Digital Devotion

Distraction

spencej@spencehackney.com — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 12:52:00 GMT

Why is it that I can concentrate on the code for a new web site for a few hours without taking a break, but I can't concentrate on the Word for more than 10 minutes. When I read it seems like I constantly have to go back and reread passages and work to maintain my focus. This is not the case when I do my day to day work. Why is this? Why am I so easily distracted? I am sure that part of it is that I have been conditioned to focus on my work area, but not on my Bible reading. Part of it my also be some attacks of Satan, the great confuser. Part of it may be that I don't much like to read at this point, and when I do I like to read web-style in quick bite-sized chunks. But it seems that there is more to this and it troubles me. I seem to be so distracted that I can no longer concentrate on spiritual matters. Granted, it is not always like this, in January I was averaging 3-4 devotional blog posts a week, while in February I have posted two.

So what can I do about this? The first thing I can think to do is to pray that the Lord would give me an insatiable spiritual hunger. The other thing I can do is simply keep going through the motions through self-discipline, even when I feel distracted. Honestly though, I wish I could fix the problem calling this. Maybe I can move to Walnut Grove!

Purpose of the Law

spencej@spencehackney.com — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 11:32:00 GMT

The purpose of the "Law," or Old Testament rules and regulations, has always been a bit difficult for me to sort out. I think that it did have a valid point in keeping the Jews from the negative consequences of "sinful" behaviors such as promiscuity. However, Romans 3:20 gives us the most concise explanation of the purpose of the Law that I have seen:

Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law he will become conscious of sin. (NIV)

I think that this is the purpose of the Law even today. Gauging ourselves against the gold standard of the Law points out the areas in which we are deficient. If you are going to make a couple pieces that need to be identical, stair balusters for example, you first create a template. Then as you are creating the pieces that need to match you will constantly compare the piece you are working on to the template piece. By comparing the two you will see where to take off material so that the two pieces are as nearly identical as possible.

In my mind this is very close to the function of the Law. We should constantly compare ourselves to the template set forth in scripture. By making this comparison we will see what we need to remove and add from our life in order to become as close to the model Christian as possible.

Mac Mini

spencej@spencehackney.com — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 20:49:00 GMT

I have used Windows PCs for many many years now. I have never owned a Macintosh, an Apple, or a Mac (I did have a TI-99/4A and a Timex Sinclair though). Today I broke the mold. My bright, shinny, tiny Mac Mini came in the mail today from Amazon.

I am impressed.

The packaging was amazing, the design is stunning, and I know we have all heard this a thousand times...it just worked! I turned the thing on, it found my Wi-Fi network and made all the configurations. All it asked me for is my WEP key and what language keyboard I have. My Dell 3100CN printer installed like a champ. It happily used my Logitech wireless keyboard and my off brand LCD monitor. The only issue that I had was that it did not come with Windows sharing turned on. I ticked it on and it *almost* hooked itself into my Windows workgroup. The Mac hiccuped a bit because my workgroup is not named the standard "workgroup." I did a quick Google search and found a page that showed how to change the workgroup, and now my PC sees all the files on my Mac and vice versa. If I had not been such a twit when I named my home workgroup, it would have worked instantly.

I am not converting yet, but I do think that the Mac folks are making headway. The beauty of this thing is that it is cheap (by Mac standards, you can still get a much better equipped Dell with monitor, keyboard, and mouse, for less money), very tiny, uses all of your existing PC components, and plays nice with a Microsoft network. This thing makes it easy and painless for a PC -centric individual to venture in to Macville. Way to go Steve Jobs.

Getting Spellbound Firefox Extension to Work on FireFox 1.5.0.1

spencej@spencehackney.com — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 15:47:00 GMT

I have come to seriously rely on the excellent Spellbound FireFox extension. This extension allows you to right click on any text box and check the spelling of what you type. Excellent for blogging!

Unfortunately, it broke when I upgraded to FireFox 1.5.01. Fixing it was pretty simple though. To install Spellbound you actually have to install two extensions, one for the front end and the other for the back end. The problem was that both of these extensions were only set up for FireFox versions below 1.5.0.1. It is pretty simply to fix this though:

Download the extension and save it to your computer. This should be a .xpi file.
Change the extension from .xpi to .zip.
Extract the zip file
Inside you should find a file called install.rdf, open this file in notepad or your favorite XML/text editor.
Look for the tag and replace whatever is in it with a version above what you are targeting. For instance, I just entered 1.6.
Zip all the files back up and change the extension of the file from zip to back to xpi.
Open up extension manager in FireFox (Tools > Extensions) and drag the new .xpi file on the Extension Manager.

That is it! If this is too much work, you can get the modified extensions here:
Spelbound for FireFox 1.5.0.1

Enjoy!

