Tuesday, December 30, 2014

What the Spirit is saying to the Pastors of the USA

What the Spirit is saying 

to the Pastors of the USA 

by Tim Truesdale

Identity Network

 
Good Evening Pastors.
 
I love you.
 
You have sacrificed so much to accept the calling that I have set before you. Many of you have worked 2 or even 3 jobs to be able to afford the opportunity to care for My people.  You have done construction, cleaning jobs, flipped hamburgers, and taken all manner of jobs far beneath your potential.
 
Your families have felt pressure on every side as you have stuck up for the low road as the best road as best you could.  They feel the weight of this calling as much as you do, and that compounds the weight on your shoulders.
 
You have watched as petty church politics has sucked the life out of My church.  As my people position for the best seats, the prominent positions, and the popularity contests.
 
I have seen your loneliness, I have felt your pains, I have watched every time a sheep has broken the skin and drawn blood.  And you have bandaged it up and jumped right in again - because I asked you to.  I have washed away every tear.
 
I have seen the shortcuts you have been tempted with, and the many ways you have remained faithful to the covenants that you have made.
 
Your Hard Work
 
You have worked so hard for Me.
 
Despite your best efforts, deep inside you know that something is missing…
 
Whatever you felt "called to" and made those 1000 sacrifices, it wasn't for this.  Was it?
 
Do you remember how you felt when you understood the arc of salvation in the Biblical narrative for the first time?  Do you remember how you quivered in preaching class, amazed that you didn't actually die, and actually saw your professor touched by your message - dabbing a heartfelt tear out the corner of his eye?  Do you remember how you used to cling to faith in My love - because that was literally the only security you felt in your life?
 
Do you remember how it feels to work at memorizing a Bible verse, and to actually be able to use it in a key moment?  Do you remember what it feels like to sob over a stillborn baby or to fight back the nausea as you step up to speak to grieving relatives at a funeral?
 
I See and I Remember
 
I remember what it felt like when you learned to study the Bible for yourself, and when you led your first Bible study, and led a person to Me for the very first time.
 
I know you are hurt.  I know you are scared.  I know you feel hard inside - when you allow yourself to feel at all.
 
I see how overburdened you are.  All I ever wanted for you was love.  Nothing more and nothing less.
 
I am shaking the foundations of this nation.  You have felt the rumblings growing closer.
 
Very soon the storm will reveal what is connected by My true love, and what is patched together by duty and obligation.  The storms will rage and every flaw in your house will be exposed.  Do not think that my love and honor for your calling will hold back the truth.  I love my people too much to let them slide.
 
Let us come together again, My pastor!  Let us dance again for the Love for My Word and my quiet Presence.
 
What do you have to lose?
 
Let us come together and share Love!
 
Tim Truesdale



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Monday, December 29, 2014

GRANDSON ISAIAH'S DEPARTURE - Morris Ruddick

Next to knowing Jesus, one of the greatest factors impacting my life has been my grandchildren. The evening before Christmas our ten year old grandson Isaiah was unexpectedly swept into eternity.

Isaiah was ten. He was very bright and very active and very loving. He lived close by
and was a special joy to us and to many others.

Despite his short life, he will be remembered for his big heart and the sensitivity he had for other people. The principal of his public school summed it up by saying that when he was having a bad day, out of the 1000 kids in his school, he consciously would look for Isaiah because he knew Isaiah would brighten his day. One of his former teachers observed that Isaiah was "a spiritual boy" because of the way he always seemed to pull the good out of others.


Isaiah was always reaching out to help others. Isaiah had a gift and he was a gift.

Isaiah's life illustrates what for me has been a shift over the years of what makes for what we typically regard as being a "spiritual giant."

His loss clearly punctuates the seriousness of the times. We've never had any illusions about the spiritual realities tied to the calling we're walking out. Yet, as good stewards, we keep our hands to the plow and dig in more now than ever before.

As I've sought the Lord during our grieving, I've been drawn to the end of Hebrews 11 and the beginning of chapter 12. It points to those, who having stood in faith, did not receive what they had expected, at least not in their earthly lives.

The reason that this passage gives is tied to something better the Lord had in mind, for us and for them, simultaneously noting that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

The truth that this passage points to is deep. It pushes us beyond the ordinary grasp of the natural mind. Yet it points to the fact that His ways are higher than our ways. It unveils a role and a connection that we share beyond the realm of time -- that impacts eternity.

This passage then admonishes us: since our role in this eternal drama has drawn such a great cloud of witnesses, to lay aside every encumbrance and entanglement, and to run with endurance the race that is set before us. Jesus set the example with the price He paid on the cross. With our eyes on Him and the example He paid, we are not to grow weary, to stumble or lose heart.


