It is difficult for some of us who were raised on a theology of substitutionary atonement, those of us Protestant converts to holy Orthodoxy, it is difficult for us to accept that our final judgement will involve anything more than the forgiveness of sins. But the Church teaches us otherwise. Parables such as the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the Separation of the Sheep and the Goats play a huge role in the hymnology of the Orthodox Church and in its understanding of what our judgement before God will look like. That is, judgement before God is not merely about forgiveness of sin. But rather, the judgement of the Age to Come is also about comfort and torment; or as Christ puts it in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Father Abraham speaking to the Rich Man who is in torment), “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.”

In Homily 42, St. Isaac the Syrian makes an interesting statement about spiritual guidance. He says, “Do not seek advice from a man who does not lead a life similar to your own, even if he be very wise.” St. Isaac goes on, “Confide your thoughts to a man who, though he lack learning, has experience in things, rather than to a learned philosopher who speaks on the basis of speculations, having no actual experience.” For St. Isaac, and many Orthodox spiritual writers, both ancient and modern, it is very important to seek advice from those who have actually lived and experienced the things that you are seeking advice about.

Continuing in homily 42, St. Isaac gives us another warning. When you find unchanging peace, that is, when everything is going smoothly for you most of the time, then “beware: you are very far from the divine paths trodden by the weary feet of the saints. For as long as you are journeying in the way to the city of the Kingdom and are drawing nigh to the city of God, this will be a sign for you: the strength of the temptations that you encounter. And the nearer you draw nigh and progress, the more temptations will multiply against you.”

Fr. Michael answers two questions about the passions.

Too often we say that we love the sinner but hate the sin; however in practice, I don’t think the sinners can tell the difference. May God help us to care for the bodily needs and to lovingly honour our neighbours, especially those we disagree with, and let us strive in appropriate measure to be diligent in our life of prayer and in our ascetic disciplines so that even without a word we may influence our neighbour to turn from what is evil to what is beautiful.

The Savior came to heal, bless and sanctify all who bear his image and likeness. Are we living into that healing and blessing?

Frank (or Isaac, in the Church), a regular member of the community, passed away suddenly near the end of March. A mixup with his phone provided the community with the chance to learn of his passing, and opened the door for his daughter to share her grief with others who also loved her father.

How does one attain spiritual wisdom? This week offers reflections grounded in the sayings of St Isaac of Syria, on wisdom approached through humility, prayer in the scriptures, and love of neighbor.

In breaking news, Kevin Allen speaks with Samuel Noble who edits the Arab Orthodoxy blog site and who is an expert on Arab Orthodox matters, regarding reports that the kidnapped nuns of Maaloula and St. Thekla Monastery have been freed. The situation is very fluid but confirmation has been received of their release.

When at His baptism the Father speaks of Jesus as his "Beloved Son", declaring Him "well-pleased", the expression would have evoked in the mind of Jesus and anyone else who heard them two Biblical texts with which Jesus Himself was already familiar from the years of study in the synagogue.

If we are faithful, does God reward us? Does He promise wealth and blessings? Or is true happiness so much more... Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man, joins Steve at the start of Holy Week.

2 Corinthians 6:16 -7:1 & Matthew 15:21-28 She was possibly an idol worshipper but her persistence, love and humility and faith meant that her prayer was heard. The Apostles wanted her to go away.

Don't let your prayers be little and timid but straight from your heart. 2 Corinthians 6: 16 - 18, 7:1 Matthew 15: 21 - 28

Becoming a SaaS copywriter is your ticket to being at the forefront of the tech industry, where your words have the power to turn interest into conversions. It's more than just writing. It's about understanding the pulse of the market and crafting messages that resonate with users on a personal level. You'll work with innovative brands, helping to shape messages that not only inform but also engage and inspire action. It's a dynamic, rewarding career path where your skill can directly contribute to a company's success, translating tech speak into language that connects, convinces, and converts.

The post From Rookie to SaaS Copywriter Pro: A Newbie’s Blueprint appeared first on Coaching and training to scale your copywriting business, plus programs for new copywriters, startups, and marketers.

“We have 0% customer churn.” – said no SaaS marketer ever. Instead, what I hear all the time is: “If only we could keep growing without churn growing with us.” “If only we could get new trials to actually USE the product, they’ll see how great it is.” And even this story someone shared on […]

The post I spent 60+ hours analyzing onboarding emails for 127 SaaS trials. This is how the top SaaS retain users. appeared first on Coaching and training to scale your copywriting business, plus programs for new copywriters, startups, and marketers.

