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There are many things in the Body of Christ that can become more important than our relationship with Yeshua (Jesus).
Evangelists can be so busy reaching the world that they forget that the relationship with Jesus is most important and that it ought to go hand in hand with fellowship and friendship with Christians. The relationship with Jesus ought to be first in our lives - not what we do for Him but with Him as a person.
Yeshua wants to be our Friend in our daily life and He wants to be first in our lives -not the things we do. If people understand the importance of the relationship with Yeshua, then they can more easily understand worship because it has to do with relationship. Lift Him up in worship and thanksgiving. When He is the center in worship then God's presence can come.
Christians can be so stressed that we have no time to sit at Yeshua's feet and listen to Him. Take time with the Word and see Him as a person first, one that you can have a relationship with.
In Luke 10:38-42 we read about when Yeshua talked with Martha, He had her take the time to sit at His feet. There are leaders who are nearly never at home. This is not from God. It is the enemy who brings stress. How can I have a deep relation with God if I am never at home and spend time with Him?
There are churches who preach about miracles, for instance, and you see miracles, but miracles and wonders are not to be more important than Jesus as person. He ought to be in centrum.
Meetings are many times in just a big church building today, but we read that Mary had many who were in her house praying. I believe in having large meetings, but I also believe in house meetings, where each can share the Word, worship and allow God's presence to come in.
Today sometimes people are running so much to one conference to another but sometimes forget to seek God themselves and that you also with any friend/friends can seek God. It is good with good conferences but we need time for God ourselves too. Yeshua and our heavenly Daddy are one and have much fellowship.
We need time with God. The enemy wants to steal our time and we need to be on our guard. Teaching and what we are called to and other things is not to be first but then God as a person and to have a relation with him.
We also need to relax and have time with God as a our Friend.
In Ps.95:2 is written " Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving."
In Song of Solomon 2:16 is written " My beloved is mine and I am his".
I think about the relation here as I also think means the relation with Yeshua. He is our Friend. We need the first love to him in our lives.
In Song of Solomon 5:10 we can read also about Yeshua not just a bride and bridegoom. For instance we can read " My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among ten thousands". It talks about how wonderful Yeshua is. In a relation with Yeshua who is wonderful. It talks here about a relation in love here. The bride loves the bridegoom and express her love.
Yeshua love when we worship him and express our love to him in this way. Yeshua is a real Friend and love when we take time with the relation with him. He is so glad when we come to him, taking time with him.
As the bull Ferdinand in Walt Disney's film liked to sit at the tree with his flowers relaxed Yeshua likes when we also take time with him and not always be busy.
He loves us so much and we need to learn to know him more.
Yeshua is a wonderful Friend!
Eva Haglund
YOUR FRIEND
When there is no one else there Yeshua (Jesus) is there.
When you feel alone he is closer then your voice.
He is THERE.
When you think there is no way out
Your Friend has a way out.
As the Israelites were delivered at the sea
and went through the sea.
He can bring you out keeping his hand.
As a good shepherd holds a most precious lamb in his arms
The battle of the Christian life has always been not just to believe, but to keep on believing. This is how we grow strong in faith and see the actual fulfillment of God's promises in our lives.
Today we tend to soft-pedal unbelief as little more than a common weakness. But God takes no such easygoing approach (Heb. 10:35-39).
Rejecting God's promises to us is far more destructive than the sensational sins we often talk about. The Bible says it is a "sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God" (Heb. 3:12, NIV).
The great target of Satan is to break down our faith. He knows all too well that the righteous live by faith, so he aims at cutting our lifeline to God.
Faith is like the hand that reaches up to receive what God has freely promised. If the devil can pull your hand back down to your side, then he has succeeded.
Real faith is produced when our hearts draw near to God and receive His promises deep within us. There, by divine power, His Word will work supernaturally.
The chronic disease that afflicts us is not a lack of effort; it's a lack of real faith. Many times we are treating the outward behavior and not its source.
We are running the race of faith. And we desire to receive not only God's ultimate promise of salvation but also the many other promises He has made to us along the way.
Faith Follows Promises
Because of the unique place God has given to faith, His grace flows along the channels of His promises—not His commands. God's commands show His holy character and reveal our sinfulness, but they have no ability in themselves to empower us to obey.
