David Westerfield

Old Testament, New Testament, Same Word: Judgment

On July 22, 2021

Psalm 50:19–23

“You give your mouth free rein for evil,
    and your tongue frames deceit.
You sit and speak against your brother;
    you slander your own mother’s son.
These things you have done, and I have been silent;
    you thought that I was one like yourself.
But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.


“Mark this, then, you who forget God,
    lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver!
The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;
    to one who orders his way rightly
    I will show the salvation of God!” (ESV)

Disabling “Request Access” on All Sites in SharePoint 2013

By David Westerfield

On July 21, 2021

In Technology

Came across a useful script for an age old problem in SharePoint. May work on versions beyond 2013, but haven’t tested. Posting here for future reference (Found here: https://ehikioya.com/sharepoint-access-requests-powershell/):

Fighting our Unbelief – A Prayer

By David Westerfield

On June 27, 2021

In Prayer

Father, some of us come here from a place of real joy and closeness with You. Many if not most of us are a mixed bag of closeness to You as well as internal and external struggles that weigh and press in on us. And some of us are merely struggling to hang on. Lord for all of us though, there are real points of struggle to believe what You’ve promised, to believe that You’re good to us. Wherever we are Lord, we pray that You would kindle our hearts with the fire of faith by Your Spirit to fight against our tendency to unbelief. Would we not neglect our pursuit of You, knowing that as we patiently pursue You, You promise to reward those who seek after You. As 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Father, knowing that’s true in the end, would you at a very fundamental level simply show us Jesus in Your Word in greater ways now? Would we be captivated by what we see of Jesus, His glorious power and justice, as well as His tenderness and kindness and mercy, and would this melt our cold hearts that ebb and flow in struggle to believe what you’ve promised? You know our frame and remember that we are dust. We’re desperate for Your sustaining grace in this and pray to this end.

Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)

Seeing Jesus as He is

By David Westerfield

On June 26, 2021

In Theology

I was considering recently, what do I really need more than anything right now in terms of my internal, personal devotional life with Jesus? I simply need to see Him. Some of this stemmed from feeling a sort of dryness in reading the Scriptures recently. Now needing to see Jesus in Scripture is true in general all the time for all of us, but there are times that I think this can slip our thinking in our devotional life as being central.

The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins

By David Westerfield

On June 4, 2021

In Journalism, News, Science

Archiving here in case, you know, it gets disappeared 😉

Original: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins

Sovereignty of God in Salvation – A Prayer

By David Westerfield

On April 25, 2021

In Prayer

Father, apart from Jesus and the work of Your Holy Spirit in our salvation, we can do nothing. In our natural, sinful state apart from Your intervention, we can’t lift a finger to perform some work or make a step toward You in righteousness. In fact we are opposed to You. We are unholy, depraved, and sinful beyond what we can even understand as Romans 3 makes clear, to the point that even our wills need Your life-giving touch.

The God of Life-Giving – A Prayer

By David Westerfield

On April 11, 2021

In Prayer

You are the God who gives food to the hungry and in Jesus you miraculously fed the five thousand from very little. You LORD set the prisoners free and in Jesus You freed the man from the legion of Demons and the self-destruction inflicted; You LORD open the eyes of the blind, and in Jesus you said the word to many who were blind and immediately they received their sight. You LORD lift up those who are bowed down and in Jesus You greatly blessed and upheld a prostitute who washed Your feet with her tears and hair in remorse and repentance and love For Christ; You LORD love the righteous. You LORD watch over the sojourners and those without a home; You uphold the widow and the fatherless, the abused, the broken, the chastised, all those who suffer deeply, but the way of the wicked You bring to ruin. The prideful, haughty, evil, and self-sufficient You oppose.

Redirecting HTTP Requests to HTTPS on Same Port in NGINX

By David Westerfield

On March 29, 2021

In Technology

I had a particular need with Shoutcast (since the application is 1) able to do HTTP and HTTPS on the same port, and 2) since I wanted to reverse proxy those requests for security filtering with ModSecurity) to have HTTP requests that hit the HTTPS port to upgrade those requests to HTTPS on the same port instead of just erroring out (bad protocol error). Some of this had to do with browser and other client-end mechanisms forcing an HTTPS upgrade of late, but finding it wasn’t working correctly all the time. I struggled to find a good solution but came to an answer finally on stackoverflow. I’m documenting it here for future reference and for those that may need that kind of functionality since it’s a very specific request. I normally just do a 301 redirect for situations like this, but it doesn’t seem to work when streaming media for whatever reason using particular media clients. This has done the trick.

IPv6 Firewall Rules (EdgeRouter 4) – Part 3

By David Westerfield

On March 25, 2021

In Technology

In my last post, I explained how to go about utilizing IPv6 prefix delegation using a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 4, connected to an AT&T internet router that has IPv6 enabled on both the WAN and the LAN side. Now we’re going to walk through the basic firewall rules you need in place to protect your IPv6 network. And when I say basic, I mean the bare minimum to make sure the entire internet can’t get to your IPv6 devices, because if you’ve finished with the last post, your devices are likely open right now. 😐

Curing the Incurable – A Prayer

By David Westerfield

On March 14, 2021

In Prayer

Lord Jesus, just as You healed the daughter of Jairus right after healing a woman with an incurable medical condition, you Lord are demonstrated to be the God of healing not just physical conditions, but the God of healing souls. Lord our state apart from the touch of Your healing grace in our souls is incurable. We’re terminal. Apart from a correction of grace, we don’t want You, we don’t seek You, we’re indifferent to You and Your calls to come to You, we’re comfortable in our soul diseases and sins that eat away at us. We’re comfortable in the distractions of the flesh that all too easily please us that are all around us and pressing in and keep us from enjoying the only One who could deeply satisfy all of our desires and longings.