Hop on one of the many city tours, like Old Town Trolley Tours of Boston, for an entertaining snapshot of the city’s highlights, including Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution (Old Ironside) and the Hancock Tower. Renowned for many firsts in the worlds of design, medicine and architecture, walking around the city you can’t help but notice how proud Boston is of its achievements. Made up of wide expansive streets that are dotted with reminders of the American Revolution, many quirky and characterful neighbourhoods and green spaces are worth meandering into to get a real feel for the place. This cape cod bracelets concentrated centre of education is most prominent in Cambridge, which though only a few miles from the heart of Boston, is in fact a city in itself. Credit: claire wallisAs one of America’s oldest cities, founded in 1630 by English colonists and achieving city status in 1822, social history copper silver bracelet and a strong sense of self is everywhere,http://www.ironsideeffects.info/list-of-poem-types-we-were-told-nothing-might-be-performed. with proud Bostonians usually all too happy to share their fascinating city with inquisitive guests. Boston’s North End is the oldest residential area in the city, dating right back to 1630 and is today the place to eat, as more than 100 restaurants inhabit the half square-mile quarter, garnering it the nickname Little Italy.

Hop on the bus over the Charles River Basin and explore the prestigious grounds of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as you follow in the footsteps of alumni such as John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, T.S. Eliot, Matt Damon and Buzz Aldrin.

Credit claire wallisAs one of Americas oldest

Boston Common, near the Federal-style Beacon Hill district, is the oldest public park in the United States and is one of a series of parks surrounding the city, dubbed the Emerald Necklace after the city’s strong Irish population. For an afternoon’s shopping, high-end stores and quirky boutiques line Newbury Street and the Back Bay district is where the towering John Hancock Building marks Copely Square; where landmarks like Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library sit side-by-side with the upscale Copley Place shopping plaza. The gateway to New England and the historic capital of the east coast, Boston has all the red-brick charm and seasonal beauty you would expect from this colonial city. The Museum of Science is a hands-on interactive experience which in itself usually takes several visits to get round entirely, and much grand colonial architecture can of course be enjoyed for free on a walk round the city, like the Old South Meeting House, the Paul Revere House and the Federal Quincy Market. Not only is Boston perhaps America’s most historic city, but it is also the culture hub of New England, and it’s not hard to see why.

The capital of Massachusetts, Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States. Boston has a rich history, culture, and tradition. The vibrant modern city mixed with old tradition is a popular tourist destination due to its numerous sights, attractions, and fun activities. Below is a list of the top tourist destination in Boston.

The Freedom Trail: The Freedom Trail is one of the more popular tourist destinations. By walking along this 2.5 mile long trail, you will view all the historical places in Boston. The Freedom Trail begins at the Boston Common and extends to Bunker Hill in Charlestown. The trail encompasses all of the famous locations from the American Revolution. The red line takes tourists through 16 key historical locations such as Paul Revere’s and Fanueil Hall Old Meeting House.

Museum of Science: The Museum of Science is one of the well-known museums in the world. Boston has some of the finest museums that are second to none in the world. The Museum of Science contains more than 400 interactive exhibits and includes: the Virtual Fish Tank, planetarium, and an IMAX theater.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts; As one of the most stellar art museums in the US,, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts contains a diverse and wide ranging art collection, from Egyptian sculpture to modern video installation pieces. The museum contains over 200 galleries containing such fine art as painting, sculpture, drawings and ceramics from Japan, China, India, Korea, and the Middle East.

The USS Constitution: The oldest commissioned warship in the world. The USS Constitution is the famous U.S. warship launched in 1797 from a site nearby the present Charlestown Navy Yard.What Ship Was Nicknamed "ole Ironsides"?. The 54-gun frigate was built with live oak and red cedar bound by bolts and copper sheathing made by Paul Revere. The ship earned the nickname “Old Ironsides” in the war of 1812, when cannonballs appeared to bounce off her strong hull.

Fenway Park: Fenway Park opened on April 20, 1912. It is the home of the Boston Red Sox. One of the most identifiable traits of the stadium is the Green Monster, the 60-foot green wall in left field. The park still maintains some of the artifacts of ‘old time’ baseball such as the hand-operated scoreboard.

Beacon Hill: Traditionally Beacon Hill has been the home of Boston’s upper class community known by local as “Brahmin.” Many of the houses are 3 or 4-story brick brownstones in the Federal style. The streets and sidewalks are often made of brick expressing its English-style atmosphere.

