Joel Rosenberg: Reflections of an Israeli who celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas.

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

A few things I’m thankful for this holiday season. (Reflections of an Israeli who celebrates both Hanukkah and Christmas.) by joelcrosenberg True, there aren't many people in the world who celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. But as a person of Jewish heritage on my father's side, and as a follower of Jesus the Messiah, I am one of them. This year actually marks the third Hanukkah and Christmas season that I've had the joy and opportunity to celebrate both holidays as an Israeli citizen. And I must tell you I find it fascinating to live in a country where Jesus was actually born, where He ministered to the poor and forgotten, where He was crucified and raised on the third day -- and yet a country where by and large Christmas is not celebrated. Israel is not an easy place to live. It's been quite challenging for Lynn and our four sons and I to move to a new country and acclimate to a new language and culture. But as these two holidays converge this year, and as I reflect on the past few years, I am profoundly thankful and grateful. Here are a few reasons why: I'm thankful for the amazing opportunity the Lord has given Lynn and me to be able to live and raise our family and write novels in the land where the Hebrew prophets, priests and kings lived, the very land where Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew) and His disciples lived and ministered and transformed the world. I'm thankful for the wonderful friends and neighbors that we have found in Israel, along with physical safety, economic opportunity, robust democracy and extraordinary religious freedom we have found there. Most Jews in Israel -- and nearly every Jewish person in the government and in the court system -- don't believe what we believe, and yet they truly defend our right to assemble and worship and fully practice our beliefs without interference. That's no small thing. I'm so thankful to live in the world's only Jewish State that also works hard to protect the political and religious freedoms of her Arab citizens -- Christians, Muslims, agnostics, atheists and others -- and grants Arab citizens the right to vote, has Arabs who serve in the Knesset, serve in the police and military, even serve on the Supreme Court, and are vital and valued members of the society. I'm thankful to be able to live in a nation that is an oasis of freedom and security in a region that's on fire. I'm thankful for all the Evangelical and Messianic Jews we have met and had the joy of becoming friends with throughout the Land, including so many pastors and ministry leaders and their wives and kids. I'm thankful for all the dear Palestinians that Lynn and I have had the honor of meeting and befriending in recent years, especially the Evangelical pastors and ministry leaders and their wives and children living in the West Bank and in Gaza. I'm very thankful for the opportunity to travel to visit our neighbors in Jordan not once but twice this year, including five extraordinary and special days with King Abdullah II and his advisors, such an amazing visit that Lynn and I will always cherish. I'm deeply thankful for our Joshua Fund team who are so faithful in blessing Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3. I'm thankful for the Holy Scriptures -- the very words of the living God -- whom the Jewish and Christian scribes have so carefully and courageously copied and transmitted to us down through the ages. I'm thankful for the ancient Hebrew prophets like Micah who told us exactly where the Messiah would one day be born so we wouldn't have to wonder or worry about it. "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” (Micah 5:2) I'm thankful for the ancient Hebrew prophets like Isaiah who told us the Messiah would live and minister in the Galilee region, bring light to those in darkness, come as a human baby boy, but also be El Gibor -- Mighty God -- and the One who would bring forgiveness and thus peace between us and God. "In earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles....The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them....For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9:1-6) I'm deeply thankful for all of our family and friends back in the States who have prayed for us, encouraged us, and even come to visit us in Israel over the past few years -- and so grateful that we could come back to spend the holiday season with them this year. Above us, I am thankful to the God of Israel -- and His Son, Yeshua -- who has shown such mercy to me and my family, showered us with His grace and even adopted us into His royal family. So on behalf of my family and our dear friends and colleagues at The Joshua Fund, allow me to wish our Jewish and Israeli friends a very Happy Hanukkah season -- and to all of our friends who are followers of Jesus, allow me to wish you a very Merry Christmas! ———————-—- Click here to read the 2016 Joshua Fund Donor Report — and watch the short videos, as well Make a year-end investment in The Joshua Fund (www.joshuafund.net), our non-profit organization to help Christians care for Syrian refugees, educate and mobilize Christians to bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, care for the poor and needy in Israel (both Jews and Arabs) with food and other humanitarian relief, care for Holocaust survivors, and strengthen the Church in the epicenter. Read our latest Donor Report, and prayerfully consider making a tax deductible, secure, on-line contribution. Thanks so much! Follow on Twitter — @joelcrosenberg Subscribe (free) to the RSS feed (click here) and receive every new posting on this blog directly via email. joelcrosenberg | December 25, 2016 at 12:18 am | Categories: Epicenter | URL: http://wp.me/piWZ7-6nv

Palestinian convert to Christianity hosts Evangelical TV show.

