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Follow the trail of favor Who knows how we'll end up! Our future glory is Gods' revelation. Who knows how we'll end up! God knows how we will end up. Your assignment is your discovery. The secret of your future is hidden in your discovery. The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but the glory of kings is to search out a thing. It is the mystery of God to conceal. It is the grace of of God to reveal. Proverbs 25:2 (The Message) 2 God delights in concealing things; scientists delight in discovering things. God concealed the Ark. But, God revealed it to Noah. examples of Gods' revelation: Noah building the Ark. (Genesis 9:24), Joshua knowing about Achan's sin. (Joshua 7:10-11), Elisha knowing that Gehazi lied to Naaman. (II Kings 5:20-27).  Imagine the daily routine of Noah. Noah's revelation about the ark was from God. However, Noah had to build the Ark (120 years) routinely-daily. He changed the architecture and construction moments of his daily life. You must decide to rename the moments of your life. Noah had a few opportunities moments rename the moments of his life My beloved brother and sister. Hear the word of the Lord today. Do you hear my voice? If you hear the word of the Lord, harden not your heart. Today is an opportunity to rename the moments of your life. Who knows how we'll end up! God has the pleasure of your completion. Who knows how we'll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. Yet, the word of the Lord to you my dear friends is that you don't have a future. Once you get to the future will rename it by calling it today. The secret to your calling is what you are practicing today. The best is yet to come. Your best productivity is yet to come. Your productivity follows the Law of Augmenting returns. Increase! Your productivity follows the Law of Augmentation. Your creativity and productivity is like the stars. 'I will multiply your seed as the stars of the sky. Your creativity and productivity is like the human cells. The total number of cells in the human body is estimated to be between 75 and 100 trillion, and through the normal wear and tear of living, billions of them must be regenerated every minute of the day and night. We completely change our skin approximately every 27 days. Your end is not counted by day, month and years. Your end is not a destination. Your end is a lifetime full of process. The process starts when your mind is ready. When your mind is ready, a revelatory teacher will appear. When the student is ready, the revelatory teacher appears." Who knows how we'll end up! It doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. Who knows how we'll end up! This dignity is not fully revealed to us ourselves, much less to strangers, but we are sure of the accomplishment of it, in as much as we shall be like the Son of God himself and shall enjoy his sight indeed, such as he is now, but yet this is deferred until his next coming. Who knows how we'll end up! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.. Christ revealed is a mystery. The mystery is revealed. The pleasure of completion is the process of becoming like Him. So, this is not the last job, r follow the trail of favor! |
Monday, July 31, 2006
Who knows how we'll end up! Follow the trail of favor
Our future glory is not yet manifest. Who knows how we'll end up! 
relationship, trial residence, sunrise, assignment, sickness, meal, song, victory, healing, degree, blessing, bank account, mistake, home church, sunset, and friendship. Submit to the process. Follow the trail of favor. Your productivity follows the Law of Augmenting returns. Make of list of people and circumstances that help increase you. Every decision creates increase or decrease. Nurture, people and circumstances that help increase you. Follow the trail of favor.
Big Girls Don't Cry 2006 Miss F.A.T.’ Tanisha Malone and super-sized super-diva Mo'Nique
(l-r) The newly crowned ‘2006 Miss F.A.T.’ Tanisha Malone and super-sized super-diva Mo'Nique strike a pose backstage at "the first full figured reality pageant." "Life hasn't changed too much since the show aired, but I will say that it feels good and I've gotten a lot of [positive] feedback from people saying that they're happy to have somebody represent them," Malone told Black Voices.
Unit Size Influences How Much We Eat, Study Finds
NEW YORK (July 30) - How much candy is enough?
It depends on how big the candy scoop is.
Researchers alternately filled a bowl in a snacking area with small Tootsie Rolls and ones that are four times as large. People took smaller portions when the smaller rolls were available.
At least that is a key factor, says a study that offers new evidence that people take cues from their surroundings in deciding how much to eat.
It explains why, for example, people who used to be satisfied by a 12-ounce can of soda may now feel that a 20-ounce bottle is just right.
It's "unit bias," the tendency to think that a single unit of food - a bottle, a can, a plateful, or some more subtle measure - is the right amount to eat or drink, researchers propose.
"Whatever size a banana is, that's what you eat, a small banana or a big banana," says Andrew Geier of the University of Pennsylvania. And "whatever's served on your plate, it just seems locked in our heads: that's a meal."
The overall idea is hardly new to diet experts. They point to thesupersizing of fast food and restaurant portions as one reason for the surge of U.S. obesity in recent decades. They sometimes suggest that dieters use smaller plates to reduce the amount of food that looks like a meal.
