I have been amazed at what people who love Jesus can write about other people who love Jesus online. I am referring to comments that believers leave on blogs and Facebook postings. Not long ago, I responded kindly to someone who attacked something I wrote. I think his first word regarding my blog was “NONSENSE!”

When he saw my response, he quickly wrote back an apology saying, “I didn’t realize you would read my comment.” Of course, a blogger with respect for his readers doesn’t just write and disappear but reads responses and responds back. That is the difference between a blog and a magazine article.

We live in new world where people can respond instantly to blogs or Facebook postings—often without realizing that “reckless words pierce like a sword.” We of all people should have our words seasoned with love, even when we disagree.

I have hesitated to write this blog, because I didn’t want people to think that I am thin-skinned—that I was seeking to defend. However, when I saw what someone posted about a dear friend of mine last night, I decided it was time. Here’s the post.

“What a petty article, people to the left and right of us are dying to the left and right of us. Or living but dying inside without the Savior. You sir have a religious spirit. Christian=anointed ones in the Hebrew has the same root and meaning as messiah. Get over your self pride and go win a soul for the King.”

Amazingly, two people liked this post! Let’s forget for the moment that this hastily written message is barely coherent. The man he was rebuking is one of the most humble men I know. He has risked his life for the Gospel when his congregation in northern Israel was firebombed. He has led countless people to Yeshua, both through public preaching and grinding it out on the streets. He has birthed five congregations in Israel (more than any other leader). Yet this fellow speaks to him in the most ungodly judgmental way.

My guess is that this young man (I assume he is young) would not have spoken to my friend like that had they been in the same room. But our fingers tend to lack the tact of our tongue, and we tend be just a little bit meaner when sending emails, commenting on blogs, mocking people on Twitter or responding to a controversial post on Facebook.

Here are several tips that can help us communicate with kindness and disagree respectfully without denigrating a person or calling them names.

1. Assume the Author Is Human and Will See Your Comment. Most serious bloggers want to engage with their readers and therefore do read the comments. Don’t assume he or she is in some ivory tower somewhere, but that he or she is just like you. We sometimes respond as if the author is not real. I have sent messages on Twitter to blogger Michael Hyatt and each time he has responded, despite having 125,000 followers. I view Mr. Hyatt as a ‘real’ person, not merely someone famous.

2. Look Across the Room. Pretend that you are talking to the person and they are sitting next to you. Don’t be any bolder behind the protection of your laptop or iSomething than you would be face-to-face.

3. Double Check your Attitude. Before you click “post” to a comment in which you disagree with someone, check twice to make sure you are attacking the argument and not the person. It is one thing to say, “I disagree with you and here is why…” It is another thing to say, “I disagree with you and you are a stupid, proud, arrogant idiot… and you smell bad!”

4. Disagree with Respect. Even when you do disagree, do so with respect. Personally, I love to engage people who disagree with me. I do have about three full-time jobs, so I have to be careful not to spend my whole day debating theology on the Internet. But when someone challenges, I am game—but only if the person communicates with respect.

5. Do Unto Others…Use the Golden Rule of the Internet: Respond unto someone in the way in which you would like them to respond to you. Pretend you are the one on the receiving end of your response. How would you feel? Would you feel attacked or respected?

6. Don’t Be Impulsive. Never respond impulsively, but rationally. If you are out having dinner with your family and you feel the need to run to the bathroom so you can continue debating with someone a million miles away through your phone, you might have a problem. Sometimes in the midst of these debates we become impulsive—and obnoxious—ignoring the more important things in life, like your family or your job. And because of the pressure of being in a bathroom, typing on a phone, while your wife thinks you are relieving yourself, would tend to send a badly worded message that might reveal your obsessive state. Stay focused on your real life.

7. Don’t Make it Personal. Never respond emotionally. If someone is rude to you, don’t be rude back. When someone disagrees with me—even rudely—I will often start my response with the words, “Thanks for responding” and end my post with the words, “Blessings.”

Full disclosure: I have probably broken every one of these rules, but like you, I am a work in progress. Let’s commit ourselves, especially those of us who claim to love Jesus, to act just a little bit more like Him in our Internet discourses.

Question: What are some other ways that you think might help us communicate better? Use the comments section below.

Click here for the original article at .

Ron Cantor is the director of Messiah’s Mandate International in Israel, a Messianic Ministry dedicated to taking the message of Jesus from Israel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Ron also travels internationally teaching on the Jewish Roots of the New Testament. He serves on the pastoral team of Tiferet Yeshua, a Hebrew-speaking congregation in Tel Aviv. His newest book, Identity Theft, will be released on April 16th. Follow him at @RonSCantor on Twitter.

A drug-free placebo pill prevents migraines in kids and teens just as well as most headache medicines, according to a new review of past evidence.

Researchers found only two drugs known to help migraine-plagued adults reduced the frequency of kids’ headaches better than a placebo. And even in those cases, the effect was small—a difference of less than one headache per month compared to the dummy pills.

“Parents should be aware that our medication choices aren’t as good as they should be,” said Dr. Jennifer Bickel, a neurologist and headache specialist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Missouri.

