutional republic on the planet.
Where do you go if America goes under? There's nowhere to go. Where do you go if we become socialist, Marxist, communist? There's nowhere to go. Where are you going to go? There is no place to go. Other countries and other nations and people are looking at us to say, and I've talked to two people, one from Poland and one from a couple from Venezuela who both migrate here, and then a family of Indians from India- From India.
Who were in our church saying, we migrated here 20 years ago and you do not want where we came from. All of them, the Venezuelan couple, Lazlo who are- Polish. He was saying, you do not want, America is the hope. It's the only hope. America has to succeed. It's not only people in America that are saying grassroots people, normal people. It's why people are trying to get in America. You look at your country and say, what country is the one that people really want to believe in and go to?
They're not trying to get into Russia. They're trying to get into America. Unfortunately, with our borders down completely unregulated, they are coming to America. They are. Unfortunately, it's not all right. Right. Anyway, that's just another issue. Anyway, there's a lot to pray about. There's going to be a national- There's several, I've noticed several organizations are calling for a National Day of Prayer. We're going to participate in one through Remnant Alliance.
That'll be coming up on- I've got to get my calendar out because I'm terrible with dates. The election is on Tuesday- The 5th. Yeah, Tuesday the 5th. On Monday the 4th, I think in the evening at 3, I'll get details on that. There will be a 24-hour period of prayer and fasting. It doesn't matter about an organization. This is just people trying to remind people to pray. We would invite you to do the same. On Monday, I'm definitely going to be- That will be a day of prayer for me.
I'm going to be in a mindset of praying- Probably should fast on Tuesday at least until dinner. Yeah, we could do that. Just because of- We could do that. The Bible talks about fasting and the importance of it. It might be that we fast until dinner because we do have dinner plans at night. That's a good idea. We'll fast that day. We could maybe like from sundown Monday to sundown- That's what I was thinking. That's good. I just want to remind everybody, be engaged in this. I see you.
I think it's important that we pray for our nation right now. I really do. Let's land the plane with this. First of all, I just want to thank all of you who write in to us. We've got new people who are subscribing to us and participating through giving, whether it's through Value for Value, through Fountain and Cast-O-Matic and other 2.0 platforms, or giving through the website, livingupinadownworld.com.
I also want to just lift something up and remind folks, I had a great interview podcast with Craig Weinberg. He has a podcast called The Interview. You can just Google that, The Interview, Jimmy Pruitt- You were one of the interviews. He interviewed me. We had a great time talking about what it means as a Christian to be involved in the public square and involved in engaging culture. I would invite you to check that out. Here we go. Last podcast before the big election. Oh, no. This is huge.
Be praying for our country. Really, get out and vote. If you haven't, go, get it done and participate in the process. Listen, we love you guys. We are so grateful that you are in our lives, and we count it a privilege to be in yours. Have an amazing day on purpose, and KYBO, keep your buckets overflowing, and keep living up in a down low. God bless. God bless.