Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
“Bless Israel and He will bless you” – Ahava Moments With You, Steve Martin, David Peterman
Aug. 17, 2022 Love For His People Ministry, Steve Martin 2.09K subscribers
“Bless Israel and He will bless you” – Ahava Moments With You, Steve Martin, David Peterman The Bible says in Gen. 12:3 that those who bless Israel will be blessed. It is a true word!
You can order Steve Martin’s new book, “Encouragement” on Amazon – hardback, paperback, and Kindle versions.
STEVE & LAURIE MARTIN - LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE FOUNDERS My good wife Laurie and I (45 years in October 2022!), through the ministry of Love For His People we founded in 2010, give love and support for our friends in Israel and in other nations with friendship, humanitarian aid, and social media support, along with Steve's messages, and our Ahava Adventures trips to Israel. Steve has also authored and published 34 books. We live in the Charlotte, NC area. We have four adult children, spouses, and eight grandkids.
By the time he was 19, Sam Bishop had been bounced from home to home, gotten hooked on drugs, and also been kicked out of the Army. More than anything, he wanted control of his spiraling life.
That’s when Sam gave his soul in exchange for the power of Satan.
“It was this sense inside of me like I’d finally, completely dedicated myself to Satan,” he recalls. “When I began to experiment with witchcraft, I began to feel this control. I began to feel like I can manipulate the world around me. I can manipulate the people around me. I’m tired of being stepped on. I’m tired of not being accepted and loved by everybody so I am going to force it to happen.”
Control – something Samuel Bishop had searched for his entire life. His father was a violent alcoholic who was in and out of prison. His mom was a drug addict raising Sam and his siblings in a rundown trailer.
“Some of my earliest memories, were of roaches crawling on me while I was sleeping. It was just terrible. There was always this feeling of chaos all throughout the household,” he says.
In the midst of the chaos there was something else missing in his life. Love and acceptance. Starting at four-years-old, he’d spend two years in foster care, bouncing from home to home, separated from his family.
“I said, ‘Well if nobody wants to accept me maybe there’s nothing worth accepting in me. If my parents can’t love me, even if they’re messed up and they still don’t love me, what am I really worth?'” he wondered.
By the time Sam was 15, he was living with his dad, using drugs, drinking, and battling depression.
“There was always this crushing feeling that I was always going to have to deal with this stuff and life wasn’t even worth living,” he recalls. “I constantly felt this suicidal pressure, ‘Why do I even try?’ As my depression got worse and worse, I was starting to use these things regularly because I couldn’t stand it when I was sober.”
After high school, he enlisted in the Army trying to find his way in life but was discharged after only two months.
Sam says, “I was really lashing out at people. I got in fights with people. They said, ‘You’re not mentally fit to be a soldier because of your substance abuse problems, because your depression and your anxiety are so serious.'”
Samuel moved in with his dad and started working as a janitor in a high school. He added meth and heroin to his daily cocktail of drugs. He also started getting involved in toxic relationships with women where drugs and violence were the norm. By 19-years-old, he thought he was beyond hope. He even believed lies about God.
He recalls thinking, “God loves you only while you’re doing well, only while you’re doing good. The minute that you step out of line God wants to strike you down and destroy you. So, I figured it’s so hard to try that I don’t even want to bother trying because God’s expectations are too high for me.”
It was then he met a woman who was a Wiccan high priestess who introduced him to the occult and new age practices. Through Satanism, he thought he’d found the control and self-worth he always wanted.
“There’d be manifestations, like stuff would move around. I’d do a spell or a ritual or something and I’d see something happen as a result of it and I thought, ‘Man, I’m in control.’ I loved that feeling of, ‘I have power. I have the ability to do something,'” Samuel says.
In early December 2018, he made a blood covenant, dedicating himself to Satan. At once he knew it was a mistake.
Samuel remembers, “I felt in that moment a complete emptiness, a complete hole, like there’s nothing in me at all. I felt like, ‘Okay, there’s no more forgiveness. You’re going to hell now.'”