In the last 18 years we have lost two of our children and now two of our grandchildren. In each category, one was an adult and one a child. While we know that Isaiah is walking the streets of gold, the abruptness of his departure has been a challenge. It is his gain and our loss, so we are reaching hard for the Lord and the recovery that only time allows.

Life is filled with good and bad. As pointed to in the biblical story of Job, when evil overwhelms, there is a simplicity in the response: to reach even harder in knowing the Lord. The Psalmist (Ps 86:11) summed it up: "Unite my heart to fear Your Name."

Spiritually, there is a turning underway. Despite the evil all around, there is an incredible anticipation of what is to be expected from the hand of the Lord. We will be returning to Vietnam in late January as we expand the efforts with our friends in Vietnam, who have become like family to us.

I pray that this next year will be a good year for you. I pray for you as I pray for myself and my bride and for each member of my family impacted by Isaiah's departure, that the Lord would help us each to have an undivided heart, as the Psalmist describes, so that we can truly know Him as we walk out this pathway of life in these challenging days.

Thank you for your part with your prayers and your investments in our role in equipping and mobilizing the least of these our brethren. It all relates to that "something better" described in Hebrews that the Lord has in mind. It's making a difference for them, for us, and for eternity.

May the Lord grant you fresh vision and prosper you in each of your own initiatives. May His richest blessings and shalom be multiplied upon you.

In His love and ours, 
Morris-copy  
Morris Ruddick
Global Initiatives Foundation
www.strategic-initiatives.org
www.strategicintercession.org

Global Initiatives is a 501 (c) 3 tax-exempt ministry

The Power of Two ✡ "One Can Lift His Friend" - ISRAEL365

Two are better than one, for they get a greater return for their labor. For should they fall, one can lift his friend.

ECCLESIASTES (4:9,10)

טוֹבִים הַשְּׁנַיִם מִן הָאֶחָד אֲשֶׁר יֵשׁ לָהֶם שָׂכָר טוֹב בַּעֲמָלָם   כִּי אִם יִפֹּלוּ הָאֶחָד יָקִים אֶת חֲבֵרוֹ

קֹהֶלֶת ד:ט,י

to-veem ha-sh-na-yeem min ha-e-khad a-sher yaysh la-hem sa-khar tov ba-a-ma-lam kee im yee-po-lu ha-e-khad ya-keem et kha-vay-ro

Jerusalem Inspiration

Today's verse from the wisdom of King Solomon urges each of us to seek out and connect with others with whom we can grow spiritually. The word 'chaver' means a friend. Friends can guide us spiritually, nurture us emotionally, and help us physically, literally, 'pick us up' in so many ways. 'Heart to Heart' is Israel's national blood bank which provides life saving blood to anyone in need all across Israel. Be a 'friend' to H2H, and make a tax deductible virtual blood donation today.

Snapshot of Israel

The Land of Israel is truly as wonderful as promised in the Bible. Watch this beautiful video of the Land accompanied by Biblical verses.

Holiday Tourism

“The State of Israel has a close relationship with Christian leaders and we will continue to invest in the sites that are holy to Christians. Christians will always enjoy freedom of worship in Israel,” said Israel's tourism minister.  70,000 visitors are expected to arrive in Israel for the Christmas period.

Rockets to Roses Sderot Pendant

Israeli artist Yaron Bob turns formerly deadly kassam rockets fired at Israel into beautiful works of art.  Show your support of Israel's war against terror, and yearnings for peace with this unusual, yet beautiful piece.

Jerusalem Daily Photo

Photographer Uri Baruch features the Ein Karem neighborhood in Jerusalem. This area is identified as the location of Beth HaKerem (Jeremiah 6:1), where the traditional name comes from. According to Christian tradition, John the Baptist was born in Ein Karem, leading to the establishment of many churches and monasteries.

Thank You

Today's Jerusalem Scenes and Inspiration is sponsored by Trevor Bicknell from Warwick, West Australia. Toda Raba!

“The Pictures Take Me Back to My Visit to Israel

It’s great to hear from you and make new friends from all over the world. Please send mean email and let me know how you are enjoying Jerusalem365 (don’t forget to say where you are from!).