Bickel, who wasn’t involved in the new research, said no drugs have been rigorously tested and approved for preventing migraines in kids, so doctors have to rely on headache drugs made for adults.

Those medicines, she added, are “not a miracle cure.”

For cases when medication may not be enough, Bickel told Reuters Health, parents may want to look into relaxation techniques – such as meditation – for kids with chronic headaches.

According to data from the Cleveland Clinic, about 2 percent of young children and 7 to 10 percent of older kids and teenagers up to age 15 get migraines.

In their review, Dr. Jeffrey Jackson from the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and his colleagues looked at 21 trials comparing headache drugs to each other or to placebos. They found only topiramate (marketed as Topamax) and trazodone (Oleptro and Desyrel) significantly reduced the frequency of headaches in kids and teens who got regular migraines.

Other adult headache prevention medicines, including flunarizine, propranolol and valproate, were of no help.

“All the drugs in our analysis have been found effective in adults with migraine headaches, but few were beneficial among children,” Jackson’s team wrote.

“This suggests there may be something different about pediatric migraines or that the response to treatment differs between children and adults.”

Bickel said there is the least research on the one percent of kids who are most severely affected by migraines – those with chronic daily headaches. For those youth, “we don’t have any evidence to suggest that the medications are enough,” she added.

Power of Placebo?

In the new analysis, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, placebo pills alone led to a drop in kids’ headache frequency from between five and six headaches per month to three per month.

That may have to do with the effect of seeing a doctor and being reassured the pain isn’t due to anything serious, Bickel said.

According to a report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published in the same journal issue, two drugs—almotriptan malate (Axert) and rizatriptan benzoate (Maxalt)—are approved to treat (but not prevent) headaches in kids and teens.

In a review of evidence provided to the FDA, Dr. William Rodriguez and his colleagues also found kids tended to get better after treatment with a placebo more often than adults—possibly related to their headaches lasting less time anyway.

For kids who get headaches once a week or less, Bickel said the pain can be treated with over the counter painkillers, or even just waited out in a quiet place.

Not long ago I wrote a blog that seemed to bless most readers and even entertain a few. The gist of it was that we should not show favoritism.

I was speaking at a conference and I needed a charger for my iPhone and iPad. I asked the soundman and he basically blew me off. However when he realized I was a speaker at the event, he suddenly had time for me.

The point of the blog was to encourage all of us not to show favoritism—if he didn’t have time for me before he knew I was a speaker, he should not had time for me after he found out.

Despite all the encouraging responses, I received two that I felt I should address. The first came from someone concerned that my blog had humiliated the soundman, were he to see it. This was a valid concern coming from someone who clearly has a heart of mercy. I certainly would not want the whole world to know of my mistakes.

However I assured her, and I want to assure you, that I changed the story just enough so that no one would identify the young man. Secondly, it happened in a non-English speaking country, so I was relatively sure the soundman would never see the blog. I should have made that clear in the blog, so others concerned for his feelings, would know that he would not see it, and anyone there would not be able to put the dots together.

The other comment I got was from a young man who was both a former student from BRSM and a former soundman. He explained that once the fellow realized I was a speaker, it then became his job to assist me.

In other words, the easy thing for him to do would have been to say, “Okay…this gringo will be out of my life in 12 hours. I will simply pretend none of this ever happened and I will probably never see him again.”

However, instead, knowing it would make him look like he was showing favoritism, he did his job, which was to make sure—from a technical point of view—that the speaker had everything he needed.

As my friend said, “Being a former sound guy, you become pretty good at telling people ‘no’ who approach your booth with ‘can I get a copy of that?’ or ‘Can you turn it down a little?’ or ‘How many dbs you pushin’ bro?’”  His priority was the conference, not running down chargers for participants.

The fact that he humbled himself and got me a charger when he realized I was his priority, speaks well of him. Sadly, he won’t see this blog either. But still, here’s to the soundmen who take more grief than anyone when things go wrong and receive less praise than anyone when things go well.

Another former student of mine told me how embarrassing it was when, in front of—sometimes a few thousand—people, the pastor would stop his message and point out mistakes (or what he thought were mistakes) in the sound. Let’s all make it our priority the next time we are in our congregations to let the soundman know how grateful we are for him. Without him, the preacher has no voice.

Ron Cantor is the director of Messiah’s Mandate International in Israel, a Messianic Ministry dedicated to taking the message of Jesus from Israel to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Ron also travels internationally teaching on the Jewish Roots of the New Testament. He serves on the pastoral team of Tiferet Yeshua, a Hebrew-speaking congregation in Tel Aviv. His newest book, Identity Theft, will be released on April 16th. Follow him at @RonSCantor on Twitter.

Fasting is not new. In fact, it has been around since before Moses. Many methods of fasting exist, as well as many attitudes about fasting. As a doctor, I have been able to look closely at the various popular methods of fasting. Some of them are good, while others can be downright dangerous.

Fasting is often thought of as taking nothing by mouth. Technically speaking, this is true, but it’s not the type of fasting I suggest for detoxification. I consider total fasting—not eating or drinking anything—to be unsafe. You body must always have at least two quarts of water a day to sustain your life, for you can only live a few days without water.