The next morning, Samuel decided he would take his life at the end of the day. Then, while he was on his way to work, something supernatural happened.
Samuel says, “I had this mental image. It was the craziest thing in the world: It was Jesus. I began to feel like, ‘Maybe He’ll forgive me and I’ll somehow find forgiveness and just be really low, just be like dirt to God.’ I’ll be like, ‘That’s better than where I’m headed.'”
Later, as soon as he got home, he searched the internet for Bible verses to help renounce Satan.
Samuel shares, “I began to speak these verses like, ‘God will cause you to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.’ I took all my tarot cards, all my incense, my books on witchcraft, I took them outside and I threw them away. And I fell on my face outside and I said, ‘God I know that I don’t deserve to be forgiven.’ I said, ‘But if you want to forgive me, I’m asking for it God. I need help. I need a new life.’ When I walked inside I felt the new presence in the room. And I’m like, ‘This is so different. It’s not heavy in here. There’s no depression, I feel alive, I feel excited, and I feel like I have this hope to look forward to. I feel like I had this future I’m looking forward to.'”
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Samuel said he was instantly delivered from his addictions and healed of mental illness.
“The minute that I came to the Lord, all that lifted off and I knew I was forgiven, I knew I was clean. I knew God had given me a new life,” he says.
And for the first time…
“I felt this love and this joy from God. I received that acceptance, and it was unlike anything I’ve ever had in my entire life. It was so fulfilling; it was just so wonderful, and I knew I was a new person,” he says.
Today, Samuel is married to Samantha and is an ordained youth pastor. He manages the men’s sober living home run by his church. He’s also involved in evangelistic outreach and counseling.
“I just thank God for everything that He’s done in my life and it’s a blessing to be able to reach out to people,” he explains. “It doesn’t matter how far away from God you are, how far you’ve gone with the devil, how much you’ve surrendered to him, you can always come back to Jesus. If I can get saved and God can forgive me, anybody can be forgiven.”
STEVE & LAURIE MARTIN - LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE FOUNDERS My good wife Laurie and I (45 years in October 2022!), through the ministry of Love For His People we founded in 2010, give love and support for our friends in Israel and in other nations with friendship, humanitarian aid, and social media support, along with Steve's messages, and our Ahava Adventures trips to Israel. Steve has also authored and published 34 books. We live in the Charlotte, NC area. We have four adult children, spouses, and eight grandkids.
Why Another Trip? Steve Martin, Love For His People Ministry
Aug. 17, 2022 Charlotte, North Carolina USA
Greetings to my family and friends of Love For His People Ministry.
On September 7, 2022, my good wife Laurie and I (and no, I don’t have a “bad” wife!) depart on the overseas jet to once again land in The Land of Israel. It will be in celebration of our 45th wedding anniversary, using frequent flyer mileage and the Abraham Hostel in Jerusalem credit needing to be used before the end of the year.
Though it will be only six nights this time in the capital city of Israel, the days will be filled with “ahava moments with you” – with friendships we have established over the 12 years since the birth of Love For His People Ministry.
On occasion, I am asked, and I am glad they do, why I go to Israel so much. Couldn’t I just send the money used to help them rather than going in person?
Do you just send money to your kids who have moved away? Do other ministers sit in their offices and just write? Is a personal hug better at times than a text, Signal message, or Zoom call?You can answer that however you want. I think I know your answer, just as I would answer myself if asked.
“Yes, we go see them in person, as often as we can!”I further explain in this message following, first written 9 years, the reason why we go to Israel. And I like how it is nicely entitled, Why Israel?
Ahava and shalom,
Steve Martin, Founder, Love For His People Ministry
P.S. Rarely do we ask others for funds, as we use that which the Lord supplies by other means. But if you would like us to hand deliver your gift, please use the giving methods listed below, before Sept. 1, 2022.
P.S.S. The photo below was taken in April 2022 in the home of Nissim and Hadassah Lerner, His Lighthouse, Inc. just north of Jerusalem. Laurie and I will spend a lot of time with them in September.
Why Israel?
