V'ahavta (...and you shall love...") Hadassah from Jerusalem - “Just Say Yes”

V’ahavta  

וְאָהַבְתָּ    ‘…And you shall love…’ 

V'ahavta (...and you shall love...")

Hadassah from Jerusalem

“Just Say Yes”

“Now the LORD had said to Abram, ‘Get out of your country, from your family… to a land that I will show you…’ So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him.” Genesis 12:1,4

God said. Abram obeyed. He left everything- home, family, friends, country, all that was familiar. He was going… only God knew where. Abram trusted, completely. He said, ‘Yes’ by his obedience.

One night in 1979, God spoke to my husband and told him to take his family to Israel. To live. At the time, we had no idea why we would go to Israel. We weren’t missionaries. We knew nothing about Israel other than what was in the Bible and the news. We had no friends there. And we hadn’t a clue about Jewish immigration - Aliyah as it's called. We hadn’t even heard the word before!!

Clueless would adequately describe us at the time. 

The only thing we knew for certain - God said “Go”. We said, “Yes”.

With our hearts looking towards the Land, we spent the next 10 years learning and getting prepared. Finally, in 1989, we took our five children and followed the Lord to Israel. It wasn’t a Garden of Eden. There were probably more tough times than good ones. LOTS of ‘giants’ in the Land and, as we learned, in our hearts also. We were tested and tried and stretched. And…. we learned.

We learned who Y’shua really is and what a relationship with Him is like. We, on the battleground, became more experienced in spiritual warfare. We practiced loving when we weren’t loved. We experienced the Presence of God.

Through all of that there never was a time that we regretted our decision. We have now lived here for a combination of 18 years.

Haifa Bay - photo by Hadassah 

This week I was blessed to travel the Land for five days. From Caesarea, to Haifa Bay, to the Sea of Galilee, and Capernaum.  Down to the Dead Sea and then on to Mitzpa Ramon, a crater near Egypt. What a wonderfully blessed place this is.

While I was watching the sun come up from the crater and worshipping, I was overcome with gratitude. I cried out to God, “Why have we been allowed to live here?”

And just as at times before when we have asked this question, the answer was the same - because you said “Yes!”

Mitzpa Ramon, a crater near Egypt

Those who follow Y’shua have many times when He says to us, "Leave all that is familiar. Move into My will. Receive My promise, My task, My desire."

It is always so easy to start weighing out the pros & cons of obeying. But like Abram, God is wanting our unqualified yes!

In relation to Israel (which is what these messages are about), what is He asking of you?

Using the Word as your insight to His will and plan, where is your part?

What about sharing the Gospel with Jewish people who do not know their Messiah as yet? 

(Romans 1:16, 10:1)

To pray for the peace of Jerusalem? (Psalm 122:6)

To be a watchman on the wall? (Isaiah 62:6)

To comfort His people? (Isaiah 40:1)

If you are truly Jewish, to make Aliyah? (Isaiah 43:5,6; Jeremiah 29:11-14)

If you are Gentile - to help facilitate the Aliyah? (Isaiah 49:22)

Has He made His desire known?  He has a place for you in what He is doing these days in Israel.   

I would encourage you, like Abram, to say, ‘Yes’.

With our love from Israel,

Hadassah

Nissim & Hadassah

Jerusalem, Israel

June 2017

Hadassah and Nissim, her accountant husband, live in a settlement just outside Jerusalem with their dog Molly. After making Aliyah (immigrating) from the U.S. with their five children in 1989, they are now semi-retired and open their home to guests and those wishing to make Aliyah. When not busy with their 16 'GrandWonders', they enjoy a quiet life of study, prayer and learning to serve the LORD.

DONATE TO BLESS FAMILIES IN ISRAEL, PAKISTAN AND NORTHERN IRELAND.

 
Love For His People, Inc. is a 501(c)3 ministry in the USA.

