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God is compelling his bride, the church, to rise up in intercession, and now. (Lightstock )
As news began to spread regarding the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision to legalize homosexual marriage in America this past week, my heart was filled with an unusual mixture of hope and crisis as I got on my knees before the Lord.
I immediately began to seek the Father regarding His perspective on the ruling and I believe He said to me, "In the natural, the Supreme Court justices have just legalized homosexual marriage in America, but little do they know that they also just authorized an awakening of the Spirit in My bride. For know that now is the time to turn inward, it is a time of repentance and fasting for My people. Has their laziness and blindness on the issue of sexual immorality in their midst not given the homosexual agenda its true power? America has now legalized homosexual immorality because the American church legalized heterosexual immorality first."
I immediately received a powerful vision of intercessors gathering from all over America in response to the ruling. They gathered and began to pray, but what they were interceding about was very displeasing to the Father. I listened very carefully to the cries and prayers of the intercessors in the vision and this is what they were crying out: "Father, we repent for the sins of America! Father, we ask that you would turn the hearts of homosexuals back to you. Father, bring justice to these people!"
As I listened in to these continual prayers, the Father said to me, "Do you know what's wrong with these prayers Jeremiah? They are all focused on the call for America to repent when I have called My bride to repent! You must tell the intercessors to shift their focus from America to My bride. Their self-righteous hearts and blindness to their own sin is a stench in my nostrils. The issues coming forth in the United States is not an American problem, it's an American Church problem."
America is in a crisis, but the American church is in a greater crisis. We are and will continue to reap what we have sown and that is seeds of silence and tolerance on the key issues of our day that have come before the Father as sin.
As Abraham Kuyper once said, "When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith."
I believe that God the Father is releasing burning and shining lamps in America to sound the alarm and wake up the bride of Christ from her slumber (see John 5:35). He is bringing forth a worthy bride in the earth right now who will make herself ready by voluntarily choosing to love His Son Jesus.
In Revelation 3, Jesus told the church at Sardis, "You have the appearance of being alive, but you are dead." It is this same message, that the American church has every sign of thriving, every program known to man, every self-help workshop, yet they are spiritually dead that will awaken the bride and call her back to her first love.
I want to encourage intercessors and leaders across America to take the plank out of our own eyes before we begin judging homosexuals and the lifestyle that they have chosen (see Matthew 7:5). While I do believe that these individuals are choosing to blatantly sin and will be judged by God Himself for their behavior (see Romans 14:12), we have an obligation as believers in Jesus Christ to look within our own lives and in our own spiritual communities and ask the Spirit of truth to search us inwardly before we begin calling others to accountability (see Psalm 51:6).
My hope today is in Jesus Christ and in His desire to call His bride to the place of repentance and fasting in this hour. There is no other hope for the American church. We must remember that the heart of a religious Pharisee continues to cry out, "Thank God I'm not like them" (see Luke 18:11). May we repent to the Father for our failure as the bride of Christ to preach holiness and purity to those that call themselves believers in Jesus and for our self-righteous attitudes toward those who are in need of His grace and mercy.
I fully recognize the crisis that is here and will only increase in the days ahead if we as the bride of Christ do not turn to the Lord Jesus and repent of our sins. Let us choose wisely which path we walk. Shall we put our hope in Him and the invitation to look inward in this hour and examine our own hearts as the bride or shall we welcome continual crisis by becoming more consumed with the American problem than the American church problem?
Remember, reformation never comes to a society before it first comes to the church!
Jeremiah Johnsonplanted Heart of the Father Ministry in Lakeland, Florida and is on the Eldership Team. A gifted teacher, book author, and prophetic minister, Jeremiah travels extensively throughout the United States and abroad as a conference and guest speaker. Jeremiah and his wife, Morgan, reside in Florida with their two children: Bella Grace and Israel David. Check out Jeremiah's new book release, I See A New Prophetic Generation and visit him online at Behold the Man Ministries or connect with him on Facebook."
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Kathi and David Byker woke up abruptly at 4 a.m. on August 9, 2011 to the sounds of yelling in their bedroom. Two men wielding knives and dressed all in black stood over Kathi and her husband. They wore ski masks and all the couple could see were their eyes.