The New England Aquarium: The New England Aquarium features more than 20,000 fish and aquatic animals from 550 species within over 70 exhibits. A man-made Caribbean coral reef holds a variety of tropical fish and underwater life including turtles, sharks, and moray eels. The “Edge of the Sea” touch tank allows visitors to hold small invertebrates like crabs, sea stars and urchins. The New England Aquarium puts on educational programs, temporary exhibits, and whale-watching tours outside of Boston Harbor.

Boston is so popular with tourists because of its incredible attractions, rich culture and history, this warm and welcoming city is enjoyed by millions of tourists each year making it a top tourist destination.

WolframAlpha hasthat they have brought a new feature to their computational knowledge engine. The service now helps users with their shopping by integrating Best Buy’s public APIs in order to deliver data on a wide variety of products. What’s more, the service’s integration with Siri means that shoppers with an iPhone 4S can now price products just by speaking into their phones.

Product searches bring up a wealth of data, including the number of available models for a particular kind of device, the price range, physical dimensions, and various features.

While the array of results for products or categories that WolframAlpha finds is amazing, the service can be a bit finicky about which search terms it accepts. Search terms that are either very general or very specific are best. For example, a search for “TVs” or “high definition televisions” brings up results,ironside. while a search for LCD televisions, or LCD TVs,Which Ship Was Nicknamed Old Ironsides?. brings up an error, as does searching for a specific model, like “Panasonic Viera” or “Sony Bravia.” Similarly, a search for “tablet computers” or “blackberry tablets” will bring up results, as do searches for “iPhone” or “iPad,” but ask about a “Galaxy Tab” or “Galaxy Nexus” and Wolfram thinks you’re talking about, well, galaxies.

These results are fairly consistent across platforms, with Siri returning the same kinds of errors as a search on. The main difference between the two is that on Siri searches must be prefaced with the word “Wolfram” in order to signal to Siri that you want results from WolframAlpha,What Us Battleship Was Nicknamed Old Ironside?. and aren’t making some other kind of request. Also, when WolframAlpha’s web portal couldn’t find something, it returned a simple error message, while Siri helpfully offered to run a regular web search.

What do you think of Wolfram’s new feature? Will you use it for shopping? Try it and let us know what you think in the comments.

Denver web site design companies offer all web page design services for its clients in Denver Modes of

advertisements and transmitting information are many, like newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. But

sometimes internet is the greatest method to advertise your product or company, to generate awareness about any

social cause or to inform people about your organization, or any commercial firm. And all sorts of this is

accomplished via a website. All companies, institutions, schools, colleges, universities, have their own website

- not only for advertising themselves or their goods but in addition for the actual of these customers that can

get access to their internet site 24X7 as well as public who are able to have information at their fingertips.

Denver web design companies provide excellent implementation of the website at cheap pricing. These services

include web page design, website design, website cms (CMS) tools (like WordPress, Joomla, and custom CMS

solutions),

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services provide custom website backed up by Javascript, PHP and ASP tools. Web page design in Denver offer

clients with attractive and affordable website. From flash experts to PHP programmers- these companies hire

specialized professionals in each field. With all these excellent services help for making gain promoting your

internet site helping the variety of your clients. All websites need to can be found in the very best rankings

of various search engines like yahoo, like Google, yahoo, MSN etc. These web site design communities resolve

these problems of ranking through SEO services.

The advantages of these lenders are too many to list. They manage this article of your website and visuals

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Colorado web design communities offer the same services all over the state of Colorado and in many countries.

You may not know about advancements occurring in the field of computers. So these types of services also help

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Websites are getting to be essential nowadays. During summer or winter vacations, school post holiday homework

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Businessmen wish to promote their products through internet. College students read articles, short stories and

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In the world of small business — or any kind of business building or creative pursuits, for that matter — there are two schools of thought:

A) You have to know everything, research everything, plan everything, measure everything, analyze everything, evaluate everything, anticipate everything, budget for everything, and have the means to finance everything…BEFORE you start.

B) You don’t.

“Group A” types are the Sensibles. “Group B” folks? The Nuts.

To the sometimes dismay of my husband/business partner, a Sensible who likes to operate in the world of concrete deliverables and see nets before he leaps, I happen to be in that “Group B” category.

Sensibles aren’t stupid or unimaginative. On the contrary. They’re often bright, reasonable, practical professionals. More often than not, they have read the text books, know the elements of growing businesses and bottom lines, and have sound, informed advice to offer on the subject of what works and what doesn’t.

Many brilliant, wonderful, seasoned SCORE counselors are Sensibles. They’ve owned and managed all types of businesses for multiple decades, so they’ve made their mistakes and purchased countless hard-won lessons with their own sweat equity.

Nuts understand and respect Sensibles (though we can be delinquent in showing it). Whether Sensibles believe this or not, Nuts listen to their input, value their point of view, and often think they’re probably right.

Why, then, do Sensibles usually see us doing exactly the opposite from what they recommend? Because we, too, know — or think we know — a thing or two about business ourselves.

Right or wrong, here’s what we believe,蒙特卡罗线上娱乐城. whether we admit it or not:

1. Perfection Is for Sissies

The widely-held assumption is Perfectionists operate with a higher set of standards than most of us. To that I say “Phooey!” Perfectionists gouge ideas, scrape up strategies, and poo-poo planning docs until all the lifeblood is drained out of them. Why? They’re frozen with fear! It’s scary to put your stuff “Out There,” to the discerning public, where critics lurk, markets speak, and well-meaning friends and relatives tell you exactly what they think of your ventures, whether their feedback is positive or not. I’ve seen some very smart and talented people wait for decades to act on an idea or passion because the timing, environment, circumstances, and/or equipment weren’t exactly perfect. Oh, it hurts to watch!

2. Failure Is ALWAYS an Option

We’ve all heard the allegedly hard-core creed “Failure’s Not an Option.” Au contraire, my friend. Failure is not only an option, it’s a statistically high probability. Next time you have lunch with Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, or any of the countless other inventors and innovators who lived on nothing but failure with a side of “Oops!,” just ask them. They’ll tell you if you’re not failing, you’re not doing enough. Failure pushes limits, forces unconventional solutions, and tests mettles without kid gloves. Are you serious about success? Then you better love the smell of Failure, because it’s part of the entrepreneurial experience.

3. You CAN Build Your Wings on the Way Down (and It’s a Downright, Rock ‘n Roll Rush When You Pull It Off!)

Comfort Zone? No, not for Nuts. I wouldn’t say we’re all adrenaline junkies, but our closest Sensibles may tell you otherwise. Still, when the luxury of looking back at an unlikely victory presents itself, there’s definitely something very cool about replaying the scene. Back against the wall, warnings everywhere, total annihilation just millimeters away from every move and decision you make…Yeah. When you have no choice but to remove life’s distractions to avoid a physical or metaphysical SPLAT, those wings get built. They may not be pretty, but they flap like heck and carry you somewhere you can pause to catch your breath.

4. Ignorance CAN Be Bliss

Look. We don’t want to appear or admit to being – for lack of a better word – stupid. But the truth is, the less we know, the less we’re bullied by total downers like “What’s Possible,” “What’s Realistic,” and that pesky tagalong, “Our Limits.” Let’s face it: Sometimes “The Facts” can really squelch a person’s creativity.

What+Battleship+Was+Nicknamed+Old+Ironsides? Pictures

5. Life’s Short. Play Hard…and for Cryin’ Out Loud, LIGHTEN UP!

Mortality. Ugh. Yet another buzzkill to deal with. Sadly, though, we can’t seem to kick this one to the curb. One of my favorite poems, Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” does a good job in putting the whole Mortality thing into perspective. The poem is one giant, beautiful, exquisitely hilarious pickup line. He’s trying to convince a young maiden to sleep with him, and tells her if he had all the time in the world, he’d admire each of her body parts for thousands of years, and wait patiently for her to come around. But that’s not the case, is it? So with his last six lines, he says:

“Let us roll all our strength, and all

Our sweetness, up into one ball;

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.”

The Nuts say, “Ditto.”

So the next time you see us across your conference table, nodding politely in response to your very rational and comprehensive list of why our ideas, suggestions, and solutions would never work for your business or anybody else’s, look more closely. Odds are, while our eyes are on you, our brains are somewhere else in our own indexed resource library of “What’s Possible” and “What’s Realistic.”

While you’re citing statistical probabilities and telling us about industry expectations, existing norms, and outdated rules, we’re off in our wild ‘n wacky fourth dimension. That’s the place where we twist words, scour success stories, flip visuals, and mash up mountains of our own data.

It’s the place where we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that more things are possible and realistic than most of us dare dream. And if everyone remained governed by the keen and well-intended Sensibles, most microbusinesses, solo-preneurs, and small business owners would never even attempt the impossible and ridiculous — i.e. going into business for ourselves.

What a shame that would be, because it’s REALLY fun out here in Nutty Land.

I recently had an interesting discussion withwho is writing a book specifically on using keywords for online marketing called ““. He was researching for the content marketing portion of the book and we talked about where keywords fit. These kinds of discussions are great for blog posts so here are a few ideas for you on keywords, SEO, Social Media and content.

is customer centric and therefore often focused not only on creating information to educate prospects and customers about product/service features and benefits, but also about topics of interest relevant to the situations that cause people to need or want those products and services.

Effective content marketing informs prospective buyers of what they need to know in order to help them arrive at a logical conclusion to buy and recommend. Relevant and engaging content facilitates that outcome.

“Great content isn’t great until it’s discovered and shared.”

Understanding the information needs of the customers you’re trying to reach is the first step in creating a great editorial plan. The role of keywords in a content marketing program come into play as a manifestation of knowing what customers are interested in and what their pain points are. What are they searching for? What are they talking about on the social web?

Great content is best optimized,Who Shot Chief Ironside?. so to speak, for the intended reader first and foremost. At the same time, that content is thoughtful about keywords that can attract new readers through search and social recommendations. Great content is amazing.

Which+Ship+Was+Nicknamed+Old+Ironsides? Pictures

Here’s an Example Scenario:  Company 1 2 3 wants to focus on “Round Widgets”

• Target Customers Care AboutRound Widgets That Cost Less and are Environmentally Safe
• Target Customers Search for“round widgets”, “low cost widgets”, “green widgets”, “environmentally safe widgets”
• Target Customers Socially Discuss“save money on widgets”, “widget impact on the environment”
• The Content Plan OutlinesAn Array of Content Objects Supporting Search Keywords & Social Topics
• Content Plan Tactical Execution:Blog Hub, Video Tips, Shared Customer Widget Photos, Facebook Page for Widget Environmental Tips, Email Tips & Issues Newsletter, Widget Deals Twitter Account, Guest Blog Posts Using Target Keywords on Widget Blogs, Contributed Articles to Consumer & Environmental Publications on Widget Cost Saving Tips and Being “Green”

By coordinating customer needs with content creation, optimization and social publishing, there’s a much greater and more relevant reach for the investment.

Keywords guide content optimization for findability through search engines as well as a focus on topics that customers care about and are discussing on the social web. Keywords are also useful guides for the blogger and publication outreach.

Keywords drive the “optimize and socialize” efforts of content marketers to share, promote and increase the reach of information that is relevant for customers who may buy or refer brand products and services.

The mistake online marketers often make is to solely lead with keywords (vs. customer needs) thinking that optimizing for the most popular phrases are all that is needed to maximize customer reach. High ranking content that doesn’t resonate with readers to share or with customers to buy and refer isn’t an effective approach. Also, customer information needs will vary according to where they are in the research and buying process.

Keywords and topics change over time so even after a customer is acquired, it’s important to monitor, measure and refine as needed.

My question for you: Are your content marketing and optimization efforts focused solely on high popularity count keywords? Are you digging into both search keywords and social topics as you formulate your content marketing strategy?

Originally published at

I look across the landscape of Christianity in America and I see people and faces full of emotion and happiness, yet devoid of Biblical wisdom and joy. I see men and women standing at the head of their congregations waving their arms and telling clever stories in an attempt to entertain the masses. These shepherds pour out their empty chocolate candies as the atrophied souls of their flock crumble to dust from a lack of red meat.

The Church in America is teetering on the brink of spiritual bankruptcy, yet ministers and congregations seem perfectly willing to continue singing and dancing their way off the edge of the cliff. To one degree or another, the emotion-based charismatic movement has been able to get its wiry fingers into virtually every church in the country, and few understand what this really means. Because of this, I would like to discuss this tidal wave of empty, hollow emotionalism that has swept through our churches, explain the damage it causes and point to where the Church truly needs to be. My main interest here is to get people to wake up, wipe the sleep from their eyes and examine themselves and their churches in a new light.

A few years back I went to a church service once with some members of my family. I had never been to this church before, but I was fairly certain of what I would find there: the standard emotional, arm-waving service with a “message” that was heavy on cliche’s and childish stories, and extremely light on any sort of substance. I know that upon initial examination, that really doesn’t sound all that bad. But I guarantee you, the jazzing up and dumbing-down of our churches is a grave threat to true spirituality in America today.

So, on the car ride to the church I discussed the pitfalls of the impending empty emotional distraction with my captive family. I knew none of them was tuned in or very open to this concept, so by warning them beforehand, I had hoped it would enable them to see the phony facade more clearly when it jumped up and down in their face (if it were to make an appearance, of course). One of my relatives was definitely not pleased with my stance against the “happy happy joy joy” style of church. As we walked into the church building, she tried to convince me of the importance of ‘emotions.’ Her eyes were not to be opened this day it seemed. The service came and went and it had been far worse than I anticipated. The subject, that you should read your Bible regularly, was certainly a good one. However, I came away uncertain if this minister had ever read his. Putting aside his long and vapid presentation, punctuated by meaningless PowerPoint slides and failed attempts at prop humor, he misquoted and mangled the meanings of the only two Bible verses he bothered to mention in thirty minutes.

