My wife and I are attending a class at our church, Biblical Self Confrontation, which is a great 23-week course I feel every Christian should take. It is presented by The Biblical Counseling Foundation and is a course one would take prior to the Biblical Counseling course.

Before you even think that you are not a counselor, remember we are all called to counsel at one point or another in our life with Christ. We are nearly halfway through the course, and I wanted to share a section that I thought was very good at examining self. 

Your contentment in all circumstances is dependent on your obedient response to God in your deeds (thoughts, words and actions) (Gen. 4:7, Ps. 119:165, Is. 26:3, Luke 11:28, John 15:10-11, 2 Cor. 4:7-10, 16-18, Phil. 4:6-11). By obeying the Lord in your daily walk, you show your love for the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:15, 21, 23-24, 1 John 2:4-5 ) and demonstrate his lordship in your life (Matt. 7:21). 

You will face constant temptations of self-centeredness that lead to thoughts, words and actions that are devastating to the body of Christ and your own walk with the Lord. Because they characterize your life apart from Christ, these sins must be confessed and overcome if you are to mature as a child of God. 

I always tell Christian brothers and sisters that if they want to experience a full and abundant life, and blessings beyond their imagination, the key to it all is complete submission and obedience to the Lord.

When you practice complete submission and obedience to the Lord God, you will enter what I have heard called “second vision;” this is where you will experience supernatural things of and from God. So brothers, I challenge you all to examine your relationship with Christ. Is there something in your life that is holding you back from entering second vision?

Remember Luke 9:23-24, which says, “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.'”

God Bless all you warriors. 

For the original blog, visit .

Israel came to a standstill for two mournful minutes Monday as sirens pierced the air in an annual ritual to remember the six million Jews systematically murdered by German Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust in World War II.

Israelis stopped what they were doing and stood in silence as sirens wailed nationwide Monday at 10:00 a.m.

People stood with heads bowed in reflection. Traffic froze as drivers stopped their cars and stepped outside in respect for the solemn day.

In Jerusalem, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who returned to the region just two weeks after U.S. President Barack Obama’s first visit as president, laid a wreath at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum beside Israel’s leadership.

Kerry, who arrived in Israel on Sunday, April 7, as part of a 10-day trip to the Middle East, Europe and Asia, was scheduled to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders during his three day visit to the region.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked worldwide on Jan. 27, the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. Israel’s annual Holocaust memorial day coincides with the Hebrew date of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Israel dedicated its annual memorial day this year to mark 70 years to the Warsaw ghetto uprising, a symbol of Jewish resistance against the Nazis in World War II that resonates deeply in Israel to this day.

The 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising was the first large-scale rebellion against the Nazis in Europe and the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.

Though guaranteed to fail, it became a symbol of struggle against impossible conditions, illustrating a refusal to give in to Nazi atrocities and inspired other acts of uprising and underground resistance by Jews and non-Jews alike.

The annual memorial day is one of the most solemn on Israel’s calendar. Restaurants, cafes and places of entertainment are shut down, and radio and TV programming are dedicated almost exclusively to documentaries about the Holocaust, interviews with survivors and somber music.

Never Again

On Sunday, Israel’s highest-ranking soldier and the son of Holocaust survivors from Hungary, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, led a delegation of IDF soldiers to the Auschwitz camp in Poland.

“The state of Israel is our insurance that this horror will not happen again and the IDF is the defensive wall of our national homeland, a place of shelter for the entire Jewish people,” Gantz wrote in the guest book.

On Monday afternoon, the chief of staff was scheduled to lead the traditional March of the Living along the three-kilometer stretch from Auschwitz to Birkenau, at the end of which he will deliver a speech.

Gantz landed in Krakow on Sunday morning and was welcomed in an official ceremony by the Polish military. From there, the chief of staff, his wife Revital, their son Nadav and the Israeli military delegation departed for Auschwitz. As they began their walk through the snowy camp it was clear that even the IDF’s top commander had difficulty reining in his emotions.