Although there are many ways to fast, the kind of fast that will bring about the optimum health benefits described in my book, Get Healthy Through Detox and Fasting, is the combination of a partial fast and juice fast. This type of fasting provides health benefits to your body, mind, and spirit. For example:

• Fasting gives a restorative rest to your digestive tract.
• Fasting helps the body’s designed healing processes to automatically work by giving them a chance to rest from other activities.
• This rest from “digestion as usual” in turn allows your overburdened liver to catch up with its task of detoxification.
• Your blood and lymphatic system also receive needed cleansing of toxic buildup through fasting.
• Fasting allows your other digestive organs, including the stomach, pancreas, intestines and gallbladder, a much-deserved rest, which allows your cells time to heal, repair and be strengthened.

A powerful natural way to bring relief to your body from the burden of excess toxicity, fasting is also a safe way to heal and prevent degenerative diseases. As you can see from the list above, the primary way that fasting allows your body to heal is by giving it a rest.

The Principle of Rest

As with all living things, you need to rest. Sleeping is not the only kind of rest you need. You digestive system and other organs need a rest from their work as well. This understanding of the human need for rest is not new to mankind. God introduced the principle of a “Sabbath rest” to his ancient Jewish nation. It is one of the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). Israel was given specific instructions regarding this divine command to work six days and to rest on the seventh day of each week.

This principle of rest was important as well to their agricultural system. The Israelites were commanded to allow their fields to lie fallow every seventh year in order to give the soil the “rest” it needed to re-establish its own mineral and nutrient content (see Lev. 25:1-7).

Today, this biblical agricultural principle of resting the soil has been ignored by virtually all modern farmers. As a result, the soil has become depleted of some of the minerals and other nutrients that our bodies crave for health. And chemical fertilizers do not succeed in giving us the abundant mineral content of healthy soil.

It is interesting to note that in the animal kingdom, it is a natural habit to seek rest and to abstain from food, especially when the animal is sick or injured. A sick animal refuses to eat and finds a place to rest where it can lap up water and be safe. Some animals hibernate, resting for an entire season without eating.

Rest is also a powerful principle of healing for the human body and psyche. Every night as you sleep, you are providing refreshing rest for you mind and body, which aids health in a tremendous way. Sleep deprivation is a commonly known form of torture, emphasizing the fact of our innate need for rest.

Fasting may be considered an “internal” rest for the body, allowing it to restore vitality and energy to vital organs by activating the marvelous self-cleansing system with which it is designed.

Enjoying the Physical Benefits of Fasting

To help convince you of the potential healing benefits of fasting, let me explain briefly the marvelous natural detoxification system God designed for your body. Proper understanding of the innate healing power resident in your body will help you appreciate the phenomenal benefits of fasting.

The hardest working organ in the body is the liver. Weighing about five pounds, it is also the largest single organ in the body, about the size of a football. It is designed to perform about 500 functions for the health of the body. Here are some:

• Filtering your blood to remove toxins such as viruses, bacteria and yeast
• Storing vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates
• Processing fats, proteins and carbohydrates
• Producing bile to break down fats for digestion
• Breaking down and detoxifying the body of hormones, chemicals, toxins and metabolic waste

Note: This is an excerpt from Don Colbert’s book, Get Healthy Through Detox and Fasting.

Don Colbert, M.D., is board-certified in family practice and in anti-aging medicine. He also has received extensive training in nutritional and preventive medicine, and he has helped millions of people discover the joy of living in divine health.

There is one phrase that every media network in the world knows and uses—“occupied territory.” This phrase shapes the orientation and perspective of literally the entire world.

In its truest definition/meaning/understanding, occupied Palestinian territory means Israel is illegally occupying land belonging to someone else.

In other words Israel is flouting international law.

Israel has no legitimate right to the land which she is occupying. And even “Israel proper” is questionable.

There is no peace because Israel is building apartments and creating towns (derisively called “settlements”) in “occupied territory.”

If Israel would just give up her claims to the “occupied Palestinian territory” then Arabs would make peace and the earth would be relieved of most of the turmoil generated in the Middle East.

It is astounding to see how little journalists and politicians know about Israel’s roots. They often act as if Israel appeared one day, confiscated Arab land and seized the capital city of the Palestinian nation.

Every follower of Yeshua needs to know the facts of how the modern state of Israel came to be.

More than 3,500 years ago, a man from Ur of the Chaldees (today Iraq) and his family travelled to what was then called Canaan, where he was told by God that the land there would be an inheritance to him and his descendants forever.

Of course, what journalist in this modern world would accept such a fanciful “legal document” from God?

But fortunately for them, there are other legal treaties and documents that though conveniently ignored by pundits and leaders, do exist and give international legitimacy and justice to Israel’s existence—no matter what nations declare today.

It was just after World War I and the English and French had defeated Germany and the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Now there was nothing left to do but divide up the booty. That’s what victorious armies do, do they not?

So even before the war officially ended, Sir Mark Sykes representing Britain and Charles Picot of France negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement which carved up the Ottoman Empire between Britain and France (with a bit left for Russia).

