Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news, and messages by Steve Martin.
“And I also tell you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My community, and the gates of Sheolwill not overpower it.” Matthew 16:18, Tree of Life version
When Jesus (Yeshua, a Jew) spoke to Peter (Petra, a Jew) and said, “18 And I also say to you that you arePeter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (Matthew 16:18, NASB) was He giving Peter the go ahead to “build” a literal church?
I know I may be stepping on some toes here, especially in America with our big, million dollar plus church buildings (I guess Rome was the model?), but did Yeshua mean that His church, His community, was to be this way?
We can blame the Roman Catholics if we want. Rome has huge, magnificent buildings. (I was one for 18 years, and I respect those who are yet true to the Gospel within the institution.)
Trust me, I have been in some mighty big churches, in Charlotte, NC, Dallas, TX, and cathedrals in Ireland, England, and more. Is this really what Jesus was talking about?
Having been the administer and financial director for three international ministries for 24 years, shown publicly on my resume, I know the costs of buildings, utilities, and general upkeep. And it is not cheap.
Sure, people and staff need suitable places to meet, operate from, and spread the gospel, the Good News, but I sort of grinch when I look at a “great, big, beautiful” (not bill, President, but) building.
Giving to the poor orphans in Liberia and Pakistan, and helping to fund local ministries in Israel, is one our our joys. I don’t have the funds to house the ministry in a big building. Nor would I if the funds were laid at my feet.
I just have a hard time of it when churches in America raise funds from all over to run their ministries, and giving to those who can’t put a roof over their head is last on the budget line.
Especially if it has the word “Mission” in front of the income/expense box. Not even 1% is a normal portion of what churches give, as typically known by those familiar with church budgets.
Did Jesus (Yeshua) ever give instructions, to anyone, then or now, to build these massive buildings? Fund these enormous payrolls?
I think not.
And another thing…how many who attend those facilities know the one they sit next to on a Sunday?
Ahava and shalom,
Steve Martin
P.S. I suggest the time is soon approaching when the funds for large places will dry up. Join a home group. You will be better in the long run.
Sharon Sanders, co-founder of Christian Friends of Israel in Jerusalem
Sharon Sanders, co-founder of Christian Friends of Israel in Jerusalem, is starting a new ZOOM.
The Hall of Higher Learning
Register now for free.
Wednesday February 4th at 5:00pm Jerusalem Time
Hall of Higher Learning Launch time.
Everyone, check their time zones in different
parts of the world. We will be on the air at 5:00 pm Jerusalem time. For
those who are unable to attend, the opening classroom
session will be recorded. Bring your flags from your nations to fly; a small one to wave is fine.
Walk
through the portals of higher learning with Sharon as she teaches what
she has learned as a believer in the Messiah while living in Israel with her
husband since 1985. Sharon will speak on what they
were
met with, upon arrival, which will lead us into the Hall of Higher
Learning about which all Christian believers need to know but were never
taught.
Her
experience is vast; boots-on-the-ground encounters, working
under-the-soil face to face with Israelis who had questions that needed
answering while establishing a pioneer ministry in the Land.
Sharon
highlights her life from a viewpoint of standing between two worlds. Her
burden will be explained when she examines the walls that separate Jews
and Christians through the lens of life among the Jews.
You
won’t want to miss her teaching.
Date: February 4th, 2026
Check your time of Gathering
in our Global Classroom
with Jerusalem
5:00 pm, Jerusalem time
Click on the Zoom link on February 4th, 2026, to
enter the classroom.
Carl Ginsberg, FB To the anti-semites of the world:
You say we run the banks. You say we control Hollywood. You say we dominate the media. You say we have too much influence, too much power, too much pride. But you never ask how — or why. So, let me tell you.
We were banned from owning land, so we learned to live by our minds. We were blocked from trade guilds and professions, so we became merchants, scholars, doctors, and lawyers.
Our commitment to education didn’t come from privilege — it came from necessity. From exclusion. From survival. When we were barred from universities, we built our own yeshivot. The Torah became our moral anchor. The Talmud, our intellectual training ground. When we were mocked for being “bookish,” we made knowledge our defense. The insult became our armor.
