Investing in the Next Generation ...of Israel-Supporting Christians

PHOTO CAPTION: How can I capture an image so you can have a better visualization of the reality of the body of Messiah in Israel? Not just photos of one congregation but the larger picture. How about with this photo I took in 2003 of an annual picnic of the Messianic Jewish and Christian Arab congregations in northern Israel. It is a gathering to cultivate a greater sense of what they all belong to rather than just their own congregations. Even this does not capture how large the crowd was...or what the ever increasing Israeli body of Messiah really looks like as a whole. They are now estimated to be 20,000 strong, and that is just an estimate of the Jewish believers. Does it matter? Yes. For the international Church, the Israeli believers cannot remain hidden and their significance remain unknown forever. We are supposed to be linking together just as this picture shows the Israeli Jewish and Arab believers forging the spiritual family ties. It's a must.  

Countering Rabbi Eckstein's False Claims to Christians

Investing in the Next Generation

 ...of Israel-Supporting Christians

It caught my eye in January when the article notice came from a web alert I have set up. The Jerusalem Post headline read "Investing in the Next Generation" and it was all about the $60 million headquarters that Rabbi Eckstein's International Fellowship of Christian and Jews is building only 1 block away from the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. 

Apparently money is no object in the IFCJ quest to capture the donations of future generations of Christians because four of Israel's most acclaimed architecture firms competed to build the 10,000 sq.meters, 7-floor Jerusalem HQ.

As the JPost article noted, "the warm and inviting structure is the organization’s way of telling the Christian world: come on in, this is your spiritual home."

Rabbi Eckstein's daughter, Yael Eckstein, then the IFCJ Senior VP put it this way: “This center is not a Fellowship museum, but a building for Christians to visit physically and virtually that will help them deepen their spiritual roots in the Holy Land."

The plan is to use this impressive, extravagant HQ to draw in the Christian tourists is so they can "partake in pro-Israel programming" and, Yael Eckstein explained, "since many Christian visitors want to 'give back' to the country and help the people of Israel too, the building will provide volunteer opportunities. For example, visitors will be able to pack food packages for Holocaust survivors, sort clothes to be donated to the needy, and much more."

Of course, all of this is to be completely divorced from having any relationship whatsoever with the Israeli Jewish followers of Jesus who are the sharing their faith and seeing steadily increasing numbers of Jews come to faith in Israel's one true Messiah.

Here's the truth of the matter: Having spent the last two decades focused on Israeli ministries, I knew that IFCJ building would be paid for almost exclusively by Christians donations. Also, that not one Israeli believer ministry comes anywhere near receiving Christian donations equal to the massive amount of money that goes from Christian hands to Eckstein's IFCJ disposal.

That is a tragic on so many levels. One person who gives to IFCJ recently countered that the reason for the troubling fact  must be because IFCJ does a ‘much better job' of blessing Israel with the Christian donations than anyone else. That depends on what you think God wants Christian donations to Israel to do.

Let's review some of the facts.

Here is a quote from the late Rabbi Eckstein himself and expresses the position of IFCJ:

“… Until now,” Eckstein said, evangelicals “have realized that if they want to have relations with the Jewish community and Israel they have to put messianic groups aside because they know people like myself aren’t going to work with them …”

See how that statement separates Christians from their spiritual kin, the Israeli Messianic Jewish community? It also sets up Eckstein like IFCJ the only game in town.

Eckstein has gamed Christian good intentions toward Israel, but IFCJ is not the major artery that God intends for Christians to assist in ministering to the need in Israel. No sir. The major artery of material supply must be fed from within the body of Christ —meaning from the international Christians directly to the Israeli believer ministries for distribution to the needy in their own communities. 

IFCJ are not the only ones ministering to the needy of Israel, what's more, IFCJ are not ministering in the faith of Jesus either. For every type of outreach that IFCJ does, the Israeli Messianic congregations and ministries also do to the same with one big difference: they do it to the glory of Messiah Yeshua! 

Rabbi Eckstein died suddenly just a few weeks after the new HQ announcement was made, but his daughter, Yael, had been groomed for several years to take over. She has "inherited" the billion dollar charity which The Times of Israel noted "raises $130 million a year, mostly from evangelical Christians."