When I see a minister such as this, who has so clearly fallen short of his responsibility to illuminate the truths of the scriptures and to feed his congregations’ souls so they might grow in the fullness of the Spirit of Christ, I think of the parable of the talents (St Matthew 25:14-30) and the parable of the watching servants (St. Luke 12:35-48). Both of these parables tell the stories of servants who wasted their time and/or abused their positions while their master was away. When the master returned, he had his untrustworthy servants beaten and/or stripped of their positions of authority. I think of these ministers pretending to be stand-up comics and I thank the Lord that I do not stand among them, because in them I see the servant who has not taken seriously his responsibilities to his master and was found asleep upon his return. To whom much is given, much shall be required.

After the service, the family member of mine who was concerned about my assault on emotions came up to me and (referring to the service) said: “See, emotions aren’t bad.” Firstly, she missed the point of what I had been trying to tell her. She thought I was espousing the idea that we should all become like the Vulcans of Star Trek and suppress or purge all our emotions. I was not. A great minister of the last century, Dr. Harry Ironsides, put my feelings on this subject into far better perspective with the analogy of a train. The engine of the train is the Word of God, the cars represent your faith and at the very end there is the single caboose which represents emotions. Where is the power in this train? The Word of God! The power is in the Holy Spirit who speaks to us through the scriptures and it is our faith which links us to them. Emotions are present and necessary (and you should certainly be worried about someone without them), but they belong at the end, not the beginning of our train. The charismatic and emotionally charged culture that has taken over our churches is desperate to tell us the opposite.

Why is that? This kind of emotionalism has been a hallmark of nearly all religious cults for as long as they’ve been around. Mormonism, for example, pushes new converts to ignore what their head might be telling them and to trust their feelings instead, so that: “when we, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints smile at you and shake your hand and tell you wonderful things you want to hear and you get that warm fuzzy feeling inside you, you will know that that is God telling you you’re in the right place, here with us.” Does that argument sound right to you? It doesn’t sound right to me, and let me tell you why. First off, nowhere in the Bible do we find the “warm fuzzies” as the absolute sign that God is speaking to us (also, II Corinthians 11:14 tells us that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light). Conversely, if this WERE true, shouldn’t it therefore be impossible to get these “warm fuzzies” as we committed a sin? Seriously think about this for a second.

IF: Warm fuzzies = God AND: Sinful behavior also = warm fuzzies THEN: Sinful behavior can = God?

As you can see, the only way this argument holds any water is if it were impossible for us to get happy feelings from sinful behavior. (I believe it takes very little imagination to determine if that is possible or not.) If God spoke to us through happy emotions, then how could it be possible for us to tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong when we can get those same happy feelings from a sin? The truth is that you can’t trust your emotions, they’ve lied to me throughout my life and they WILL lie to you. They are the first area Satan looks to exploit in his attempts to pry us from out of God’s tender embrace. When I recall the times in my life where I was successfully conned or lied to, nearly all of them started with my emotions being twisted around and played with. Once you’ve allowed this to happen, the person who wants to use you sets you off down the wrong track from the very beginning, making it much more difficult to realize you’re nowhere near where you wanted to be. So, if you expect your caboose of emotions to pull your train, don’t be surprised when the only place you find you’re able to go is straight downhill.

Why can’t we find the truth in the world of charismatic emotionalism? It doesn’t have to be destructive to the church, right? Ask yourself this: Is all the razzle dazzle, PowerPoint slides, anemic jokes, arm waving and excitement there to reveal the mysteries of the scriptures and help you to surrender yourself to the divine will of God, OR is it there to keep your attention and entertain you? Let me put it another way. I asked some of my family if they had learned anything about the Bible after that service we went to. They said no, but (they were quick to point out) they had learned practical things, like that it was important to read your Bible regularly. WOW! Stop the presses. If only someone had informed me of the wisdom of this sooner. Now, to be serious, reading your Bible is terribly important and there is nothing wrong with reminders on the subject (I am often terribly remiss in this area, and I know it is full well to my detriment). But when this is the deepest thought you can pick out of an hour of communion with two hundred other believers, there is something very wrong. I then asked my family which of them would remember anything from this service an hour from now. No one could give a positive answer to that. It’s quite possible that I’m the only person in that entire church who remembered anything about that sermon. Unfortunately, it’s for all the wrong reasons.