Hi. There is just nothing like the word of G.d to inspire one! I just find your choice of verses so appropriate each day and because I am learning Hebrew I love to work on the translation so really appreciate the verse in Hebrew and English... then the pictures take me back to my visit to Israel... my heart lives there always with you and my prayers reach out to you all often.  -Lindy G
Blessing from Jerusalem,
Rabbi Tuly Weisz
RabbiTuly@Israel365.com

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Leonard Ravenhill Paints Picture of True Prophets

puzzle piece
The prophet is the missing piece from most churches today. (Charisma archives)
Leonard Ravenhill at age 81
The prophet in his day is fully accepted of God and totally rejected by men.
Years back, Dr. Gregory Mantle was right when he said, "No man can be fully accepted until he is totally rejected." The prophet of the Lord is aware of both these experiences. They are his "brand name."
The group, challenged by the prophet because they are smug and comfortably insulated from a perishing world in their warm but untested theology, is not likely to vote him "Man of the Year" when he refers to them as habituates of the synagogue of Satan!
The prophet comes to set up that which is upset. His work is to call into line those who are out of line! He is unpopular because he opposes the popular in morality and spirituality.
In a day of faceless politicians and voiceless preachers, there is not a more urgent national need than that we cry to God for a prophet! The function of the prophet, as Austin-Sparks once said, "has almost always been that of recovery."
The prophet is God's detective seeking for a lost treasure. The degree of his effectiveness is determined by his measure of unpopularity. Compromise is not known to him.
He has no price tags. 
He is totally "otherworldly." 
He is unquestionably controversial and unpardonably hostile. 
He marches to another drummer! 
He breathes the rarefied air of inspiration. 
He is a "seer" who comes to lead the blind. 
He lives in the heights of God and comes into the valley with a "thus saith
the Lord." 
He shares some of the foreknowledge of God and so is aware of 
impending judgment. 
He lives in "splendid isolation." 
He is forthright and outright, but he claims no birthright. 
His message is "repent, be reconciled to God or else...!" 
His prophecies are parried. 
His truth brings torment, but his voice is never void. 
He is the villain of today and the hero of tomorrow. 
He is excommunicated while alive and exalted when dead! 
He is dishonored with epithets when breathing and honored with 
epitaphs when dead. 
He is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, but few "make the grade" in his class. 
He is friendless while living and famous when dead. 
He is against the establishment in ministry; then he is established as a saint 
by posterity. 
He eats daily the bread of affliction while he ministers, but he feeds the Bread of 
Life to those who listen. 
He walks before men for days but has walked before God for years. 
He is a scourge to the nation before he is scourged by the nation. 
He announces, pronounces, and denounces! 
He has a heart like a volcano and his words are as fire. 
He talks to men about God. 
He carries the lamp of truth amongst heretics while he is lampooned by men. 
He faces God before he faces men, but he is self-effacing. 
He hides with God in the secret place, but he has nothing to hide in 
the marketplace. 
He is naturally sensitive but supernaturally spiritual. 
He has passion, purpose and pugnacity. 
He is ordained of God but disdained by men.
Our national need at this hour is not that the dollar recover its strength, or that we save face over the Watergate affair, or that we find the answer to the ecology problem. We need a God-sent prophet!
I am bombarded with talk or letters about the coming shortages in our national life: bread, fuel, energy. I read between the lines from people not practiced in scaring folk. They feel that the "seven years of plenty" are over for us. The "seven years of famine" are ahead. But the greatest famine of all in this nation at this given moment is a FAMINE OF THE HEARING OF THE WORDS OF GOD (Amos 8:11).
Millions have been spent on evangelism in the last twenty-five years. Hundreds of gospel messages streak through the air over the nation every day. Crusades have been held; healing meetings have made a vital contribution. "Come-outers" have "come out" and settled, too, without a nation-shaking revival.
Organizers we have. Skilled preachers abound. Multi-million dollar Christian organizations straddle the nation. BUT where, oh where, is the prophet? Where are the incandescent men fresh from the holy place? Where is the Moses to plead in fasting before the holiness of the Lord for our moldy morality, our political perfidy, and sour and sick spirituality?
GOD'S MEN ARE IN HIDING UNTIL THE DAY OF THEIR SHOWING FORTH. They will come. The prophet is violated during his ministry, but he is vindicated by history.
There is a terrible vacuum in evangelical Christianity today. The missing person in our ranks is the prophet. The man with a terrible earnestness. The man totally otherworldly. The man rejected by other men, even other good men, because they consider him too austere, too severely committed, too negative and unsociable.
Let him be as plain as John the Baptist. 
Let him for a season be a voice crying in the wilderness of modern theology and
stagnant "churchianity." 
Let him be as selfless as Paul the apostle. 
Let him, too, say and live, "This ONE thing I do." 
Let him reject ecclesiastical favors. 
Let him be self-abasing, nonself-seeking, nonself-projecting, nonself- righteous,
nonself-glorying, nonself-promoting. 
Let him say nothing that will draw men to himself but only that which will move
men to God. 
Let him come daily from the throne room of a holy God, the place where he has
received the order of the day. 
Let him, under God, unstop the ears of the millions who are deaf through the
clatter of shekels milked from this hour of material mesmerism. 
Let him cry with a voice this century has not heard because he has seen a vision
no man in this century has seen. God send us this Moses to lead us from the
wilderness of crass materialism, where the rattlesnakes of lust bite us and where
enlightened men, totally blind spiritually, lead us to an ever-nearing Armageddon.
God have mercy! Send us PROPHETS!
About the author: Leonard Ravenhill (1907-1994) was a well-known British evangelist who brought many people to Christ through his straightforward preaching of the Word. In 1959, he and his family moved to the United States, where Ravenhill continued to travel, ministering in tent revivals and evangelistic meetings. He placed great emphasis on the subjects of prayer and revival, and though he wrote many books, he is probably best known for Why Revival Tarries. ("Picture of a Prophet" was taken from ravenhill.org and used by permission of the author's son, David Ravenhill. Copyright (C) 1994 by Leonard Ravenhill.)