Special Note: I wrote the following back on Feb. 9, 2014, to share why Israel is so important to both you and me. And the rest of the world! With very few minor edits, I share again.
“Because I love Jerusalem, I will continue to speak for her; for Jerusalem’s sake I will not stop speaking until her goodness shines like a bright light, until her salvation burns bright like a flame.” (Isaiah 62:1 New Century Version)
In 1979 Laurie and I, still newlyweds after two years, were part of a church group in LaSalle/Peru, Illinois. The former Baptist pastors, Stan and Dixie Buren, had gathered a small group of charismatics around them. Many of the members were seeking to be more involved with a national Christian movement called discipleship. To better achieve that purpose, we were invited to a conference held by Shiloh Fellowship in East Lansing, MI.
The gathering was at Mackinac Island, in the very north of the great state of Michigan. Laurie and I made the long trip, with our two boys, Josh and Ben in arms, along with a few other carloads. As a young couple (24 and 20 years old) we were fervently seeking the Lord. We wanted, in our heart of hearts, to be right in the middle of what He was doing. We were going to do what it took to follow Him, trust Him, and see His will come, on earth as it is in heaven. We were strongly committed.
The name of one of the speakers, Derek Prince, was familiar to us. He was an author too. The magazine, New Wine, published in Fort Lauderdale, had regular articles featuring five Bible teachers monthly. They were Derek, Don Basham, Bob Mumford, Charles Simpson, and Ern Baxter. Personally, I devoured the messages each month, appreciating everything that was written.
Derek was one of my favorites of the five. To this day I have kept all the editions of the magazine’s publications since 1984. Dick Leggatt, an editor of the magazine over its life span, is now President of DPM-USA, Derek Prince Ministries. Thank you, Dick. And eight years after that Mackinac Island conference, in 1987, I began my eight years of working for Derek Prince Ministries, with David Selby, International Director, as my boss. Thank you, David!
Derek spoke on the last night of the conference, Saturday, and shared a message based on a little pamphlet he had written. It was called “Our Debt To Israel.” The words, spoken straight forward, hit my heart. I knew there was something very special about what he was saying, and that I needed to understand it. For this I am eternally grateful, as he made the Bible’s words on the subject clear, as to why Israel.
Pointing out that the Bible itself was written and accurately kept over these several centuries, by God’s chosen people, the Jews, was the starting point. All the writers – Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and more – were all Jews. Because of this reason alone we have a huge debt to the Jewish people. But the most important reason of all, in regard to our debt to Israel and the Jewish people, is the historical fact that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, Yeshua HaMashiach, was, is, and ever shall be a Jew. He came down from heaven, God becoming man, to the nation of Israel two centuries ago, to bring salvation to the world, both for Jew and Gentile alike.
In our daily reading of the Torah, the Scriptures, the Bible, as believers, we can know and understand the Lord’s heart for the Jewish people, through which He came, and His everlasting love for them now. We can see the fulfillment of His promises of restoration to them, how He has brought them back to their rightful Promised and Holy Land. It is now our part of our debt payment to them, to stand with them to the end of time.
Having been to Israel 11 times as of this writing in February 2014 (25th time as of September 2022), my heart for Israel and the Jewish people continues to grow in love and appreciation, with a firm, long-standing commitment. Our ministry, Love For His People, founded by Laurie and me in April of 2010, sends monthly financial and prayer support to Messianic Jewish families and organizations in the Land. We are always looking to do more, as God the Father directs.
Why Israel? Because without the Jews, which remain as God’s eternal choice to reveal Himself to the nations, we would not have had a Bible. Nor would we have the living Messiah/Savior.
The Word says that in the last days all the nations will again rise up against those who have continually been blamed for everything that has gone wrong. Really? Well, it is about time that someone like us, as believers, prove them all liars and that His eternal Word is true. We are to stand for Israel because the Lord God of Israel, Who sees them as the “apple of His eye”, has promised to protect and keep them in His care. He has proven this repeatedly.
Why Israel? Because God said so. And that is certainly enough for me and my house. May your heart and commitment be to do the same.
