The Church Realignment with the Body of Messiah in Israel

(From left to right) Grant Berry, Apostles Dan Juster, Eitan Shiskoff and Che Ahn recently signed an historic document on the spiritual reconnection between Jew and Gentile in the body of Messiah/Christ. (Photo credit from Charisma Magazine article, Courtesy of Grant Berry, Reconnecting Ministries)

Here is where I'm at. I am all in for the Body of Messiah in Israel as the most significant sign of the prophetic times we are in and it is a HUGE drag to me that so few in the Church get it. Both the Church and the Messianic Jewish Body have equal roles to play in the glory of the Lord that is coming to us in the midst of the darkness that is covering the people of the earth. BOTH.

So the very charismatic part of the Church tends not to see a significance to what God is doing among Jews, nor ESPECIALLY the significance of Him restoring the community of Jewish believers in Israel. This group tends to see everything good that is coming from the Church in the end times as coming from those like them, basically the charismatic branch of the Church, Jewish believers being an basically insignificant minority that tries to be different but really are just part of the Christian church - no distinctions required.

Then there is the Israel-loving Church which despite loving Israel has been warned off of the "cult" of Jewish believers in Jesus by the unsaved Jews they connect with in Israel. The religious traditional Jews have used their love of Israel to blackmail many of these Christians into ignoring the profoundly significant Body of Messiah in Israel. The proposition has been that they have to reject evangelism of Jews, and steer clear of Israel's Messianic Jews if these Christians want to have good relationship with humanitarian projects in Israel. Many of these Christian leaders have justified doing exactly that thinking they are going to "make Israel jealous" by such actions. (How is Christian rejection of Jewish believers in Jesus ever going to make unsaved Israel jealous? ...I have the strongest urge to add the word dingbat here.)

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a minority of Christians who have looked past their own interests and seen that God has planned all along to restore Israel - not only as a nation, but as a Jews choosing eternal salvation in Jesus.

God has hidden the details of how the non-Jewish Church and the Messianic Jewish - with special emphasis on their presence in Israel - in many places throughout the Hebrew scriptures AND it is not so hidden at all in the New Covenant scriptures. Paul wrote about it in many places, but somehow Christians who pride themselves for seeing the hidden treasures of scripture are stone, cold blind to what the apostle laid out about God's plans for Jew and Gentile in the last days.

So here's the thing. God has made it so neither side - not Messianic Jewish and not non-Jewish Christian, not Israel-rejecting Christians nor Israel-loving Christians - are going to see the promises of God to us all in these days by ourselves. We either join ourselves to His plan - which is to bring the Church to the assistance of the Messianic believers in Israel to fulfill their mandate of bringing the message of redemption to all Israel - or we will continue to delay ALL the blessings promised. Like the blessings of powerful waves of salvation worldwide.

The Church cannot fulfill its end time mandate without opening its eyes to what God plans for Israel through the Living Stones of Israel - the remnant of faith already at work among the people of Israel. And this remnant cannot fulfill their mandated work from God in this harvest without the help of the international Church.

When will the Church quit thinking they have all they need without having to see the gift that God has placed in this remnant of faith in Israel?

Ephesians 2 "one new man" does not mean the homogenization of Jews into a Christian expression that repudiates Jewishness. (Daniel Juster had an excellent word on this in the video teaching here from the Restore 2015 conference)

Is Jesus going to be too Jewish for you when He comes back as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne"?

You think that is just flowery descriptive language? Huh? That's reality! As the apostle Paul wrote, I say then, Has God rejected His people? God forbid! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew."

It's the faithful plan of God to restore the nation of Israel - first the natural and then spiritually. My goodness, Church! Open your eyes to the mighty work of God going on right now & get with God's plan for our role in it. The blessings of our doing so are beyond imagination.

* Here is the video message of Pastor Che Ahn of HIM speaks at the Tikkun America RESTORE Conference. "Apostolic Declarations of Blessing".