A Visitation of Jesus in Israel

One of my subscribers was trying to access an article I wrote in 2006 on my website, but couldn't because the website was down (I still don't know for sure why).  But I did have the article in my documents file and thought it might be good to revisit it here.

A Visitation of Jesus in Israel
by Donna Diorio

March 14, 2006

If Jesus came down for an encouragement visitation with His kinsmen in Israel, He wouldn't head straight for the Israelis that Christians seem to think of when we think about supporting Israel. Yeshua would meet with His disciples - the same as He did after He was resurrected and appeared to them before ascending to the Father.

As soon as He arrived Jesus would head off first to meet with His followers who have been enduring the most persecution, like the Jewish believers in Beer Sheva and Arad; His Druse disciples in village of Maghar; or the Arab Bible Society that recently shut down under bomb threat from masked gunmen in Gaza.   

Jesus would probably soon afterwards want to go up to Jerusalem (and over to Jaffa) to meet with students and teachers who are in discipleship training for a new generation of spiritual leaders in Israel.   He would want to quickly get out to the desert, as well, to one of the youth events for teenage believers.  Jesus would want to encourage the teens to hold steady in their faith in the midst of overwhelming peer pressure and to have great confidence about His plan for their lives.
 
While in the Negev, He would also delight in blessing one of the many Israeli Jewish and Arab believers ‘desert encounters’ that come together to overcome their mutual woundedness and to deepen their relationships with each other in Him. Jesus would be eager to meet with all the groups and individuals who are reaching out of their comfort zone to walk in reconciliation with former enemies, now brothers in Him.  It would bless Him as much as them to be able to attend one of the multi-congregational Jewish and Palestinian picnics held each year in the north at one of the national forests.  (How it blesses Him when brothers dwell in unity!)

Back in Jerusalem, Jesus would be far more likely to hang out with young people at the JAMM or to head over to lead a night watch in the 24/7 intercession at Succat Hallel than He would be to mingle with the ‘religious’ in the Old City.  He would also want to get over toTel Aviv to hang out at the Dugit Coffee Shop and talk 'God stuff' with people who drop in for follow up conversations after encountering street ministries outside.  He would probably stop off at several ministries and congregations along the highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, just to say, “Hi” and “Keep up the good works.”
 
Jesus would love being around all the young (and some not so young!) believers witnessing at the believer's booth at the giant annual New Age festival.  He would certainly want to meet with all His followers who are serving Him and their country in the Israeli Defense Forces.  (He is the Commander of the Armies of the Lord, after all.)

Jesus would want to travel up the Mediterranean coastline visiting all the congregations and house groups of believers along the way in Netanya, Kiryat Yam, Haifa, Acco and Nahariyya.  Surely He would want to revisit the congregation in His hometown of Nazareth.  (It was just established last year and there has not been a Messianic Jewish congregation in Nazareth for a very long time.)  Maybe Jesus would even want to walk out for a time of intercessory prayer for religious zealots when He visited his old home town.  The hill in Nazareth where their ancient counterparts had tried to push Him off the cliff would be a perfect place for that intercession.  He could pray there for all His followers in Israel today who are targeted by the religious for His name’s sake.

From there Jesus would undoubtedly travel over toward Tiberias and to the Sea of Galilee where He spent so many wonderful hours teaching the common folk in the rolling countryside that surrounds the sea.  (Once again after these two thousand years He has many followers who meet to worship Him throughout this region.)
 
From Ariel to Eilat, and from Mt Carmel to Ashkelon, Jesus would travel throughout Eretz Israel blessing and strengthening new believers and seasoned servants, both young and old—all 10,000 Israeli believers scattered throughout the land.  There is no doubt that if Jesus chose to return to Israel for just a quick visit to encourage His people to do His will, it would be His body, His followers that He would visit.

Many of the prophets, hearing that Jesus was in the Holy Land for a quick visit with His people, would miss seeing Him altogether. 
 
That might sound surprising but the reason they would miss Him is because so many are convinced that Jesus would be hanging out with the same ones they like to rub elbows with. (Isn’t it just too cool to talk to a rabbi or a Knesset member?) 
 