Imagine that amount financial support becoming the lifeblood of the Israeli Messianic congregations doing outreach among their people. The fact that it does not go to the body of Messiah in Israel brings one to consider how similar this is to the original entrance led by Joshua into the Promised Land "little by little".

Joshua, or Yehoshua, in Hebrew, was a forerunner type of Jesus (Yeshua) of the Jewish people entering the "Promised Land" of Israel. That is not the only parallel: Exodus 23:29 and Deuteronomy 7:22 may also give us a window into why more Christians are still not able to see God's intentions and join into the work of the ministry by the Israeli body of believers.

As the forerunner type, God told Moses ahead of Joshua's leading them into what would become Israel, that He was not enabling them to overcome the opposition "all at once" because that would cause "the wild beasts to multiply around you". Wild beasts indeed! Spiritual wild beasts that oppose the kingdom of the Lord coming to Israel!

There were 29 documented Jewish believers in Israel in 1948; 5 took the new Israeli government offer to relocate to other countries and 24 refused. From that humble beginning, in 2019 the numbers of Israeli Jews who believe in Yeshua has swelled to an estimated 20,000.

How is it with that kind of increase they are still such a hidden mystery even to the majority of the international church? Increasing this is changing as more and more in the international church are going to Israel specifically to connect with the believers in Israel. It is happening little by little, but should we not endeavor to help Israel-supporting Christians see how in throwing such heavy support to those who oppose the body of Messiah in Israel, that they are hurting Christ's cause in Israel, not helping it?

The late rabbi Eckstein died suddenly of a heart attack as 67. Just the day before he gave the last interview of his life saying some truly troubling things. The interview was given to The Jerusalem Report. It was only reported in Hebrew and was summarized in the Caspari Media Review of the Hebrew Press. In it Eckstein misrepresented New Covenant scriptures to bolster his own cause.

"Eckstein referred to Romans 9, where Paul wrote that Christians have been grafted into the olive tree of Israel by grace. This passage, said Eckstein, provides impetus for Christians to be involved in work that supports Israel and the Jewish people."

Caspari's summary from the same Hebrew news magazine article noted that "IFCJ has 1.6 million Christian donors, and has raised 1.4 billion dollars, mainly from Christians."

He also he said he had faced opposition both from the Haredi community, as well as Messianic Jews, who feel “they should be the ones to lead this movement of bridging Christians and Jews. And here we are, the largest organization with the biggest budget, and headed by a rabbi, even though most of our donors are Christians and we teach at Christian seminaries all over America.”

That statement is so grievous because it is not about a competition for donors as Eckstein saw it, but it is because it is God's plan to unite the Church with the Jewish believers in Israel.

The unsaved rabbi Eckstein twisted the meaning of the Romans passage. He was quite adept at appropriating New Covenant scriptures to suit his own purposes, but this passage was written by Paul to the believers in Rome. It was about how Christians were being "grafted in" by faith and to the faith of Jews who were the first to believe in Jesus — in great numbers of Jews according to the New Covenant.

Romans 9 was not about how Christians are grafted in to unsaved Israel, Paul laid out in great detail that unsaved Israel were the branches broken off because of their unbelief. Still today Christians are ONLY able to be grafted in to the saved branches of Israel. That is the only spiritual family ties we have in Israel, although our desire and heart is to help Israeli Jewish believers in all their labors to spread the Good News until "all Israel is saved". This is what Romans 9-11 is about, not at all how Rabbi Eckstein stated it.

How it must have grieved God's heart to hear the arrogance in Rabbi Eckstein's statement and even more so that because of how he has stood in opposition to God's stated plan for uniting Jew and Gentile in the Messiah.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has been so successful in isolating Jewish believers in Jesus from the Christians who desire to please God by helping Israel. Why do major Christian organizations still support IFCJ despite this fact?

Over the years as many have tried to speak to Christian donors to the IFCJ and sadly many responded by accusing the Messianic Jews of being jealous of Rabbi Eckstein. Those who have eternal life in Yeshua are jealous of the rabbi who does not?

Reality check: it is not a matter of being jealous over the billions of dollars that have been misdirected from those building the kingdom of God through sharing the gospel with Jews, it is about trying to wake Christians up that they are being led astray by those that are hostile to the Gospel.

