Alexander The Great

"Alexander The Great" - the very name evokes images of epic battles, grand conquests, and a larger-than-life persona. His achievements as a military leader are legendary, and his legacy has endured for over two millennia.

But what was it that made Alexander such a successful commander?

First let's draw a comparison to another great general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon is credited with utilizing the idea of separate, self-sufficient army formations. Before Napoleon, every nation had an army with a general. This army had one supply train, one chain of command, one army camp when not moving, and always fought more or less together.

Yet, Napoleon's greatest strengths might have been his charisma, political leadership, and diplomat skills. His military skills, as great as they were, lacked the vision and planning of leaders such as Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. For example, I doubt that either one of those military leaders would have made the mistakes Napoleon made in invading Russia, where his army started off with over 600,000 men and only 100,000 returned. Napoleon fought in over 60 battles, and lost 7 of those conflicts. 

Alexander the Great fought military campaigns for over fifteen years and never lost a battle.

Hell

Have you ever wondered about the existence of Hell?

Christ spoke about Hell eleven times in the scriptures. He did not say, “And the unrighteous will enter the house of God and be happy forever,” or “the impenitent will be destroyed and exist no longer.” 

Rather, He said explicitly that there is a place called Hell (Gehenna); that people go there, and that it’s forever. In speaking about the suffering in Hell, he described it as: “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46); “everlasting fire” (Matthew 25:41); “the fire that will never be quenched” (Mark 9:43-46); “the worm that never dies” (Mark 9:44). Of course, many of the things Jesus said during his earthly ministry can be construed in different ways. But not all of them. Certain statements he made simply preclude misinterpretation. Those having to do with Hell are in that category.

C.S. Lewis famously said: “In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of Hell is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.”

Hatred and Forgiveness (John Ortberg)

" . . . knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot." (1 Peter 1:18-19 ESV)

6 Characteristics of Successful People

Because I never trusted my talents, my looks, or my luck, and had little or no business connections, I decided to study what successful people did and tried to mimic it. Then I studied what unsuccessful people did and tried to avoid it. I read many books on this subject, graduated from the Dale Carnegie course on Positive Thinking and Public Relations, which culminated in co-founding a company that bundled this information in short, easy-to-digest courses that we taught to medium / upper-level executives of major companies such as Southern Foods, Coca-Cola, etc.

Now my life has consisted of many ups and downs, but I firmly believe that with God's help, we can all live a life that honors Him and serves others, and that to me is the definition of a successful life. 

So without further ado, here are my six traits shared by successful people (with an emphasis on the life of Andrew Carnegie):

Van Morrison - In The Garden

 Rarely does a week go by where I don't partake of the beauty and genius of Van Morrison's music. 

The Great Restoration of Ourselves (John Ortberg)

 

The Power of The Cross

"The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,

I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”"

(1 Corinthians 1:18-31) The Message Translation