93 Words Per Minute

93 words

Speedtest

After reading a blog entry by wantmoore about typing speeds, I just had to try it myself. I decided just to post my first score, rather than practicing or anything.

I got 2 words wrong and 93 correct in 60 seconds.

Those years of not-sports have really paid off!

The Sword of the Spirit

This week Justin Marbury continued our study on the Armor of God in Ephesians 6 by going over the Sword of the Spirit.

Ephesians 6:13-19

13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— 19 and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.

(emphasis added)

The Sword's Substance

In Roman times, swords were made of sturdy metal, were double-edged, and had a sharp point. The idea behind them was to be able to stab the enemy, piercing through the armor they had on. During the study we looked at a photo of another sword with a similar length, but it was made of cardboard and duct tape. The question posed was "Which would you rather take into battle?"

The answer is obvious, I'd rather take the real "Gladius" sword (or whatever the Roman sword was called). If we would rather take a real sword in our physical battles, shouldn't we also want to take a real sword in our spiritual battles as well?

Biblical Specs

• 66 books
• 40 Authors
• Written over a 1500 year span
• Billions of Bibles have been sold
• Translated into over 2200 languages

It has been

• Historically validated
• Archeologically supported
• Prophetically proven

There are about 24,000 New Testament manuscripts.

It also answers the most important questions in life. Why we are here, who we are, is there a God, and what does God expect of us? How do we handle the difficult issues in life?

The Bible is double-edged, is useful for every good work, and gives us God's word, which is all we need for life and godliness. This is the sturdy, durable, and effective sword to take into spiritual battle.

Feel-good books, seminars, and regular entertainment that we take in on a daily basis are like the duct-tape sword (no offense Dr. Phill), and while they may look like a sword fit for spritiual battle when highly polished, they will not withstand the battles we face in life.

The Bible has revealed truth to us. Psalm 19 gives a good description of the truth that God has revealed.

The Sword's Purpose

So what now? We have a sword, ready for battle, but does knowledge of it automatically equip us?

We need to:

• Understand It
• Believe It
• Live It
• Share It

this is commonly referred to as the Seed, the Planting, the Growth, and the Fruit.

The world wants us to think that the material world is all that there is, that the "Here and now" is all there is to life, and that it is all about us. But the Bible tells us that there is both the material and spiritual world, that there is the "here and now" as well as eternal life, and that it is all about God, not us.

Our Enemy

Our enemy is spiritual, not physical. We waste our time if we fight against people. Jesus died for everyone, and we should love everyone, not fight them. But we should, however, fight fiercely the spiritual battles that are all around us.

Fighting against the harvest will only rob them of a loving relationship with God. Nobody will be won over by being defeated. We must defeat the lies of the enemy and fight against the enemy's tactics, but not against the people the enemy (the Devil) has deceived.

When can we start using email as a memo replacement?

Over the past few months I have had more email support requests than anything else, and one of the primary reasons is because apparently using email to send audio, video, and photos does not always work.

Sometimes sending files will be blocked by:

• Sender's Mail Server due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Sender's Spam Firewall due to outgoing policies
• Sender's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive
  
• Recipient's Mail Server due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Server due to storage constraints
• Recipient's Mail Client due to Junk Mail settings
• Recipient's Spam Firewall due to incoming policies
• Recipient's Mail Virus Scanner due to false positive

Not to mention network outages anywhere along the way, and our favorite "User Error".

I have had no problem with my 7KB text emails in the years of working at this organization, but when users start sending mass emails from their mail clients to keep their ministries up-to-date, especially while sending photos of the previous event or a special book they recommend, our Mail Server gets sluggish, our Spam Filter has to work overtime, our users run out of storage space, and sometimes our IP gets blacklisted.

Apparently, using email as a text-based communication device does not have these side effects, and there are plenty of alternatives for transferring files (such as the File Transfer Protocol). For some reason, our users, and many many many outside organizations insist on sending EULA's, PDFs, manuals, radio spots, video previews, etc. etc. via email.

When can we stop sending cars in the mail and start sending letters as to where to go pick up the car? Meaning, send me a link to a website that manages EULA agreements, lets me download radio spots, lets me preview videos, and lets me download large files?

I understand there are services like constant contact for sending bulk mail out, and YouSendIt for uploading large files and emailing a link to them, but when are businesses going to start using them?

I'd love to simply block all non-text-based email if I could. Then again, I think it should be borderline illegal to use frames on a website or require a specific browser or operating system to view a web application...

/me votes for simplicity