06.21.17  #3

The Vatican Is Wrong: Jews Do Need Jesus - DR. MICHAEL BROWN CHARISMA NEWS

Pope Francis issues a statement that Jews don't need to put their faith in Jesus Christ to be forgiven. (Wikimedia)

The Vatican Is Wrong: Jews Do Need Jesus

12/22/2015 DR. MICHAEL BROWN    charisma news

An important new statement from the Vatican on the relationship between the Catholic Church, the Jewish people and Jesus Christ makes many praiseworthy points. At the same time, it misunderstands Jesus' own mission to His Jewish people, thereby undermining fundamental tenets of the New Testament along with the very nature of the apostolic witness.

Issued on the 50th anniversary of the groundbreaking document "Nostra Aetate" ("In Our Time"), the new document, titled "The Gifts and Calling of God Are Irrevocable," rightly reiterates the Catholic Church's repudiation of replacement theology, also known as supersessionism, the teaching that the church has replaced (or superseded) Israel in God's plan of salvation. It also reiterates the Church's repudiation of anti-Semitism, quoting the dictum of Pope Francis that one cannot be both a Christian and an anti-Semite.

In addition, the new statement urges deep respect for Judaism and for the historic connection between the Jewish people and the God of Israel—the God whom Christians worship—also calling on Catholic Christians to learn from Judaism's interpretation of the Scriptures and to join with the Jewish people in standing for justice and caring for the poor.

All this is tremendously positive, as the Church continues to distance itself from the plagues of anti-Semitism and supersessionism, plagues that infected both Catholic and Protestant branches of the faith, in some circles until this day. And so it is right to recall the reality of the Holocaust, as this document does, since the Holocaust could hardly have taken place if not for more than a millennium of European, Church-based anti-Semitism.

Most importantly, the new statement states plainly that the Jewish people do not need to put their faith in Jesus Christ to be forgiven, since their faith culminates in the Torah, in contrast with the Christian faith, which culminates in Jesus. Therefore, we are told, there is no need for the Catholic Church to have a specific mission to convert Jews to Christianity, looking forward to the day when, in the mysteries of God, Jews and Christians will serve God together, shoulder to shoulder.

Not surprisingly, this statement has been hailed by Jewish leaders, in particular for its explicit call for the Church not to engage in an intentional, specific outreach to the Jewish people.

From my perspective as a Jewish believer in Jesus who is deeply indebted to my Christian friends who reached out to me as a rebellious, heroin-shooting, LSD-using, 16-year-old, hippie rock drummer, it would have been tragic had they thought not to share the Good News with me because I was Jewish.

To be sure, the new statement does allow for respectful interaction between the faiths and does not prohibit all Christian witness, but the overall sentiment of the statement, as reflected in numerous headlines, is that "Jews do not need Jesus to be saved," as if they can somehow be included in His salvific act while explicitly rejecting Him as Messiah.

Certainly, I agree that the Church's goal should not be to convert Jews to Christianity. Rather, the goal should be to help them embrace Jesus-Yeshua as their Messiah, discovering Him to be the one who fulfilled what was written in Moses and the Prophets (Matt. 5:17-20) rather than the one who came to start a new, somewhat foreign religion.

Yet the very fact that Jesus did come as the Jewish Messiah fundamentally contradicts the new Catholic statement. The reasons are both fundamental and significant.

1. Jesus was recognized by His followers as the one spoken of by Moses and the prophets, not as the founder of a new religion (John 1:45) but as the one who was born King of the Jews and died King of the Jews (Matt. 2:1-6; 27:35-37).

Jesus showed His disciples that the Hebrew Scriptures—the Jewish Bible—predicted His death and resurrection (Luke 24:25-27; 24:44-48) and He rebuked the Jewish leadership for not recognizing Him as the Messiah, saying that if they truly believed Moses, they would believe Him (John 5:45-47).

2. If Jesus is not the Messiah of Israel, then He cannot be the Savior of the world. Instead, He should be repudiated as a false prophet, false teacher and false messiah.