But in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, Geier and colleagues dig into why people are so swayed by this unit idea when they decide how much to eat.
Geier, a Ph.D. candidate who works with people who are overweight or who have eating disorders, figures people learn how big an appropriate food unit is from their cultures. For example, yogurt containers in French supermarkets are a bit more than half the size of their American counterparts. Yet French shoppers do not make up the difference by eating more containers of the stuff, he noted.
He and the other researchers tried a series of experiments using environmental cues to manipulate people's ideas of how big a food unit is.
In one, they put a large bowl with a pound of M&M candies in the lobby of an upscale apartment building with a sign: "Eat Your Fill ... please use the spoon to serve yourself." The candy was left out through the day for 10 days, sometimes with a spoon that held a quarter-cup, and other times with a tablespoon.
Sure enough, people consistently took more M&Ms on days when the bigger scoop was provided, about two-thirds more on average than when the spoon was present.
In another experiment, a snacking area in an apartment building contained a bowl with either 80 small Tootsie Rolls or 20 big ones, four times as large. Over 10 working days, the bowl was filled with the same overall weight of candy each day. But people consistently removed more, by weight, when it was offered in the larger packages.
In those experiments, as well as a similar one with pretzels, "unit bias" wasn't the only thing that produced the differences in consumption levels, but it had an influence, Geier and colleagues concluded.
Brian Wansink, director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab and author of the forthcoming book "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think," called the new paper an impressive demonstration of the effect in a real-world setting. He has done similar work but didn't participate in Geier's research.
So can all this help dieters?
Some food companies are introducing products in 100-calorie packages, and Geier thinks that could help hold down a person's consumption. He also suspects companies could help by displaying the number of servings per container more prominently on their packaging.
As for what dieters can do on their own, Geier said one of his overweight patients offered a suggestion for restaurant visits: Request that the meal be split in two in the kitchen, with half on the plate and the other half packaged to take home.
07/30/06 18:40 EDT
Faith-based diets Feeding the Soul: Spiritual Weight Loss
By Eleanor Hong
"God, help me, I'm fat."
Does prayer really help you lose weight? More Americans are looking to divine inspiration to help battle the bulge.
Faith-based diets are increasingly popular with Christians making up the largest base for the new trend. Many pastors and church leaders are recognizing obesity in their congregation and preaching about weight loss as it relates to the Bible. So, don’t be surprised if your local church group incorporates an aerobics class or diet seminar as part of weekly fellowship activities.
While many nutritionists are skeptical about advocating faith-based diets, Christians discouraged by mainstream yo-yo diets are hoping that eating habits and food choices explained through the Bible will be the answer to their prayers for weight loss. While many of these diets aren’t proven scientifically, the phenomenon embraces a more reverent lifestyle that includes spiritual well-being. All these different diet methods share the common message, "Don't run to the fridge, run to God."
Faith-Based Diets
Divine Health
What Would Jesus Eat?
Maker's Diet
Hallelujah Diet
Body By God
First Place
Weigh Down
Thin Within
According to Christine Gerbstadt, MD, nutritionist and national spokesperson for the American Dietetics Association, the obesity epidemic is huge and people are looking for any new way to lose weight.
"They're looking for a magic bullet or something to get through this hurdle [of being overweight]. In other words, turning it over to God for some people is going to be all they need to get going on a weight loss program."
Many faith-based diets stress a lifestyle that focuses on God instead of food as a coping mechanism for personal and emotional problems. Several authors of faith-based programs note that many Americans turn to food when upset or feel a void in their lives.
"The idea of a faith-based diet is a platform to help people to eat a certain way and depending on the details of the diet, it may or may not be healthy. So lumping them all together [with varying food plans], the only thing that we can say is common is that they all rely on the same principles based on religion," says Gerbstadt.
Gerbstadt also notes that the diet industry is an open market and huge business opportunity. And many of these spiritual diet books have quickly become bestsellers and successful marketing products.
Here's a brief overview of some popular faith-based diets:
Sunday, July 30, 2006
100 Top Global Brands. part1
The World's Top 100 Brands
By David Kiley, BusinessWeek
(July 28) - Not long ago, Motorola saw itself the same way its customers did: as a tech-driven seller of products, not a brand. The success of the RAZR changed all that. By ringing the consumer's bell, the hot-selling mobile phone validated a new strategy, internally dubbed MOTOME. Suddenly Motorola was a company that had rediscovered its identity as a major consumer brand.