‘Ex-Muslim’ preaches the Gospel

By LINDA GRADSTEIN/THE MEDIA LINE02/04/2013

Palestinian convert to Christianity hosts Evangelical TV show.

When Hazem Farraj was 15, he became a Christian. But as a Palestinian Muslim living in east Jerusalem, he couldn’t tell anyone, especially his father. “For almost three years I was an underground believer,” Farraj told The Media Line during a visit to Jerusalem. “I would go to the local mosque and to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and pray Islamically, but in my heart I was praying to Jesus.” Today Farraj, 27, is very public. He lives in California and hosts Reflections, a Christian TV show in English and Arabic. He is grateful for everything in his life, he says, but he has also made sacrifices for his faith. Farraj was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1984. Like many immigrants, his father insisted the children speak Arabic at home. An observant Muslim, he worked hard to teach his children about Islam. When Farraj was 12, his father moved the family back to Beit Hanina, a middle-class  east Jerusalem suburb. The large family of 13 siblings studied Islam, and many of them became more committed Muslims. “Islam says to pray five time daily – I only prayed four times, because I was too lazy to get up for the early morning prayer,” Farraj recounts. “Do the prayers. Memorize the verses from the Koran. Go to Islamic class and the mosque. It was all just actions to me. The deeper I got into Islam, the more depressing it was for me.” Farraj decided the solution was to convert some Christians to Islam. He approached his upstairs neighbors, Christians, and they began a discussion that lasted more than a year and a half. “I said to them, ‘What if I told you that God can answer your prayers in the name of Allah,’” he recalls. “Now, he wasn’t answering my prayers, but I needed something to hold onto. They told me things I was searching for, like ‘Cast your worries upon Jesus, who cares for you’ and ‘God so loved Hazem that He gave His only son for him.’” When Farraj was 15, he attended an east Jerusalem church with these neighbors. He does not want to name the church, fearing it could become a target of attacks. “I sat in the last pew in the back corner, and I saw something I had never seen,” he recalls with a wistful smile. “I saw a guy named Steve singing with a guitar and smiling as if he knew Jesus. I saw people at the altar raising their hands and loving God, and it made me mad because I wanted it to be the God of the Koran.” He fled to a downstairs room, where he lay a piece of carpet on the floor and prayed facing Mecca in Saudi Arabia, according to Islamic rules. Nothing happened. He went back upstairs to the church, and, he says, became a Christian. “I started to pray in the name of Jesus and something happened on the inside that transformed me,” he remembers. Soon afterward, the second intifada broke out, and his father moved the family back to the US. Farraj continued to practice as an underground Christian. Finally, just before his 18th birthday, he told his father that he had become a Christian. His father cut off all contact with him, and Farraj has not seen him since. The pain hurts even 10 years later. “You don’t ever get over it, you just get through it,” he says. “It has left me wounded even today.” He also has no relationship with his stepmother or his siblings. At age 18 he followed his former neighbors to Alabama, where they had moved. “I slept for six months, and when I wasn’t sleeping I was eating – I weighed 225 pounds and I was so depressed,” he recalls. “Then one day I came across a Christian TV station, and there was this preacher. This voice inside me – I believe it was the voice of God – said, ‘I’ve called you to this.’ I knew it meant that I was called to tell people about Jesus and to help them come to prayer.” His TV show, Reflections, reaches millions of viewers around the world. Farraj says there are “many” underground Christians in Arab countries today, and that he gets emails thanking him from around the Arab world. He also gets death threats. David Parsons, the media director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, says there are “hundreds” if not “thousands” of underground Christians in the West Bank. “There’s a lot of upheaval in the Arab and Muslim world right now,” Parsons told The Media Line. “Some are saying ‘Islam is the answer,’ but there are a lot of Muslims who know they tried it for hundreds of years and it’s not the answer. As a Christian I would attribute it to the movement of the Holy Spirit. People are looking for different answers.” Parsons says the International Christian Embassy has opened branches in “several North African countries.” Farraj says his recent trip to Jerusalem was to recharge his own batteries and to meet underground Christians. “I love Jerusalem,” he said with a grin. “I’m here to enjoy the spirituality of Jerusalem and to encourage the believers. I thought I was the only ex-Muslim in the world, but they’re really everywhere.” http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=308463