Tag: plan

Markethive

Why Suicide is Not an Option

Why suicide is the ultimate denial to God

Written by GodLife on 16/08/2016
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Betrayal, Depression, Failure, Hope, Purpose, Suicide
Then Judas threw the silver coins down in the Temple and went out and hanged himself.

Matthew 27:5
Life can sometimes feel hopeless. Maybe you are going through the death of a loved one, a permanent disability, failure or betrayal. You’re not alone.

Do not choose Judas’ path of ending his own life with suicide. Instead, read on to see how some of God’s people have responded to these feelings rather than suicide:

1.Betrayal: David
David, the “man after God’s own heart,” was running away from King Saul, whom he had served. He fled to Israel’s enemies and they betrayed him, taking his family captive. Even David’s trusted followers began to turn on him: “David, too, was in anguish. Some of his men talked about stoning him because they were so bitter about their families being taken.” Who else was left at this point? “But David took comfort in the Eternal One, his True God” (1 Samuel 30:6). With God, David had stood against impossible odds before. (See 1 Samuel 17)

2. Loss: Job
Because of the devil’s attack, Job lost everything: his riches, his family… even his health. “Why does God let me live when life is miserable and so bitter? I keep longing for death more than I would seek a valuable treasure. Nothing could make me happier than to be in the grave.” (Job 3:20-22). It’s hard to imagine Job’s suffering. But he came to realize how unwise these words had been: “I have said things that I did not understand, things too great for me, which I did not know.” (Job 42:3)

3. Hopelessness: Paul
Paul was the fearless missionary (Acts 21:13) who sang in prison (Acts 16:25) and wrote part of the New Testament. He once admitted, “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it” (2 Corinthians 1:8).

More understanding may not change how you feel, but don’t trust your emotions. For a child of God, life is never hopeless. How can you really say you trust God with your eternity if you don't trust Him now? All of these men suffered greatly, but God had a greater plan for their lives on earth which they fulfilled. Please read 2 Corinthians 4:1 through 6:1. This is where Paul reveals this plan, and how it includes you

Pray this week:
Oh, God, I may be hurting so much right now, but I commit to trusting you no matter what. Your love for me is so great that you suffered worse for me. You have total knowledge and power. Your plan for my life is bigger than what I am going through, so I believe you will bring me through it.

Please reach out to us immediately, by responding to this message, if you need help now! Depression is serious but we have someone who will be happy to pray with you and can offer help.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Amazon will become an Advertising Giant

Michael K. Spencer

Blockchain Mark Consultant, tech Futurist, prolific writer. WeChat: mikekevinspencer.

Move over Google and Facebook, Amazon will dethrone you.

Just as Alibaba and Tencent compete for supremacy in the veritable tech dynasty that is emerging in China, in the U.S. Amazon and Google are increasingly becoming direct competitors.

Nowhere is this going to be more fun to watch than in advertising, smart speakers and the future of how tech companies become implicated in Health Care.

As Amazon ramps up expensive physical store expansion and logistics fulfillment with rising postal costs and higher minimum wages, it needs another “cash-cow” to fund its growth. The low-hanging fruit here is definitely digital Advertising.

Amazon is on track to generate $10 billion a year from its advertising business

Amazon’s trajectory in Advertising is also based on the growth of its Prime subscribers?—?well over 100 million at this point. With more consumers in the funnel comes more traffic and higher value for brands to advertise with Amazon, instead of outdated banner Ads with Google.

  • Amazon is quickly becoming the 3rd horseman of Western digital advertising.
  • Amazon’s growth in advertising and Alexa becoming ubiquitous is a major threat to Google and, to a lesser extent, Facebook.
  • Google has made progress with Google Home devices in 2018, but it’s hard to catch up to Alexa or AWS in the cloud.

Amazon reported $2.5 billion in sales in its “Other” category in Q3, guess what that means? It means brands are moving from Google to Amazon to do their ads. Some advertisers have already opted to move over half of their budgets from Google search to Amazon ads, according to CNBC.

Like Netflix or Tesla, Amazon is a favorite of Wall Street. Its aggressive pursuit of health care, grocery, AI and advertising means Amazon can scale over the next two decades in ways that will make Facebook and perhaps even Google look obsolete. This essentially means as an advertising platform Amazon can only go up.

Alphabet should be terrified even as they are in the smart home and some hardware initiatives, but nothing that can compare with Amazon’s dynamic approach. Alexa’s penetration of the smart home, robotics and consumer products is elevating the game, and few other companies will be able to keep up (outside of China).

EMarketer predicts Amazon will become the third largest digital ad seller in the U.S. by 2020, behind Google and Facebook. This is not news, but it may be the first time you are reading this. Even as Amazon’s stock had one of the worst weeks in recent memory, the bullish Amazon stock is the epitome of Wall Street’s recent tech bubble.

While Alphabet’s Waymo is going to be a big winner, Amazon will likely have several big winners in the decade ahead. The safest bet is digital advertising as formative companies such as Google and Facebook completely warped the internet due to their emphasis on Ads, and this led to a decline of innovation and startups in the U.S. Amazon is the last U.S. company that, in some sense, can compete on a global scale with China.

Amazon, not Google or Walmart, is the perennial “American Company”. I think the 2020s will demonstrate this.

