“When men feed on the word, it is turned into a principle of life, spiritual strength, and growth within; which a taste of it only will not give. As food, when it is digested, turns into flesh and blood and spirits, so doth the word, and Christ therein, unto the souls of men spiritually. Hence Christ becometh “our life,” and “liveth in us,” as the efficient cause of our spiritual life, Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3; and we grow and increase by the word, 1 Pet. 2:2. A mere taste, though it may yield present refreshment, yet it communicates no abiding strength. Hence multitudes relish the word when it is preached, but never attain life, or strength, or growth by it.” (John Owen, The Works of John Owen vol. 7, 31)

Health,

Cancer in a Can?

I had blogged a little while ago about two ingredients that react together to create high levels of cancer causing chemicals in fruit soda. Well, it’s still not old news. The sodas in questions are.

# Safeway Select Diet Orange
# AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage
# Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange
# Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail
# Crush Pineapple

In addition, “[The FDA] tested 24 samples of diet soda for benzene in the study. Around 79 percent (nineteen) of the soft drinks were found to have benzene above the permitted levels”. The best route is to avoid any soda that has sodium benzoate. And more broadly it may be a good idea to avoid any food that uses sodium benzoate. Apparently, salad dressings also use it.

Read the Entire Article Here

News,

Planned Parenthood Controversy

In case you don’t already know, Jenn and I are very much against abortion. It seems pretty clear to us that killing babies at any time is a murderous evil that our government should not allow. The argument of freedom of choice for women is a very weak one seeing that no sane society allows murder to be a free choice. We don’t allow people to kill their children. We are shocked when we hear about a father or mother mass murdering their family. However, somehow it’s completely fine to kill children who are in the womb. Perhaps the fetus doesn’t look cute enough? Doesn’t touch our hearts enough? If it is aborted, it certainly will not have the opportunity. Some people come up with moderately understandable excuses in the case of rape, incest or genetic problems. But the reality is those are just excuses to make it seem okay to abort under any circumstance.

Now, it turns out my tax dollars are also supporting and subsidizing abortions. Technically, some of the money I work for on a daily basis is being directed toward funding abortions through planned parenthood. The thought makes me want to stop paying taxes , move out of this country, or somehow put a stop to this.  R.C. Sproul had rightfully pointed out that this is how Americans make stealing legitimate. My money is being taken from me and used in opposition to me. This is really a place that the government has no reason to be funding. What is our government’s excuse for funding abortions? I can tell you now that it’s not a good one from my perspective.

Read these facts from an American Spectator Article on Planned Parenthood

In 2005 Planned Parenthood got $272 million in our taxes, twice the money it made from its 255,000 surgical abortions. Since 1987, Planned Parenthood has taken in $3.2 billion in taxpayer funds for its deadly agenda. So, since 1973 Planned Parenthood has aborted 3.8 million babies with the help of over 3.9 billion tax dollars.

Family,

May Photos

Matthew had 3 birthday celebrations this year. One was the previous week before his actual birthday because my brother Michael is not always in town every week. He’s flying around the country one week and then home the next. So we scheduled one celebration during the time he was in town. The other celebration was just Jenn, Matthew and I at the children’s discovery museum. This was his real birthday day. Jenn and I gave him his gifts that day. Those photos were posted from Jenn’s new camera on an HP site somewhere, I’ll get the link later. The final celebration was on Mother’s day at Vasona park where he rode a mini train and played on a very cool playground that I used to play on as a kid. They still have the original airplane and fire engine. Click Here to see all the photos

May2007_C021mn

The above photo was taken while we waited in a very long line. You can imagine that a lot of people were at this popular park on Mother’s Day. We were the next in line, anticipating the steam train’s arrival from it’s previous run. The problem was that it could not make it up the short incline before the station. They actually made several attempts to back up, gather steam power and try again. After three attempts and 15 minutes later, they brought out the diesel train to tow the steam train back to the station. The photo above shows the diesel train towing the steam train. Our ride was pulled by this green and yellow diesel train. I jokingly commented that they should convert all the steam train to diesel since they work so well! Oh yeah, they did that already.  tongue laugh

Christianity,

Highly Committed Christians

Sometimes in todays, world, it may not seem like being a Christian can make a difference in a person’s life. Sometimes everyone seems equally American and entrenched in American culture. However, a Gallup poll had confirmed that being a highly committed Christian can make a difference. Here’s a short section out of James Boice’s commentary on Romans 12:1

And Christians are different. A number of years ago the Gallup Poll organization devised a scale to sort out those for whom religion seemed to be important and find out if it made any difference in their lives. America claims to be a very religious country, but the nation is increasingly immoral. Gallup wanted to know if serious religion made a difference for those who considered themselves to be ?highly spiritually motivated? or committed.

He found that 12.5 percent of Americans are in this category, one person in eight. And he found that they really are different, so much so that he called them ?a breed apart.? He found that these people differed from the rest of the population in at least four key areas:

1. They are more satisfied with their lot in life. They are happier. Sixty-eight percent say they are ?very happy? as compared with only 30 percent of those who are uncommitted.
2. Their families are stronger. The divorce rate among this group is far lower than among the less committed.
3. They tend to be more tolerant of persons of different races and religions. This is exactly opposite from what the media suggest when dealing with religion or religious leaders.
4. They are more involved in charitable activities than are their counterparts. A total of 46 percent of the highly spiritually committed say they are presently working among the poor, the infirm, and the elderly, compared to only 36 percent among the moderately committed, 28 percent among the moderately uncommitted, and 22 percent among the highly uncommitted.?

True conversion makes a difference in a person?s life. If there are no differences, there is no genuine conversion. These differences are explained in the remaining chapters of [Romans]. Laws in themselves change little. Changed people change everything. And the only thing that ever really changes people is God himself through the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have been called to faith in Jesus Christ, you are part of a radically changed community, the new humanity. It is your privilege to begin to make changes in our world.

Boice, J. M. (1991-c1995). Romans (1489). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House.

Jenn and I consider ourselves in the highly committed group and we can identify ourselves with all 4 points above. We are very happy with what God has done in our lives, our local church, family, friends, job and life in general. We don’t see our family ever breaking up. We have good relations with people of different religions in our neighborhood and at my workplace. And we are involved with charitable activities both locally and globally through World Vision and Compassion International.

Before I came to know Christ, I did none of these things and I was a bit lost in life. I cannot take the credit for any of the benefits. God’s design for life is truly the best. Oftentimes the world thinks of religion as foolishness. It’s nice to know that a Gallup poll has shown a bit of truth about the fruits of a highly committed Christian life.

Health,

From Pet Feed to our Kitchen Table

Recently there was the pet food scare that had us worried about our cats and dogs needing to be put to sleep. Well, it turns out there is also a danger of it getting to our kitchen table because tainted feed is also being used to feed livestock that is destined for kitchen tables around the nation. Even more interesting, is that there are a host of chemicals that are used in America’s Livestock industry that I would rather not avoid. Check out this article at Sustainable Table -> Click Here

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >