A Time For Unity

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It is very difficult to avoid the special character of this time of year.  For us, we like summer more than winter!  It is cold in our home; sometimes it is warmer outside than inside.  Hanukkah and Christmas are in the air.  The spotlight on Jesus during this season of His birth shines brighter than the light that the Maccabees re-lit.  They were called saviors (just as the Judges during their time), but they could only point Israel to our need of a true Savior, the true Savior — from every form of idolatry and oppression, sin being chief among them.  As I write this there are spiritual songs being played and sung in the background, praising our God and Savior; and it is freeing to be able to enjoy them without a scrooge spirit that I used to have.  Praise the Lord for the Holy Spirit enlightening me and Randi to rejoice in the great and holy thing that God did to bring His Son into the world among His people as the promised Savior and King!  The God of gods came to redeem the human race and all of His universe that He created and made, buying it back from the rebel and liar!  The day belongs to Him whom all the angels of God worship.
 

At this time of year which should unite all Messianic/Christian believers, there is much division.  If we are divided on something so ‘obvious’, what surprise should it be that we will also be divided on many other ‘lesser’ issues.  We worship Him who has come, the One of whom Moses and the Prophets spoke.  We are AD and not BC in our clarity.  Yeshua/Jesus increases as we decrease.  All that was spoken in time past to the fathers at various times and in various ways has now been spoken to us by the Son.  This Scripture is particularly written to Messianic Jews in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but speaks to every one brought into the Commonwealth of Israel by the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob/Israel.  Just as we can use and need simple arithmetic to help understand higher math, so, too, can we use the roots and foundations of the faith to better appreciate the fullness of the much higher thoughts and ways of YHVH God. 

As an expression of the unity of the Body of Messiah, we will again go, with others from Yeshua’s Inheritance Cong. joining us, to Bethlehem to an evangelical Palestinian Arab church to celebrate with them the birth of the Lord, and also to be with them as a testimony that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.  As a church, they are not particularly favorable towards the purpose of God regarding Israel.  But at the personal level, we have a friendship and fellowship as we walk in the light together about what we disagree about.  The Holy Spirit will do His necessary work in each and all of us.  Our going is an encouragement to them, and we are all reminded that Jesus/Yeshua/Yasua is not in anyone’s particular camp.  We must go to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. And Yeshua said that He bears the reproach of the Father. (Ps 69:5-9; Rom 15:1-7)  We mutually build up each other as we rejoice in our Savior, born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, moved to Capernaum, crucified in Jerusalem, to where He will return at the appointed unexpected time, just like when He first came.
PLEASE PRAY FOR GOD TO BE PLEASED AND GLORIFIED AT THE CHURCH SERVICE AND IN THE FELLOWSHIP AMONG THE BELIEVERS IN LOVE. OUR PEOPLES NEED SUCH A GENUINE TESTIMONY AND WITNESS TO THE TRUTH OF MESSIAH/CHRIST BEING JESUS/YESHUA/YASUA.  THERE IS ONLY ONE GOSPEL WHICH IS THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE HUMAN BEINGS, CREATED IN HIS IMAGE, FROM OUR SINS.

The prayer for unity also goes out for us within Israel ‘proper’.  As everywhere, we have our differences and disputes.  But we are family here in a way that I think is a bit unique, since YHVH has chosen a family to be His people, the Children of Jacob/Israel.  The Church is also a family that the Father is calling out from every tribe and tongue and people and ethnic group, whom Jesus redeemed to God by His blood of the New Covenant.  When we acknowledge that we are brothers and sisters, we will “try harder”, in love for our Father and His beloved Son, to resolve matters peaceably, even bearing Messiah’s reproach for the sake of greater reward than merely “being right” now.  Who knows?; we may be wrong now.  SO PLEASE ALSO KEEP THE BODY OF CHRIST/MESSIAH IN ISRAEL IN YOUR PRAYERS, FOR HOLY SPIRIT-UNITY IN THE BOND OF PEACE.  WE ARE CERTAIN THAT IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY AND CHURCHES THIS IS ALSO DISCERNIBLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE.  IN ISRAEL, WE ARE UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, NOT SEPARATED BY VAST DISTANCES OR STRONG DENOMINATIONAL DIVISIONS.  YET THE SAME SPIRIT WHICH BRINGS DIVISION IS ALSO HERE WITHOUT LABELS.

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