Britain took the southern part of the Middle East including the so-called Palestine area (the name given to the land of Israel by the Romans) while France took Greater Syria. Britain also decided to give a bit of Palestine—the Golan Heights which belonged to the Jewish tribe of Manasseh and was part of Britain’s Mandate—to France and France later gave it to Syria—you could call it a sort of happenstance administrative model.

Occupied Palestine Territory?

• There has never been a Palestinian state.
• There has never been a Palestinian people until Yasser Arafat and other Arab nations created them in 1964.
• The “Palestinian people” have no holidays celebrating national events—only protest days against Israel.
• No nation has ever claimed Jerusalem as their capital in the centuries after the Jewish people were expelled by the Romans in 70 AD. That is, no one until Israel made the new Jerusalem her capital—and then recaptured the ancient city in 1967.

The Balfour Declaration

The two colonial powers, Britain and France, began divvying up the former Ottoman Empire according to the pressures and considerations at the moment. Fortunately for the Jewish people, during World War I a prominent scientist, Dr. Chaim Weizman, discovered a new process to produce acetone used in the manufacture of explosives—a discovery that greatly helped Britain’s war effort. This innovation encouraged Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to issue the Balfour Declaration of 1917 – the modern foundational basis for Israel’s legitimate rights to Palestine as her Jewish homeland. (See second article.)

There followed a number of treaties and covenants that affirmed the Balfour Declaration—by the world body of the League of Nations, the San Remo conference, and finally the United Nations which voted to accept Israel as a member nation of the UN.

During the years after WWI through WWII when millions of Jews were dying in gas chambers, the Arab peoples of the Middle East fought with all their might to keep Jews out of their Jewish homeland. Britain, understanding that there were many more Arabs than Jews, and needing them to fight along side them against the Ottoman Turks, mostly caved in to Arab violence, riots and political demands.

Three White Papers

Early on, in 1922, Winston Churchill came up with a plan that he thought might work. When the Arabs demanded that he rescind the Balfour Declaration, he replied in his 1922 White Paper, that he could not do that. The Balfour Declaration stands. However, to appease the Arabs, he arbitrarily took the land under the British Mandate east of the Jordan River—76 percent of what had been promised as a homeland to the Jews – and ordered that Jews could no longer settle or live there. This was a betrayal of the full promise of the Balfour Declaration, but Churchill thought it worthwhile in that Britain could then reserve for the Jews the remaining 24 percent of Palestine, which was west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Churchill was seen as a friend to the Jewish people.

The Arabs gladly took the land on the east bank, but continued to launch terrorist attacks against the Jews over the remaining 24 percent meant for a Jewish homeland.

In response to the continuous violence, another White Paper in 1930 was written by the British government. It stated that it now seemed necessary to limit the number of Jews immigrating to anyplace in the Holy Land because they were taking jobs away from the Arab population. It is a well-known fact that everywhere the Jews lived, they built up the economy and actually gave Arabs new jobs. The truth is, where Jews lived, Arabs were also attracted to move in. But the British wanted to stop the Arab violence at all costs.

In 1939, at the beginning of the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe, the British sent out a third White Paper allowing only 10,000 Jews a year into Palestine for the next five years! After that, the Arabs would decide on whether more Jews would be allowed into Palestine. Thus, during WWII, the Jews were denied a safe haven from the Nazi butchers. The British sense of justice collapsed under the weight of Arab terrorism and obstinacy.

Jewish People Still Without a Home

Meanwhile, France gave Lebanon her independence in 1943 and Syria in 1946 while Britain gave Iraq her independence in 1932 and Jordan in 1946.

Still Israel was given no country of her own because of the constant violence of the Arabs who were determined that no Jews would create a state in the midst of “Arab territory.”

Finally Britain had had enough and threw up her hands, handed the mess over to the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations.

UN Welcomes Israel as a Member State

The League and, after that, the UN upheld the Balfour concept, but divided what was left of the British Mandate into a small section for Israel, leaving room for another Arab state in the hill country west of the Jordan River (Judea and Samaria.)

Israel agreed to receive this tiny piece of land for her new state and Israel was granted her entry to the UN as an independent Jewish state in 1948. More than mystifying is the fact that after 6,000,000 Jews had been murdered in that very decade, Britain could not bring herself to cast her UN vote in favor of Israel. She was the only European state that abstained. Even Russia voted for Israel!

But every single Muslim nation in the UN in 1947 voted against Israel’s statehood. It was destiny that at that time the Muslim countries and their close allies did not yet have the majority vote in the UN General Assembly as they do today.

Israel accepted UN Resolution 181 and 273 (see second article.) and Founding Father David Ben Gurion declared Israel a free and independent state on May 14, 1948.

Five Arab Nations Invade Israel

The Arabs completely rejected the UN resolution and five Arab nations invaded Israel the next day, vowing to destroy the nascent state.

When the smoke cleared, the Jordanians had seized the West Bank area of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem for themselves and Egypt appropriated Gaza for themselves. They were able to do this because there was no “Palestinian people” or “Palestinian state.” The only rulers over Palestine for the last 500 years were the Ottoman Turks and the British.

A total of 4,000 Jews lost their lives in that war for independence, but Israel actually gained about 60 percent of what the UN had offered the Arabs for their state! The CIA did not believe Israel could possibly win. Israel only had some 20,000 to 30,000 irregulars for most of the war. Many of them were new immigrants and couldn’t even understand their commanders in Hebrew, while the Arabs had large regular armies. It was an absolute miracle.

