The Skilled Workman

Step 3 – Learn « The Digital Christian

David Bergsland — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:15:44 +0000

This is from a blog about using social media to minister. This is an area fraught with problems and issues, but one that you should know about. This posting has some good links to get you started if you are seriously interested.

Work it out with awe and reverence!

David Bergsland — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:07:25 +0000

This is an excerpt from my new book, “Finding the Power to Believe”.

Philippians Verse 2:12

“Therefore, as you have always obeyed, not only when I was there but also now that I am not, work out your salvation in deep reverence and careful caution” [MVP]

This is serious stuff. You need to be on guard, watching and cooperating with the Lord. It is a work—it doesn’t just happen magically overnight. It will take you the rest of your time here on the planet.

One of the major things you need to understand is that your salvation is a process. While it is true that people who accept Jesus on their death bed will make it to heaven. It is equally true that they will make it by the skin of their teeth and have no rewards built up.

Now these rewards are not something we earn. They are something we allow Jesus to do in us. Nevertheless they are real. Jesus explained this in the parable of the talents (among other places). You know the story. A man went on a trip (like the one Jesus is on now, seated at the right hand of the Father waiting for the time to bring us home with Him). Before he left, he gave each of his servants different talents.

This is like what we have been given when we are born.
We all have different talents. And we are all expected to do something with those talents. When the master came back he demanded an accounting.

The man with many talents had doubled his wealth. The master praised him and said, “you have been faithful in much and I will put you in charge of many things.

The slave who had been given few was told, “You Ave been faithful in few things. I will put you in charge of many things.” In other words, this slave had few talents, but he got the same reward as the slave with many talents. The goal was not how much wealth you acquire, but how faithful you were to be a good steward of what you were given.

However, for the slave with very few talents, who became terrified of the master and buried his talent (seemingly so he wouldn’t loose it) incurred the wrath of the master. He was told that just putting it in the bank to earn interest would have been acceptable.

But because he was too afraid to do anything and showed his lack of trust in the master (no faith), the following was told to him. Matthew 25: 28–30

“Then the master ordered, ‘Take the talent from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten talents. To those who are faithful in what they are given (db: whether they are given a little or a lot), even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. Now throw this useless slave into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” [MVP]

It certainly looks like this is serious. Hiding your talents in fear—not working on your salvation—never doing what is necessary to grow in wisdom and stature in the Lord is an attitude showing lack of faith and can forfeit your salvation. I certainly do not want to be labeled a useless servant tossed out of the master’s household. Of course, this is a radical interpretation on my part. But how else can we read this? Working out your salvation is a serious and fearful (reverent) thing.

Get free shipping on my apocalyptic novel: Finally!

David Bergsland — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:41:06 +0000

“Finally!” is the name of the book. It finally happens and He comes back. Everyone is surprised.

FREE SUMMER SHIPPING ENDS AUGUST 23

Get Finally! with free shipping.

http://www.lulu.com/product/11915967?cid=081610_en_email_FREESHIPFORWARD

———————————————————————

To qualify for Lulu FREE Summer Shipping, your cart has to total at

least $19.95 in printed book merchandise, but that total excludes

taxes. Since the US Postal Service will deliver your order, we can

only offer FREE Summer Shipping to valid US delivery addresses. We

can also ship to APO/FPO addresses, but just make sure you use a

valid US zip code with your order. Unfortunately, FREE Summer

Shipping can’t be combined with any other promotional codes at this

time. While we don’t have any plans, desires, intentions or wishes

to do so, we can change or discontinue Lulu FREE Summer Shipping at

anytime. Maximum discount of $19.95. This offer ends on August 23,

2010 at 11:59PM so try not to miss out! Please note that shipping

methods are limited within this promotion.

———————————————————————

75% 0ff! The Rise of Aztlan for 99¢

David Bergsland — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 21:19:37 +0000

I thought I’d give a discount for my political thriller. This is the story of what could really happen if the drug cartels go political in Chihuahua. Aztlan is a favored myth of the Southwest. The idea is that Northern Mexico and Southwestern United Startes were illegally taken and should be on independent nation.

In the Rise of Aztlan this happens. It’s a fun ride.

If you go to Smashwords and use this coupon code VQ87V You can buy the novel for only $.99

Please write a review, thanks

Another piece falls into place

David Bergsland — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:22:19 +0000

Surveillance: two rare glimpses into whos watching you, and how.

Walk in the light, and it’ll be all right!

15% off “Contenu: A font specimen book from Hackberry Font Foundry”

David Bergsland — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 20:19:59 +0000

Font Design & Typography: Fwd: Promote “Contenu: A font specimen book from Hackberry Font Foundry” by forwarding this message to your readers.