The ultra-Orthodox community, or Haredi, are the most zealous persecutors of Israeli Jewish believers in Yeshua, but they were also opposed to Eckstein because they don't want Israel accepting any donations from Christians. They don't want Christians having anything to do with Jews. PERIOD. So, I hope you see that just because Rabbi Eckstein got opposition from Messianic Jews and ultra-Orthodox Jews alike, it doesn't make Christians giving to IFCJ right.

The ultra-Orthodox community, or Haredi, are the most zealous persecutors of Israeli Jewish believers in Yeshua, but they were also opposed to Eckstein because they don't want Israel accepting any donations from Christians. They don't want Christians having anything to do with Jews. PERIOD. So, I hope you see that just because Rabbi Eckstein got opposition from Messianic Jews and ultra-Orthodox Jews alike, it doesn't make Christians giving to IFCJ right. 

IFCJ has been pulling the wool over Christian eyes long enough. Here are some confirmed points to counter the most recent Charisma Standing with Israel article, submitted by The KAIROS Company: "Fellowship of Christians and Jews Calls for Emergency Assistance" 

• Rabbi Eckstein's salary with benefits totaled $1.2 million per year. That is DOUBLE what the president of World Vision—a ministry with a budget 10 times larger—earns.
• For every $1 raised 40¢ goes to fundraising & compensation
• Eckstein's daughter, who inherited IFCJ received a 63% Pay Raise in 4 Years! $206,491.00 to $292,248.00 to $324,500.00

In Eckstein's 1984 book, What Christians Should Know About Jews and Judaism, he mischaracterized Messianic Jews by accusing:

“… By sprinkling their Christian lives of faith with Jewish customs and rituals taken out of their proper, historic context, they pervert Jewish symbols and make a mockery of the Jewish faith … A Jew who accepts Jesus as Lord or Messiah effectively ceases to be a Jew. He is viewed almost treasonously as having abandoned his faith, given up his Jewish heritage, and severed all links with the Jewish peoplehood … More than constituting an imposing threat to Jewish life and survival, Hebrew Christians are the source of much of the Jewish distrust of Evangelicals and the discord in their relations …”

How could he charge Jews who believe in Jesus as "constituting an imposing threat to Jewish life and survival"? Is there anyone ever in history who has been more Jewish than Jesus? Isn't a Jew discovering the Jewishness of Yeshua the best thing that could ever happen to a Jew —or to any person, for that matter?

The real tragedy is that so many Christians have believed every twisted thing that Rabbi Eckstein has told them to put Jews who believe in Jesus in the worst possible light — as if they are enemies of the Jewish people rather than the truth of who are and what they are in the plan of God.

Now IFCJ leadership has set its sights on capturing the hearts and donations of the next generation of Christians too. For as long as they are successful in this mission, they are strangling the lifeblood of Christian financial assistance to the hundreds of congregations and ministries across Israel who are declaring the faith of Yeshua to all Israel. We have to help them. We must. —Donna Diorio

Lest anyone believe this is a personal attack on the late Rabbi Eckstein and his daughter who now heads the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, it is not. IFCJ is not the only organization that is causing a major bypass of Christian donations from reaching those spiritually mandated with reaching all Israel with the gospel, namely the saved Remnant of Israel.
 
As a friend and major leader in the Israeli Messianic leadership asked, "Don’t you think a lot of these Christians think that Jews are almost saved already?" He observed that even pre-Trib Christians "used to believe that if Jews died without Jesus they would go to hell, so what about all the Jews who die before the tribulation?  There is something fishy going on."

Those scales aren't fishy, but serpentine.

Please share this article with your friends and pray for eyes to be opened to the truth of this matter.

The GREATest AWAKENING

The Greatest Awakening: Every couple of years I hear about a known figure in the faith predicting a coming Great Awakening in the Church and in the world with millions coming into a massive revival of faith. As much as that sounds wonderful, Yes! and amen, I do not expect to see that BEFORE I see an equal revival sweep Israel.

Only by disregarding the signs of the times can Christians believe they are going to have worldwide revival while Israel remains the same. You may not believe that, obviously many of you don't or you would be helping the Israeli Messianic Jews reach their people with the Good News of the Messiah's identity.

As the Apostle Paul told us (the Romans), 11:14-15 "... in the hope that I may provoke my own people to jealousy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their receiving of the kingdom of be if not life from the dead?"