1967 Six-Day War

More than 19 years later, the Arabs again threatened to throw Israel into the sea and in an act of war blockaded Israel’s entrance to the Red Sea. Israel struck back, chasing the Egyptians out of Gaza, the Jordanians out of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and ancient Jerusalem. Israel conquered the Sinai Desert, Gaza, and took over their ancient homeland of Judea and Samaria. Moreover, they captured the Golan Heights from the Syrians, ending the constant terrorist attacks for decades from the Heights down on Jewish villages and kibbutzim in Galilee, all in six days, an incredible miracle.

The Arab nations then had no choice but to sign cease-fire agreements with Israel. But they emphasized that they were not recognizing any borders of any kind with Israel since they did not accept the existence of a Jewish state. No Israel. No borders.

1973 Yom Kippur War

Again Arab nations invaded Israel with a surprise attack on Israel’s holiest day. Again, miraculously, Israel pushed the Arabs back, and actually could have marched on to Cairo in the south and Damascus in the north. But by this time the UN powers that be almost hysterically demanded that Israel stop. Another cease-fire was arranged—but again no borders were designated because (remember?) the Arabs refused to recognize the Jewish state, and therefore would of course not give her borders. Until today, no borders for Israel have been assigned in written form by anyone, only cease-fire lines.

Eastern Border—The Second Intifada (2000-2004)

Muslim violence raged on. In the Second Intifada which began in the year 2000 in the West Bank, there was every kind of terror you could possibly imagine: late night commando raids, bus bombings, bar mitzvah shootings, random stabbings, street riots, town sieges, bicycle bombers, clashes at holy sites, car bombs, sniper fire fights, human shields, mortar attacks on settlements and farms.

Experts told Israel that it is impossible to win against guerrilla warfare – which is what the Intifada was. However, Israel had no choice if she were to survive. After 5800 Arabs were killed, the Intifada was over.

Yes, 1,053 Israelis were also killed according to the B’Tselem NGO, and 2,267 Israelis injured. One hundred twenty Arab suicide bombers made themselves martyrs. But what did the Arabs in Judea and Samaria gain? For a start, the loss of their fast-growing economy, and the hardships of many new Israeli checkpoints and a protective wall (which the world said was illegal) keeping the suicide bombers out of Israel proper.

Northern Border—Hezbollah

Israel has had numerous wars—too many to write about in this article. Suffice it to speak of one: When Hezbollah terrorists continually attacked Israel’s northern border towns, Israel drove them out and created a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, fighting the terrorists together with Lebanese Christians who were Israel’s allies. Under international pressure, Israel pulled out in the year 2000, only to have Hezbollah grow into a powerful guerrilla army equipped by Syria and Iran. Just one short war of 33 days with Hezbollah in 2006: 121 Israeli soldiers killed, 1244 wounded, 43 civilians killed—including 18 Israeli Arabs—and 1384 Israeli civilians wounded, mostly from 4000 rockets.

In an effort to end the hostilities, on 11 August 2006, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved UN Resolution 1701.

Now here’s the joke: The resolution called for Israel to withdraw and for Hezbollah to disarm with United Nations forces (UNIFIL) making sure it happened. Israel did pull out but Hezbollah rearmed. Today, Hezbollah has some 40,000 rockets according to the IDF’s intelligence. It is estimated the terrorist organization, which is an arm of Iran and Syria, can shoot 500 to 600 rockets a day into northern Israel if war breaks out again.

Hezbollah stashes its arms next to schools, hospitals and civilian homes – so that if Israel targets the caches of weapons and it blows up civilians—especially children—Hezbollah wins the political and media war – isolating Israel even more and preventing her from having the means to defend herself.

Southern Border—Hamas

Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in 2005, only to see it completely taken over by the terrorist organization Hamas. Over the last 12 years, Hamas has hit Israel’s southern population with more than 15,000 rockets. In Sderot, one town alone, an estimated 15,000 people suffer from PTSD and 1,000 are undergoing treatment.

The last conflict with Gaza in November 2012 called the Pillar of Cloud in Hebrew, gives Israel a short breathing time until Hamas begins their rocket attacks again. Psychologists suggest that up to 70 percent of Israeli children living under these constant rocket attacks suffer from trauma and are permanently emotionally damaged.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal who arrived in the Gaza Strip for the first time (his home in Syria is no longer safe) told it like it is: “Palestine from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, is our land and we will never give up one inch or any part of it.”

As the years have gone by and the U.N. is now dominated by Islamic states, Muslims have discovered many new weapons of war— political war—against Israel. The plan is to so isolate and delegitimize Israel that the world will finally just say, “Away with her!”

Now that the Palestinian Authority has been voted in by the U.N. General Assembly as a non-member state, the PA has a whole new set of weapons against Israel. But that’s for another story.

The Bible’s prophetic words are fast coming to pass: “And it will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.” (Zech. 12:3)

But prophecies foretelling the day Israel shall be saved and be a light to the nations will also be fulfilled. In that day, the Lord says, “Israel will not bear the shame of the nations anymore.” (Eze. 34:29)

Click here for the original article at .