Kathi, believing she was having a nightmare, closed her eyes hoping when she opened them again the men would be gone. When the 60-year-old grandmother opened her eyes, what she had feared most was true: The men were still there. Kathi was terrified.
One of the intruders demanded money from David. The other intruder wound duct tape around Kathi's wrists and ankles and she suddenly realized they were going to take her away. The thought of being separated from her husband of 40 years was horrifying and she began kicking the man to get free.
"Stop, honey," her husband said, "he's got a knife to your neck! "Kathi, who hadn't realized that the intruder was holding her at knifepoint, stopped struggling.
Pulled and yanked outside their Grandville, Michigan home to her own sport-utility vehicle—which the men planned to steal—Kathi was frightened. Duct tape was put over her eyes and mouth as she was commanded to lie down on the back seat. To feel so vulnerable and helpless and to be under someone's control like that "was just hell," Kathi says.
According to police reports, the two intruders demanded the ransom from the couple or, they said, they would kill Kathi. They gave her husband a cell phone number and told him to call when he had the cash. A third, an older man identified as the ringleader of the group, had supplied the kidnappers with masks, knives, gloves and duct tape.
The Ride Into Darkness
After meeting up with the instigator, one of the intruders, driving the stolen SUV, sped into the darkness away from the Byker's home with Kathi. She didn't know where they were going, what the men were going to do to her or how long the frightening ordeal would last. The kidnapper drove with his left hand and kept his right hand with the knife over the back of the seat, continually demanding that Kathi lie down. He told her if she sat up that he would kill her.
"I believed that he would," Kathi told Charisma. "He had the knife right to my neck."
Up to this point there was so much trauma, confusion and disorientation it prevented Kathi from thinking about prayer. At the point she realized she was totally helpless, Kathi remembered to call out to God. This was the turning point, she says.
She was still in the same situation, but everything had changed in her heart. After that moment, God was front and center in her mind, heart and spirit. Lying in the dark in the back seat of the SUV, not knowing whether she would live or die, Kathi focused on God and prayed in the Spirit. She was too overwhelmed to utter a word in English. Romans 8:26 says, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
"It's the perfect prayer because it is from my spirit to God's Spirit without the mind getting involved," she says.
The duct tape kept her mouth shut, but it couldn't keep her tongue from moving as she prayed, she says. Sometimes, all she could mutter was "Help, God." As she prayed in the Spirit, she felt her body relax.
"The Holy Spirit prays for us when we don't know how to pray," says Harold Vinson Synan, dean emeritus and visiting professor of church history at Regent University. "Speaking in tongues is a personal gift that can be exercised throughout your whole life."
This is a gift that is for everyone who puts their trust in God. Deb Kirgis, the associate pastor of Resurrection Life Church in Grandville, Michigan, says she knew that the reason Kathi so quickly began praying in tongues was because she already knew the power that was available. She'd experienced other victories as a result of praying in the Spirit in the past, so it came naturally for her to respond to this situation with her supernatural language.
Pleading the Blood of Jesus
Kathi prayed in the Spirit and the next thing she remembered to do was to plead the blood of Jesus over her body. She thought about the Scripture from the book of Exodus that talks about the blood over the doorposts being protection and realized she needed God's protection. The more she surrendered to the Spirit, she says, the more scriptures came to mind, including Proverbs 3:5-6: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight."
She thought, "I don't know what's going on here, but I'm (going to acknowledge) Him."
As God brought Scripture after Scripture to her mind, a tremendous peace washed over her. The situation hadn't changed, she says. Before she acknowledged God she felt scared, but afterwards she felt powerful.
"The fear factor was lessening as the God factor was going up," Kathi says.
Kathi believes she was given supernatural empowerment through the Spirit. She was still terrified but had an otherworldly peace inside. Acts 1:8 says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
Her thoughts came fast and she remembered Psalm 91 and the word, "protection." Psalm 91:1-2 says, "Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my god, in whom I trust.' "
It was then Kathi realized that God was greater than her fear and she could rest in Him.
A Miraculous Escape
Soon after, the driver stopped the car and pulled into what she thought was a forest. She remembers thinking, "I am not going to be one of those people who are never heard from again, in Jesus' name!"