In today’s episode, I’m joined by PJ Taei, Founder and CEO of Uscreen, an all-in-one video monetization platform for content creators that helps them build their brands and grow their businesses. The creator economy has changed a lot since PJ first founded Uscreen in 2015. And in that time PJ has managed to grow Uscreen […]

Aberdeen student Hannah Chowdhry is calling for better support for families in a petition to Holyrood.

South African FA president Danny Jordaan is alleged to have used the organisation's resources for personal gain between 2014 and 2018.

St Andrew's Junior School in Hatfield Peverel might not be completely rebuilt until 2028.

More than a year on, some heads say they still do not know when their Raac-hit schools will be rebuilt.

A while back, I blogged about what it means to be Cloud Native. One of the key issues is multi-tenancy. As I discussed in that blog, there is a huge cost benefit in resources to multi-tenancy. This is how we can afford to run http://cloud.wso2.com and offer multi-tenant Tomcat currently for free beta use.

Today Amazon announced Elastic Beanstalk. They call it a PaaS. Unfortunately Elastic Beanstalk is only multi-tenant at the VM layer - in other words it is fundamentally IaaS not PaaS. In other words you don't get the true benefit of PaaS: every Beanstalk user has to pay for at least one EC2 instance. Amazon tries to put this in a nice light:

Each of your Elastic Beanstalk applications will be run on one or more EC2 instances that are provisioned just for your application. 

In his oft-quoted seminal paper ‘Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure For Scholarship In The Digital Age’ Clifford Lynch (2003) described the Institutional Repository as “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.” This paper seeks instead to define the repository service at a more primitive level, without the specialism of being an ‘Institutional Repository’, and looks at how it can viewed as providing a service within appropriate boundaries, and what that could mean for the future development of repositories, our expectations of what repositories should be, and how they could fit into the set of services required to deliver an Institutional Repository service as describe by Lynch.

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to propose and empirically validate a model and investigates the factors influencing acceptance and use of Software as a Services cloud computing services (SaaS) from individuals’ perspectives utilizing an integrative model of Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with modifications to suit the objective of the study. Background: Even though SaaS cloud computing services has gained the acceptance in its educational and technical aspects, it is still expanding constantly with emerging cloud technologies. Moreover, the individual as an end-user of this technology has not been given the ample attention pertaining to SaaS acceptance and adoption (AUSaaS). Additionally, the higher education sector needs to be probed regarding AUSaaS perception, not only from a managerial stance, but also the individual. Hence, further investigation in all aspects, including the human factor, deserves deeper inspection. Methodology: A quantitative approach with probability multi-stage sampling procedure conducted utilizing survey instrument distributed among students from three public Malaysian universities. The valid collected responses were 289 Bachelor’s degree students. The survey included the demographic part as well as the items to measure the constructs relationships hypothesized. Contribution: The empirical results disclosed the appropriateness of the integrated model in explaining the individual’s attitude (R2 = 57%), the behavior intention (R2 = 64%), and AUSaaS at the university settings (R2 = 50%). Also, the study offers valuable findings and examines new relationships that considered a theoretical contribution with proven empirical results. That is, the subjective norms effect on attitude and AUSaaS is adding empirical evidence of the model hypothesized. Knowing the significance of social effect is important in utilizing it to promote university products and SaaS applications – developed inside the university – through social media networks. Also, the direct effect of perceived usefulness on AUSaaS is another important theoretical contribution the SaaS service providers/higher education institutes should consider in promoting the usefulness of their products/services developed or offered to students/end-users. Additionally, the research contributes to the knowledge of the literature and is considered one of the leading studies on accepting SaaS services and applications as proliferation of studies focus on the general and broad concept of cloud computing. Furthermore, by integrating two theories (i.e., TPB and TAM), the study employed different factors in studying the perceptions towards the acceptance of SaaS services and applications: social factors (i.e., subjective norms), personal capabilities and capacities (i.e., perceived behavioral control), technological factors (i.e., perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use), and attitudinal factors. These factors are the strength of both theories and utilizing them is articulated to unveil the salient factors affecting the acceptance of SaaS services and applications. Findings: A statistically positive significant influence of the main TPB constructs with AUSaaS was revealed. Furthermore, subjective norms (SN) and perceived usefulness (PU) demonstrated prediction ability on AUSaaS. Also, SN proved a statically significant effect on attitude (ATT). Specifically, the main contributors of intention are PU, perceived ease of use, ATT, and perceived behavioral control. Also, the proposed framework is validated empirically and statistically. Recommendation for Researchers: The proposed model is highly recommended to be tested in different settings and cultures. Also, recruiting different respondents with different roles, occupations, and cultures would likely draw more insights of the results obtained in the current research and its generalizability Future Research: Participants from private universities or other educational institutes suggested in future work as the sample here focused only on public sector universities. The model included limited number of variables suggesting that it can be extended in future works with other constructs such as trialability, compatibility, security, risk, privacy, and self-efficacy. Comparison of different ethnic groups, ages, genders, or fields of study in future research would be invaluable to enhance the findings or reveal new insights. Replication of the study in different settings is encouraged.