Many Jewish leaders today have great respect for the Christian faith, saying that while Jesus is not the Jewish Messiah, He is the Christian Savior, but this cannot be true. If He is not Israel's Messiah, He cannot be the Savior of the world.

If Judaism, then, is right in rejecting Yeshua as Messiah, there should be no such thing as Christianity, since the essential witness of the New Testament would be false. If the witness of the New Testament is true, then Jews need Jesus as much as Gentiles do.

3. The Jewish rejection of Jesus in the Gospels and Acts is seen as the culmination of Israel's rejection of Moses and the prophets.

Jesus warned the Jewish crowds that in the future, Gentiles would be sitting at Abraham's table while many of them—"the sons of the kingdom"—would be cast out (Matt. 8:10-12), and Peter, Stephen, and Paul all stated explicitly that their people's refusal to recognize Jesus as Messiah was in keeping with their history as recorded in the Old Testament (Acts 3:13-23; 7:51-52; 13:16-41).

4. Jesus warned His followers—all of them Jews—that they would be put out of the synagogue (John 16:3), and so it was incipient Judaism that first rejected "Jewish Christians" more than the reverse.

This pattern begins to unfold in the book of Acts, as the apostles—again, all of them Jewish—were persecuted and threatened by the Jewish leadership (e.g., Acts 4-7), and in each new city where Paul traveled, it was only after his message was rejected by the synagogue that he began to preach to the Gentiles (e.g., Acts 13:41-48).

5. According to Paul, the gospel is to the Jew first (Rom. 1:16; this echoes Jesus' words in Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8) and judgment is also for the Jew first (Rom. 2:6-11).

It is significant that the new Catholic statement relies primarily on Paul's teaching in Romans 9-11, choosing overtly not to emphasize the teaching of Hebrews (addressed to Jewish followers of Jesus), which stated that the old covenant system, which was even then "becoming obsolete and growing old" was "ready to vanish away" (Heb. 8:13). This, Hebrews tells us, is because the new and better covenant, prophesied by Jeremiah (31:31-34) and inaugurated by Jesus (Luke 22:17-20), was now in effect (8:7-12; 10:14-18).

Yet it is in Romans 9-11 that Paul spoke of his deep agony because His Jewish people were separated from the Messiah (9:1-3; he did this while affirming God's ongoing covenant with Israel in 9:4-5); he explained that both in past times and to this moment, it was only the remnant within Israel that was saved (9:6; 11:1-7); he prayed for the salvation of his people (10:1; why do that if the new Catholic statement is true?); he taught that Israel, on a national level, had been hardened but that in the end that hardness would be removed and his people would recognize their Messiah (11:7-27); thus, he explained, at present, the Jewish people are enemies of the gospel, even while still loved by God, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" (11:28-29).

Significantly, it is this very verse, Romans 11:29, that inspires the title of the new document, yet it fails to understand what Paul meant when he wrote it. Jews are still loved by God and remain heirs of the divine promises, but outside of Jesus, they are alienated from God. That is why, to the end of his life, Paul engaged in an intentional mission to reach his people with the Good News that the Messiah of Israel had come (Acts 28:16-31).

If we truly love the Jewish people, we should follow his example, both with our tears and with our compassionate and sensitive outreach, recognizing that no other people on earth are so near and yet so far.

Michael Brown is the host of the nationally syndicated talk radio show The Line of Fire and is the president of FIRE School of Ministry. His newest book is Outlasting the Gay Revolution: Where Homosexual Activism Is Really Going and How to Turn the Tide. Connect with him on Facebook at AskDrBrown or on Twitter @drmichaellbrown.

For a limited time, we are extending our celebration of the 40th anniversary of Charisma. As a special offer, you can get 40 issues of Charisma magazine for only $40!

NEW from CHARISMA: Do you want to encounter the Holy Spirit and hear God speak to you? Increase your faith, discover freedom, and draw near to God! Click Here

Did you enjoy this blog? Click here to receive it by email.

Read Steve Martin's book 

on Israel and the Jews.

Buy here for $5.95: Why Israel? by Steve Martin