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The key, says global marketing head George Neill, who came to the company last year from Apple), was to think of the brand as providing experiences to consumers, not just hardware. "We're focused on giving access to what people want -- music, video, Internet -- wherever customers roam." That translated into an 18% gain in the company's global brand value on this year's BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Top Global Brands. The phonemaker, adds Interbrand Group CEO Jez Frampton, is "redefining the place people make for the Motorola brand in their lives." This year's list is brimming with hot brands such as Motorola that are crafting new and surprising ways to branch into entirely new product arenas. Hyundai is launching a premium sedan. Google is wading into selling ad time on the radio. Others are revving up their brand's goodwill value to dodge problems, as McDonald's is doing with its health and fitness marketing to counter concerns about junk food. Every company wants its brand to get bigger. The hard part is balancing what the brand is with a vision of what it would like to be. "As soon as you try to go someplace that doesn't fit or where you don't have credibility, it can detract from your organization and your brand," says Frampton. The sixth annual BusinessWeek/Interbrand rankings measure an elusive but crucial quality. Companies that score high can count on plenty of customer loyalty as they push into risky expansions. Don't Fear Public Flops The Google name is stronger than ever: In this year's ranking it gained 46% in brand value -- the biggest year-over-year rise of any company ever on the list. Revenues climbed by 105% last year. With market share in Internet search still surging, it can afford to gamble with its universally recognizable brand. hat allows Google to launch a slew of new products with small investments, gain valuable user input at early stages of development, and in turn challenge market leaders such as Microsoft in mature businesses. "The way you find really successful innovation is to release five things and hope that one or two of them really take off," says product czar Marissa Mayer. When your brand is a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary, you can weather the sting of a few product flops. In the process you can harness the power of early releases, when users offer tons of suggestions, and engineers can fold in upgrades and adapt on the fly. That's what the company did with Google Video, which was expanded to let people upload and showcase their own creations. Another example: When Google initially launched Gmail in 2004, it scared some would-be customers by scanning e-mails for keywords and serving up ads relevant to their content. Since then the company has invited Web critics and consumer advocates to weigh in during the test phases of other new offerings. Google's brand may not always ride this high. Failed product tests can pile up and dent all the positive brand buzz. That's a worry, particularly since only a few of its services beyond search have found real acclaim, much less significant new revenue. Still, the company has a toehold almost everywhere and a knack for speed. In the past year it has launched an online finance site, a spreadsheet tool, and a word processor, and it plans to resell radio and TV ad time to its ad clients. Several of these may never be big cash machines, but with revenues growing 77% last quarter, it's hard to blame Google for failing in small ways when it's winning so big on the Street. Face Your Weaknesses In the five years leading up to 2003, McDonald's saw its marketcapitalization fall by $12.2 billion. And this is no Internet stock. The problem was that despite the company's nearly 100% brand awareness in every global market, the old images of Ronald McDonald weren't wearing well. Just as troubling, evidence was mounting that junk food was fueling an obesity epidemic in the U.S. McDonald's had long struck a defensive pose against such barbs. But it was time to take control of the brand before outside forces did it for them. McDonald's discovered that while its big-budget Disney tie-ins and Olympics sponsorships kept the Golden Arches in kids' sights, mothers were its real problem. Opinion studies and focus groups showed a mounting distrust of McDonald's and guilt among suburban moms about letting kids eat there. "Everything we do is really driven through the eyes of our customers and understanding what their needs and desires are," says Global Chief Marketing Officer Mary Dillon. So the chain set out to appeal to moms. In the past three years, one-third of its 13,725 restaurants have been upgraded, and new premium-priced salads and chicken meals have been added. Fruit offerings such as apple slices have helped change Mickey D's image -- it's now the nation's biggest wholesale buyer of apples. This year, McDonald's global brand value rose a healthy 6%, and its market capitalization grew by $2 billion. The company took the mom-friendly message to a new level last February. McDonald's kicked off a global campaign tied in with the Olympics that talks up the importance of exercise and nutrition, using such athletic role models as tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. The campaign ("It's what I eat and what I do...I'm lovin' it") includes TV ads, new packaging, and a series of Ronald McDonald videos teaching children how to eat well and stay active. Meanwhile, average restaurant sales are up to a record $1.9 million thanks to the premium-priced items. Says Dillon: "One of the fun things about McDonald's is we are always learning about how we can expand our brand." |
100 Top Global Brands. part2
More people have heard the coke melodic theme
then the anthem of any single religion. A truly sobering
thought. , more people have seen the Coke logo
then the symbol of any single religion! A truly scary thought.