This, of course, is all part of the plan. Picture it: millions of Christians going to Church every Sunday listening to empty stories that have little to nothing to do with the Word of God, made up of carefully chosen words so as not to offend anyone, pumped up by a rock band on stage or by a ministers magic or comedy act, they leave with an emotional high and a big smile on their face. All is well with the world… until reality strikes. Life goes bad for all of us, and if we are well grounded souls with faith in God and an understanding of His scriptures and His plan for us and the Church, your house is built upon solid rock and you have set sail on a ship which will see you through the worst storm. But this isn’t what those millions of Christians in all those churches have. When reality comes crashing down, what is there for them to grasp and hold on to? Their happy worship songs? Their ministers’ bad jokes? The PowerPoint slides with checklists of trivial minutiae? No. Their empty emotional religiosity is the sand they built their house on, and when the tide rolls in, there’s nothing to keep it from collapsing and washing out to sea. When things are bad, “don’t worry, be happy” just doesn’t get you as far as you thought it would. These people are left disillusioned and hurt by the church. “God was supposed to help me, make me happy, make my life easier.” But instead of comfort, they find themselves adrift, confused as to why they can’t navigate their rudderless ship through the storm. Many are then left with the conclusion that God is just a big phony. They leave their churches to spread their disaffection to their family and friends. It is here that we see the plan succeeding. What plan? Satan’s plan to destroy our churches from the inside out. “Get rid of that dusty old Bible and put those emotions at the front of your train.” This is the present and coming epidemic in the Church in America.

Of course, not all people will come crashing down in this way. Those who remain in those pews continue to subsist on the sugary drinks of empty speeches, frivolous distractions, and loud music instead of the rich milk of God’s wisdom as revealed through serious and sober consideration of the scriptures. These poor souls have been fooled into thinking that in their idleness, this is all that Christianity is, a social club. The tragedy is that while they may have escaped from their captivity to sin and made it across the Red Sea… just like the Israelites, they’re stuck wandering through the wilderness! But unlike the Israelites, they don’t even realize that there is a promised land that is right there waiting for them! Sanctification is the land of milk and honey that we, as Christians, filled with the Spirit of God, can enter TODAY.

What is sanctification? Nearly all the epistles of the New Testament deal with this subject of sanctification. Once we have died to ourselves and the world and been resurrected as a new man in Christ, is that it? Well, in the day of Judgment, your name will be found in the Book of Life and you won’t be cast into the fiery pit. But in this life, is that it? Hardly. Sanctification is the next step in your life as a Christian. It is essentially, Christian living. Now this is not legalism, like the Jews of old. “See, look at me, I’m following all the rules and doing what I’m supposed to do. Shame on you for not conforming to the rules as well as I do.” That is an outward-in approach. I make the outside look good and eventually the insides start to look right too. As exemplified by the Jews’ dramatic and continual failure, that does not work and cannot be made to work. God works from the inside out. You are either hungry for the things of God and truly want to seek out His mysteries and understand His mind, or you don’t. Here is a simple example (and I really mean simple, honestly don’t read too much into it, it’s just an example): “uh oh, I’d better smile and hold the door open for these old ladies, because I know that’s what I’m supposed to do, and I really need to keep up my appearances or people will think I’m not a good Christian.” That is legalism. Sanctification would be holding the door open, not because you knew you were supposed to, but because you wanted to. You weren’t reacting to a set of expectations, you were simply acting out of the joy in your heart that comes from searching earnestly after the things of God.

When asked why there is no real teaching of the Bible in their sermons, ministers will usually respond with something like: “Well, I think it’s important to keep things relevant (or practical) for my congregation.” If we move through this argument logically, then by telling people simplistic stories about day-to-day life and bypassing the Bible completely, we are being relevant. What does that make the Bible? I believe it makes it irrelevant, doesn’t it? “Who wants to talk about that boring old thing? It doesn’t really speak to our modern problems, does it? We need to solve our problems today with fresh new ideas and approaches.” Right? (I’m now going to crash two ideas together for you so, stay with me.) This approach, of being relevant and stepping around the Bible is the same outward-in approach of legalism. Instead of dealing with the root cause of man’s problem, his soul, we are instead dealing with the superficial problems of his day-to-day life. It cannot work! Our lives can only change for the better through the working of the Holy Spirit in our inner selves. We are not Christians because we held the door open for the old ladies, we are Christians because the joy of the Holy Spirit was within us and opening the door was the natural outpouring of that joy.