Keep it context: Paul is talking about their rejection of the kingdom of the LORD meaning reconciliation extended of the world. He is not switching gears when he says that when Israel receives the kingdom by faith in Yeshua it is going to mean an outpouring of spiritual life to the whole world, not just to Israel. It is a given that Israel will experience life from the dead, but that's not what Paul is talking about: he is saying when Israel receives the kingdom of the LORD it will send parallel waves of revival across the world.

The acceptance by the Jews of Yeshua will mean life from dead for the world. That is not talking about the resurrection of the saints, that is talking about spiritual life from the dead for the unsaved in the nations.

There is a direct parallel of Israel coming to the knowledge of the LORD in the last days, and the church experiencing a worldwide revival like we have never seen before. If the Church wants a great revival to sweep our nations, we better start wanting it for Israel in earnest, so fulfilling our duty (Romans 15:27).— Donna Diorio

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, It's All but Forgotten

by Donna Diorio,
Holocaust Remembrance Day 2019

I never cared about history classes in high school but when we hit World War II in my junior year, something ignited in me and I was all over it. I was vitally interested and bringing down the best grades I ever had in history. My teacher wondered what got into me I'll bet.

I didn't really know why either, but I couldn't get enough of it. This was OUR history and I felt it even more strongly than when we studied the Alamo in Texas history classes. In school I was not into anything that did not seem to me that it would be useful in my life...like diagramming sentences, or world history.

Little did I know what would become useful to me in life, but at least the schools attempted to teach us. I believe I'm on solid ground in saying that the schools are not teaching about the Holocaust anymore and that is good reason why so many are ignorant about it less than 100 years after the fact.

In 2018 a CNN/ComRes poll interviewed more than 7,000 people across Europe with 1,000 respondents each in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Poland and Sweden. ONE THIRD OF THEM SAID THEY KNEW JUST A LITTLE OR NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST.

The mass murder of some six million Jews in lands controlled by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s, and 1-in-20 had never even heard about it, while in Austria where Hitler was born, only 12% of 18 to 34's had never heard of the Holocaust.

US polls show that Americans are in no better shape: 10% of American adults were not sure they’d ever heard of the Holocaust, rising to one in five millennials. Half of all millennials could not name a single concentration camp, and 45% of all American adults failed to do so.

Writer and philosopher George Santayana famously said, ""Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

To remember history, one has to be taught history. Why do you suppose the people who have dominated Academia and school text books over the past 30 to 40 years have ceased to teach two generations of our young people about the Holocaust? In light of the anti-Semitism that has risen among us in this past decade, along with the false narratives of anti-Israel Islamists which even infects a good deal of the Church. do you not see how this leading us down a path of destruction?

If the schools will not teach accurately about the Holocaust or about the truth of the Palestinian aggression against Israel, then it is our responsibility to teach our own generations the truth. The facts don't care about feelings or narratives. Speak the truth on these matters and save your own generations from making the worst mistakes this generation can make in choosing the anti-God side of history.

After the Holocaust, the Jewish people adopted a motto, "Never Again" which meant they would educate the world on what happened in the attempted genocide of the Jewish people led by Hitler. It also meant they would not be passively led off to gas chambers again like they were in Hitler's reign when six million Jews were murdered.

It was not just Hitler's blind hatred and scapegoating that murdered those sic million Jews, it was also the ignorance and apathy of all the peoples who allowed it.

It is the unfortunate truth that for all their efforts the "Never Again" vow is not strong enough to hold back what anyone with a clear eye can see coming down the pike again. 

I choose to be on God's side, which is not on the side of those who set themselves against the Jews or against Israel. It is really just that simple. Choose now because everyone will have to choose at some point soon.

Brexit and Beyond | by Arni Klein in the Galilee

by Arni Klein in the Galilee

April 24, 2019 | Our last writing included a section dealing with some issues surrounding Brexit. Since then a remarkable piece of the puzzle has been added. The powers in the EU have given the British Prime Minister a final date by which this matter must be settled…October 31, 2019. At first glance, most will associate the date with Halloween. Given all the occult elements associated with the EU, how fitting that they would choose the one day universally connected with the world of darkness. There is, however, another side to the picture. October 31st also commemorates a convergence of three world-changing events of a very different nature.

     - On October 31,1517 Martin Luther stood against the prevailing religious system and re-established the fact that salvation is obtained through what Yeshua did and not by works.  Luther’s actions put Yeshua, the Son of God, into His proper place before the Church. In that same year, the Ottoman Turks took control over the Land of Israel.