Earn Permission to Grow In 1998, Hyundai's reputation in the U.S. was so ravaged by a decade of quality problems that the South Korean company considered pulling up stakes. Chung Mong Koo took over that year and began reinventing how Hyundai viewed quality. A carmaker without a U.S. presence, he reckoned, could never be a global brand.
Quality improved, but Hyundai was still far behind. So Chung devised an aggressive strategy: Until at least 2008, Hyundai models would carry a 100,000-mile/10-year warranty to give customers peace of mind. This created hundreds of millions of dollars a year in extra provision costs, of course. Meanwhile, Chung ordered plant managers to obsess about quality, even to stop production lines if defects were detected. The practice was common in Japan and catching on in the U.S. but still unheard of in Korea.
The moves paid off. In the U.S., Hyundai saw its sales grow from less than 100,000 in 1998 to 455,012 last year. Global brand value climbed an impressive 17% last year. In the latest quality scores from J.D. Power & Associates, released in June, Hyundai was the top-rated nonluxury brand ahead of Toyota. That now gives Hyundai the street cred, for example, to sell its new Azera sedan, which costs close to $30,000 and has been compared seriously to the Chrysler 300, Toyota Avalon, and Buick Lucerne.
Having earned stripes from critics, Hyundai says it's looking for more creative validation as it contemplates a sub-brand to compete with Lexus and Cadillac. "One important objective of our brand is to create emotional connection with our clients," says Nam Myung Hyun, general manager for brand strategy. It shouldn't be too hard. Americans love an underdog, especially one that has learned new tricks.
Make Simplicity King When Gerard Kleisterlee took the helm of Royal Philips Electronics in 2001, the Dutch conglomerate's empire included TVs, lighting, medical devices, and semiconductors. The missing key: a coherent brand. "We had to choose whether Philips was a company built around its core technologies or one built around its core brand," says Kleisterlee, who presided over a healthy 14% gain in global brand value last year.
He wisely chose the latter. In doing so he had to shake up the way the company thought about customers and communication without alienating the engineering and science units critical to innovation. In 2004 its "Sense and Simplicity" global branding effort launched. The idea is to create a "health-care, lifestyle, and technology" company that offers easy-to-use products designed around the consumer. To get the effort on track, the CEO created an internal think tank, the Simplicity Advisory board, comprised entirely of Philips outsiders: a British fashion designer, a Chinese architect, an American radiologist, and an American Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor.
The board looks at overarching questions like: How does simplicity get executed? Their strategic advice changed the way the company thinks, leading to a series of new, user-friendly products. It wasn't enough to design a small defibrillator that could be stashed in public spaces such as airports and workplaces. Consumers dictated that it be the size of a laptop and simple enough that the untrained could spark a heart back to life in seconds using built-in audio instructions. There's also Perfect Draft, a home draft-beer dispenser that's a twist on Philips' hugely successful Senseo coffee machines.
BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Top Global Brands.
BusinessWeek/Interbrand Annual Ranking of the 100 Top Global Brands
More people have heard the coke melodic theme
then the anthem of any single religion. A truly sobering
thought. more people have seen the Coke logo
then the symbol of any single religion! A truly scary thought.
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1 |
1 |
U.S. |
67,000 |
67,525 |
-1% |
Flagging appetite for soda has cut demand for Coke, but the beverage giant has a raft of new products in the pipeline that could reverse its recent slide. | |
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2 |
2 |
U.S. |
56,926 |
59,941 |
-5% |
Threats from Google and Apple haven't yet offset the power of its Windows and Office monopolies. | |
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3 |
3 |
U.S. |
56,201 |
53,376 |
5% |
Having off-loaded its low-profit PC business to Lenovo, IBM is marketing on the strategic level to corporate leaders. | |
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4 |
4 |
U.S. |
48,907 |
46,996 |
4% |
The brand Edison built has extended its reach from ovens to credit cards, and the "Ecomagination" push is making GE look like a protector of the planet. | |
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5 |
5 |
U.S. |
32,319 |
35,588 |
-9% |
Profits and market share weren't the only things slammed by rival AMD. Intel's brand value tumbled 9%, as it loss business from high-profile customers. | |
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6 |
6 |
Finland |
30,131 |
26,452 |
14% |
Fashionable designs and low-cost models for the developing world enabled the mobile phone maker to regain ground against competitors. | |
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7 |
9 |
Japan |
27,941 |
24,837 |
12% |
Toyota is closing in on GM to become the world's biggest automaker. A slated 10% increase in U.S. sales this year will help even more. | |
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8 |
7 |
U.S. |
27,848 |
26,441 |
5% |
New CEO Robert Iger expanded the brand by buying animation hit-maker Pixar and beefing up digital distribution of TV shows through the Internet and iPods. | |
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9 |
8 |
U.S. |
27,501 |
26,014 |
6% |
A new healthy-living marketing campaign—and the premium-priced sandwiches and salads that came with it—have led to a fourth year of sales gains. | |
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10 |
11 |
Germany |
21,795 |
20,006 |
9% |
The new S-Class sedan and M-Class SUV are helping repair a tarnished quality reputation. High costs and weak margins will take longer to fix. | |
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Man Finds 188-Year-Old Bible in Garbage
Man Finds 188-Year-Old Bible in Garbage
DANVILLE, Va. (July 28) - Electrician Michael Hoskins is not averse to browsing when he drops off trash at the Route 41 dump bin, and a recent visit rewarded 
While otherwise intact, the Bible appeared to have fire damage and had watermarks on some of its inner pages. The sheepskin-covered book was printed in Pittsburgh in 1818 and, according to Hoskins' research, is one of less than half dozen copies in existence.