In medieval Europe, Christians were forbidden by the Church to lend money with interest. But kings still needed loans, and someone had to do the collecting. So they turned to the Jews — already despised, already othered. We became moneylenders not by ambition, but by force. Then we were hated for it.
In America, we were shut out of “respectable” jobs. So we went west and helped invent Hollywood — not to brainwash, but to dream. To tell stories. To make magic.
When Ivy League schools capped Jewish admissions, we founded Brandeis. When hospitals wouldn’t hire Jewish doctors, we built Cedars-Sinai. When law firms closed their doors, we opened Skadden and Wachtell. We weren’t trying to dominate — we were just trying to live.
We were expelled from Spain. Massacred in Poland. Hanged in Iran. Lynched in Georgia. Bombed in Germany. And yet, we survived. We learned. We remembered.
In 1948, the world watched as nearly a million Jews were expelled or fled from Arab lands. Their homes, businesses, and synagogues were seized or burned. There were no refugee camps, no UN agencies, no worldwide calls for justice. No “right of return” for the Jews of Baghdad, Aleppo, or Tripoli.
You say we’re tribal. But we tried to integrate. We changed our names. Straightened our curls. Abandoned our faith. But every time we tried to disappear, you reminded us who we were. So, we turned inward. We leaned on each other. We built synagogues when your houses of worship were closed to us. We built hospitals when we weren’t welcomed in yours. We built advocacy groups to defend ourselves when no one else would.
And when no country would have us — we built our own.
Then Came October 7, 2023.
You say you hate Israel because of its policies. Because of land. Because of borders. But on October 7, 2023, Hamas didn’t target soldiers. They didn’t storm checkpoints or military outposts. They raped women. They beheaded babies. They burned families alive. They slaughtered civilians in their homes, bombed shelters, and slaughtered young people at a music festival. It was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. And as our dead lay unburied, the world didn’t mourn with us — it rallied against us.
College students held “Glory to the Martyrs” signs. Protesters waved swastikas in Sydney. “Gas the Jews” was graffitied in Berlin. Jewish students were barricaded inside libraries in New York. MIT students were blocked from class. At Harvard, they were told to remove their Stars of David for safety. All while our hostages were still bleeding in tunnels.
So, no — this isn’t about borders. You hated us before 1948. Before the State of Israel existed. Before a single border was drawn.
What you hate is that the Jew now has power. A flag. A standing army. A government. A home. You preferred us weak. Wandering. Apologizing. Dependent on your pity or permission to live.
Israel Is Not a Gift. It Is a Necessity. We didn’t colonize the land — we returned to it. Jews have lived in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and Tiberias for over 3,000 years. We prayed toward Zion for centuries. We spoke Hebrew while the world told us to forget.
We made the desert bloom. We drained swamps, planted forests, revived a lost language. We welcomed Holocaust survivors, Russian refuseniks, and Ethiopian Jews airlifted from famine.
We built a nation while surrounded by enemies, embargoed by the world, and haunted by the ashes of Auschwitz. Israel was not built because of the Holocaust. It was built because of 2,000 years of exile, genocide, and betrayal — and it is the only insurance policy against the next one.
Never Again is not a slogan. It’s the Iron Dome. It’s the F-35. It’s the 18-year-old girl in olive green standing guard so toddlers in Sderot can sleep.
Why the Double Standard?
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the world cried out. Blue and yellow flags adorned every profile. Weapons, refugee aid, solidarity — all rightly offered. But when Hamas burned Israeli children alive, we were told to “de-escalate.” When we defend our cities, we’re called monsters. When we bury our dead, you protest our grief. Why?
Peace Is Possible. We’ve Tried.
You say Jews are foreigners in the Middle East. But the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan disagree. The Abraham Accords proved peace isn’t just possible — it’s real.
Israel sends aid to Syrian earthquake victims. Arab doctors and lawmakers serve in the Israeli Knesset.
We seek coexistence. You chant “From the river to the sea.” We chose life. You chant death.
So yes — Israel is strong now. Baruch Hashem. Because a powerless Jew is a dead Jew. And history taught us: no king, no pope, no president will save us.
We don’t want to dominate. We just want to live. Freely. Proudly. Unapologetically.
You don’t have to like us. You don’t have to agree with us. But never again will you decide whether we’re allowed to exist.