Think of it this way: A parishioner comes to his minister and says, “Pastor, I have problems being nice to people, I’m not a charitable person and I don’t love my wife the way I should. How do I fix these problems in my life?” This minister, wanting to be practical and relevant, pulls out a copy of the latest Christian self-help book and rattles off the appropriate tips, tricks and techniques that, as advertised, should solve these everyday problems. Now, let’s say another parishioner came to this minister with the same problems. But, instead of being “relevant,” this time the minister decides to deal with this persons’ soul. He asks probing questions of the mans’ soul and tried to determine his spiritual state of mind. He finds the man is lacking in good Christian fellowship and does not read (or really understand) the true meanings of the scriptures. The minister sees this man is interested in learning and helps to get him involved in a substantive Bible study program. The minister even meets with the parishioner on a regular basis to encourage and instruct him in understanding the scriptures. Of these two men, which of their problems do you think was truly solved? The man who received some pop-culture quick fixes, or the man whose soul is now filled with the Holy Spirit? But, you might say, the second man’s problems were not directly addressed. That’s correct. Now, for very serious problems, you may need to tackle them head on, but you will be surprised my friend, when once you set yourself to focusing on God and His goodness, you will find many of those seemingly insurmountable everyday problems in your life falling off to the wayside. The more “relevant” a minister tries to be, the less truly relevant he is.

People generally come to church because they are hungry for meaning and purpose. Is that purpose found in loud music and emotional highs or in the truth of Jesus Christ? How do we find truth? Do we find the truth through the superficial or the emotional, or do we find it from where Christians have always found it over the past two thousand years? The Word of God is our best and ONLY guide to the faith. “But so many people come to hear our great music and rock out at our exciting services. People come to church to feel happy, they don’t want to hear all that boring stuff about the Bible and what you should and shouldn’t be doing.” You’re right they don’t want to hear it. That is the real crux of the matter. The truth is never popular. It never has been, nor will it ever be. “But running this church isn’t cheap, we need to get people through the door. Besides, what’s wrong with being well-liked and popular? If we’re not hip and happening and relevant, then no one come to hear us.” I think Jesus had a few words to say on the subject:

St. Luke 6:22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

St. Luke 6:23Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

St. Luke 6:26Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.

The next time you’re at your church, consider these things. If you’re a serious Christian and want to move forward and grow in the love of Christ, then you need to ask yourself this question: Do I want to stand with Christ and bear the shame of His cross, or do I want to be popular? Make no mistake and do not be deceived, these two things are completely incompatible. Think on it, I pray you.

Everyone’s familiar with, right? It’s kind of like planking, or owling, except a lot more ridiculous. Inspired by Denver Bronco quarterback and controversial sports figure Tim Tebow, Tebowing is described as “getting down on a knee and praying, even if everyone else around you in doing something completely different.

The Tebowing pose was taken from a impromptu celebration that Tebow made after a dramatic comeback win. You’ll see the pose at about the 4 second mark. The exercise, an obvious demonstration of prayer by the outspoken Christian athlete, has become a pop culture phenomenon, largely in part to thethe first celebrated the motion.What Ship Was Nicknamed "ole Ironsides"?.

Now, it looks like we’ve had our first real Tebowing controversy as four New York teens have been suspended for striking the now-famous pose in the middle of their high school hallway.

The four students (all male, three of which are football players themselves) were suspended for one day after they orchestrated a Tebowing event that involved upwards of 40 other students.

While some people are quick to jump to the conclusion that this was an anti-Tebow or more generally anti-Christian move by the school, the Principalthat it was all about safety:

“They knelt down in the hallway in between periods and made it impossible to pass,” said Principal David Wicks. “They were causing a situation that could have been unsafe. God forbid there was an accident or a fire alarm. These students had been given prior warning about similar incidents. This was not anti-Tebow, or anti-Christian.”

Check it out for yourself.Why Did The Uss Contitution Nickname The Ship Old Ironsides?. This smartphone video shows the incident in question –

Tim Tebow is most a controversial sports figure, to put it bluntly, because he’s very vocal about his religion. The former Heisman winner thrust religion in sports into the spotlight through various actions –, that, etc. The “controversy” of Tim Tebow is only made more intense by the fact that there is an ongoing debate about his actual skill and ability to play football in the NFL. When you couple that with the religion stuff, it becomes irresistible to salivating execs at ESPN.

So Tim Tebow is a highly-discussed public figure these days – and it’s partway because of his outspoken Christianity. Do you think that these suspensions had anything to do with that? Or do you think that a bunch of young kids were just blocking up the halls during a class change and the administration went a little heavy handed with the punishment? Let us know what you think in the comments.

[Lead Image "Tebowarhol, from]

Get ready, America: your celebrities in magazines are about to start looking a lot like the rest of you. In other words, expect to see models and such types to be a lot less photoshopped in pictures next year.