     - On October 31,1917, exactly 400 years to the day from the Reformation, the ANZAC (Australia/New Zealand Army Corps) Light Horse Brigade overran the Turks at Beer Sheva, opening the way for the return of the Jews to the Land.

     - On October 31,1917 the British Parliament approved the Balfour Declaration, calling forth the establishment of a national Jewish homeland in “Palestine.”  They paved the way for Jewish aliyah (immigration).  On this very same day, the legislators passed the edict and the military opened the door.

     - Also, for the record… on October 31,1940, the British victory over Nazi forces was the first major German defeat in World War II and a crucial turning point in the conflict.

On what we might term an initial level, the UK coming out of the EU is about preserving Britain’s sovereignty and identity. It’s about getting out of a bad social and economic situation. Such is the perspective held by the Brits desiring to leave. (Our British friend has produced a second video that is perhaps even more stirring than the first, which received 110,000 views.

Looking from a spiritual standpoint reveals quite another dimension. We suggest that it was not by the will of men that the League of Nations entrusted the British with a mandate to oversee Palestine. Neither was the Balfour declaration conceived in the heart of man. Considering that the presence and influence of the British Empire covered about one third of the globe, it gives cause to wonder that all the above was planned and orchestrated by God.

     If so, then by Divine choosing Great Britain was positioned, equipped, called and commissioned to be the agency among the nations to facilitate the return of the children of Israel from exile to their ancient homeland. Sadly, in 1939, by the will of man, the mandate expressed in the Balfour Declaration was set aside as the British government preferred that the land bearing God’s name would be occupied by the children of Ishmael. The result of their choice meant that immigration to Palestine was not to be an option for the multitude of Jews fleeing Nazi gas chambers. Who can know how many could have been saved? Taking into account all the British protectorates, it could have been millions. From this point the history of Great Britain took a sharp downward turn.

     For decades the German people and government have borne the weight of responsibility for the Holocaust. Four generations later, German youth still identify with the shame of their ancestors. Their response has been decidedly more than emotional or symbolic. German youth have the option of doing their required national service in Israel. More than half of all non-Jewish volunteers come from Germany. This is not surprising, given the history.

     In recent years God has been stirring believers in the UK to recognize and own the deeds of their ancestors. A simple fact that many have not yet realized is that the current darkness sweeping over their nation is simply reaping what has been sown. Not only is the Empire long gone, but the British Isles and London itself are currently being overrun by the very people and spirit to which they chose to give God’s Land. Is this not the epitome of Divine reaping and sowing? Until the root has been healed the tree will continue to be filled with rotten fruit.

     In the past few years, as we have personally engaged with brethren in the UK, we are impressed that a growing number are aware of the importance of Israel and are waking up to the need to set things right. Though Germany’s part in the war understandably overshadows whatever anyone else did or didn’t do, much remains to lay at the feet of other nations. It seems that among that group, the UK might just occupy the top slot. If the UK had remained faithful to the spirit and promise of the Balfour Declaration and their Mandate, perhaps a million Jewish lives would have been saved. One British friend put forth the matter quite simply. Who is worse? The one that set the house on fire, or the one that locked the door?

Coming back to the October 31st deadline with the thought that it was God that chose the date, there is a striking similarity to former events in Germany. The Holocaust was set into full motion on November 9, 1938 when a word went forth out of Munich’s City Hall for Nazi troops to destroy Jewish property all throughout Germany. It became known as “Kristallnacht" -- the night of broken glass. Years after the end of the war, a wall was erected dividing east and west Germany.  Whatever the political reasons might have been, its crippling of the nation was seen by many as God’s judgment for Germany’s actions in the war.

     On November 9, 1989, as a result of a misunderstanding on the part of a Russian border guard, the Berlin Wall was suddenly opened, and the country was reunited. German believers acknowledge the hand of God. If so, it was surely done for a reason. Why would God choose a day whose mere remembrance elicits such pain and sorrow to reunify the nation? As it was a most unlikely day for such a thing, and the occurrence was rather supernatural, we are given to conclude that God wanted to give an unmistakable message to the German people as to the purpose for which He was reuniting the nation.