Hearing that Jesus was making a visitation to Israel to encourage His kinsmen, the prophets would likely all flock to Temple Mount first.  They would expect that Jesus would want to come and make His feelings known about the usurpers at the Dome of Rock.  (Well, after all, He overturned the tables of the money changers in the Temple, didn't He?) 

Actually Jesus probably wouldn't even bother visiting that particular area.  There is a time and season for every visitation, and the season for Him to visit the Temple Mount is not here yet. He also wouldn't go visit the Knesset or the Sanhedrin—not because He doesn't care about those Jews, but because the purpose of this visitation would be to build up His body in Israel for the work of the ministry.  Besides, proclaiming the gospel to the un-believers is the job of the believers.  That is their purpose; He is just visiting to encourage the believers in their purpose.
 
Some of the prophets would expect Jesus to go visit 'the righteous' in Mea Shearim, but His visitation to Israel would be about encouraging His followers who are running with His Father’s vision.
 
Jesus would not go over to the Mea Shearim neighborhood where Yeshiva boys "enforce" the Sabbath on a Friday night by angrily pelting rocks at the cars of the seculars that drive past.  He wouldn't travel down into one of the ultra-pious enclaves in the Negev Desert to sit in on strategy meetings with the locals and anti-missionary groups like Yad L'Achim. (He’d have already visited with their intended victims in His first stop in Israel.  You know, just to strengthen them with much needed grace for being partakers in the fellowship of His sufferings.)

If the Israeli government was dismantling another settlement like Amona while Jesus was visiting—in spite of what many Christian Zionists may think--He wouldn't don an orange tee shirt and head for the protest site!  Some of us might link arms with the "Greater Israel" protesters hardened in violent resistance of a legal government eviction but Jesus wouldn’t take part in it.  He isn't worried about losing ground; His concern is with not losing sheep.  (Jesus is convinced in the wisdom and integrity of the Father's plan and promise to restore Israel's borders. He also knows the fulfillment of “Greater Israel” certainly doesn't rest on the strength or righteousness of Israel's un-believing religious right wing, or the strength of their un-believing political right wing, for that matter!)

If Jesus came to visit Israel today--just a short visitation to encourage and strengthen His kinsmen for the days ahead—who He visited would surely be a big shocker for many believers around the world. Jesus would just not go to the places or seek out the people so many of us are convinced that He would.  No, He would head straight for ones it seems most of the believers worldwide have pretty much overlooked. He would head straight for His followers, His own body in Israel. 

You know what I'm talking about right?  Jesus is "the head" and we are His "feet" walking out His witness and will on the earth?  You know, "Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me." 
 
Jesus has "feet" in Israel, a "body" who bear witness of Him.  The body of believers in Israel is His own hidden treasure like He spoke about in Matthew 13:33, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.”   That is even their mission, to be like yeast hidden in the midst of dough that causes the whole batch to begin to rise until it is ready to be baked into bread.  (They are supposed to be hidden from their countrymen, not us!  Are we spiritually blind too?)
 
Jesus’ body in Israel—I am talking about the believers who call upon the name of Yeshua—are the hidden blessing in the midst of a strife torn land.  They are the ones upon whom the preservation of Israel rests, because the blessing of God is granted to the nations for the sake of His faithful remnant within them:   

“As the new wine is found in the cluster,
    And one says, ‘Do not destroy it,
    For a blessing is in it,’
    So will I do for My servants’ sake,
    That I may not destroy them all.

    I will bring forth descendants from Jacob,
    And from Judah an heir of My mountains;
    My elect shall inherit it,
    And My servants shall dwell there.
       Isaiah 65:8-9
 
If Jesus came to visit Israel today, just to walk around and encourage His kinsmen, He would make His way around to all His shepherds, the congregational leaders.  He would go to the evangelists and the street witnesses.  He would meet with the worship ministries and psalmists who make music in name of Yeshua; and with the intercessory prayer groups that meet throughout the Land. 
 
Jesus would make it a point to lift up the arms of those who are ministering humanitarian aid to terror victims and to those passing out food and clothing to the poor.  He would meet with un-salaried ministries that raise their own support (from donations in their former nations) just to be able to minister His life to broken families and wounded individuals.  (Just because many minister on staff with a congregation in Israel sure doesn’t mean they get a paycheck! He would want to bless them for their sacrificial service to Him.)
 
