Shalom from God in Messiah,
Thanks to God and to all of you who stood with us in prayer and words of encouragement for the Trumpet Call to Prayer that gathered close to 50 people!
Things being what they are here, today proved two things: in the Body of Messiah here, not all are of one mind, even if many are of one heart; and, God is ‘there’ when we come together in unity for the sake of the name of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (or in any other language which honors Him).
There was a better turnout of Arab leaders than of the Messianic (Jewish) ones. On the Jewish side, though (but not all are Jewish), we had more who are not ‘leaders’. While we had brothers and sisters from Ariel and Beer Sheva, the rest of those who came were primarily from the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas. Few of the leaders on the Jewish and Arab side had actually communicated prior to Sunday’s gathering, so we really had no clue as to who was or was not coming. Other events were going on in the north of the country, so we knew that they were not available; and the Galilean leaders decided that they would have their own prayer gathering.
What we are in need of is for ALL parts of this small country, with its relatively small number of Jewish and Arab believers, to come together in one place. God willing, this will yet happen! There were a few persons who had asked if we would be praying for the usual partisan things that each side is so good at; I said, ‘No’, so they did not come. It is just this sort of partisan, divisive mindset that we have to get beyond if we are going to move on, forward, upward. Otherwise, we have no message for our peoples about the truth of the gospel and its power to make peace, produce love, promote unity and holiness in the fear of the Lord.
Yeshua told His 11 remaining apostles before He left them to go ‘home’ that ALL authority has been given to Him in Heaven and on Earth, and that we should take the gospel and make disciples of any and all people, and that both these things are true until the end of the age. The end of the age has not come yet, so both these facts and truths are still in force. And Yeshua promises to be WITH US in this matter until the end.
Our High Priest, Messiah, also prayed that we would become one with Him and each other in the same manner as He is one with the Father. This is no natural unity! Nor is there a natural means of attaining to it: it must be a work of the Holy Spirit in those who want to be a part of the sure answer of the Father to this prayer of His Son.
Do we want God to do what He wants to do? Jesus has told all of us that there are going to be wars until the end, just as much as He is sovereign over all things during all of the wars and other tribulations. GIVEN THAT, He and His apostles tell us how we are to live and what we are to labor for, even as we rest in Him with all assurance. Wars and threats are not to be seen BY BELIEVERS as reasons for NOT believing and obeying, but are to seen as CHALLENGES — sometimes even insurmountable by all natural reckoning — for us to overcome by our faith of who Jesus is so that we might be conformed to His image. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Jewish people as a whole do not believe that; Muslims do not believe that. It is we who have the witness and the truth, and the Holy Spirit has been given to us for power to both
proclaim and to live that truth. There is spiritual warfare regarding this truth just as much as there is natural warfare all around. We are called to identify with Jesus BY NAME in a world and against the devil which reject and despise Him.
God is going to fulfill every jot and tittle of all that He has purposed and promised to do. KNOWING that, He is calling us out from every people and nation to be a kingdom of priests that have a different and better ‘calling’ in the meantime. If we “do not keep our proper domain”, and resort to merely natural instincts and associations, then we are not really upholding the truth of the gospel and the truth that to Jesus belongs all authority: He has won the war on the cross! And because He is risen, EVERYTHING which God promised to the fathers will be fulfilled! Because of only ONE righteous Man, God will not destroy either Israel or the Earth. Praise the Lord! We have much to be THANKFUL for as we come together as brothers and sisters, despite our peoples being at war with each other over the inheritance. No one will receive from God what He has not promised; but neither will anyone receive from God even what is promised in any other way except than through honoring and blessing Jesus, before whom every knee shall bow and tongue confess that He is YHVH (LORD).
These things comprised the substance and spirit of our prayers. We do not know what the next step is, but trust the Lord to lead us, so that we will have a collective voice to speak truth in love and in righteousness in His name and for His sake. We blessed each other before we left, and we may need to remind each other what we have ‘tasted’ to keep us on course. May the Lord Jesus do what He needs to do to get what He wants, even during this present war ‘situation’ in our land and against our people. We pray that the Holy Spirit would give the Christians in Gaza hope as they look to Yasu for help and strength. We pray for Israelis to begin to turn back towards the God of Israel, rather than trust in themselves or in our military forces and capabilities, as amazing and important and necessary as they are in these times.
