Christ at the Center

Michael Horton says we need to once again let our lives and churches be driven by the gospel.

Interview by Mark Galli | posted 11/19/2009 10:14AM

The phrase "making Jesus Lord and Savior" does not appear anywhere in Scripture (any more than does "personal relationship"). It assumes we are the ones who make God something. It is hard to imagine a Jew saying he made God his liberator and Lord in the Exodus. No. God made the Israelites the recipients of his saving and lordly work. So we don't make God anything; it is he who makes us his people. The Good News is not that Jesus has made it possible for you to make him Lord and Savior. The Good News is that he has actually saved and liberated you, and that he is your Savior.

Read more at ChristianityToday

Eight Great Date Nights

Need a kick-start to your relationship? Check out these ideas.

Ginger Kolbaba

4. Make it a three-course progressive dinner. Rather than going out to eat at one restaurant (how boring!), choose one restaurant for your appetizer, a different one for your main dish, then a third one for dessert. Share one course each if you're low on cash. If you have trouble deciding which restaurants, write down several options for each course, put them in a hat, and pick. As you drive to each, discuss the type of restaurant you would open and what types of each course you'd choose to serve and why.

5. Give an encore performance! Think back to one of your favorite dates or activities you two had before you were married, but that you don't get to do anymore. Was it to go antiquing? Book shop hopping? Hiking? Playing board games? Decide to do it again. While you're on the date, talk about why the date or activity was so special and what it meant to you. What did you discover about your spouse during that time that attracted you? Tell your spouse!

Read more at Marriage Partnership

The Impossibility of Thanksgiving

Why gratefulness is more gift than duty.

Mark Galli | posted 11/25/2009 10:45AM

A YouTube segment from Conan O'Brien's show entitled "Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy," with guest comedian Louis C.K., has been making the rounds. In it, Louis talks about how he was on a plane that offered in flight Wi-Fi access to the Internet, one of the first planes to do so. But when it broke down in a few minutes, the man sitting next to him swore in disgust. Louis was amazed, and said to O'Brien, "How quickly the world owes him something that he didn't know existed 10 seconds ago."

Louis then talked about how many of us describe less-than perfect airline flights as if they were experiences from a horror film: "It was the worst day of my life. First of all, we didn't board for 20 minutes! And then we get on the plane and they made us sit there in the runway for 40 minutes!"

Then he said mockingly, "Oh really. Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight? … Everybody on every plane should be going, 'O my God, wow!' … You're sitting in a chair in the sky!" And then he mocks a passenger who, trying to push his seat back, complains, "It doesn't go back a lot!"

The segment is humorous because we recognize ourselves in it. That's human nature. We take things for granted so quickly, so easily fall out of a state of gratefulness.

Read more at ChristianityToday

Published on Network World Asia (http://www.networksasia.net)

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Fighting things like Conficker

By Kristy Westphal | Sep 28, 2009

A lot of really good research has been published about the malware like the Conficker worm, its many forms, infection vectors and speculation as to what it’s going to do next. But what seems to be missing is the operational side of fighting Conficker. What signs would you expect to see, how do you really fight it and what can you possibly do to prevent it?

Here’s a fictional case study that may be of help.

Day one: Why is my account getting locked out?

You come in to the office thinking it's just another day in the security trenches, but when you try to log on to the network you notice your account is locked out. OK, no big deal, although a little odd. You could call the help desk but you reset it yourself and then head for a cup of coffee when you realize a number of employees are wondering around mumbling about being locked out and complaining about a huge help desk queue.

OK, now something is smelling fishy. You start to check around and realize that accounts are being locked out all over the network. Time for your operational team to start doing some homework.

Read more Network World Asia

The 8 Laws of Leadership

Dr. William Cohen in his book, The Stuff of Heroes, writes that the eight universal laws of leadership are:

1. Maintain absolute integrity.
2. Know your stuff.
3. Declare your expectations.
4. Show uncommon commitment.
5. Expect positive results.
6. Take care of your people.
7. Put duty before self.
8. Get out in front.

© 2009 Family First. All Rights Reserved.

At The End, It's Relationships That Matter Most
By: Gary Oliver, Ph.D.

Several years ago I heard a convicting story of the value and importance of making family relationships a priority. A middle-class family in the 40's had set a family goal of remodeling their old bathroom. After a year of financial sacrifices they finally had enough cash for the project. At the family conference held to pick the colors and finalize the plans one of the children suggested, "Why don't we use the money for a trip and fix the bathroom next year?" Even though it involved a change in plans, everyone liked the suggestion and that summer they took the money and went to Yellowstone National Park.

With the money spent the saving started all over in order to do the postponed remodeling the next year. When it came time to hire the contractor the family's conversation drifted to how much they had enjoyed the trip to Yellowstone and the inevitable suggestion surfaced: "Why not put off the bathroom for just one more year and take another family trip?" They all agreed.

Read more at All Pro Dad

One Supplement That Works
Matthew Herper, 08.19.09, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated September 07, 2009

A lot of nutritional supplements are quack medicines. Not fish oil.

In the late 1960s Danish physician Hans Olaf Bang became fixated on an epidemiological anomaly: Why did Greenland's Inuit rarely get heart disease in spite of a high-fat diet consisting mostly of whale blubber and seal meat?

"We have to go up there and solve this riddle," Bang told his prot??g??, J??rn Dyerberg, then 33 years old. In 1970 the two doctors cobbled together $6,000, flew to Greenland and collected blood samples from 130 Inuit. The cholesterol numbers were good but not enough to explain the healthy hearts. Back in the lab they used an old gas chromatograph to analyze Inuit blood. They found two chemicals they had never heard of before. The same chemicals didn't appear in the blood of Inuit who had moved to mainland Denmark and switched to a Western diet.

Read more at Forbes CEO Network