It is not that we don't know what is right or that we don't desire to live that way. Our problem is mustering the spiritual strength to obey, and the commands of God cannot impart that (Rom. 7:18).
Saints down through the ages have not so much clung to the holy commands of God and the accompanying judgment to all offenders as they have cherished the promises and revelations concerning His great salvation through Christ (Rom. 4:5; 8:1, 3; 1 John 1:9). When trusted, these blessed promises of God release His supernatural grace in and through us.
It is these promises that draw the heart to God in faith. In fact, the great command of the New Covenant is to believe!
The Israelites who left Egypt came up short with regard to possessing the new land for this reason: They heard clearly what God promised, but their hearts did not receive it in faith (Heb. 4:2).
Today it is possible to make a living as an esteemed theologian and yet have no more living faith than a slug. Christians can listen to the Word preached every Sunday—and even have a devotional life of sorts throughout the week—without rising above the cynicism, depression and unbelief that are so prevalent in our culture.
The Word must find within our hearts an atmosphere in which its divine power can be released. That kind of dynamic faith fairly oozes from the words of the great Israelite leader Joshua near the end of his life.
He was one of only two men who left Egypt as adults and actually made it all the way into the Promised Land. His parting instructions reveal the environment in which faith blossoms and grows.
Look Back With Thanksgiving
Joshua begins his farewell with this ringing statement: "You yourselves have seen everything the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake; it was the Lord your God who fought for you" (Josh. 23:3).
In other words, look back and think about all He has done. How can we have faith for the future if we don't look back often and thank God for all He's given us in the past?
A lack of gratitude is, in fact, one of our besetting sins. In most of our churches, there is no outpouring of vibrant thanksgiving and praise each Sunday because we are too preoccupied with our problems.
Give Him praise! Let Him know from the depths of your heart how much you appreciate His goodness!
Whether it is part of your religious tradition or not, get past your self-consciousness and formality to praise the Lord. Refuse to be embarrassed or hindered by anyone.
Look Ahead With Anticipation
Next Joshua turned his attention to the future. At the end of his years, he was still invoking the promises of God and boldly declaring that "the Lord your God Himself" would conquer the remaining Canaanite nations (Josh. 23:5).
Every one of us can point to things in our lives that are not yet the way God wants them to be. He wants to root out things that hinder and mar our Christlikeness.
God also wants to use us to bless and encourage other people in ways we have never dreamed. And He will do these things as we live in this blessed atmosphere of faith!
Among the many definitions of faith, perhaps none is more important than Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Faith is the ability of the human spirit to receive impressions from God that are born of His Word and made alive by the Holy Spirit. We simply know that something is going to happen, for God's Word has been received and has activated this spiritual sense called faith.
The natural senses have to do with present and visible things. But faith has to do primarily with these future and invisible things that God has promised us in His Word.
Back in the most difficult days of pastoring the Brooklyn Tabernacle, my wife, Carol, and I were struggling to stay afloat with maybe 40 people attending on Sunday mornings. When our daughter, Chrissy, was about 2 years old, we noticed a lump under her eyelid.
I'd spent time praying about the problem. But I knew there was no faith in my heart, only apprehension.
We scraped up the money, and I took her to a doctor who recommended surgery. I knew what God had said in the Bible about healing; but I was filled with doubt and fear. I needed true, living faith, not theoretical faith.
The following Sunday, we were worshiping together at the end of the service. Suddenly my heart was flooded with a kind of divine light, and I was overcome with God's awesome greatness, which makes everything on earth seem minuscule.
I envisioned my daughter being prayed for, and I saw her being healed! It was a real picture before the eyes of my heart. God had birthed something within me.
A teen-age girl brought my daughter forward. We gathered around her, anointed her with oil and prayed together for God to heal her. Within 48 hours, the lump was entirely gone, with no medical intervention of any kind.
Now what would happen in our churches if people came to each meeting with great faith and belief that God was about to do something wonderful? Unfortunately, many Christians who strongly defend the verbal inspiration of Scripture are the most unbelieving and cynical about God ever doing a new thing in His church.
My question is: If Jesus is the same today as He was in the Bible we defend, why shouldn't we believe Him to do great things among us and through us, so we can touch people's lives in powerful ways as did the first-century apostles?
Peter was no perfect saint, but God chose him and used him mightily on the day of Pentecost. God can do the same with us if we look to Him with childlike faith in our hearts.