“The trip has two aspects, a national and an emotional one. Both are mixed together,” Gantz told Israel Hayom. “I am very moved to be here personally and it is also very important from a national point of view.”

“Israel can neither live the Holocaust nor forget the Holocaust,” said the chief of staff. “This trip, which goes by the name of ‘witnesses in uniform,’ is the 180th trip by Israeli soldiers and their commanders to Poland. It is very important to continue this tradition.”

“My fellow commanders, non-commissioned officers and cadets,” Gantz said in a later speech to his delegation, “we have a role. We are military commanders and we have a job, a purpose, we are committed to results. We are also educators. We have to act like human beings. We have to make sure we ask ourselves if we are acting like human beings and if those under our command are behaving like human beings. We always have to weigh the moral considerations.”

Regarding his decision to bring his son Nadav, a soldier in the Paratroopers Brigade, along for the trip, the chief of staff said, “He is the next generation. I thought it was important for him to come, and he thought so too. I hope this is not too much for him.”

The Greatest Victory

In the heart of Auschwitz, Gantz met with the delegation’s eyewitness, Asher Ud, 85, who chose his family name based on the Biblical verse “Like a brand plucked out of the fire” (Zechariah 3:2).

As Ud told his chilling story in a small and freezing barrack in Birkenau, no eye remained dry. He was spared nothing during the Second World War: neither beatings, nor hunger, disease, pain or loss. On more than one occasion, Ud was one step away from death, but managed to survive.

“I am standing here with the chief of staff. Could anything be more meaningful?” the survivor said emotionally.

Later in the day, Gantz met with Tami Raveh, the daughter of Gideon Hausner, who was the chief prosecutor at the Eichmann trial in the early 1960s.

“It is very moving for me to be here and to see the army and police,” she said. Raveh arrived with a delegation from the Justice Ministry, which was also joined by Holocaust survivor Mickey Goldman, an assistant to Hausner in the trial, and one of two police officers who were present at Eichmann’s hanging, and scattered his ashes on the sea.

Following their tour, the chief of staff’s delegation held a ceremony with the “witnesses in uniform” delegation, commanded by Brig. Gen. Roni Numa. Ud, the Holocaust survivor, also spoke at this ceremony and once tore people’s hearts, “Being here is my triumph over evil. The victory of a small boy, whose childhood was cut short by hatred and turned into a travail of suffering and survival,” Ud said emotionally, “There is no greater victory than being here, with the chief of staff. It’s something divine.” The survivor closed his speech with a cry of “Am Yisrael Chai!” (The nation of Israel lives), which echoed throughout the camp.

Evan Dolive is a dad of a 3-year-old girl, and he’s upset with Victoria’s Secret.

Maybe you’ve seen the open letter he wrote to the company (or a radio or TV interview in the days since) expressing concern about a new line of undergarments aimed at middle-school girls, with underwear carrying messages like “Wild,” “Feeling lucky?” and “Call me.”

(Since then, the clothing store clarified that there is no new line specifically for middle-school girls. Still, his points are valid, since young teenage girls are very aware of trends that affect young women.)

I share Dolive’s concern, and I believe this should be on the radar of every dad, whether you have sons or daughters. As he states in the letter:

“I believe that this sends the wrong message to not only my daughter but to all young girls. I don’t want my daughter to ever think that her self-worth and acceptance by others is based on the choice of her undergarments. I don’t want my daughter to ever think that to be popular or even attractive she has to have emblazon(ed) words on her bottom.

“I want my daughter (and every girl) to be faced with tough decisions in her formative years of adolescence. Decisions like should I be a doctor or a lawyer? Should I take calculus as a junior or a senior? Do I want to go to Texas A&M or University of Texas or some Ivy League School? Should I raise awareness for slave trafficking or lack of water in developing nations? There are many, many more questions that all young women should be asking themselves. … ”

You can read his letter and some follow-up blogs here. But really, this trend is bigger than Victoria’s Secret. Intimate apparel for girls and women is a huge business, and numerous stores are trying to appeal to girls’ desires to look and feel older—and sexier.