I was at a national meeting for another ministry recently. The Christian Service Brigade works with churches to help their men leave a legacy with the boys.

They do this through a military flavored combination of earning badges, camping and outdoor activities, and discipleship. I was struck during the weekend by the connections many of these teen-aged young men had with the adults they were with. While they were certainly “normal” adolescents—playing basketball, and riding skateboards during free time, for instance—there was also genuine affection. It was obvious that they all enjoyed being together.

Now you’ve probably read or heard about all the statistics about young people leaving the church after high school. Youth groups are exciting, the worship songs are awesome and the conferences they have are pretty intense. But still, kids just aren’t “sticking” in church. We’re giving kids great Christian experiences, but apparently that’s not enough.

I also meet a lot of adults, men in particular, who aren’t into church that much, even if they are going. Even though there are great preachers, interesting classes, well-written books and high quality videos and podcasts, their faith is not really that important to them. So we’re teaching great principles in lots of new and compelling mediums, but apparently that’s not enough.

Which brings me back to the Christian Service Brigade (CSB). Could it be that exciting experiences or the accumulation of knowledge aren’t enough, or even a biblically sound way of discipling people?

I was in a CSB Stockade and then Battalion in my church growing up. This is what I remember about it: Bob McGillion, Jake Hoffman and Bob Washburn. Sure, we went camping, almost froze to death climbing Mt. Washington, and learned Bible verses. But what I really remember about it was not what we did or learned. I remember those men pouring their lives into me, living their lives in front of me, challenging and training me to live as a man of God.

That’s the key: relationship.

When John’s disciples approached Jesus in John 2, Jesus didn’t try and teach them anything or show them a great sign; he invited them to come spend the day with him. When he called Peter and Andrew, he said, “Come follow me. I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).  These are practical, relational invitations Jesus makes. Jesus didn’t say, come and watch, or come and learn, he said come and follow. Spend time with me.

I love the feeling I get from experiencing a great worship song or conference. I love to study and learn Scripture. But Christianity is not about emotional responses or accumulating knowledge. It’s about living in relationship with God and other Christians (the Great Commandment). Jesus never said, “A new commandment I give you: learn more Bible verses.” He said, “Love one another” (John 13:34).  

Maybe we need to stop worrying about giving men an intense experience or perfect teaching. Instead, perhaps we should focus on inviting men to be in relationship as we pursue Christ together. What does that look like for you and the men in your life?

Brett Clemmer is a Christ-follower, husband, father, rock climber, runner and avid reader. He lives in Central Florida and works for Man in the Mirror. In his role as Vice President of Leadership Development, Brett spends the majority of his time writing, training and equipping church leaders to disciple men. Brett co-authored No Man Left Behind, a guidebook for church leaders who want to build male disciples in their church. He is active on Facebook and Twitter, and maintains the One Man, Under God blog at .

Media baron Rupert Murdoch has apologized for a Sunday Times cartoon depicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall using blood-red mortar, an image Jewish leaders said was reminiscent of anti-Semitic propaganda.

The political cartoon, which ran in the British newspaper on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, features Netanyahu wielding a trowel and bricking agonized Palestinians into a wall. It was meant as a comment on recent elections in which Netanyahu’s ticket narrowly won the most seats in the Israeli parliament.

“Will cementing the peace continue?” the caption read, a reference both to the stalled peace process and Israel’s separation barrier, a complex of fences and concrete walls which Israel portrays as a defense against suicide bombers but which Palestinians say is a land grab under the guise of security.

Murdoch wrote on Twitter that the cartoonist, Gerald Scarfe—a veteran artist who frequently depicts blood in his work—did not reflect the paper’s editorial line. “Nevertheless, we owe [a] major apology for [the] grotesque, offensive cartoon,” Murdoch tweeted.

Jewish community leaders were particularly disturbed by parallels they saw between the red-tinged drawing and historical anti-Semitic propaganda—in particular the theme of “blood libel,” the twisted but persistent myth that Jews secretly use human blood in their religious rituals.

Their anger was heightened by the fact that the cartoon was published on a day meant to commemorate the communities destroyed by the Nazis and their allies in the mid-20th century.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which represents the country’s roughly 265,000-strong Jewish community, said it had lodged a complaint with the U.K. press watchdog.

The board said in a statement that the depiction of a Jewish leader using blood for mortar “is shockingly reminiscent of the blood libel imagery more usually found in parts of the virulently anti-Semitic Arab press.”

Israel’s ambassador to Britain echoed the statement, while Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin wrote to his U.K. counterpart to express “extreme outrage.”

Murdoch’s News International, which publishes The Times, said Scarfe was not available for comment.

In a statement, the paper’s acting editor, Martin Ivens, said that insulting the memory of Holocaust victims or invoking blood libel was “the last thing I or anyone connected with The Sunday Times would countenance.”

“The paper has long written strongly in defense of Israel and its security concerns, as have I as a columnist,” Ivens said. “We are, however, reminded of the sensitivities in this area by the reaction to the cartoon, and I will of course bear them very carefully in mind in future.”

British political cartoons can be shocking to those used to tamer American drawings of donkeys and elephants slugging it out on Capitol Hill.