Jesus would go round to the many offices set up by His believers to minister to women with unwanted pregnancies offering them a way to live with their choice. He would be eager to impart even more compassion to those ministering to the homeless, the alcoholics, the druggies and the others who are used and abused by themselves and by others.  He would want to speak grace upon those ministering care to the elderly, and also to those teaching new believer parents how to “raise up their children in the Way they should go.” 

Jesus would want to meet with all these believers whose citizenship is not only Israeli, but also Heavenly.   All these spiritual brothers and sisters would be the ones Jesus would want to see first, to bless first, to speak grace and shalom to first. 

But Jesus is not going to come down from heaven to earth again to encourage the saints in Israel. Why not?  Because He has already made provision for reaching out to every single Israeli believer we have mentioned here. 
 
Do you see it Church?  We are His feet; we are His body in the earth.  It is our job to do this in the same way He would.  Do you see that we should go to encourage the same ones He would?  It is going to take our feet to go around and encourage, uplift and generally build up His body in the Land of Israel. 
 
You know the saying, “What would Jesus do?”
 
This is what Jesus would do regarding the support of His family in Israel. They are the believers, His spiritual kin.  If we build them up for the work of the ministry, all Israel will be saved.

Love Never Fails

Nice art.  It goes with something I was thinking about when I woke up this morning, the verse in 1 Corinthians 13, that love never fails.  My perception of that has always been that 'love wins' or 'love does not lose'.  So I looked it up this morning to see if that is the true flavor of the word 'lose' in the original language.

What I found was that the kind of love Paul was talking to the Corinthians about was the kind of love that once you have it, you cannot lose it.  This is love that does not fall out of love. It is love that it is not possible to fall down from or fall off of.  It is love that is in such a steady place that it is not possible to fall from a place which one cannot keep this love.  It is love with a power that cannot fall powerless - it will never fall to the ground, or be rendered powerless.

This is the kind of love that the LORD gives us, but it is also the kind of love that He desires us to pursue with people in our lives – that we would be perfected in love. 

When I looked at the rest of verse 8, love was contrasted to prophecy, tongues and knowledge.  In each of those a different kind of "fail" was being expressed in the original language.  The fail these things are another word entirely; this "fail" means something that will cease, something that will be deprived of force, influence, power.

Corinthians 13:8 is the proof text that many use to say that gifts of the Spirit are no longer available to believers.  That is not what I believe and is not my point. 

Rather, in it I see the apostle spelling out our priority system to the Corinthians.  He is saying to believers, of all the spiritual things you pursue, be sure to put learning to love like He loves you at the top of your pursuit.

Everything else has a shelf life, but those who pursue learning how to love like God will take that into eternity with them.

No matter what happens in a person's life, love will not fail to find compassion for others.  When we mature in God’s kind of love will be stirred no matter how someone else has screwed up.  It is a flame that cannot be put out by many waters under the bridge. 

In Ephesians 4:13 Paul tells us about the "perfect" that is coming when the prophecy, tongues and knowledge spiritual gifts will come to the end of their usefulness.  It is the time with the Body of Messiah/Christ has come to the unity of the faith and to the knowledge of the Son of God. 

We the Messiah’s Body in the earth, as a whole, will understand the LORD's purposes for us so completely that we will genuinely reflect Yeshua's love.  As a whole, we will be the one new man - that maturity into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ/Messiah, which is God's purpose for us. 

We will love one another.  That right there is enough to cause many to believe it is mission impossible.

I believe in the reality that this is what it is all about from God’s perspective. Many of my good and spiritual friends do not believe it will ever be possible for humankind to ever so put on Messiah/Christ as a Body, that this could be possible on this side of eternity.  But I believe that is exactly the testimony of scripture as to God's purposes in Messiah Yeshua.

Often I fail to love the way God loves me but coming up to this level is at least in my sights.  It is the fixed point of my mission horizon.  No matter what the challenges we face in our lives, the opposition is aimed at making our love for others, hence our love for God to fail.  This is the battle, so let us fight the good fight with the God kind of love which is incapable of failing.