Are a lot of you dads like me? When my daughters were that age, the challenges were a bit different, but I wanted to slow them down and let them enjoy being kids while they could.

I have a teenage son, and I’m very uncomfortable with the thought that girls he interacts with could be embracing the notion that, as author Dr. Meg Meeker has written, “their identity equals their sexuality. But not even a healthy sexuality; rather a cheap one where girls are reduced to sexy playthings.”

Instead, she writes, “We want our girls to believe that their identity stems from their character, their uniqueness (not sameness), and their intellectual or physical achievements.”

What should we do as dads? Calling attention to the potential dangers is certainly appropriate, although it’s hard to see styles moving toward modesty and our fatherly definition of what’s proper for our daughters to wear. But no matter what, we should all be involved in addressing these issues with our daughters. Just a few months ago, I wrote about daughters and clothing choices in this blog.

Really, we should be concerned about much more than our daughters’ outward appearance or undergarments. We have a huge influence on our daughters’ self-images, and there’s a really helpful section about this in our free e-book, 5 Things Every Child MUST Get from Dad.

That section opens with this statement: “Girls feel pressure to be smart, thin, pretty, and involved in certain activities. Dads have the ability to combat these pressures and make their daughters feel beautiful, inside and out.”

The practical suggestions include:

• Never criticize your daughter’s body shape or appearance, but always affirm her as unique, beautiful and highly valued.
• More important, compliment her positive non-physical qualities, like emotional strength, sense of humor, loyalty, intelligence and courage.
• Get involved in her pursuits. Show that she is worth the investment of your time and energy.
• Demonstrate confidence in her abilities.

Action Points for Dads on the Journey

• Write your daughter a letter listing specifically what you appreciate about her. If she’s too young to read it, save it until she’s older.
• Be intentional about pointing out five or six of your child’s inner strengths over the next few days.
• Try asking your daughter three questions that Diane Sawyer remembers her father asking her: “What do you love?” “Where is the most adventurous place you could do it?” “How can you use it to serve other people?”
• Ask your daughter (or son) to teach you something he/she enjoys, and be committed to really learning it.

Help other dads! What has worked for you when it comes to affirming your daughter’s inner beauty? Please join the discussion by leaving a message below.

Carey Casey is the CEO of the National Center for Fathering, a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the culture of fathering in America by enlisting 6.5 million fathers to make the Championship Fathering Commitment. NCF believes every child needs a dad they can count on, and it uses its resources to inspire and equip men to be the involved fathers, grandfathers and father-figures their children need. Subscribe to Casey’s weekly email tip by clicking here: I want tips on how to be a great dad who loves, coaches, mentors and inspires my children.

Tucked in the hills above the Sea of Galilee is an astonishing village that is hard for me to believe exists, although I’ve seen it with my own eyes! It’s a small town in modern-day Israel, but there is little modern about it.

Aside from its quaint, folksy charm and its breathtaking views of biblical sites, what is most unique about it is that it is home to dozens of believers in Yeshua. And they’re not simply any believers. They’re “senior saints”—believers over 50.

You must understand that in 2013 Israel, there aren’t enough believers (yet) to fill a football stadium, let alone a town. The most generous estimates put us at 20,000 here in a nation of nearly 8 million. It’s a strong and growing remnant, but we are scattered in small pockets around the country.

But here, in this special place I visited for Passover, were nearly 100 Jewish, Israeli, older believers in Yeshua, all sharing a community together.

I was invited for a weekend by one of the “elders” of the congregation. He and his wife are a beautiful and vibrant couple, both approaching 70. They are passionate about Yeshua, they are passionate about community and they are passionate about ministering to the younger generation.