Steve Martin leads worship at Shabbat meeting in Lancaster, South Carolina
Do we really care? Steve Martin, Love For His People Ministry
June 24, 2022 Charlotte, North Carolina USA
Greetings to my family and friends of Love For His People Ministry.
I am so thankful the Lord had given me such a large sibling family (5 sisters and 2 brothers) and now have 4 kids and 8 grandchildren of our own, along with the spouses and more, He once again has shown that He is surely Himself a Family Man! The Everlasting God the Father!
When others don’t experience family, they miss out. So the Lord has called upon us who know Him to show them He loves family. He cares about each one that He has created.
I have had more quiet time to consider His ways, and the more I do, the more my love for our God the Father grows. I hope yours does too as you read my new message I share now.
Also, check out our YouTube playlist here: Jerusalem, Israel. You will particularly love the one with “George Bush” the camel! It was a joy being in the Land this past April and seeing our friends once again, including George. (I know, it is a repeat, but George is the best!)
“But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.” Luke 10:33-35, NASU
Our Father God in heaven has such a big heart that I often wonder how He does it. Have you ever thought about how God, the One Who could do what He wants, when He wants, for whom He wants, and yet shows His love so much to each of us individually? Especially in how He cares for us.
His desire is for all to know Him as He really is. He wants all to understand that He goes out of His way to show His love, just as He demonstrated in the well-known story in the Gospels of the Samaritan, the one who stopped and helped the suffering of another, showing he truly cared.
But in all of God’s caring, and how He has also instructed us to do as well as He teaches in His Word, especially among those who call on His Name as Christians and believers, do we really care?
In a recent time of recovery from surgery, I had much time to think more on the heart of the Father, and how He so much demonstrates His constant attempts to let us know that He really cares for us, that He is concerned about our daily desires, hurts, pains, joys, and expectations.
And oh, how He desires that His Body here on earth would also do the same, such as He does.
When I was younger, it was very common for neighbors to know each other. By name even, imagine that. The kids next door and on the blocks surrounding played well with each other, and our parents shared meals and times of laughter and fun. When one was in need, for the most part, the neighbors joined in and helped as needed. They knew each other. They demonstrated care for one another.
Both you and I know that those times are almost unheard of these days. With the constant moves due to job transfers, job loss, and desires for a “better life”, Americans have little or no time to get to know their neighbors or want to. In many cases, we don’t even know their names. And that is a sad thing. Very sad.
Yes, we associate with people on the secular job, with the 40 hours or more each week if that is the case. (Even that time, though, has drastically been reduced with “remote work” schedules from home many are now doing.) There may be even some relationships ongoing outside of the required meetings and events the company puts on, in order to bond people closer to one another.
But even in our church life, where relationships are meant to flourish, for those who have a life of fellowship with other believers besides the weekly half-hour program they watch on TV or the hour service in person, there is not much time spent with those who know the Lord Jesus and say they want to walk in His ways.
There is just not much fellowship. Thus, there really is not that much care.
Very often we each have our regular times of doing what we need and want to do every day – go to work, take care of the kids, watch 4-5 hours of nightly TV, and then go to bed. Repeat the next day. On weekends it changes up a bit as the normal work time is cut out for eight hours, but again there is little effort to get to know others whom we are supposed to be “connected with” in the church body.
As Tucker Carlson likes to say at times, “Why is that?”
I have an answer. I am sure you do too.
But will it bring any change? Will people ever really care for another again?
I sure hope so. So does our Lord Who cares for us so much.
Ahava and shalom,
Steve Martin, Love For His People founder
Message #88 in this series – in the year of our Lord 06.24.2022 – “Do We Really Care?” Friday, 7:50 am Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
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
You have the opportunity to help support the work of this ministry, including the monthly support we give to these in Israel: His Lighthouse (Nissim and Hadassah Lerner), the Aliyah Return Center (Chaim Malespin), His Heart Ministries (Richard and Carolyn Hyde), Messianic Ethiopian Rabbi Kokeb Gedamu, CBN News Jerusalem (Chris Mitchell and Julie Stahl) and others: Please DONATE online now.
You can also send checks to: Love For His People P.O. Box 53 Pineville, NC 28134
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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.
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