IN the recent announcement of the Budget 2025 , the Malaysian government unveiled a substantial enhancement to the i-Saraan programme.

This improvement entails increasing incentives from 15% to 20%, with a maximum annual contribution of RM500.

The primary objective of this initiative is to promote retirement savings among informal workers and individuals with variable incomes, particularly those engaged in the gig economy.

This strategic move is particularly significant in light of Malaysia’s rapidly ageing society and the financial challenges confronting self-employed and gig economy workers.

The gig economy in Malaysia has witnessed significant expansion over the past decade, attracting a substantial portion of the workforce, including young adults and individuals seeking alternative employment arrangements.

While offering flexibility and independence, this sector presents several challenges, particularly regarding financial security and retirement planning.

Gig workers often lack the benefits and protections associated with traditional employment, such as employer-sponsored retirement plans, health insurance and job security, leading to financial instability and hindered ability to save consistently for the future. Recent data underscores the limited participation of gig workers in Malaysia’s Social Security Organisation (Socso), highlighting the neeed for tailored solutions to support this growing segment of the workforce.

As Malaysia’s population ages, the importance of accumulating sufficient retirement savings cannot be overstated. The anticipated rise in healthcare and long-term care costs underscores the essential need for individuals to possess adequate funds to support themselves during their later years.

Many gig workers may struggle to afford necessities and healthcare in old age without proper savings. The i-Saraan programme, administered by the Employees Provident Fund, aims to address this issue by providing a platform for informal workers to save for retirement. The programme offers a government incentive to match a percentage of the contributions made by participants, thereby encouraging more people to save.

The recent increase in incentives for the i-Saraan programme represents a strategic effort to stimulate participation and savings among gig workers. By raising the matching contribution from 15% to 20%, the government aims to enhance the attractiveness and benefits of the programme.

This enhancement implies that for every RM100 contributed by a participant, the government will add RM20, up to a maximum of RM500 annually.

This increase in incentives is expected to yield several positive impacts: higher incentives are likely to attract more gig workers to join the programme, increased participation will assist more individuals in building a financial cushion for their retirement, and more significant savings will encourage participants to contribute more regularly and consistently.

By accumulating more savings, gig workers can attain heightened financial security in their retirement years, reducing their reliance on government assistance and family support.

Malaysia’s ageing population significantly challenges the country’s social and economic systems. With the anticipated increase in the proportion of elderly citizens, there will be heightened demand for healthcare services, long-term care and social support.

Ensuring that all workforce segments, including gig workers, are financially prepared for retirement is imperative.

The i-Saraan programme, with its enhanced incentives, plays a pivotal role in this context. By encouraging gig workers to save for retirement, it will help alleviate some of the pressures associated with an ageing society. This will promote a culture of financial responsibility and long-term planning among informal workers.

While enhancing the i-Saraan programme represents a positive step, additional measures can be taken to support gig workers further.

Enhancing awareness about the i-Saraan programme and its benefits is crucial, as many gig workers may not know how to participate. Targeted campaigns can help bridge this knowledge gap.

Simplifying the process of enrolling in the i-Saraan programme and making contributions will encourage more gig workers to participate.

In addition to the matching contributions, other incentives such as tax breaks or additional government grants can further motivate gig workers to save.

Developing a broader social protection framework encompassing health insurance, unemployment benefits and other safety nets for gig workers will provide a more holistic approach to their financial security.

The increase in incentives represents a commendable initiative addressing the unique challenges that gig workers face in Malaysia.

By enhancing the i-Saraan programme, the government is taking a proactive stance in supporting the financial well-being of gig workers and addressing the broader societal implications of an ageing population.

The writer is a research fellow at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

College of St. Benilde continued to make a case for the top seeding in the Final Four as it downed San Beda, 70-62, Wednesday in NCAA Season 100 men’s basketball action at the Filoil EcoOil Arena.

After a Swedish doppelganger in 2021, a teen from across the border is the actor’s latest twin

Twitter lauds Umera Ahmed's writing for the emotional reflection and character arc of the girls' PMA journey so far

After identifying the culprit, Hania Aamir urged fans to report the account, which has changed names multiple times.

The horror-comedy Stree 2 becomes the ninth film to join the Rs 500 crore club.

Vikas was a heartthrob of the 2000s and starred in several prominent Indian shows

Drama starring Adnan Siddiqui explores complex relationships in a story full of suspense and emotional twists.

.