Judge "Me"

spencej@spencehackney.com — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 13:28:00 GMT

I think most of us have heard that judging others is a sin. Of course, it is not that big of a sin, right? It is probably on the order of sneaking a quick glance at the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on the magazine rack, right? Well, I hate to say it, but from what I read this morning it seems like it is a big deal to God.

Check out Romans 2:1-5:

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, "We know that God's judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth." Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
(Romans 2:1-5 NRSV)

Whoa! This says that when I judge someone I "despise the riches of his [God's] kindness" and that I am "storing up wrath" for myself. That sounds pretty serious. Considering this, maybe I should give my brothers and sisters some slack and leave the judging up to God who is able to judge in "accordance with truth."

GWB Wisdom

spencej@spencehackney.com — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 19:00:00 GMT

I downloaded the State of the Union address from Audible (its free!) and finally got around to listening to it yesterday while I was driving. It was a lot of what I expected (the exact first half was on the war on terror and homeland security). However, I did catch one really wise (and accurate) thing that Bush said:

Hindsight is not wisdom and second guessing is not a strategy.

How true this is. So much of what we hear in the press is "he should have acted on this information" or "she shouldn't have authorized this." What we have to constantly keep in mind is that no decision is made with perfect foresight. All decisions are executed under limited time frames, with limited information, and with limited assessment capabilities. Considering all of the mistakes I make when it comes to poor "foresight" I (along with every American) should probably give our elected officials much more grace than we do.

And MK....don't worry, I also listened to the democrat's response!

Mrs. Benny Hinn

spencej@spencehackney.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 21:08:00 GMT

This video is so bad I hate to even post it. However, it may be the single funniest "blooper" that I have ever seen. What bothers me so much about it is that it is not quite a blooper...she is actually serious about it!

Life in Life

spencej@spencehackney.com — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:05:00 GMT

My son was awake list night....and my wife slept right through it. That is my -3 month old son Christian, and not my soon-to-be 2 year old son Nathan. I was snuggled up to my wife who was asleep and I could feel Christian doing back flips in her tummy. What an amazing thing! How wonderful that God gives us an experience like this. To know that a completely new creation is inside of my wife is an incredible thought! thank you God!

Perfection in God's Economy

spencej@spencehackney.com — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:19:00 GMT

The idea of "God's economy" has figured into my thoughts a lot lately. What I mean by this idea of God's economy is that God has completely different valuations of things than we do. In Matthew 5 God lauds the meek while the world admires the strong. God blesses the peacemakers and the persecuted, while the world claps for the victor.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn,
      for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek,
      for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
      for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful,
      for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
      for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers,
      for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
      for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Salt and Light
(Matthew 5:3-12 NIV)

Lately I have tried to read the scriptures through this lens of God's economy. Today I went back over the end of chapter 1 in Romans:

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, Godhaters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
(Romans 1:29-31 NIV)

Did you see it? God put gossiping and disobeying your parents in the same list as murderers! If we were putting together a list of things that resulted from a depraved mind would we include these two things? I doubt it...but remember this is God's economy....God's valuation system, and he does things differently that we do.

Even at 2 years old, my son disobeys us. Does this mean that he is depraved? I have gossiped in the past week or so? Am I depraved? YES! I am depraved. My son is depraved. Sin is in our human natures. If left to my own devices apart from God I exhibit many of the traits that are listed in these verses. Sadly enough, my son is depraved too, and has been since birth. OK...so what can we do about this?

This is where grace comes in. This 5-letter word is possibly the sweetest in the English language. Grace allows us to be forgiven and for a depraved, disobedient, lying, gossip to be welcomed into the true family of God. By the ultimate show of God's grace, the sacrifice of His son, he has made us perfect and we are no longer held in bondage by our depraved heart.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts

I will remember no more." And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
(Hebrews 10:11-22)

God forgives us for doing all of the evil things that we do with the simple admonition that we are to continually strive for perfection in our day to day life just as the sacrifice of Jesus' life has made us perfect in God's eyes.

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matthew 5:48)

I don't know about you, but this changes things for me. To know that I, at my core, am depraved, but that God has made me "perfect" is almost too much to comprehend. To be welcomed into his family because of God's good grace, this is incomprehensible in the human economy, but it makes perfect sense in God's economy.

Read Through the Bible in a Year

spencej@spencehackney.com — Tue, 31 Jan 2006 05:01:00 GMT

I just added a "Read Through the Bible in a Year" page under the "Resources" tab. It basically displays a section of the ESV for each day of the year. As the name suggests, if you follow it every day you will have read the whole Bible. You will also notice that I added a daily scripture verse on the home page in the right column.

On a technical note, to achieve this I styled a couple of feeds from the ESV's excellent RSS syndication page. It took a bit of custom XSLT to achieve the look I wanted. You can download the one for the "Read Through The Bible in a Year" here and the "Daily Verse" here. Enjoy!