Amazon has just a small sliver of the digital ads market in 2018, but fast forward to 2028, and just look at that chart.

Eventually Amazon Prime Video will be a massive place for digital Ads. And with Netflix’s level of debt and cash burn, it’s doubtful it will even be around in 2030. Facebook and Google have made some poor decisions that have impacted their reputations in 2018. Amazon here has the most to gain. There’s an important catch here: Amazon has demonstrated it is forconsumers, so an Amazon gain is generally a gain for consumers who value convenience, discounts and bundled services that finally have given subscriptions a good rep.

Facebook and Google were never truly on the side of consumers (nor was Microsoft), and that’s a sign of more evolved business models. Amazon’s trust levels are high and increasing the minimum wage and opening new stores should only augment it. The future of advertising is intimately connected with consumer and brand trust, and this is why Amazon as an underdog in advertising can truly disrupt the Ad-duopoly and change the face of advertising as we know it over the course of the next ten years.  https://medium.com/futuresin/amazon-will-become-an-advertising-giant-83809ac3e858

Amazon’s U.S. advertising business will generate $4.6 billion in revenues this year, giving it a 4.1% share of the market. For Amazon, its A-Z game plan?—?to dominate groceries, AI, the smart home, and ultimately advertising?—?is just beginning. Bottom line, if Amazon wins the consumer wins, and that’s the best equation for the global economy.

Jeff Bezos has googly eyes for taking on Google, and the tech wars have gotten quite serious for the future of artificial intelligence.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Restored Sexuality

God’s plan for sex

Written by Joy on 14/06/2016
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Lust, Marriage, Sex, Sin
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.

Ephesians 5:10
God created sex to be a beautiful gift. In Genesis 2, God says it was not good for man to be alone so God created the perfect partner, a woman, so they could become one flesh. The chapter closes with the statement, “they were both naked and felt no shame.” Sex creates a unique relationship that involves physical, emotional and mental unity and completion.

If sex is blessed by God, what makes it immoral?

Blessings Lost
When we forget God has authority to set limits, blessings are lost. “Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.” (Romans 1:28). Your phone works best when you use it the way it was designed. In the same way, God designed sex to work a certain way. Rejecting His design leads to darkness, confusion, secrecy, shame, and judgement.

Blessed Design
God used His infinite wisdom to design sex in the beginning. God does not need to “evolve.” He does not change his mind based on our opinions. Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation give a very clear picture of the kind of sex that pleases God. “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). God approves of sex when it is between one man and one woman who have made a lifelong commitment to marriage. Jesus confirmed this to be an unchanging truth in Matthew 19.

Are you willing to trust God’s wisdom and love and follow his guidelines?

Blessing Restored
“He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.” (Colossians 1:13-14). We no longer have to sit in the darkness of shame and confusion. Jesus has made us children of light! (Ephesians 5:8-11)

“You cannot say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies…If we belong to Christ our body is not our own but a temple of the Holy Spirit and therefore we should honor God with our body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13, 19-20). Obedience to God’s plan for sex is a choice we make when we want to please God, not ourselves (Colossians 3:1-17). God has given every Christian the Holy Spirit to teach us truth and empower us to obey it.

Are you going to find out what pleases the Lord and choose to live by it?

Pray this week:
Show me, Lord, where I am not pleasing you in my attitudes and actions regarding sex.

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Restored Sexuality- God’s plan for sex

God’s plan for sex

Written by Joy on 14/06/2016
Series: Weekly Devotional
Tags: Lust, Marriage, Sex, Sin
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.

Ephesians 5:10
God created sex to be a beautiful gift. In Genesis 2, God says it was not good for man to be alone so God created the perfect partner, a woman, so they could become one flesh. The chapter closes with the statement, “they were both naked and felt no shame.” Sex creates a unique relationship that involves physical, emotional and mental unity and completion.

If sex is blessed by God, what makes it immoral?

Blessings Lost
When we forget God has authority to set limits, blessings are lost. “Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.” (Romans 1:28). Your phone works best when you use it the way it was designed. In the same way, God designed sex to work a certain way. Rejecting His design leads to darkness, confusion, secrecy, shame, and judgement.

Blessed Design
God used His infinite wisdom to design sex in the beginning. God does not need to “evolve.” He does not change his mind based on our opinions. Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation give a very clear picture of the kind of sex that pleases God. “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). God approves of sex when it is between one man and one woman who have made a lifelong commitment to marriage. Jesus confirmed this to be an unchanging truth in Matthew 19.

Are you willing to trust God’s wisdom and love and follow his guidelines?

Blessing Restored
“He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, in Him.” (Colossians 1:13-14). We no longer have to sit in the darkness of shame and confusion. Jesus has made us children of light! (Ephesians 5:8-11)

“You cannot say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies…If we belong to Christ our body is not our own but a temple of the Holy Spirit and therefore we should honor God with our body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13, 19-20). Obedience to God’s plan for sex is a choice we make when we want to please God, not ourselves (Colossians 3:1-17). God has given every Christian the Holy Spirit to teach us truth and empower us to obey it.

Are you going to find out what pleases the Lord and choose to live by it?

Pray this week:
Show me, Lord, where I am not pleasing you in my attitudes and actions regarding sex.

Do you really know what Scriptures say about sexual sin? I

Alan Zibluk Markethive Founding Member