Kathi was dragged into a field in another Michigan county where the abductor began binding her to a telephone pole with duct tape.
"There's somebody behind you and if you try to escape, he'll kill you," he told her and then he left. Kathi didn't believe he was telling the truth; she never got the sense that anyone else was there. She heard him leave, and while he was gone, she counted to 10 before wiggling out of the duct tape on her wrists and pulling it from her eyes and mouth. Kathi then realized she was in a cornfield with corn stalks towering around her. She looked around and didn't see anyone else. She looked down and saw the duct tape around her knees and easily pushed it apart.
"It was a miracle," she says. "The duct tape that was holding me to the pole ripped as I just put a slight pressure on it." She thought, "Wow, God!" It was then that Kathi made her escape. The police detective later confirmed that there had to have been some sort of help from above. "It was regular duct tape," Kathi says. "It was strong and wrapped around a couple of times. It was tied around my knees. I saw it rip after just slight pressure and it was a miracle."
Listen to God's Directions
Kathi ran to the road and paused. "It's extremely important which way I go—straight, left, or right," she realized. "In my heart, I asked God which way?" There was no doubt in her mind that God was leading her to go straight, she says. She didn't know which way her kidnapper had gone, but she learned later that she would have run into him if she had went to the left to get her vehicle. She also found out why her abductor had left her alone; he had run out of tape and gone back to the car for more.
No one prepares themself for this kind of situation, Kathi says, and she had no idea what to do; she didn't know whether to keep running or find a place to hide. She was still scared for her life.
"I never felt so alone in my life," Kathi says. "Nobody knew where I was—nobody."
She ran behind a farmhouse in the dark, barefoot and in her stretchy leopard print pajamas, duct tape hanging all over her. Sometimes she stopped to hide and pray, like inside the 3-by-4 metal box she came upon. Other times she just ran for her life, zigzagging behind whatever she thought would give her cover in the dim early morning light.
At last, in front of a building, she saw a sign in the distance that read, "Classic Transportation." God kept directing her eyes to the sign and she told herself to remember it. As she prayed, God clearly told her to go closer where she saw a 12-foot chain link fence with white semitrucks lined up inside. "I was so happy the gate was open," Kathi says.
She hurried past the darkened trucks until she saw one lone red truck with the parking lights on and the engine running. She assumed someone was inside and banged on the truck, but nobody answered. She was relieved to find the driver's side door unlocked and cautiously opened it before softly calling in to a man who had been sleeping in the back.
"Can you help me?" she cried. "I have been kidnapped."
At first, he was in a state of disbelief. But after hearing Kathi's desperate story, the driver called the local police in Allegan County. While they waited, he explained that he was waiting for Classic Transportation to open so he could apply for a job. "He had never been there before and I felt God had put him there to help me," Kathi says. "I told him, 'I think you're an angel,' and he laughed."
Afterwards, the police came and took her to the rural police station where she retold the events of that night. After that, since the kidnappers had crossed county lines, the Grandville police arrived and questioned her again. "I just praised God that I was a witness to His power," Kathi says.
Prayer: The Deciding Factor
Kathi first became acquainted with the Spirit shortly after her son's birth three decades ago. At the time in 1984, her son was just three months old. She had attended church many years, but always felt something was missing and was searching for more. It was then that a friend told her about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, laid hands on her and prayed. "I was filled with the love and knowledge of God," Kathi says. She then began voraciously studying Scripture and underlining all the verses about the Holy Spirit. She came to the verse in Ephesians 4:30 that says don't grieve the Spirit. "God said I was resisting the part about speaking in tongues," she says. "But He waited until I was ready."
Kathi was happy praising God in English and anything more was out of her realm of understanding. She wasn't open to praying in tongues until she realized she was grieving the Spirit and repented. It was only after that she let herself be open to speaking in tongues. Her prayer language began with only one word, but has gradually grown as she has opened herself up to the power of the Spirit.
Doug Bergsma, 63, pastor of Rockford Resurrection Life Church in Rockford, Michigan, has known the Bykers for more than 20 years. When Kathi was kidnapped, Bergsma, who considers himself a straight-line Bible teacher who believes in the gifts of the Spirit, was one of the people David called. Bergsma immediately prayed. By the time he arrived at the Byker's home, there were nearly a dozen people already gathered praying, some in tongues, and claiming Scripture for Kathi.