A major new release at Hackberry Font Foundry

David Bergsland — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 19:50:22 +0000

Announcing this all over

You may have seen this already, but it is a major piece of work and probably my most mature and sophisticated set of font designs yet. I finally broke down and spaced them for body copy—so they will work well at text sizes [from 9-point to 12-point] without the need to fiddle with the spacing. The design is a contemporary take on oldstyle serif typefaces using Jenson as the mask. The roots of this design go back to Minister which Monotype says has Garalde influence.

It is very conservative for me. I even went to a small bowl on the lowercase a. What’s the world coming to?

The Positive confession

David Bergsland — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 20:05:43 +0000

One of the more common heresies running around the church today is that we must always speak positively, that negative confessions are, by definition bad. The truth of the matter is quite different.

II Timothy 3:16 {NKJV}

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,”

God tells us the purpose in the next verse [let's use New Living this time]:

“God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.”

Please notice that the second use of scripture if “for reproof”. The amplified expands this (and correction) to the following:

“for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience”

This does not sound like the power of positive speaking to me.

Jesus could be quite negative

Take the verse I harp on all the time—spoken to the church-goers of the day:

Matthew 7:21-23 [Amplified]

“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name and driven out demons in Your name and done many mighty works in Your name? And then I will say to them openly (publicly), I never knew you; depart from Me, you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].”

Notice that these are people using the name of Jesus in power—those whom we would call spirit-filled today. They prophesied, did exorcisms, and miracles in the name of Jesus. Yet, Jesus says to them the scariest words in scripture, “I never knew you: depart from me”.

May it never happen to any of us!

So, how are we to speak?

Paul says it best in Ephesians 4:15

“speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him”

OK, I understand speaking the truth, but that is to be done “in love” . Again Paul says it best in I Corinthians 13: 4–6 [NASB]

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;”

So, even if the truth hurts we are responsible to be patient, kind, humble, meek, un-offended, in the moment, and happy with the truth as it is reveled. But, we mustn’t pull back if the truth requires a rebuke, a warning, or a so-called negative expression.

If we are prayed for about healing, we are not to lie if it still hurts but positively confess that we’re healed. However, I see nothing wrong with saying, “I haven’t seen the manifestation yet, but I am convinced that He will heal me and stop the pain.” [But only if that is really the truth about how you feel.]

God never requires us to lie. If you think that is what is happening in your life, bite your lip, zip your yap, and don’t say anything until you can say the truth. Sure that is difficult sometimes. But the Christian walk requires nothing less.

PDF to ePub conversions

David Bergsland — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 17:17:37 +0000

No, this is not a step by step. It’s a discussion of the realities of dealing with publishing in the second decade of the 21st century. Specifically, I want to talk about dealing with graphically intensive books in multiple channels.

One of the Linked-In groups I’m in has been debating the role of XML in “future-proofing” documents. They are mainly coming from employment at large publishing houses with hundreds or thousands of legacy books—many from before the e-reader age, many from before the digital age entirely. That’s not what I am talking about either.

This is redesign not conversion

That’s the first thing you need to accept—like it or not. There is no way to convert a typographically excellent, graphically intensive book from PDF to ePub. There are too many limitations with ePub. Here’s a list of the things you’ll need to get rid of as you make the conversion:

Fonts: All you have to work with are a limited portion of the originally limited Web palette of fonts
Vector graphics: at this point you need to convert everything to JPEG.
Anchored graphics: Everything must be inline.
Columns: This is all single column stuff.
Nested styles: You’ll need to hand format run-in heads with character styles
Styles in general: Depending on who you use to distribute your masterpiece, you’ll probably need to convert to the H1-6, p, ol, ul choices of HTML [I'm thinking Kindle here].

It’ s a very different way of thinking

I keep on hearing that some types of books will not convert. That’s not true. What is true is that some designers are not willing to work within the given limitations as we wait for our options to improve. For one of my new bloggin acquaintances, I made a couple of comparison pieces [PDF vs. ePub] this morning. I thought you might want to take a look and see what I had to change. Yes, the ePub version is hideous. But, it is selling as well as the PDF version—though the printed version is still outselling both.

The PDF sample • The ePub sample

Does this miss the mark for you?

What experiences are you having that suggest my choices are bad or wrong?

Where is BookFlix?

David Bergsland — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:48:34 +0000

As we go through the hype of eBooks, how many do we really want to buy? What I want is an excellent reader that lets me rent books, sorta like on the NetFlix model. Here’s a link to an excellent article that talks about this from a conceptual view. I’d never thought about why I haven’t bothered to buy my iPad yet (other than lack of sufficient extra money laying around).

It’s not the device or the file—it’s the internet, stupid!