As someone who didn’t grow up a believer (I got saved when I was 20) and as someone who is the only believer in my family (so far), I didn’t have any older people in my life modeling what living for Yeshua is supposed to look like.

The first congregation I got plugged into, around age 25, was comprised of people mainly my age, plus other 20-somethings and a few young families. They taught me about Yeshua but not from the perspective of someone who has run the race for 30, 40 or even 50 years!

There were a few along the way, like Don Notke, the father of my pastor’s wife in Chicago. He was a man who, even as he lay dying from cancer, told me he was praying for me. There is Fern Story, the grandmother of some friends who, even with a shaky hand struck with Parkinson’s, still sends me handwritten notes of encouragement.

But these experienced believers have been few and far between in my life. And that is a shame.

With all our emphasis on youth and modernity and “what’s next,” most of us (myself included) rarely take time to sit at the feet of those who have been doing this a lot longer than us to ask them questions or to just listen.

The people I visited last weekend made such an impact on my life in only 48 hours. It was like I walked in as a dry sponge and these folks were overflowing water pitchers just waiting to pour into me. And so they did.

They shared teachings with a depth of wisdom I have seldom heard from a pulpit. They had advice based on decades of experience. They had an appreciation for prayer and worship and fellowship that can only come from having practiced what they preached over an extended period of time. The sight of seeing a 60-plus-year-old man getting on his face on the floor in prayer left a mark on my mind that I don’t expect to ever forget.

Yes, these tried and tested disciples are perhaps our greatest resource as a body of believers. Instead of relegating them to the role of something obsolete, we should be celebrating them and inquiring of them daily. They have walked the walk, and they can help guide us on our way. For us—the young, hip, modern generation— to believe that we know better is the height of chutzpah!

I left my weekend in this special place refreshed, refocused and with a new respect for my elders. I can’t encourage you enough to seek out someone in your congregation or community who is age 50 or 60 or above and ask them to share with you about how to finish this race well.

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother,’ which is the first commandment with promise: ‘that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.’ And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”(Eph. 6:1-4)

Chaim Goldberg is the director of media for Maoz Israel and writes a weekly column for Charisma’s Standing With Israel website.

We’re surrounded by a very confused culture—a culture of disorder. It seems as if everything is out of whack.

Sexual promiscuity is now the norm rather than the exception. Magazine headlines shout in bold letters the amazement that this season’s “Bachelor” is a virgin. Wow! What an utterly victorian concept—in the world’s eyes.

While singles are living it up sexually, another amazing thing is happening within marriages. It’s a phenomenon that has become a common joke: married couples abstaining from sexual intimacy.

I recall when it was revealed to me in a counseling session that a married couple had only had two nights of sexual intimacy in their nine years of marriage. I wish I had a picture of my face when they told me that. I could not withhold a stunned look.

“Are you kidding me?” I blurted out. “What? You mean this week. Right?”

Recently I read several comments on the ManUp app after a husband revealed he and his wife had withheld sexual intimacy for months. Other men revealed they were in the same circumstance.

Men, this is not healthy, nor is it scriptural. Sexual intimacy is a requirement in a healthy marriage. The apostle Paul even warned that we should not be deprived by that lack of coming together.

“Do not deprive on another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Cor. 7:5, ESV).

The word used for deprive here is pretty strong. In fact, it can mean “to be defrauded.” It’s used to describe a person who is not present at the right time, someone who is withdrawing, who causes to fail or to take away from. If a husband or wife deprives their spouse of sexual relations, it is a serious breach of the marriage and could have devastating results.

Paul warns that our nemesis, Satan, looks for this as an opportunity to gain advantage over us. Satan looks for gaps in our relationships, and abstaining from sexual intimacy gives him room to take advantage of the marriage.

Marriage is the unity of two people becoming one. It is a decision to serve and care for the other as yourself, whether in bed or not. What is actually done in the bed is not for public discussion—that should remain holy and intimate. But the fact that couples are withholding from one another is not only strongly warned against, it is also simply not healthy in marriage.