Love never fails.

By Donna DiorioIsrael Prayer Dot Com    arrowsfromzion@gmail.com or donna@d10r10.com 

2013 Prophetic: A Coming Shift

by Donna Diorio
Because of a good word I heard from Joel Osteen's service yesterday proclaiming that a shift was coming when the things that hadn't budged in a long time were suddenly going to shift overnight, I realized that "a coming shift" is the key phrase I've been picking up by the prophets over the last few weeks. Joel Osteen is not someone I would think of in connection to the word prophet, and he himself even said as much, but clearly he was also impressed by the prophetic nature of what he was speaking.

Now, as far as the prophets, I'm not one that follows after particular prophets. This one has a word that resonates with me, and then that one does - and in between times they couldn't be any further apart in what they are seeing for us. This troubles me, so I take a guarded approach to prophecy. If it registers, I listen; if it doesn't, I don't. 

One thing I know about prophets and prophecy is something I heard Asher Intrater speak last decade at an Israel gathering at Mike Bickle's KC-IHOP. Asher was addressing the fact that true prophets were all over the place with their prophecies because they did not know what the end game is.

If you don't know where God's plan is supposed to end up then your trajectory of prayer and prophetic understanding is going to be off. That's why we have prophetic words all over the map. There is an essence of the word that is true, but all prophecy is interpreted through the current understanding of the prophet so the prophets may all be shooting in the same GENERAL direction, but not zeroing in on the bull's eye of God's intentions.

God has been restoring truths, gifts and ministry offices back to the Body. Starting with Martin Luther's revelation that salvation is a free gift of grace by faith, God is restoring all that we lost so quickly after the first century A.D.   All the Divine benefits are being restored to a Body that is being matured to handle them. The five-fold offices are also being restored. 

Now here's a second thing that I know: Although the gift of prophecy and the office of prophet has been restored, it has not reached the equilibrium of Divine stability.  It cannot until the prophets lay hold of the significance of Israel in God's grand plan, and specifically the significance of the role the Israeli Body of Messiah plays toward that end.

So, we have many who think of themselves as apostles, but the place where God raised up and established the apostolic office in multiple men, is Israel. They came from different parts of the country but Jerusalem was where the counseled/council-ed together for the believers in Israel and the nations. Until the apostolic office is restored in Jerusalem, I do not expect to see a mature expression of the office of apostle in the rest of the nations - certainly not in terms of wide general acceptance of the validity of the office.

It will take the acceptance of the significance of those Israeli Messianic 'our-generation' apostles and what they have to share before those apostles in the nations come into their full stature. It is the same thing with prophets.

Here it is in a nutshell: The Church is not operating independent of what God is doing ultimately in Israel through the Body of Messiah in Israel. The Church cannot fulfill the vision of completeness and harvest apart from entering into the vision that God has for the restoration of the LORD's Body in the nation of Israel.

When the prophets and the apostles of the nations embrace the Kingdom vision of the Body in Israel, then the prophets will begin to see their trajectory zero in accurately. When the apostles of the nations begin to esteem the apostles of the Body in Israel and what they bring to the table spiritually, then the office of the apostles in the worldwide Body will begin to firm up, established by God in the eyes of the saints. 

Not until. The Church will not get to the end without embracing God's purposes in the Israeli Body of Messiah.

"For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. . . .For if thou were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?" Rom 11:16, 24

Christian Giving "to bless" Israel

Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed BY the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their generosity. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints'.   2 Cr 8:1-4

“Whoever keeps the fig tree

will eat its fruit”

4 out 6 New Testament references to "the poor" are made by Paul speaking specifically of the donations he was raising among all the churches to deliver to the BELIEVERS in Jerusalem.   (Ro 15:26, 1 Cor 16:1, 15; 2 Cor 9:1; & 9:12-13)  The donations from the churches were collected over at least a 3-year period and when it came time to take it to Jerusalem with ambassadors of the churches in tow, the prophets came out to make it clear that Paul would sacrifice his freedom to deliver it.  There is great spiritual opposition to establishing the Church in support of the Kingdom vision of building the body of Messiah in Israel.

