I've just been to a houseparty. When it was first started, it was a Christian houseparty for home-educated teenagers. The Christian bit refers to the houseparty itself, in other words you didn't – and still don't – have to be a Christian to come, but a lot of people there are Christians and we have loads of awesome Bible teaching. So really it was a Christianity focused houseparty for home-educated teenagers. Then somewhere along the line some people wanted to come who were too young according to the 'teenager' label and so it became a Christianity focused houseparty for teenagers, or younger people who act like teenagers. Then some people got a bit old and fell off the other end of the scale so it became a Christianity focused houseparty for teens, or younger people who act like them, and twenties. Then it was decided to run a similar event in the South, so it became the Northern houseparty. Seeing as they run one every year its also useful to have a date in there. So being more precise, what I've just been to is a Northern, 2008, teens', or younger people who act like them, and twenties', Christianity focused houseparty. Oh and by the way, it's not in a house and it's not a party.

If you're still confused here's a more understandable explanation: I've just been away for the weekend with a bunch of other homeschoolers, most of whom are Christians, most of whom are teenagers or there abouts, and we've had loads of fun and loads of amazing teaching from the Bible. Here are some things that we learnt, which God has really used to speak to me.

It's all about God

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)

All things are from God. Compare this to any other worldview like humanism, everything is from man, like fatalism, everything is from chance, like those who believe in karma, everything is from past actions, like agnosticism which says we can't know. We know that everything is from God, including everything we have (1 Cor 4:7). It's a priviledge not a right. So we must be thankful for everything all the time (Eph 5:20).

All things are through God. The whole world is held together through God (Col 1:12). He is the only reason that the atoms in our body stay together and don't suddenly fragment into millions of pieces. Our very next breath is in his hand (Job 12:10). That same God gives us power to live our lives in the way he wants (2 Peter 1:3). We can do everything through him who gives us strength (Phil 4:13)! But we can do nothing without him. Trying to do it by ourselves is like a four month old baby wanting to leave home. So we must pray, pray, pray.

All things are for God. We were made to live utterly for God. When we try to live our lives for anything else it will never truly work and can never truly bring satisfaction. We need to do everything for God's glory (1 Cor 10:31): drink orange juice for God's glory; surf YouTube for God's glory; clean our teeth for God's glory; read books for God's glory; do everything for God's glory. So we must be set apart for God, be holy.

We need to work out how we can be thankful, prayerful and holy people to live our lives, which come from God, through him and for him.

Life as a sacrifice

Because of God's mercy offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)

God has given us so much that we don't deserve, all we can do is offer him what he does deserve, our lives. Total commitment is what we were made for if we recognise it or not. We should sacrifice our life, dedicate it, surrender it, gladly give it and place it under God's command. It's hard. We have to die to ourselves every day. Just like the sacrifices in the old covenant, to make our life an acceptable sacrifice we must:

• make sure it is clean and non-blemished
• give of our best
• give it all, holding nothing back
• give it willingly
• give as worship for God

It will cost us. Yet it is the only way that makes sense. No reserves, no retreats, no regrets. (Cool alliteration, huh?)

That was just two of the five talks. Phew! The Bible might have been written 2000 years ago but it's never out of date. This is how God has chosen to speak to us and still does. There is sooo much in there. God clearly has a lot to say!

l w0z t0tAIIy 0wn3d!!! l33t m4n!!!!! Ahem, sorry. What I meant was that the Joshlog got hacked. I'm tempted to say that it was a concentrated effort by a group of high-tech pro hackers (with m4d sk1llz) but it wasn't - even though that would sound seriously cool. I was actually outwitted, as far as I can make out, by a automated script. This went and put some harmless files (well I hope they were harmless) on my server which directed themselves to Russia - intriguing.

At first I thought it was a problem with my comments form, somehow allowing nasty files to be uploaded instead of just plain text. I quickly added an 'are you a human?' checkbox to the form... mwhahaha that should outwit those foolish robot scripts. But looking through the directories I noticed that they were all chmod 777. Those magic numbers define what the permissions of a folder are - who is allowed do what. Basically 777 means almost anybody can do almost anything. All the tutorials I read on the internet said things like "Warning: never use 777" or "DON'T SET YOUR FILES TO CHMOD 777". I didn't take notice. My spiffy admin panel needed all those sevens to work and I was too foolish to heed the warnings. No-one will ever target my site I thought - I'm safe. So I set some of my directories to 777... ERROR! (in honour of Shadrack).