Distorted features, blood, and excrement are commonplace. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a once-popular leader whose reputation was badly damaged by his decision to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq, was often depicted with ghoulish features, sharpened fangs, or with his hands or mouth drenched in gore.

Scarfe, whose career with The Sunday Times stretches back to the 1960s, often makes use of blood in his cartoons.

In fact, his website is splashed with blood. In a recent cartoon of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, he depicted Assad as a green, wraith-like creature drinking greedily from an oversized cup labeled “Children’s Blood.”

God wants to bless you with the peaceful joy of a stress-free life. As a matter of fact, God promises to strengthen your body and to give peace to your mind and soul. The Bible says, “The Lord will give strength to His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace (Ps. 29:11, NKJV).

A powerful strategy for conquering stress is exercise. Exercise provides an extremely beneficial avenue for releasing pent-up stress and negative emotions. Instead of allowing stress to tear down your body, you can actually use stress to an advantage.

A good workout can dissipate and leave you feeling great. Let’s look at some exercises you can do to conquer stress so that it never conquers you, including some relaxation exercises that will help you unwind.

Three-Minute Relaxation Routine

This relaxation routine takes only three minutes, but it can be a lifesaver in a tense situation.

1. Concentrate on relaxing using a cue word, such as God’s peace or God’s love. Listen to your own breathing, and take in one deep breath and hold it in.
2. While you are holding your breath, tense up a group of muscles, such as the muscles in your face, legs or arms.
3. As you release the breath, relax the tense muscle group. Feel all your tension slip away. Drop your shoulders down and rotate them in a circle.
4. Repeat.

You can do this relaxation exercise while you’re a work or at home. Learning to relax takes practice. Relaxation training reduces anxiety and stress, and it decreases heart disease and high blood pressure.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

In this relaxation exercise, you must tighten each muscle group in your body, hold it for five seconds, and then gradually release the muscles and relax them for 10 to 15 minutes. Relaxing your entire body through this technique will take about 20 minutes.

1. Sit or lie down quietly in a comfortable position away from noise or distractions.
2. Scan your body to identify areas of stress or tension.
3. Begin to tense and tighten your muscles in each of the following muscle groups, beginning at your head. Tense each body part for five seconds, and then slowly release the tension as you focus on the body part. This needs to be repeated twice for each muscle group. As you learn to slowly release the tension in your muscles, you will actually be teaching your body how to relax.

3. Forehead and top of head—raise eyebrows
4. Jaw—clench teeth
5. Neck—pull chin forward onto your chest
6. Shoulders and trapezoid muscles—lift shoulders
7. Back—pull back shoulder blades
8. Arms—flex biceps
9. Abdomen—tighten abdomen
10. Buttocks—squeeze and tighten buttocks
11. Thighs—flex thighs
12. Calves—Flex and point toes up or down

Melt Away Stress

Essential oils can be added directly to your bath water. Here’s how:

3. Add 5-10 drops of essential oils to hot water while filling your bath
4. Do not combine essential oils with other bath oils or soap
5. Make sure to soak in the tub for at least 20 minutes to get the aromatic benefits

You can find essential oils at health food stores.

Don Colbert, M.D., is board-certified in family practice and in anti-aging medicine. He also has received extensive training in nutritional and preventive medicine, and he has helped millions of people discover the joy of living in divine health.

First off, let’s take a moment to acknowledge that discouragement can be a routine part of life—no matter how “Cool,” “Successful,” or “World’s No. 1 Dad” you happen to be.

Fact is—in a “big Picture” sense—we live in a world that’s populated by people we can’t influence and stacked with circumstances we’ll never control. Plus, on the “macro” level, we live in homes populated by people with minds of their own and circumstances that often surprise us.

The good news—and there’s always good news—is this: Discouragement is something we should never bow to, and it’s also something that doesn’t has to be inevitable. So let’s look at ten common discouragements and what we can do to fight back:

1. There’s never enough family time because I’m always running behind. Fair enough. However, there are 24 hours in every day and this applies to everyone. Make some reasonable decisions about family time and then stick to them. Be the master of time, not the victim.

2. I can’t seem to keep my head above the debt. This is hard, granted. Get some credit counseling and work out a plan that’s customized for you. But the basic theory is simple.

• Figure out exactly what you owe.
• Immediately stop spending money you don’t have.
• Negotiate a payment schedule you can live with.
• Do not increase your debt, period.
• Pay consistently.

For more expert advice on this item, see what our friend, Dave Ramsey, has to offer in our Financial Tools section of our website.

3. I never have enough time with my wife. Make the decision, schedule specific dates each and every week, and then follow through. Again, this is about who makes the decisions concerning your life.

4. The kids’ activities are overwhelming. Remember your family first! Schedule activities that enrich your children and contribute to their betterment. Activities that compromise family commitments do not fit those criteria. Keep your family first, and all other things in balance.

5. My wife and I have lost touch with the romance. Let your wife know that you love her, and show her how just how much by treating her with kindness, generosity, grace and respect. Don’t do this to get what you want, but do this because you love her unconditionally. Believe us, the romance will follow.