He explains that when you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, you get a prayer language: the ability to speak in another language. In 1 Corinthians 14:15, Paul says, "What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding." Tongues are a spiritual gift and there are so many things that come from that, Bergsma says. "I have seen so many things over the years like words of direction, stories of divine protection, revelation and illumination beyond what the mind can grasp," Bergsma says. "In that situation, for Kathi to have peace and find peace is amazing proof of God's divine protection," Bergsma says.
Release of Bitterness
The three men involved in the kidnapping are now serving long-term prison sentences. "Because forgiveness is a choice, and not a feeling, I have chosen to forgive these men before God," Kathi says (whoiaminchrist.net). "And therefore, God has miraculously removed bitterness and resentment from me and He's freed me. Most Americans like me take their freedom for granted. When mine was snatched away, even for a short time, I discovered how extremely valuable it is. To be free is a treasure."
God is our freedom fighter and deliverer, she says. "There are a lot of people who are going through things spiritually that I went through physically," she says. "They are bound up. They are being held hostage. The devil does that; he doesn't play fair, he hates us all, and God is there to rescue us all. I can testify He is there at the most hardest times we can imagine. He's not just there for me; He's there for everyone."
Ruth A. Zschomler, a native of the Pacific Northwest, is a multi-platform writer and photographer with an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College. Her work has been published in The Oregonian, The Columbian, The Vancouver Voice, The Pitkin Review, Canyon Voices, and Rain Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter@rzschomler.
Watch Kathi Byker share her story of being abducted and then rescued by the Holy Spirit's power at kathibyker.charismamag.com.
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And God said: "This is the sign of the covenant, which I give between Me and between you, and between every living soul that is with you, for everlasting generations."
Here's a beautiful lesson from the holy language of Hebrew! The root of the word for "give" in Hebrew is "natan" נתן which is a palindrome; it reads the same backwards as forwards. The essence of giving is that what we give, we get back in some way. While many assume that their time or money will be lost forever if shared, Judaism teaches the opposite; that we stand to personally gain when we give to others. Join Meir Panim, an incredible Israel non-profit, in giving meals to hungry children and Holocaust survivors throughout the Land of Israel, and reap the blessings that will enter your life!
This video will leave you smiling and thinking of the great maxim "love thy neighbor as thyself." On the streets of Jerusalem, people 'pay it forward' and build unity through kindness.
Volunteering during a vacation is a fantastic way to get involved with the community from a perspective you might not otherwise see. Hear how one family of six pitched in to help the people of Israel!
The Biblical verse that is used to compose this fabulous work of art is the basis for the Biblical mandate Grace After Meals. By saying a prayer after eating, we recognize the supreme blessing of having food to feed our hungry bodies.
Can you tell where this lovely photo by Ilan Rosen was taken? If you need a clue, just start thinking about all the different bodies of water in Israel - there aren’t that many! Post your answer toFacebook or send me an email.
Hi, I am Ansa from South Africa and love Israel with all my heart! I was part of an excavation team in 2007 at Tel Dor and am praying to go back once again. I constantly keep praying for the peace in Jerusalem and would love to keep receiving all news. Ansa Wasserfall
Love your newsletter! Thank you for sending me the information about Israel. I really enjoy it! Keep it coming! Sincerely, Debi Struble
JERUSALEM, Israel -- There are nearly as many Jewish people in the world now as there were before the Holocaust. That's according to the annual assessment of the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute.
The JPPI said Jewish population has increased steadily and now numbers 14.2 million.
But if those who have one Jewish parent or are partially Jewish and identify themselves as such are included that number approaches the 16.5 million Jews who were alive before World War II. About six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.
The report said the increase is due in part to natural growth mainly in Israel. But it's also because more people who are the offspring of mixed marriages in the U.S. are identifying themselves as Jewish.
According to Israeli law, being "Jewish" is defined as having a Jewish mother. But the Law of Return permits immigration to all who have at least one Jewish grandparent.
Contrary to popular belief, young Jews in the U.S. are becoming more pro-Israel mostly because of a growth in politically conservative Orthodox Jewish community, the JPPI said.