The only exception for a withdrawing of intimacy is for a short season that is devoted to prayer and fasting—yet Paul warns us to not make this a prolonged season. Do not fall prey to the fads and whims of this world.

For the original article, visit . Fivestarman was founded in 2008 by Neil Kennedy. He has passionately promoted God’s Word for 25-plus years of ministry. He is known for practically applying biblical principles that elevate people to a new level of living. As a business, church, ministry and life consultant, Kennedy has helped others strategize the necessary steps to reach their full potential.

Declines in thinking and memory skills that sometimes follow coronary artery bypass surgery may be short-lived, a new small study suggests.

Earlier reports found cognitive problems in up to two-thirds of people being discharged from the hospital after bypass surgery, which is done to improve blood flow to the heart.

The procedure involves grafting a healthy blood vessel around a blocked one, so blood “bypasses” the unhealthy vessel. Researchers have suspected that during surgery small plaques might break off from the blood vessels and travel to the brain or that blood flow to parts of the brain could be slowed, possibly causing mental impairment.

But the new study—and other more recent evidence—suggests cognitive changes shouldn’t be a major concern for most people considering a bypass, according to Ola Selnes, a neurologist from The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

“Most patients with a relatively healthy brain … can actually tolerate these ill effects of the surgery,” said Selnes, who wrote a commentary published with the study.

“The ones who get into trouble with bypass surgery are the patients who already have some central nervous system disease,” he said.

“Even for these patients, the cognitive decline is not permanent. To the best that we can tell, most patients recover to within normal limits by three months or so.”

For the new study, Australian researchers compared thinking and memory skills among 16 bypass patients, 15 people undergoing less-invasive lung surgery and 15 healthy volunteers before and after the procedures, using a battery of cognitive tests.

Bypass patients started off with worse mental functioning than people in the comparison group. One week post-surgery, seven of the bypass patients and five of the lung surgery patients had significant cognitive impairment.

Most of those problems could be linked to patients’ stress, depression and anxiety, Stephen Robinson from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and his colleagues reported in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The effects of anesthesia and post-surgery pain could also have played a role, they noted.

By eight weeks, only one person who had undergone bypass surgery was still impaired, according to the cognitive tests. What’s more, four bypass and two lung surgery patients saw improvements in thinking and memory above their pre-operation scores.

“The possibility exists that if you treat heart disease then perhaps the brain also benefits in a secondary sort of fashion through better blood supply to the brain, and that in turn could have protective effects for cognitive change with old age,” Selnes told Reuters Health.

He said that although people shouldn’t seek out bypass surgery to boost their brainpower, people who need it because of heart disease shouldn’t avoid surgery for fear of mental complications, either.

“They should settle for the type of intervention that their cardiologist or heart surgeon thinks is the best for them,” he said. “They shouldn’t really be precluding having traditional (bypass) surgery because of the risk of cognitive decline.”

© 2013 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.

We tend to think that gallantry is as antiquated as the idea of chivalry. The idea of knights galloping on their white stallions, dressed in vestments of armor, loyal to his God, his lord and to his lady, is a romantic notion to the adventurous man, but doesn’t seem to mesh with modern culture.

Gallant is an old word; archaic in most vocabularies, yet FivestarMan uses it to describe the ideal of authentic manhood and is one of the five passions we clearly define as a worthy and attainable FivestarMan goal.

To be gallant means to show special attention and respect toward women in an honorable way. It means that we look to women who are older than us as our own mother. We look at women who are younger than us as our own daughters. We look at our peers as our own sisters. And the only woman who receives the intimacy of our eyes and the passion of our loins is our wife.

The biblical character, Job, said he made a covenant with his eyes that he would not look upon the young lady, meaning he would not undress a girl with his eyes.

You often hear that it doesn’t hurt to look. Really? You don’t really believe that do you?