Most people think the apostle was encouraging Christians to give to the generic poor, but Paul was very specifically urging Christians to intervene in the poor circumstances of the Jews who follow Jesus in Israel. What's more, this is not something that was just for that day. It is positively, absolutely the necessity today. When the Church wakes up to this and quits lavishing donations on the anti-saints of Israel, then we are going to see an explosion of salvation in Israel. It takes financial resources to minister a vision as big as "all Israel shall be saved."

The whole 8th chapter of 2 Corinthians is the apostle to the Gentiles discussing Christian giving to the Body of the LORD in Israel. It is not about generic giving to the poor, but specifically about what he called in Romans 15:27 the "duty" of the Christian churches to minister to the material needs of their spiritual brothers - the believers in Jesus in Israel.

The parameters of this giving is spelled out in 2 Cor 8: For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened; but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack--that there may be equality. 2Cr 8:13-14

And in this I give advice: It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago; but now you also must complete the doing of it; that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have. 2Cr 8:10-12

Today, the truth is that most Christians who give donations to Israel do so in an un-biblical way. They donate to and through the unsaved in Israel, the traditional rabbis who oppose the gospel and vehemently oppose the Jews who profess faith in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). Or they give to the unsaved government leadership projects. Or they give to Zionist settler groups using often ungodly tactics in attempting to possess the Land.

Whether it is the unsaved rabbi building bomb shelters or "blessing" the chief rabbi of the city who has threatened to run the local Messianic congregation out of town, MOST Christian to "bless Israel" does NOT support the Kingdom purposes of God in Israel.

Both of these examples are what major Christian Israel-supporting ministers have actually done not knowing any better.  That is why the ideal avenue of donating to bless Israel should be to donate through the spiritual leaders of the Jesus-followers in Israel who possess knowledge of the best places to plant your seed in Israel.  The un-saved simply cannot represent the interests of Jesus in Israel.  

Unfortunately, most Christians giving to Israel through unsaved avenues REFUSE to listen to the truth of the matter. No one is going to tell them they aren't doing good by Israel.

Good deeds are not the same as God deeds. Wake up, Church and start giving to build the Kingdom of God's dear Son in Israel.

"delivered from them that do not believe in Judea"

By Donna Diorio
January 2013

"For it pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. It pleased them indeed, and they are their debtors. For if the Gentiles have been partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister to them in material things."
Romans 15:26-27

It was about 1992 when the Holy Spirit began to reveal to me the scriptures that now motivate my ministry on behalf of the Israeli Body of Messiah. That is when I really got hold of the special "duty" of Christians to minister to the material needs of the Israeli believers.  I wrote what the Spirit had given me to a sabra Israeli ministry who was a pastor at Francis Frangipane's Cedar Rapids, Iowa church, and Reuven Doron included it in his groundbreaking book, One New Man. The whole first half of chapter 16, "The Poor in Jerusalem" is near verbatim what I wrote to him in a letter. 

Doron's ministry was instrumental in opening my eyes to the Israeli Messianic Jewish ministries because he put focus on them like no other ministry I had ever seen.  As God continued to reveal significant passages of related scripture to me, my own emphasis began to shift to the believers in Israel and my understanding grew.  Over the years at different times God has opened my eyes to the scriptures in the New Testament that relate to how the Church is supposed to be joined to the Body in Israel by supporting the ministries, materially in donations but also standing with them in brotherly moral support.

I found that analogy of the Word being like hidden treasure that one had to patiently mine to be true. Or maybe it is like Hansel and Gretel, I was following a trail of 'bread' crumbs because truly when I have found new insight into to this topic, it has been a surprise find along the way. The truth about what Paul was doing on that last trip to Jerusalem, the repeated emphasis he put to the churches to collect donations to minister to "the poor" and "the saints" in Jerusalem - these came as gifts with the Holy Spirit connecting the dots for me, no great brilliance on my part!  Those verses suddenly came off the page with Holy Spirit highlighting.

Over the years trying to communicate these things to others has been my challenge. That saying about a calf at a new gate comes to mind because there are two major views among the Church about Israel and neither one of them regards the Israeli Body of Messiah as a significant fact.