The mistake is now rectified but please do get in contact if you ever end up in Russia. I just want to add to all the other warnings out there: if you chmod, don't use 777!

Anyone who likes brussel sprouts I apologise to in advance - just substitute it below with some food you dislike. Anyone who doesn't like yorkshire puddings - get a life! (Again just substitute with some other food, one which you do like).

I don't know about you but I save my favourite food until last. Picture a scene... it's dinner time and there are two things on your plate. Brussel sprouts: they're yucky, they're slimy and they're mushy. You don't enjoy eating them but you have no choice and they do you good anyway. Then you have the yorkshire puddings: an unmatched flavour, deliciously smothered in thick gravy, mouth-wateringly irresistible. These are a pleasure to eat, in fact you could eat them all day. Any sensible person will normally stuff down the sprouts and then savour the taste of the yorkies. But here are some things you don't do:

You don't put off eating the sprouts, polish off the yorkies and then eventually bring yourself back to the sprouts. Why not? Because you enjoy the yorkies less (you can just imagine those sprouts) and it wrecks the flavour left in your mouth.

You don't eat them both at the same time hoping the yorkies will somehow make them taste better. Why not? Because doing this would also spoil the flavour of the yorkies.

You don't eat the yorkies and then save the sprouts until another mealtime. Why not? What do you mean why not... COLD SPROUTS!?! This just ruins the next meal. Plus, what if the next meal includes more sprouts? Double foulness.

While this is not a perfect illustration, I find that I sometimes do the same with more important priorities. There are things I have to do, the brussel sprouts, and things which I want to do, the yorkshire puddings. Somehow I deceive myself and follow one of the above points, points which make no sense when seen in terms of food! So next time life gives me brussels sprouts, I will try to stomach them straight away.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. And that's definitely a yorkie.

We all have certain things that we like - I like juggling. We also all have certain things that we find irresistible. Whenever I see a bowl of fruit I get an overwhelming urge to juggle with it. It's most probably our natural inclination to do wrong things: fruit is not supposed to be juggled with. There is also the risk that is involved, the possibility of dropping and bruising the fruit which gives away the fact that I was juggling with it.

When I saw the fruit bowl, I had the urge and gave in to it. I juggled first with the apples, then with the oranges, then with an apple, an orange and a banana. Somehow, I managed not to drop them. Then I saw the pineapple. I didn't really attempt to juggle with it; it was more of a half-hearted pretence. But it was enough. Enough for me to hit myself in the eye, take a two hour trip to the walk in centre, have to explain how I cut my eye on a pineapple, endure the next five days with four-times-a-day eye cream and generally feel rather stupid.

In the meantime, I have been eating a rather delicious bowl of pineapple. Revenge is sweet.

To the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas – kind of:

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, my relatives gave to me: 60 jaffa cakes, 20 jelly beans, 10 jaffa bars, 3 packs of love hearts, 2 tangerines, a big bar of chocolate, a small pack of mints and some travel sweets in a metal tin (that's roughly correct).

Anyway, my progress report is that they are all gone! I did give some away but I have to confess that I did stuff myself and enjoyed doing it. Surprisingly though, I'm not sick of sweets and chocolate, or even of jaffa cakes.

Lesson learnt: increase self-control.

Ingredients:

Sister (about to turn 18)
Cake ingredients
About 8 big packets of assorted sweets

Method:

1. Wait for sister to ask you to make her a birthday cake, a big 18 with sweets on it.
2. Make cake with quite a lot of help from Mum (don't worry if a third too much oil is put in by accident).
3. Decide not to simply put sweets on the cake, but to cover it so you can hardly see any icing.
4. Do this and for every five sweets put on, eat one just because they are so yummy and addictive.
5. Completely coat the whole cake, the total sweet count should end up at about one thousand.
6. Congratulations, you now feel very sick.

Believe me — it works! I don't want to go near that cake ever again.