Think of it like this: If you were to see a man staring your wife up and down what would you do? If you saw a man gazing upon your young daughter what would you do?

Don’t gaze upon women. Doing so makes you look silly and sophomoric. You’re not a juvenile. You’re a man! Have some dignity about yourself. Learn to bounce your eyes. When a woman walks into view, learn to look another direction.

I know, right now, you’re thinking that I’m being legalistic — but in reality, I am not. Just as Job understood, we need to realize there is a connection between how we look upon a woman and how faithful our relationship with our wife will be nurtured.

Listen to how the Message version phrases this passage in Job 31:9-12:

“If I’ve let myself be seduced by a woman and conspired to go to bed with her, fine, my wife has every right to go ahead and sleep with anyone she wants to. For disgusting behavior like that I’d deserve the worst punishment you could hand out. Adultery is a fire that burns the house down; I wouldn’t expect anything I count dear to survive it.”

Amazingly, Jesus equated looking upon a woman as committing the physical act of adultery. That’s a harsh reality in our culture when you can’t watch a simple hamburger commercial without a brazen woman eating it seductively.

I know this is a standard well above the norm of society. I know that being a FivestarMan is a lofty ideal. However, if we want the rewards of living like a champion, we will need to conduct ourselves like champions.

A gallant man treats a woman with respect:

• Open the door for her.
• Stand up to greet her.
• Carry something for her.
• Keep at least two arms distance from her.
• Do not use crass language.
• Do not speak with harsh tones.
• Do not embrace her.
• Do not flirt with her.
• Do not communicate with her outside of proper protocols.

Being gallant is most certainly a worthy and attainable goal. If you want to step up to the standard of being a FivestarMan, take the 45-Day Challenge. Thousands of men are and I expect that you can achieve it also.

Fivestarman was founded in 2008 by Neil Kennedy. He has passionately promoted God’s Word for 25-plus years of ministry. He is known for practically applying biblical principles that elevate people to a new level of living. As a business, church, ministry and life consultant, Neil has helped others strategize the necessary steps to reach their full potential.

For the original article, visit .

“If I lift weights, I’ll end up looking like a linebacker.”

“Lifting weights makes women bulky. I’ve seen it.”

“I just want to tone, not put on muscle.”

As much as I try not to let them, statements like those aggravate my ears more than fingernails on a chalkboard, microphone feedback or Fran Drescher’s laugh. If you don’t want to change your body shape to look and feel better in your clothes, don’t care to raise your metabolism so you burn more calories even while browsing Pinterest, are apathetic about increasing your bone density to help ward off osteoporosis, and would rather ask a guy to move your furniture for you rather than do it yourself, then lifting weights isn’t for you and you won’t hurt my feelings by closing out of this article now.

I recently hosted a radio program (see below) titled “Top 3 Reasons Women Should Lift … and Lift HEAVY!” and had as my guest one of my dearest friends, whom I met at the first gym I ever went to in high school. She was my first spin instructor as well as my weightlifting instructor followed by my sushi-consuming buddy for two years! Needless to say, she and I have had this conversation (OK, maybe more like rants!) about women who have an unfortunate fear they’ll “bulk up” the instant they touch a barbell.

If you don’t have time to listen to the 20-minute program, allow me to provide a few of the show’s highlights so you can hit the weights soon without thoughts of sprouting chest hair and growing an Adam’s apple clouding your mind.

Let me start by explaining why it’s biologically impossible for you, as a woman, to morph into The Hulk (aside from the fact that The Hulk was exposed to the blast of a test gamma bomb he invented):

You simply don’t have the testosterone levels to pack on tons of mass.

Men have higher testosterone levels than women; women have higher estrogen levels than men. Compare testosterone levels in a man to the amount in a woman and you’ll find a large gap. Why? Simply put, women don’t have testicles. The lion’s share of male testosterone comes from the testes. Now, we do produce testosterone, but it comes from our ovaries and adrenal glands in much smaller doses.