I have said all that to say this: The Holy Spirit just opened my eyes once again to a real nugget. As I was looking up scriptures about "saints" I saw this with new eyes for the first time. Paul is speaking in Romans 15 of delivering an offering to the believers in Israel from the churches in Macedonia and Achaia.

"That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea;
and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints."

The clear meaning of this is that Paul is telling the believers in Rome that he knows he is going to need to be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea in order to get the donations from the Macedonia and Achaian churches to the SAINTS - the BODY of Messiah in Israel.  Same difference today.  The book of the Acts of the Apostles did not end, it has just skipped ahead nearly 2,000 years and resumed. 

The action in Israel has taken up where it left off – with religious opposition to the gospel.  This time however, Paul says confidently in Romans 11:26-27, “And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob, For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins."

If you are a Christian typically ignoring the SAINTS in Israel and blessing those that do not believe in Israel, you have smooth sailing. You will even enjoy special relationship with Israeli government leaders and some of the rabbis of traditional Judaism. If you turn your back on the SAINTS in Messiah, then unsaved Israel will surely reward you with entrance into audience with them. Just sell out the believers and you can brag about what high levels of the Israeli government doors are open to your ministry.

If you make your stand with the Body in Israel, the saints of the Messiah, then those Israeli doors of favor will begin to close on you. Many who have desired to feel special to Israel have succumbed to this temptation to be highly favored by Israeli government officials and traditional rabbis.  In truth it is the man-pleasing route, not the God-pleasing way.  

Hopefully, God will open the spiritual eyes of even the major Christian Israel-touting ministries to see how this undermines Yeshua's kingdom building in Israel, and also how ignoring the existence of the Israeli Messianic Body of Messiah actually encourages religious zealots to further persecute believers in Jesus. 

Some mostly diaspora Messianic Jews are guilty of the same thing seeking recognition and acceptance from the Tribe rather than oneness of the Body.

When it is obvious to unbelieving Jews that the Church cares that little for the Israeli Jewish believers, it makes it much easier to act against believers with impunity.   Harassment, persecution, firebombings. Like the apostle Paul before his encounter with risen Messiah on the road to Damascus, the religious opposition to the 15,000 believers in Israel is “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”  (Acts 9:1)

That’s not a sign that the Jews will never come to the LORD; the fact that they will is laid out clearly by the apostle Paul .  It is amazing that the truth is hidden in plain sight, yet even people who love the LORD can read over lengthy passages like Romans 9-15 without grasping the plain truth of those three chapters.  “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.”

The supporting passages of what Paul reveals of this mystery occur in Acts and in his letters to the various churches regarding raising donations for the support of the Israeli Body, and in his Ephesians writing on “one new man”. 

So, I also want to make a secondary application of the Romans 15:31 verse.  Those of us who are trying to awaken the Church to our brethren in Israel so they can better fulfill this mission to be witnesses in Judea and Samaria, we also run into those who "do not believe in Judea".

These are the Christians who don't believe that Israel is any different from any other nation since Jesus opened salvation to all the nations, or that there is any exceptional need to support ministry or evangelism to Israeli Jews.

They do not believe in Judea.

They believe God has abandoned any exceptional purpose or role for the Jews and the nation of Israel in His ongoing plan of salvation for mankind.  I'll tell you something, they may not persecute the believers like the unbelievers within Israel do, but the level of spiritual dismissiveness is extremely harmful and hurtful on many levels. 

The apostle Paul compares the connection of all believers to the human body, and in rejecting the role of salvation of the Jews in the last days we are effectively shooting ourselves in the foot.  Our own foot!

This rejection of the significant role of the salvation of the Jewish people as God’s plan for the world as it is moving to its consummation is not just detrimental to the salvation of the Jewish people but to the whole Body of Christ.  Those who claim to be the most focused on the final harvest of souls are rejecting the very key to releasing the abundance of the harvest: 

Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! . . . .For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?  Romans 11: 12, 15

In the beginning I wrote of Paul’s prayer request of the churches as he was returning to Jerusalem to carry the donations from all the churches back to support the Body in Israel.  He wrote, “Now I beg you, brethren, through the LORD Messiah Yeshua, and through the love of the Spirit, that you strive together with me in prayers to God for me, That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints."