Israel has the largest Jewish population in the world, followed by the U.S., France and Canada.
The Israeli Navy intercepted the latest anti-Gaza blockade flotilla, attempting to dock in Gaza, early yesterday morning.
The flotilla was warned to either change course to Ashdod, where their cargo would be transferred to Gaza via the normal channels after undergoing inspections, or turn back.
One of the 4 vessels in the flotilla had already turned back prior to the Israeli Navy's interception. Two more of the vessels in the flotilla heeded the Navy's warnings and then turned back as well.
When it became clear that the "Marianne", carrying the leader of the flotilla's organizers, ex-Israeli Dror Feiler, as well as the Joint Arab List MK Basel Ghattas, had no intention of changing course or turning back and all diplomatic channels had been exhausted, forces of the Navy's Shayetet 13 were ordered to board the ship and take it to Ashdod port.
The boarding and control of the vessel went without incident. After the ship arrived in Ashdod Monday night, the passengers will be questioned and deported from Israel via Ben Gurion Airport. Israeli MK Basel Ghattas was handed over to the Israel Police. If the vessel is found to be carrying any goods destined for Gaza these will be transferred via the normal channels.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said, "This flotilla was not a humanitarian one and was not concerned for anyone's welfare. The participants' desire was to continue the campaign of Israel's de-legitimization."
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With the Middle East engulfed in flames, a story of peace and reconciliation was unfolding last week in Manchester, England, where delegates from all over the Muslim world came together for a unique conference.
And as Iran continues its aggressive stance against Israel, threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map, Iranian refugees and asylum seekers now living in Britain embraced their Jewish ‘brothers’, some of whom had travelled from Jerusalem to meet with them.
Also present was a sizable contingent of Egyptians along with representatives from Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria. Others wanting to join them had been unable to get visas.
As part of the great untold story of the Middle East, the three-day conference was hosted by the Church’s Ministry among Jewish people (CMJ), a 200-year-old Anglican society specifically dedicated to spiritual revival in Israel.
Although working mainly among Jews since its founding in 1809 by slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce and others, CMJ has also consistently reached out to Arabs over the years and, in 2012, held their first At the Crossroads conference at their Jerusalem headquarters to enable Jew and Gentile to express their oneness in Christ and work together to spread the gospel on the basis of a prophecy from Isaiah (chapter 19) of a “highway” of peace and reconciliation from Egypt to Assyria (which includes much of the modern-day Arab world) via Israel.
For the second of what is now a bi-annual event, in 2014, a number of UK-based Iranians, as well as a group of Egyptians, were turned back at the border and thus missed out on a chance to meet up with other Muslim-background converts from all over the region at a conference hosted by Jewish believers in Jesus, generally known as Messianic Jews.
And so UK at the Crossroads was arranged to encourage and inspire those who would struggle – mainly due to visa issues – to enter Israel.
David Friedman, a Messianic rabbi from Jerusalem, was delighted that so many Iranians had turned up for the conference – they have established thriving churches throughout England – and implored them to join him in praying for barriers to be broken between their two countries.
“We need to get together and pray for our two nations,” he said. And before he had finished speaking, they came forward to pray for him, and for Israel! It was an awesome moment, something akin to an earthquake in reverse as a shattered and broken world is put back together again, with all the pieces mended.
Sessions were interspersed with times of worship in Arabic, Farsi (the language spoken in Iran), Hebrew and English creating a beautiful atmosphere of shared love and identity. Communication may have been a challenge at times, but you only had to look in each other’s eyes to know you were one in Christ who, in the words of St Paul, destroys the dividing wall of hostility, creating “one new man” out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God through the cross. (Ephesians 2.14-16)
One Egyptian musician was playing a lute, a modern version of the ancient instrument played 3,000 years ago by Israel’s King David. Prayer was also offered in various languages with translators on hand for some of the speakers.
Beirut-based Robert Sakr, one of the visionaries behind the conference, said: “There’s no such thing as a peace process apart from Jesus. In the 55 years I’ve lived in the Middle East, there has been no political solution.”
And it was ironic, in light of the current enmity between Iran and Israel, that when the 1967 Six-Day War broke out, his family fled to Iran for safety. But the Islamic Revolution of 1979 had changed all that.
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