Israeli Media Takes a Positive Look at Messianic Jews

Israeli Media Takes a Positive Look at Messianic Jews

Sunday, December 28, 2014 |  Ryan Jones   ISRAEL TODAY
Israel’s leading media group, Keshet, has taken a keen interest in the nation’s Messianic Jewish community after one of its flagship television shows, the popular singing competition Kochav Haba (“The Next Star”), featured a Messianic Jewish contestant.
Keshet’s online news and entertainment portal, Mako, published a weekend story asking readers to take a closer look at Israel’s 15,000 Messianic Jews and to be more welcoming toward those who believe in Yeshua (Jesus).
The article opened by highlighting some of the hostile comments made after openly-Messianic songstress Shai Sol scored a spot in Kochav Haba’s second round following a mesmerizing audition performance.
The negative responses by some to Shai’s appearance were, as the article noted, characteristic of the typical mainstream attitude toward Messianic Jews. But the fact that Mako ran such a sympathetic piece is further evidence that much of Israeli society is not only increasingly tolerant of Messianic Jews, but is also growing more curious about what they believe, and why.
First, it should be noted that the Mako article used the name “Yeshua,” rather than the derogatory “Yeshu,” an acronym used by most Orthodox Jews meaning “may his name and memory be erased.”
Shai was asked by Mako to explain in greater depth what it means to be a Messianic Jew, a subject she briefly touched on in her Kochav Haba pre-audition interview.
“It is a stream of Judaism… We light Shabbat candles and worship God, read the Scriptures and learn the Bible,” replied Shai, noting that the one major difference with mainstream Judaism is that “we believe in both the Tanakh and the New Testament.”
Asked if that means Messianic Jews celebrate Christmas, Shai stated, “Absolutely not. We celebrate only the Jewish festivals. This is not Christianity, this is Messianic Judaism. After all, Yeshua was a Jew.”
The conversation inevitably turned toward “conversion” and “missionary activity.” The interviewer said that for her and many Jews, “when I hear ‘Messianic Jew’ I immediately think of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
Shai said there was no connection. “The title ‘Messianic Jew’ always brings up negative connotations of Christians, of a cult, of missionaries. We are not missionaries walking around trying to compel people.”
The young singer explained that if someone like her interviewer was interested, “I would tell you about Yeshua and show you some [supporting] scriptures. I would invite you to a meeting at a [Messianic] congregation.”
Shai further clarified that Messianic faith is first and foremost “humanitarian” in nature, and that one cannot be compelled to accept Yeshua, who “after all [taught us] to spread love. He healed the sick and did many other social works.”
Shai said that many in the Messianic community had expressed support and satisfaction over the fact that a fellow believer had taken the national stage and in so doing had been boldly open about her faith.
“I have received a lot of messages from Messianic youth who are usually afraid to speak about [their faith],” said Shai. “They see in my ‘coming out’ an act of bravery, but I see it as natural.”
The interviewer noted that Shai has a great desire to be “a pioneer for the community, [part of] a Messianic vanguard that builds the bridge between Israeli society and Messianic Judaism.”
Shai will certainly have an opportunity to do that as she has started work on her first CD, and is scheduled to appear again soon on Kochav Haba, where critics rate her among the top contestants.
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Friday, December 26, 2014

The Bible and the Climate


The Bible and the Climate

Friday, December 26, 2014 |  Aviel Schneider  ISRAEL TODAY
Following a very wet start to the winter, Israel Today spoke to leading geophysicist Pinhas Alpert, author of Rain and Wind— Meteorology and Weather in Jewish Tradition and Modern Science.
For free access to the January issue of Israel Today Magazine, where you can read the whole article, CLICK HERE
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