     Undoubtedly it had to do with Israel. It was a call to the German people to go beyond asking forgiveness out of guilt and shame. It was a rhema declaration of Isaiah 62:1-7 -- to give themselves no rest until Jerusalem is a praise in the earth.  In that light, we believe that God chose October 31st for the final execution of Brexit to give the Body of Messiah and people of the UK a message. His purpose in delivering the people of the UK from the demonic, anti-Semitic, controlling influence of the EU is that Britain might be free to fulfill its Divine mandate to facilitate the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel.

Exodus Then and Now | The Exodus of Israel from slavery was also about more than being delivered from a bad situation. God chose to bring them out in a moment determined by factors apart from their suffering. He had told Abraham, “Your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years…. But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” (Gen.15:13,16) The deliverance would come when the iniquity of the inhabitants reached the point of judgment. God was bringing them into the Land to prepare it for His dwelling place. They were to cleanse the Land of the iniquity of the Canaanites and fill it with praise and worship. Unfortunately, it was evident from the way the Israelites acted that they thought that He was doing it for them and consequently they did not fully cleanse the Land.

     The dynamics of the birth of the nation of Israel relate to our born-again experience individually and corporately. The importance of having the right perspective cannot be overstated. The way we perceive our salvation, whether we see it moving in a particular direction or as something static and complete in itself essentially determines how we will relate to what follows for the rest of our life -- namely, whether our central reference point will be God or ourselves. 

     However we might relate to Israel’s failure to complete what they were given to do, the fact is that it still remains to be done. For the last 2000 years, the focus of those that call on His name has basically been about individuals being saved and growing in the knowledge of God. It seems we have missed a particular aspect of being grafted into the cultivated olive tree and partaking of the commonwealth of Israel. Some, however, have recognized, as written in Romans 11:11, that the gentiles became custodians of the revelation of salvation for the ultimate purpose of the salvation of Israel.

     The Israelites had grown up in Egypt. It was all they knew. As hard as their life was, it was likely they wouldn’t have been particularly excited to head out into the desert with three million others. There is no way they could fathom finding enough food and water. For some, anything was better than slavery. For others, not so. Having witnessed God’s miraculous acts did not translate into knowing God and having an assurance for the future. Their orientation was set in the frame of coming out. They were understandably not tuned to what they were being brought into or why. Consequently, as they stood at the entrance to the Land, they were not prepared or able to enter.

     God’s ultimate purpose is the same, whether pertaining to individuals or nations. It has not changed since the beginning. His calling on the nations is connected with His calling on Israel. The meaning of being grafted in, becoming part of the commonwealth of Israel, i.e. commonly sharing and bearing all things with them is clear and simple enough. We are created to be and prepare a dwelling place for Him. Individually it’s about our heart, and corporately it’s about the place He has chosen -- the Land He gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their descendants -- the Land of Israel.

Germany and the UK have this message engraved and woven into their national histories. Please do not mistake the emphasis we have placed on these two nations. We cite them as examples, and not as those having a different calling. In Isaiah 62:6-7, God is speaking to the whole of the gentile body of believers. Perhaps the message is more timely for the UK in this moment. As the British believers are looking to God to bring them out, perhaps their lining up with God’s purpose might have a bearing on the outcome. Is it not high time that we all get beyond what we have been saved from and enter into what we have been saved for? What might true repentance look like? 

Beyond absolution from guilt, the goal is nothing less than to right the wrong, wherever possible. Germany and Great Britain are directly responsible for decreasing the number of the children of Israel. If not for their actions and inactions, the Land of Israel would have many more souls praising and worshiping preparing the way of the Lord. There is a gap to be filled. This fact is not just for the Body of Messiah in the two nations mentioned. It is an awareness to be held and responded to by all those who are called by His name.

     Arise therefore, you who have been grafted into Zion. Step into the gap and close the breach. Make up for what is lacking. For the sake of His name, even in the name of those who perished, present yourselves as living sacrifices. The passage in Romans 12:1-2, which perhaps is the foremost call to worship in the New Testament, is written to be the response to Paul’s greatest exposition and exhortation on the place of Israel and the calling of the nations. Therefore, he says, in light of what you have just read, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to the Lord. This is your reasonable service of worship.

Arni Klein in the Galilee  Emmaus Way http://www.emmausway.org/ Kleinfax  ewisrael@emmausway.org