Bottom Line: Testosterone is the primary muscle-building hormone in the body. Since women have significantly less of this “bulking bormone,” they cannot put on muscle mass as easily as men.

What about those manly looking women? you may ask. For the competitive female bodybuilders to look the way they do, they must work out extremely hard and for long hours to build muscle mass. It takes them much longer to attain that look than it does men. They consume incredible amounts of added calories a day and, yes, use anabolic steroids.

OK. Now for the top three reasons why you should lift—and lift heavy:

1. Raise your metabolic rate. Your metabolism is the amount of energy your body needs to sustain itself. Because muscle requires calories (aka energy) to survive, increasing your muscle size and density will increase your metabolism.

Since we work against a high degree of resistance with heavy weights, we create tiny muscular tears throughout the body. We expend a greater number of calories post-workout to repair those tiny tears, thus increasing your overall calorie requirements. Lifting weights will raise your metabolism long after you’re finished. In fact, experts estimate that your metabolism stays elevated for up to 15 hours after you train. Again, this is because lifting strains your body so much that it needs extra time to recover.

2. Achieve greater muscle definition. The next benefit to lifting heavier weights is that you’ll see greater overall muscle definition. When you lift a light weight lots of times, as most women do—no joke, I once spotted a woman doing a 3-pound tricep kickback with one hand while chatting on her cell phone with the other for a solid two minutes—the muscles are barely challenged. As a result, your muscles won’t feel any need to adapt (grow) since they can easily handle what you throw at them.

Make sure you’re always pushing yourself and taking the weight up to the next level. That’s when you’ll see muscle definition and your form improve. If you commit to following a proper diet, heavy weights will make you look and feel beautiful and confident in your own skin—as well as in your favorite pair of skinny jeans or workout tank top.

3. Improve your functional strength for daily life. The final benefit you achieve by lifting heavier weights is that you improve functional strength capabilities. Since you get much stronger by lifting heavier weights, everyday activities will get much easier over time. You won’t need to call your boyfriend to move a couch or ask your husband to hoist the bag of dog food out of the trunk. Muscularity also means a lower chance of injury if you participate in sports or other activities.

There you have it! I hope this has inspired you to break up with your preferred cardio machine for a while and make friends with some iron! Stay fit, stay faithful.

For the original article, visit .

Diana Anderson-Tyler is the author of Creation House’s Fit for Faith: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Total Fitness. Her popular website can be found at , and she is the owner and a coach at CrossFit 925. Diana can be reached on Twitter.

We live in a world defined by negativity. So much of the conversation surrounding politics, education, social challenges and even religion seems to be about “What I’m against!” to the extent that we too easily forget exactly what it is that we value.

It’s the same thing much of the time with marriage. Gripe, complain, nag, whine…. really? Give it a break already! One great exercise in proactive relationship building is the commitment to focus on the positive.

Try the “I promise to say nothing negative to my wife for one entire day” pledge. Better still, try it for one week. Be a servant leader as you model active love.

Along the same lines, go a step further and move beyond merely avoiding the negative and actually be deliberate about the compliments. We think it’s such a good idea we’ve picked ten of our favorite to suggest:

1. “I love talking with you; you’re interesting and funny.” Communication is a key component of a marriage that works. Lose conversation and you lose one-another. Check out this All Pro Dad resource on 10 Ways to Improve Marital Communication.

2. “Today was another one of those days that made me so glad I asked you to marry me.” You enjoy your life together. Make sure she knows it for a fact. Make sure she knows you’d ask her again in a heartbeat.

3. “Your life tells the truth about love.” This is a quote about love for the ages. Some people can be loving, or positive, or generous, or kind. But the way your wife is goes beyond that. If you really “get” your wife, tell her how she is. Tell her every way you know how.