Ahava and shalom,
Steve Martin
Love For His People, Founder
Love For His People Ministry. is a charitable, USA humanitarian ministry started in 2010 to share the love of the Father in the nations, especially to and within Israel. If these letters minister to you, please consider sending a charitable gift of $5-$25 today, and maybe each month, to help us bless known families in Israel, whom we consistently help through our humanitarian ministry. Go here for safe ONLINE GIFT GIVING THROUGH OUR WEBSITE using major credit cards, Zelle, or PayPal Contribution checks can be sent to: Love For His People Ministry P.O. Box 53 Pineville, NC 28134
SPECIAL NOTE: Our ministry’s mobile app is available for iPhones and Androids. This is a free app download. Look here: Love For His People free phone app
Please share this messagewith your friends through your email, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, GETTR, and more. Others will be thankful you did. And I thank you too. Message #99 in this series – in the year of our Lord 08.17.2022 – “Why Israel? Updated”, Wednesday, 5:00 am in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Steve Martin, David Peterman, Love For His People, Ahava (Love) Moments With You Watch here: Father’s Heart
I love recording and sharing my Walk With Me video series with you. Here is one from Jerusalem recorded in April 2022.Our good friend, Nouri Hawa in Jerusalem, will again give us a great time with him as he leads us to these special places. As the Father’s love in our hearts grows, we pray you too will experience the love He has for His people in their Land. And see George Bush, the camel featured on the cover of my latest book, Encouragement!
Encouragement – first from Jerusalem, Israel, and then from Charlotte, North Carolina, USAby Steve Martin (published May 25, 2022)In April 2022 my good friend David Peterman of Lancaster, South Carolina, and I took an Ahava Adventure (“love” in Hebrew) back to Jerusalem as soon as the skies and the Land of Israel opened up again. During those 10 days the Lord Yeshua, Jesus Christ, gave me words to share, which I wrote down each day to share with others. These make up the first part of this book.
The next section is comprised of messages inspired by the Holy Spirit from our home in Charlotte, North Carolina, beginning before and after the Israel trip. As the Lord would give me a prophetic word, I would start writing and He would further expand on it. Thus those words are written in the major section of this book. Everyone needs encouragement. Every day. All the negative news spewed out from social media platforms and airwaves needs to be offset by the good news the Lord Jesus (Yeshua) brings to us.
From the time He walked the streets of Jerusalem in the first century, to today in this 21st Century, He shares love from heaven and from this home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Until He returns soon, may these messages uplift your spirit, reveal more of His heart, and sustain you as you walk daily in the direction the Holy Spirit gives with the grace and provision that comes with His presence.
P.S. Thanks Grandson Levi for holding up the new hardback version!
Ahava (Love) MomentsWith YouSteve Martin and David Peterman David Peterman and I are available to come and minister to your home group, church, or Messianic synagogue to share what we have found in our Lord Yeshua (Jesus) and now walk out in faith – a love for Israel, the Jews, and believers. We speak from our hearts and experiences based on biblical disciplines, with foundational Jewish roots, and continuing onward through to the end of the Book in Revelation, to strengthen the One New Man in Yeshua.
We look forward to hearing from you if you would like to invite us to come. Contact us at either Steve Martin (loveforhispeople@gmail.com) or David Peterman (rabbiahava@gmail.com). Further details will be shared as we hear from you.
SPECIAL NOTE: Our ministry’s mobile app is available for iPhones and Androids. This is a free app download. Look here: Love For His People free phone app
Please share this messagewith your friends through your email, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Gettr and more. Others will be thankful you did. And I thank you too.
STEVE & LAURIE MARTIN - LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE FOUNDERS My good wife Laurie and I (45 years in October 2022!), through the ministry of Love For His People we founded in 2010, give love and support for our friends in Israel and in other nations with friendship, humanitarian aid, and social media support, along with Steve's messages, and our Ahava Adventures trips to Israel. Steve has also authored and published 34 books. We live in the Charlotte, NC area. We have four adult children, spouses, and eight grandkids.