Look Inward—But Carefully
In addition to looking back and looking ahead, Joshua called the people to take stock of their obedience. They were to obey the law of Moses and to separate themselves from the idolatrous nations that were among them (Josh. 23:6-8).
This separation from ungodly things was for the purpose of maintaining the strength of the Hebrews for battle. Alliance with sinful things saps our strength and leaves us weak before the enemy.
Joshua knew this all too well from what had happened back at Ai (Josh. 7:1-26). After the stirring victory at Jericho, the army suffered an unexpected and humiliating defeat because the sinful disobedience of one soldier, Achan, had separated the people from God's holy companionship.
Introspection is a two-edged sword. There are special times for looking inward—for example, when receiving communion (1 Cor. 11:28-32) and at other moments of divine searching.
However, if this process consumes us, Satan can gain the upper hand, keeping us preoccupied with our failures rather than with Christ's pardon and power. The apostles called people to cleanse their hearts before God and then move on to faith and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
Look Away to Jesus
Joshua's final instruction is stated very simply: "Be very careful to love the Lord your God" (Josh. 23:11). Our gaze must always be upon Him, for He is the one who will perform everything.
Satan wants us to focus on the problem, not the Provider. If we stop spending time with the Lord in prayer, the concerns of the physical world snatch our attention while the spiritual senses deaden and the promises fade.
The number one reason Christians today don't pray more is that we do not grasp the connection between prayer and the promises of God. We are trying in vain to pray "because we're supposed to" without a living faith in the promises of God concerning prayer.
When real faith in God arises, a certainty comes that when we call, He will answer. Soon we find ourselves seeking Him for wayward children to be saved, for a greater sense of the Holy Spirit in our church services and for spiritual gifts and power to be released.
Strength to keep believing often flows into us as we just take time to wait in God's presence and worship Him. His promises become wonderfully alive as the Spirit applies them to our hearts.
God Is Waiting for You
Let us not be hesitant about trusting God. What really matters isn't our efforts, but the wonderful truth that God is a faithful God (Heb. 10:22-23).
It is not what happens to people that makes for tragedy in their lives; it is the missed opportunities to see God help them due to their unbelief that is the real tragedy.
Joshua must have had God's faithfulness in mind when he ended his speech that day with this great crescendo: "You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the Lord your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed" (Josh. 23:14).
We, too, can finish our race in life with the same powerful declaration. Only keep believing in the God whose promises are forever true.
Jim Cymbalahas been pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle since 1972. He is co-author with Dean Merrill of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. He lives in New York with his wife, Carol, who directs the Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. Dean Merrill assisted in the writing of this article.
Following are quotes of Derek Prince, a Bible teacher with whose office staff I had the blessing to serve with, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. (1987-1990) and Charlotte, NC (2001-2005).
I consider Derek to have been one of the best Bible teachers I have ever known.
“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all,
especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Gal. 6:10 (NKJV)
Dear family of friends,
It was early on a Thursday morning as I walked
the main street in uptown Charlotte. The sun hadn’t risen as yet. Hardly a car,
or human, was up at this hour. Being I had a part to play in a Thanksgiving/Christmas
festival event, I parked my car and walked the few blocks needed to get there. The
cold night was biting my uncovered face. At least I had our warm bed for a few
hours prior to getting out and coming here.
Sitting on a metal street bench, across the eerily
quiet, dark street at this hour, was a figure slouched over, under a layer or
two of ragged blankets. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. They had to
be really uncomfortable. These benches were constructed in such a way as to
prevent any prone position sleeping, at any hour of the day or night. Beside
them was a bag stuffed with their entire worldly possessions.
Knowing that the 22 F temperature was only
adding pain to what must be a terrible way to live, I said a quick prayer of
mercy for them. But I didn’t know what else to do, and having little money in
my pocket, I kept walking.
(The Charlotte Rescue Mission, where I have
worked at, is not far from the grandiose Charlotte Panthers football stadium from
which I now hurried in the opposite direction. They do a great job in helping
those in need of “two hots and a cot.” They also provide recovery assistance
from drug addiction, getting people back on their feet. But that person may not
have been aware of that help. As for now, “Lord, help them,” was all I did, and
kept moving on.)