Saab's future has hit another major snag. Plus: A new Toyota convertible sports car hybrid!

Plus: Pink Camaro pace car, weekend car events.

If there is any BMX action happen, our bro Aaron will be there and you just will have a good and positive time with him.

BMX Since: 2013
BMX Disziplin: BMX Street
Hometown: Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Residence: Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler
Sponsors: Traffic distribution, Cult, Eclat, Heimwärtstattoocollective, kunstform BMX Shop
Homespots: Skatepark Bad Neuenahr
Favorite thing beside BMX: travel, camping
Instagram: @aaronpaffenholz_

For at tiltrække lejere til de tusindvis af tomme lejemål i Aarhus lokker udlejere med alt fra gratis cykler til gavekort til mad og møbler. En enkelt går endda så vidt som til at tilbyde boliger til fornuftige priser.

Indlægget Aarhus-udlejers vanvittige lokkemetode: Permanent lav husleje blev først udgivet på RokokoPosten.

Derk Haank to succeed Peter Wakkie as Chairman of the Supervisory Board as of the 2019 Annual General Meeting

The NCAA Division I Council on Thursday approved a rule allowing players with Canadian Hockey League experience to compete at U.S. colleges starting next season, a landmark decision that has the potential of shaking up the NHL's two largest sources of developmental talent.

The NCAA Tournament field is set, and some college basketball fans in the D.C. area will be paying close attention to the First Four games. The First Four games in Dayton, Ohio on Tuesday feature the Howard Bison, the District's lone representative in the tournament, and the University of Virginia.

We first met Wayne Brewton & Pastor Aaron Hannah on the 600 block of Cherry Hill Road back in 2017. This episode, we reunite with Wayne & Aaron, we listen back together to their original recordings, and we ask them, “How’s life changed in the past four years?”

Southern California's football program has been fined $50,000 and placed on probation for one year by the NCAA because of multiple violations of coaching staff rules over two seasons.

Denver Nuggets power forward Aaron Gordon is expected to miss multiple weeks with a strained right calf, two people familiar with the injury told The Associated Press.

EU BON takes care to enhance the expertise of its consortium by affiliating associate partners, an approach the project is planning to continue with. EU BON is pleased to welcome the latest addition to our list of associate partners - HaMAARAG- The Israel National Program for Ecosystem Assessment.

HaMaarag was established in 2006, following a decade’s worth of research in Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) stations. Its main objective is to promotescience-based management of open landscapes and natural resources, for human well-being and for long-term sustainability of nature in Israel.

HaMaarag aims to:
•   Generate science-based knowledge about the state of ecosystems and biodiversity in Israel
•   Strengthen the relationship between scientific knowledge, management and policymaking, in the fields of natural resource and open landscape management, land use planning and nature conservation.
•   Improve accessibility of this knowledge to decision-makers and the general public.

By achieving these aims, HaMaarag promotes the development of a common language, knowledge base and perspective regarding ecosystems in Israel, thus facilitating efficiency of management and policy within the relevant organizations.

Learn more about the actors playing Tim Tebow, Bill Belichick, Robert Kraft, Rob Gronkowski, and other notable Patriots in FX's "American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez."

The post Meet the actors in the cast of ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’ appeared first on Boston.com.

"He’s actually a good friend of mine and he plays all my doubles in all my other commercials."

The post What does Rob Gronkowski think of his portrayal in ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’? appeared first on Boston.com.

Jason Ingram talks Calling, Critiques, Unity and a Challenge!...AAW Podcast, Episode 176!

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Chris Quilala joins Michael Farren for a podcast you do not want to miss...AAW Podcast, Episode 178!

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Talking Christmas and Choirs w/Craig Adams, Worship Leader and Creative Director at LifeWay...AAW Podcast, Episode 176!

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We are stoked to bring you this edition of the podcast! These gems will be released throughout the year in addition to our normally scheduled releases. We appreciate the voice that all of our worship pastors, leaders and artists bring to the table. We hope that you enjoy this as much as we do!

On this episode, Michael King gets a chance to talk to Matt Maher. Matt is currently promoting his new release, Echoes, and is on tour with Chris Tomlin. Matt shares his heart on the meaning behind “Echoes” and some great perspective that we have, as worship leaders, to lead with authority and with great burden. Check out more on Matt Maher by doing the following:

• Visit his website to learn more about him as an artist, his music & traveling dates
• Check Out "Echoes" on iTunes
• Follow Matt as an Artist on Spotify
• Subscribe on YouTube for even more content & music

A special thank you to Matt Maher for joining us. Next week we will pick back up on Part 2 of the Dustin Smith/Michael King discussion on the future of AAW. You won’t want to miss it ...

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!