Found this posted on Christianster. It was prepared by Pastor Bob Coy of The Active Word. Hope you will be blessed by reading it.

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You’re Weaker Than You Think

Posted: 25 Jun 2008 09:57 AM CDT

“Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say, ‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ -Matthew 26:31-32 (NLT)

It must have hit the disciples like a nauseating sucker punch. Here, on the final night that Jesus would spend with them, He revealed that they would all turn tail and desert Him in His greatest hour of need. The bonds that had been formed over the better part of the last three years would be broken in a single night.

But Jesus didn’t say this to make the disciples feel guilty. He shared this in order to prepare them for the storm of their own weakness which was about to descend on them. And it’s also important to note that Jesus didn’t say this in order to manipulate a commitment out of them. But Peter made one anyway:

Peter declared, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter-this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.” (Matthew 26:33-34 NLT)

There are two things to note here. First, there’s what Peter believed about himself, and second, there’s the truth. Peter sincerely thought he would be strong enough to stand with Jesus when everyone else ran. But the truth was that Peter was a lot weaker than he thought (Matthew 26:56-75).

This was a difficult but necessary lesson for this disciple to learn, and one that all of us need to learn as well. God’s Word is very clear, apart from Jesus we can’t do anything right (John 15:5). Translation: We’re a lot weaker than we think. We can either accept this fact or fight against it.

Discuss, Dig, Decide:
Discuss with your group the passage in Matthew 26:31-46. What do you think you may have said or done if you had been there with Jesus? How would you have responded to Jesus’ words of warning?

Dig into Matthew 26:31-46. How do you think the disciples felt during this time? Check out John 15:1-5. What’s the lesson the disciples had just learned here? What’s the lesson for you in this passage? Commit to memory Philippians 4:13.

Decide as a group to discover how you can be stronger together than you are apart. Read Ecclesiastes 4:9-12. How have you seen or experienced the truth of verse 10? Decide among yourselves how you can hold each other accountable and strengthen each other by this accountability.

Since I’ve been able to upgrade my governor’s residences to the same level as my palace, I’ve wondered how long it would take to create my 6th colony. It would be great to have a mobile colony for military campaigns with my alliance to avoid naval defenses and long pillage travel times.

So while searching for discussions on having a 6th colony, I found this neat analysis by joehbad from Canberra. Read on and enjoy…

I have been researching the plausibility of going for a 6th city, and I noticed that there is a distinct point in the leveling of buildings when the costs really jump. So I have graphed up the level vs resources for each building and noted the sharp change in slope. I’m going to use it as a guide to when to cease upgrading each building. To save you the effort, see below:

Town Hall: 24. 2391 population
Academy: 16
Tavern: 16. 1472 happiness for 63 wine/hr
Wall: 24. 240% bonus
Barracks: 24. Also optimum level for peak unit
Warehouse: 16. Lvl 17 required for 6 cities
Port: Not relevant, level controlled by risk of pillage
Shipyard: 16. Peak unit at lvl 15
Museum: 8. 560 happiness when full
Hideout: 20
Embassy: only relevant to Alliance leaders
Workshop: level 10 gets all a techs
Trading: 16. But lvl 15 has the same range of 8
Sawmill: 21. 450/hr or 506/hr with helping hands. Timber needs to cost > 16 gold to make Helping Hands (HH) useful
Mine etc: 16. 200/hr or 225/hr with helping hands. Resource needs to cost > 32 gold to make HH useful

And if you are also think of going for a 6th city, you will need:

5 x lvl 16 warehouses = 172550 wood, 90040 marble
5 x lvl 5 palaces = 990720 wood, 660490 marble, 440320 wine & crystal
Total = 1,163,270 wood, 750520 marble, 440320 wine & crystal.

5 x level 21 sawmills = 21.5 days
2 x level 16 marble mines (with HH) = 69.5 days
1 x level 16 crystal mine (with HH) = 81.5 days
1 x level 16 winery (with HH) = 81.5 days, but all production is consumed locally, so this will have to be purchased @ 35-40 = 15.4 to 17.6 million.
That is 41 days of income from 5x level 24 cities roughly, so it is plausible to buy this in, and buy some crystal to top up production.

Call it three months. Ouch

I’d like to see an analysis on whether or not dealing with corruption every time the mobile colony is planted for military campaigns is bearable. This would mean one would no longer have to upgrade all warehouses and governor’s residences in all the other colonies. And I wonder if the 6th colony would be useful at all for harvesting and gold production since being 1 level down a palace  is already means a corruption penalty of 16% . Would being 5 levels down be equivalent  to  100%?  Quite  a  waste  if  you  won’t  be upgrading  anything  on  that  town.

Another drawback of a mobile colony is that you waste the pillaged resources from a high level trading port … although, when towns are under attack, the port is usually downgraded to level 1… so I guess the point of a mobile colony really is to get close enough to your enemy to unleash as many attacks as possible to reduce the enemy’s troops to the minimum possible in the town being attacked.

The other side of having a 6th colony is to plant it permanently to further growth. I’ve found that 3 marble towns, 1 crystal and 1 wine is a good combination for 5 colonies. What would the 6th be? It would be interesting to hear the reader’s opinion…