During holiday seasons my heart especially goes
out to those who are alone and lonely. Personally, I have always had family and
friends, but I have also known the ache and discouragement that others feel at
times, increasingly around these times. Depression, despair, and destitution
can crush the human heart. Having the hurt from lack of love, expressed in a
caring way, takes its toll on the spirit in man.
So what do we do? What can we do?
Yeshua (Jesus) showed us the way. He came that
we might have life, and have it abundantly. These are not just nice words that
sound good in a Sunday sermon, shared by an over zealous speaker. This can be
reality in each of our lives. Hope can always spring forth in our hearts, for
He knows of the pain, the hurt, the rejection. He experienced it when He came
the first time. That is why He came. He gives life and ongoing hope always.
During the festival and holiday seasons, we
are made more aware of those needing our help, and many will ask you for help.
Do as you can. Maybe even do more than you normally would.
But remember that salvation is of the Jews,
and our first command in assistance is to the “household of faith,” as we are
instructed again in Galatians 6:10, “So then, while we have opportunity, let us
do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the
faith.” My understanding of this verse is that the household of faith, in
Israel, are the Messianic Jews. They are the ones who have received Yeshua
(Jesus) as the Messiah, and are also part of the Church Body, the One New Man. We
have been grafted in among them.
“But if some of the branches were broken off,
and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker
with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the
branches. But if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the
root, but the root supports you.” (Rom. 11:17 NASU)
We have a debt to the Jews. They gave us the
Bible. They gave us the prophets. They gave us our Savior, the Messiah Yeshua. We
have an opportunity to now give back, and bless the believers among them.
This isn’t an Ahava Love Letter appeal,
but it is an opportunity reminder, to share with you that we do send monthly support
to Messianic Jewish believing family of friends, in Israel in particular, and
in the USA. They are of the household of faith.
The ones we regularly support include Heart of G-d Ministries, Christian Friends of Israel in Jerusalem, Israel
Media Ministries, and Christians for Messiah Ministries.
Please remember Love For His People, Inc.
in your regular and year end giving.
Ahava to my family of friends,
Steve & Laurie Martin
Founders
Love For His People, Inc.
Love
For His People, Inc. is
a charitable, not-for-profit USA organization. Fed. ID#27-1633858.
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.
Your tax deductible
contributions receive a receipt for each donation.
If you don't have a PayPal
account you can also use your credit card or bank account (where
available).
Contribution checks can be
sent to:
Love For His People,
Inc. P.O. Box 414 Pineville, NC 28134
Todah rabah! (Hebrew
- Thank you very much.)
Be sure to get my two books
The Promise (CreateSpace/Amazon 2013) and Ahava Love Letters (Xulon Press,
2013). Both available through Amazon.com Xulon Press.com , plus other website
book stores.
You
can also order both books, The Promise (on Amazon.com for $7.19 plus $3.95 S/H)
and Ahava Love Letters Xulon Press for $14.90, plus $3.80) or you can get both
from our office for $29. Send check to the address above. I will autograph all
copies ordered through our office. (Hey, and please include a contribution for
Israel too!)
Please share this Ahava
Love Letter with your friends.
As most of us know, Hanukkah commemorates the miracle of the oil. Once the Maccabees restored the Temple to Jewish control, the Temple oil burned for eight days when there was only enough oil to burn for one.
One of the traditions of Hanukkah is to eat foods cooked in oil and to give thanks to God for the miracle He gave to His faithful servants.
The American holiday of Thanksgiving is all about fellowship. It is about spending time with others we care about, sharing all the blessings that God has bestowed upon us, and lets us show the others in our lives the good fortune we have through faith in God.
Let’s look at Leviticus 7:12. This is a passage about the Fellowship Offering and it says, If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the thanksgiving sacrifice unleavened loaves mixed with oil, unleavened wafers smeared with oil, and loaves of fine flour well mixed with oil.
As we can see in Leviticus 7, the Fellowship Offering of Thanksgiving involves food with oil! Wow. Not only that, but this type of offering was meant to be eaten in a fellowship meal, much like our Thanksgiving dinners today, The meat of their fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; they must leave none of it till morning(Leviticus 7:15).
This year as we cook the turkey and prepare the other family tradition favorites, you might want to consider adding some Hanukkah favorites as well. Latkes are potato pancakes cooked in oil; they would be the perfect addition to a Thanksgiving meal, and fulfill a biblical Thanksgiving offering of unleavened wafers with oil.
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