Today, we can add the second application to that verse, so from within the Body of Christ who do not “believe in Judea” as well as from the religious opposition within Israel:   Deliver me, O God, from those who do not "believe in Judea," who do not believe the great work You are doing in those harvest fields through the Israeli Body of Messiah! 

Jan 14th UPDATE:  I got a nice email from my friend Yonit Klein of Emmaus Way in Israel about my article on "them that do not believe in Judaea." She wrote to say "cool insight is the secondary reading" . . .then something I have tried to put into words for a long time finally tumbled out right in my reply to her. Sharing that below:

I was ready to send it out as the primary meaning at first, Yonit, because it came across so strongly to me that the mostly charismatic church did "not believe in Judea"! 

Yeah! That's it. They may be on the cutting edge of the restoration of healing, deliverance, the prophetic and all the spiritual gifts but the simple truth is they DO NOT BELIEVE IN JUDEA. In fact, they look down on the mostly pro-Israel evangelical church because it does not much embrace the restoration of healing, deliverance, the prophetic and all the spiritual gifts. 

So there is a GREAT many in the charismatic church has the attitude toward the Israel-supporting Evangelical church, 'What do you know anyway? We are on the cutting edge of everything God is restoring to the Church, so your Israel-support could not possibly a truth God is restoring or we would have it before you. Spiritually they see the evangelical church as the spiritually slow siblings, so their embrace of Israel must be a misdirection from what God is really doing.

And, for its own part in making it harder for the charismatic church to see what God intends in the restoration of Israel, the evangelical church has made missteps in direction thinking that they are only supposed to support Israel at large, but they are missing the mark, because the mark is they are supposed to be supporting the BODY in Israel. 

The charismatic church detects that evangelical church is 'off' in its Israel support. Neither of the two schools of thought about Israel in Christendom will be right and pure until they lock into HOW God is restoring Israel and through WHOM: the Body of Messiah IN Israel. 

[I have long believed that God gave the mainstream Evangelical denominations the insight to recognize His restoration of Israel and that He gave the Charismatic - for lack of a better identificaton - portion of the Church the insight to recognize His restoration of the spiritual gifts and ministry offices BECAUSE at some point He was going to use it to show both sides just how much they needed each other and how they could not get to the purity of what He is bringing us to in one, without respecting what the other is bringing to the table. And then there is the whole Messianic Jewish part of the Body and neither the evangelical nor the charismatic sides have yet embraced what God is doing in the restored witness of Yeshua in Judea. When all these three come into a unity that respects each other at the God-like level, then and only then will the Ephesians 2:15 of a mature "one new man" in Messiah be coming to completion of the Ephesian 4:13 Divine Goal: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.]

Happy Hanukkah of 2012

Happy Hanukkah of 2012
A little background of Hanukkah &
a few thoughts from Israelprayer

Hanukkah, known as the Festival of Lights and in John 10 is referred to as the Feast of Dedication, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.  Miracles have a strong theme in this commemoration of the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BC.

The festival is observed by the kindling of the lights of a unique nine-branched candelabrum, the Menorah or Hanukiah.  This is different from the seven-branched menorah in the Temple. The Hanukiah Menorah consists of eight branches with an additional branch that is raised above the others.
The extra light is called a shamash, which in Hebrew means servant.  It is given a distinct location, usually above or below the rest.

On the first night of Hanukkah, after sundown, the Servant/shamash candle is lit, which in turn is used to kindle one other candle in the Menorah. The second night, we light the shamash again and use it to light two candles. This continues through the eight nights of the Hanukkah until all the candles are lit - like the apostle Paul declared in Romans 11:26, "And so all Israel shall be saved."

Only the Servant candle can kindle the other candles in the menorah - each candle lit on its own ordained day, in a progressive order.  Yeshua, who called Himself "the Light of World" is that Servant candle, that kindles the light in the Jewish people, each in the day that God has ordained in the salvation of Israel.