6. The kids are out of control. Get some pets instead! No, seriously, take a look at your family dynamic and restructure your lives so that the family is the focus and the heart of your life together. Don’t be afraid (along with your wife) to impose some structure. Children are happier when they know what to expect and what is expected of them.

7. Homework is out of control. Plug family study time into the schedule. Read together, designate “homework hour,” and be consistent; follow through.

8. I’m not getting enough respect. How much respect do you give? Not to just your spouse, but to your children, and family as a whole, too. Do you respect your family? Respect can never be mandated, but it can be earned more easily than we imagine.

9. I can’t get my body back. It seems this 10-Ways list is all about decisions! Part of the decision to re-imagine family as the priority in our lives is to adopt a healthy family lifestyle. Getting your body back can only happen in the context of a healthy life across the board. Diet and exercise, seven days a week without fail. Just like the debt crisis, take this a small piece at a time with intention and discipline, and be patient.

10. My life is boring; everything seems to be one giant treadmill. Often when people feel this way, it’s because life is about “me,” and that’s never satisfying. Try adding one weekly activity that’s all about serving others. Volunteering, tutoring, coaching, or helping an elderly neighbor. Once the focus shifts away from “my boring life,” it’s amazing how interesting everything can become.

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.

© 2012 All Pro Dad. All Rights Reserved. Family First, All Pro Dad, iMOM, and Family Minute with Mark Merrill are registered trademarks.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Don Colbert’s book The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain.

The Bible instructs us to be wise in our eating habits: “Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you do, you must do all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). The way you eat, drink and care for the body that God gave you can bring glory to Him for this wonderful gift.

Chances are that you if are struggling with obesity, you may have been waging a war with it all of your life. By now, you realize that you need more than a good dieting program. You need power to enforce it. You need the strength it takes to change a lifetime of poor eating habits and the discipline to stay with it. This Bible Cure pathway to wholeness does not only provide the information necessary for a healthier, trimmer body, it also provides insight into an endless source of power to insure success. Stop limiting yourself to you own strength. The Bible reveals a better way:

“I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.” (Phil. 4:13).

Gaining new power in your battle against obesity must begin with gaining fresh understanding of the causes for obesity.

Why We Eat Too Much

Being overweight has many causes. Some are biological. You might be predisposed to obesity through genetics and body metabolism. Some of the causes are psychological.

Emotional Eating

You also may be emotionally dependent on food for comfort during times of stress, crisis, happiness, loneliness and a host of other emotions.

If overeating has an emotional component in your life, you probably grew up hearing statements like the following:

• “Eat something; it will make you feel better.”
• “Clean your plate, or you can’t leave the table.’
• “If you’re good, you will get dessert.”
• “If you don’t eat everything, you will be impolite to the host or hostess.”
• If you stop crying, I’ll give you ice cream.”

The list of unhealthy child motivations can be endless. But whether the causes of your weight problem are genetic or psychological, you are not bound to your past. Today is a new day, filed with fresh hope for an entirely new way of thinking and living. Begin considering what lifestyle factors might be contributing to your situation.

A Sedentary Lifestyle

Another cause of obesity is the increasingly sedentary lifestyle in our society. In an agricultural or industrial culture, hard work gives people plenty of exercise during the day. In our corporate, technological culture, we sit more at desks and in meetings. What about you?

Sugar and Your Body

Contrary to popular opinion, eating fat does not necessarily make you fat. It’s actually the way that your body stores fat that makes you gain weight. Overconsumption of carbohydrates and sugars stimulates your body’s production of insulin—which is the body’s fat storage hormone. Insulin lowers blood sugar levels when they are too high. However, it also causes the body to store fat.

For example, when you eat foods that are high in carbohydrates, such as breads, pasta, potatoes, corn and rice, the carbohydrate is changed into blood sugar, and in the presence of insulin it is then converted into blood fat by the liver. The fast in the blood is then stored away in fat cells.

Easier On Than Off

If you consume a lot of starch and sugar on a frequent basis, your insulin levels will remain high. If insulin levels remain high, your fat is then locked into your fat cells. This makes it very easy to gain weight. Elevated insulin levels prevent the body from burning stored body fat for energy. Most obese patients cannot break out of this vicious cycle because they are constantly craving starchy, sugary foods throughout the day, which keeps the insulin levels elevated and presents the body from burning these stored fats.

The average person can store about 300-400 grams of carbohydrates in the muscles and about 90 grams in the liver. The stored carbohydrates are actually a stored form of glucose called glycogen. However, once the body storehouses are filled in the liver and muscles, any excess carbohydrates are then converted into fat and stored in fatty tissues.

Exercise may not help if you don’t eat right. If you eat carbohydrates throughout the day, since the glycogen levels in your body are filled, all the excess carbohydrates will be converted to fat. The high insulin levels also tell the body not to release any of its stored fat. Therefore, you can work out for hours at a gym and still not lose fat because you are eating high amounts of carbohydrates and sugar throughout the day. You body will store any excess carbohydrates as fat and not release any fat that is already stored.

Don Colbert, M.D., is board-certified in family practice and in anti-aging medicine. He also has received extensive training in nutritional and preventive medicine, and he has helped millions of people discover the joy of living in divine health.