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Of all the bad news in the news today, here is some good news, from CBS News – Eating lots of chocolate helps people stay thin. The study finds:

What’s the best way to stay thin? A new study finds it’s exercising and eating a healthy diet full of – chocolate? The study found that people who frequently ate chocolate had a lower body mass index (BMI) than people who didn’t…The researchers found that the participants – who were an average age of 57 – ate chocolate for an average of twice of week and exercised roughly 3.5 times per week. But the more frequent chocolate-eaters had smaller BMIs, a ratio of height and weight that’s used to measure obesity.

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I found this from John Bunyan on assurance of salvation:

“But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven.”

– from Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

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The Christian Post released an article entitled: ‘Falsified’ Authors Tackle ‘Epidemic’ of False Conversions in US Churches. Vince and Lori Williams have recently written a book that addresses the issue of the mass of false converts in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The article writes: 

"Some of these seeker churches that are out there, they are preaching a different Gospel, or an incomplete Gospel," Lori told CP. She contends that these skewed Gospel teachings result in people falsely believing they are saved.

"That’s the problem. All these people think ‘I just have to believe in Jesus and then I’m saved.’ And that’s what is cranking out the false conversions. There’s no repentance, there’s no turning from the sin," she added….

"Scripture is the final authority on all matters. (more…)

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Here is a great piece by Michael Hyatt on Why Sitting Is Killing You.

Also, see this infographic:

Browse more infographics.

 

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Over the years, I have tried to find ways to make sure I am not hanging my head down for reading. So around ten years ago, my wife bought this for my birthday – a Jefferson Bookstand. Click here to see how it allows me to read with my head straight ahead, instead of increasingly ruining my spine and making me a hunchback over time. But there is more: Here is another great way to work – standing up. Here is the case for it and the history.

I shot a video on my iphone for the first click…

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The financial Times reports this Mind-Blowing Apple Fact of the Day: “Barclays Capital estimates that based on reporting thus far earnings growth for S&P 500 companies was 7 percent in Q4. But if you strip out Apple, that plummets to 2.9 percent.”

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Tim Challies posted this helpful piece, Seven Texts on Evangelism. Following are the seven texts:

1. There is work to be done

Matthew 9:37-38
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”

2. Jesus has commanded you to do it

Matthew 28:18-20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (more…)

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This Pew Forum research project shows some remarkable religious differences between states and regions. (Click on the state to see the religious configuration that exists there. You can view this by clicking here.) Notice the spread between Arkansas which 53% evangelical, while California is 18%. Utah’s numbers are staggeringly different from the rest of the country with 58% Mormon while the rest of the states are at around one half of one percent. The most secularized regions of course are the West coast and the Northeast with disproportionately high numbers of people who call themselves religiously “unaffiliated.”

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Government Sinks to New Low – NYC Mayor Bloomberg: ‘Government’s Highest Duty’ Is to Push ‘Healthy’ Foods. My friend Jason Dohm comments, “Outlawing Twinkies is the highest duty of government?  Depressing…”

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For many years, we have been advocating a pro-child philosophy in church life which functionally means that we integrate children – and all ages – in normal church activities. I remember a very eerie feeling a few years ago when I was in a church service, and it was all old people. It felt very sterile and unnatural. The rejection of children in our world has come to such great proportions that some are calling it, “The no-kids-allowed movement.” One author says it is spreading. She cites Malaysia airlines and others banning babies from first class cabins. She documents the banning of children in restaurants and the creation of “child free” travel destinations. Even the health food chain, Whole Foods has jumped on the band wagon. Unfortunately, the church has been on this bandwagon for a very long time.  We think it is no small issue since it is contrary to sound doctrine and have actually made a film about it – Dividedthemovie.com 

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This past Sunday, I preached on Matthew 16:1-12, where Jesus warns His disciples to beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees.

Matthew 16:12 says, “Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”

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Spurgeon once said:

There is a certain breed of Calvinists, whom I do not envy, who are always jeering and sneering as much as ever they can at the full assurance of faith. I have seen their long faces. I have heard their whining periods, and read their dismal sentences, in which they say something to this effect—“Groan in the Lord always, and again I say, groan! He that muourneth and weepeth, he that doubteth and feareth, he that distrusteth and dishonoureth his God, shall be saved.” That seems to be the sum and substance of their very ungospel-like gospel. But why is it that they do this? I speak now honestly and fearlessly. It is because there is a pride within them—a conceit which is fed on rottenness, and sucks marrow and fatness out of putrid carcasses.

– from The Free Grace Broadcaster on Assurance and Perseverance, page 13

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Phil Johnson recently wrote a post entitled: How Can We Tell If Our Repentance Is Deep Enough. He writes:

It’s impossible to judge the depth of someone’s conviction or the genuineness of a believer’s penitence based on the potency of an emotional reaction alone. If the question is whether your repentance is genuine or not, I personally think what you “feel” emotionally has very little significance. Judas wept bitterly; Esau shed many tears. Neither of them truly repented. By contrast, the thief on the cross seemed almost stoically resigned to his fate. But there was enough genuine repentance in his dying plea that Jesus assured him of salvation on the spot.

You can read more by clicking the link above.

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So it is with souls, when first translated into the marvelous light of Christ, to behold the beauties of the new creation. They see a new glory in him, that hath quite sullied the desirableness of all earthly diversions. And they see a new guilt and filth in sin, that gives them an utter abhorrence of its old delight and pleasures; and so of other things. Now, whilst these and the like springs are kept open, in the souls of converted sinners, they constrain them to vigorous active holiness. They can never do enough for God.

– John Owen, Nature, Power, Deceit and Prevalency of Indwelling Sin in Believers, 263

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