This is a laser generated Hanukiah projected on a mound in a converted landfill which is the centerpiece of the Ariel Sharon Park near Ben Gurion airport.

Instead of Hanukkah and Christmas being at odds, surely God has positioned the observance of these two holidays that point to the Messiah of Israel and the Light that has enlightened the world, in close proximity for His own purposes.  We need not wrestle over these holidays, but let the wonder of His great love amaze us again for both Jew and Gentile.

Here are important passages that point to the 'Reason for the Seasons' in the plan of God to redeem not only the Gentile world but to once again kindle the Light of the World in Israel, among the Jews.

And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.
And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch.
Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, 
How long will you make us to doubt? If thou be the Messiah, tell us plainly.  
John 10:22-24

Therefore they could not believe, because as Isaiah said again,
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; 
that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, 
and be converted, and I should heal them.
These things said Isaiah, when he saw His glory, and spoke of Him. 
 John 12:39-41

I say then, Has God cast away his people? God forbid. . . .
God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. 
Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah,
how he pleads with God against Israel . . . . 
But what does the Divine response say to him? 
"I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men 
who have not bowed the knee to Baal." 
Even so then, at this present time 
there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
Rom 11:1-2, 4-5

What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; 
but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. 
Just as it is written: "God has given them a spirit of stupor, 
Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, 
To this very day."  
Rom 11:7-8

I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! 
But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, 
salvation has come to the Gentiles.
Now if their fall is riches for the world, 
and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!  
Rom 11:11-12

For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, 
what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?  
Rom 11:15

For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery,
 lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part 
has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 
"The Deliverer will come out of Zion, 
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them, 
When I take away their sins."  
 Rom 11:25-27

Wishing you all a new season of enlightening in the plan of God by the Light of the World as we all come to the unity of the faith in Messiah, our King.  Donna Diorio

Chanukah and Christmas: A Message from Heaven?

An excerpt from 1 Maccabees 3:17-19 Jerusalem Bible to go with the graphic: 

‘How can we, few as we are, engage such overwhelming numbers? We are exhausted as it is, not having had anything to eat today.’ ‘It is easy,’ Judas [Maccabaeus] answered, ‘for a great number to be routed by a few; indeed, in the sight of heaven deliverance, whether by many or by few, is all one; for victory in war does not depend on the size of the fighting force; it is from heaven that strength comes…’

This morning one of the emails I received from a ministry couple in Israel opened with this statement that gave me a selah moment (pause to consider): 

"As many of you are preparing to celebrate the Lord's birth, many here in Israel are looking forward to Chanukah, which tells of the story of victory over apostasy and lawlessness. Even Yeshua honored this Feast as we see in John 10. Hebrews 11:33-38 includes the people involved in the Chanukah story in its list of the heroes of faith."

It has been my observation over the past 30 years that God speaks in the still, small voice more often than the burning bushes. Meaning, when I see a subtle thing like this, it catches my attention and I wonder if God is not telling us to draw a spiritual truth from the juxtaposition of Christmas and Chanukah that we have not considered before. Instead of the annual spiritual mud wrestling over the holidays, maybe we should mull over the significance of the above statement.

The New Testament is pretty clear about the lawlessness within the people of God that will exist, like Matthew 7:21-23, where Jesus says to people who are actually doing wonders in His name, prophesying and casting out out demons in His name, "depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" There is another good place to pause and mull over what the Word actually says, not what we have been preaching instead.

What I am seeing in the paragraph sent from a Mt Carmel ministry couple - the man fighting the good fight of faith against cancer - is that maybe Christians SHOULD pay attention to the story of the Macabees. If the Hebrews "Hall of Faith" sees fit to list them, and if Yeshua Himself honored the Feast in John 10, then it probably does hold some meaning for those of us who abide in our calling to God through Jesus as Gentile Christians. Certainly, we hear very little preaching about the state of lawlessness that the New Covenant scriptures speak of as being among US in the last days. 

I don't think Paul was just talking about the unsaved when he wrote to Timothy (2Ti 3:1-5):

 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:

For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,

traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

We stand in faith by grace, but we excuse ourselves so easily. What Jesus said in Matthew 7 really should stop us in our tracks to carefully judge ourselves.