4. “The kind of mom you are makes it so much easier to be the kind of a dad I need to be.” This parenting thing is all about teamwork. Self-doubt is ever present. Be the encourager. Let her know she inspires you. Here are 6 A’s of Good Parenting.

5. “Sometimes you are so beautiful that I just want to stand still and look at you.” Go ahead. Make her day. Then do it – look at her like that…

6. “Thank you for being such a hard worker.” Simply acknowledging she works just as hard, if not harder, than you do will go a long way to encourage her.  Just because some in this world will not give her credit for all the labor of love necessary to be a wife and mother does not mean it’s anything other than vitally important.

7. “Thanks for loving me the way you do; you make me want to be a better man.” Okay, so we borrowed this one from Jack Nicholson’s character in the movie, “As Good As It Gets”. But it’s more than a great line – this compliment lets her know she’s inspirational as well as hot.

8. “You’re the reason this place is called ‘home’ rather than just a house.” Your wife puts her heart into the heart of your home. Recognize that. Let her know you appreciate her love and her skill.

9. “Thanks for being my best friend.” Most men own a feeling of real emptiness outside a loving marriage relationship. Tell your wife that you understand what’s going on and that you value her gift of friendship to your life.

10. “Thanks for your honesty.” Many men look at their wives as nags when they’re honest.  And that is true at times for some women.  But for many husbands, your wife’s honesty is gift and a chance to grow.  When your best friend who loves you is open enough to be honest, it’s an opportunity for you to fix something.  And that is invaluable.

All Pro Dad is Family First’s innovative and unique program for every father. Their aim is to interlock the hearts of the fathers with their children and, as a byproduct, the hearts of the children with their dads. At , dads in any stage of fatherhood can find helpful resources to aid in their parenting. Resources include daily emails, blogs, Top 10 lists, articles, printable tools, videos and eBooks. From , fathers can join the highly engaged All Pro Dad social media communities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.

Magen David Adom’s dedication to saving lives in Israel includes helping new lives begin.

An Israeli woman expecting twins, Meital Shiri, was home alone except for her 9-year-old son when she began experiencing labor pains that told her she did not have time to get to the hospital. Even though she was only 34 weeks along, she knew “it was time.” Despite the pain she felt as she lay on the couch and her growing sense of panic as the first twin arrived, Shiri had the presence of mind to call the one organization she knew would immediately come to her aid: Magen David Adom.

Maya Aloni, the MDA paramedic and dispatcher who took Shiri’s call, responded immediately, telling Shiri how to handle the newborn and guiding her through the initial phases of delivering the second child while simultaneously rushing an ambulance with MDA paramedics to Shiri’s home.

During the hectic and dramatic conversation—which, like all emergency calls, was recorded—Aloni directed Shiri, encouraging her and providing emotional support. Within minutes, Shiri’s husband, Ilan, arrived home, and Aloni gave him instructions as well.

Very shortly after that, the MDA paramedics arrived and delivered the second baby, after which they immediately took the mother and newborns to the hospital, where the preemie twins were put in incubators.

For Aloni, 25, the training and experience she has gained since joining MDA as a 15-year-old volunteer enabled her to remain calm and focus on helping the mother in distress. “In MDA, they teach us to function coolly and professionally. My role was to keep the mother calm, reassure her, and be supportive until the ambulance arrived,” Aloni said.

The scene was so dramatic that the emergency call and interviews with Aloni and Shiri were recently featured on Israeli TV news.

Handling emergencies is one of the primary activities of MDA, Israel’s official ambulance service, blood services and disaster rescue agency. It’s fair to say Shiri received the full benefit of all MDA’s extensive training programs, from dispatchers who are fully qualified as paramedics for such situations to ambulance-based EMTs who have experience with everything from delivering babies to handling multi-casualty terrorist and rocket attacks.

The happy outcome in this story is that Shiri’s family can celebrate the addition of two new—and healthy—lives. Shiri said afterward that the whole experience seemed “like a dream—a good dream.”

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