In, they approved of Proctor & Gamble’s decision to “discontinue mascara advertising” that falsely purported that some of their products would give you “2X more volume” compared to regular eyelashes and that it was “20% lighter” than the most expensive alternative. The product at issue, CoverGirl NatureLuxe Mousse Mascara, did not deliver on P&G’s promise because,ironside. well, it couldn’t. The “effect” of the mascara on the model depicted in the ad were “enhanced in post production.”

P&G were hoping to slide by NAD’s watchful eye by including a disclaimer on their ad that basically disavowed themselves of any responsibility when consumers got home, applied the mascara, and then realized that their lashes look nothing like the lashes on the model in the CoverGirl ad. NAD director Andrea Levine explained their objection to P&G’s ad further withafter they asked her if this was a “de factoban on all Photoshop”:

“You can’t use a photograph to demonstrate how a cosmetic will look after it is applied to a woman’s face and then – in the mice type – have a disclosure that says ‘okay, not really.’”

Business Inside also provided an elaboration of NAD’s decision to stop P&G’s use of photoshopped images:

“… [P&G] advised NAD it has permanently discontinued all of the challenged claims and the photograph in its advertisement. NAD was particularly troubled by the photograph of the model – which serves clearly to demonstrate (i.e., let consumers see for themselves) the length and volume they can achieve when they apply the advertised mascara to their eyelashes.What Is The Ship Nicknamed Old Ironside?. This picture is accompanied by a disclosure that the model’s eyelashes had been enhanced post production.”

Read more: us-moves-toward-banning-use-of-photoshop-in-cosmetics-ads-2011-12#ixzz1gjooQXV5

Who can argue with that?

NAD’s decision to curb P&G’s use of ads that promise unrealistic results could have a big impact on how they advertise their other products (you’ve probably usedat some point in your life) not to mention how other corporations use post-production enhancement to sell you products that will never do what they say they will do.

To see some of the more drastic effects that one talented graphic whateverartist can do with Photoshop, check out. If we don’t see actors and models and musicians photoshopped within an inch of their life in magazines anymore, we won’t actually recognize anybody ever again.

Twitter is a wonderful place for one-liners. To be funny on the site, you’ve got to be sharp and practice economy of language. You’ve only got 140 characters to make an impression.

And what better way to wind-down the work day than with a selection of some of the day’s most entertaining tweets.

Today, we have tweets about Barry Bonds,ironside. Christopher Hitchens,Where Is Ironside Gym Located?. and Tim Tebow. We also learn why dogs might be starting to get a little mad at us.

Enjoy!

darren rovellThe US government has reportedly spent more than $75 MILLION to get Barry Bonds a sentence of probation & house arrest.via web · powered by

Michael Ian BlackStill bummed that God killed Christopher Hitchens.via web · powered by

Louis PeitzmanFacebook Timeline tells you how many people wrote on your wall for your birthday each year, so you can see how far you’ve come/fallen.http://www.ironsideeffects.info/sil-nya-enough-iron.via web · powered by

Rich Lowtax Kyankadollar slots are like tim tebow: they dont do anything for three quartersvia web · powered by

Sean GabayWe’re probably calling every dog by its wrong name.via· powered by

Alec SulkinLL Cool J’s mother is a real instigator.via web · powered by

Jenny MollenI wish instead of reading “it’s complicated” people’s relationship statuses just said ” I’m fucking a guy who won’t call me his girlfriend”via web · powered by

Eugene MirmanOn an airplane with the door about to close. Not sure if I have enough time to download Words With Friends & get kicked off.via· powered by

Pat HealyDo you think Herman Cain’s back to figuring out a way to construct a crust entirely out of pepperoni?via web · powered by

First World ProblemsIt takes more than 2 minutes for the heated seats on my luxury sedan to get warm.via· powered by

Fake DispatchBREAKING: Job interviews of the future: “Well, your resume speaks well of your abilities. Now let’s check out your Facebook Timeline.”via web · powered by

Paul ScheerI like going to 99 Cent stores because it’s like getting a sneak peek of the world after an Apocalypsevia· powered by

Jon Heymanbarry bonds was sentenced to spend 30 days in his beverly hills mansion. i hope the feds are pleased with their effortsvia web · powered by

Rick ReillyDo u realize w/out this hilariously fun Tebow story sports would be left w/ nothing but alleged pedophiles and coke dealers?via· powered by

Lou BrutusDEAR BARRY BONDS: You should totally open a chain “Barry Bonds Bail Bonds & Baseball Bulking Boutiques.” You’re welcome.via· powered by