"You can also see where it survived a fire at one time," he said. "I was always told a Bible wouldn't burn and have seen it before in other church and house fires."
Hoskins also looked into the Bible's history and discovered that it belonged to the Enoch family.
"So, I also did research on the Internet and found a descendant of Isaac Enoch listed in the Bible," Hoskins said.
Enoch was born on Jan. 25, 1775, and he and his children are listed on the outer pages.
"I talked to a man named James Lockhart in Coolville, Ohio, and he claims to be a direct descendant of Isaac," Hoskins said.
The two talked for several hours, and 71-year-old Lockhart told Hoskins that he has researched his family genealogy for 40 years and always felt there had to be a family Bible out there.
"I mailed him copies of the family history from the Bible, and he said it helped him fill in some of the gaps in his research," Hoskins said.
With word spreading on his discovery, Hoskins said he's had offers from rare book shops and others, all of which he's resisted.
"No, this Bible has made it through a lot. I am going to hold on to it for now. I will sell for the right price, but $900 is not realistic, not with only six of them left in existence."
His discovery early in July was found amid boxes of literary works on the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. He returned the next day to retrieve them.
"All of the books were gone, and the containers had already been sent to the landfill. So that's where the Bible would have ended up had it not been saved," Hoskins said.
07/28/06 16:48 EDT
Fortifi@ Recent Entries 07/29/06
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07/29/06
Fortifi@ would like to tribute the (Living and Deceased) musicians who have mentored you or served you, your church, Sunday school, VBS, Prayer Meeting, conference, retreat, community and the Ministry of Music. Please list their name (s) and your comments. I can accept jpeg photos by email. Click here: Music Servant of the Week 7/29/06 Music Ministry Revival part93
7/27/06 Fatal Distractions Joyce Rodgers 7/27/06 Fatal Distractions part 2 7/24/06 Dashes and the Spaces in Between |
Music Ministry Revival part93
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d fellowship with God. For many, the gift of music can become the mistress of our imagination. Eventually, our imagination may be inclined to worship the very music excerpt that your mind created. You can ultimately bow down to your own creation. The music may become a vehicle of self-expression, self deprecation, totally absorbing and self-fulfilling. The music absorbs the spirits of the listeners as an altar of idolatry. 
na, ar
for years, cringes at such examples." When you reach the point where kids feel they have an intense personal connection with a celebrity, that's when they are beginning to cross into unhealthy obsession," he said. "Suddenly they are in a relationship with Hilary Duff when they don't know Hilary Duff." For many tweens, liking stars is not enough: They must become fans, and feel as if they're actual 'friends' with their favorite celebrities. Indeed, one study — conducted in England — shows that though youngsters a decade ago tended to describe parents or other family members as their heroes, today they are more likely to cite a teenage celebrity. Experts note there is good news in the burgeoning trend of celebrity worship among the very young. Where girls once almost exclusively idolized boys and young men, today they are devoting most of their attention and spending power toward female stars. Linda Sonna, a psychologist who studies "tweens," kids who are not toddlers but not yet teens, says she has seen statistics that show the average parent spends only about 15 minutesa day talking with his or her kids, an estimate that does not include the time spent issuing orders and giving directions or specific guidance. In worst-case scenarios, experts say, those are the kind of delusions of intimacy that can fuel unhealthy celebrity worship; in most kids, however, they simply blur the line between fact and fantasy that confuses children in even the best of circumstances. 