Israel, the Apple of God’s eye!
Today begins the Jewish feast of Purim:http://www.christiantoday.com/article/purim.2016.all.you.need.to.know.about.the.jewish.festival/82529.htm
Some of us seem to forget that Jesus is Jewish, the Messiah first to the Jew, and Israel is His homeland that He shall never forget, nor ever stop loving.
Rom 11:15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
This is the promise that Christians and Jews alike, long to be fulfilled. God has a covenant with Israel that He is going to keep, and fulfill.
They are waiting for their Messiah to be revealed, whereas we, as Christians have been grafted into the covenant, to join those who have received Jesus, as the ‘Israel of God’.
To the Jew, receiving Yeshua, does not deny Judaism, rather completes it, making them not less Jewish, rather, ‘a completed Jew’, for the promises and covenants are ‘first to the Jew, then to the Gentile’.
To the gentile, or the rest of the world, we are grafted in, with the same covenant rights as the Jew, not as a replacement, but as a complement to the family of God, beggar’s who have been brought to the table, not as slaves, but adopted as sons and daughters.
Jesus, Yeshua, is Jewish, so any Christian, who truly knows Him, will love Israel, and long for Jerusalem, God’s city, the capital of the earth.
Yet, to Jew and Gentile alike, there is no other way to heaven, He is the way, the truth and the life, and the only mediator between God and man.
Only because they sinned, and rejected Jesus when He came to the earth, have we been brought back into relationship with God, yet I love this verse: If rejecting Him allowed us into relationship with God, how much more glorious will their reconciliation be?
Romans 11:15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall
the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
So, we love Israel, and the Jewish people, though many of them do not understand, nor accept us, we will love and support them, praying that their eyes be opened to Yeshua, the King of the Universe, Messiah.
Let’s pray:
‘Father, I pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and your blessing and protection upon Israel. For every Jew on the face of the planet, that has not yet received Yeshua, as their Messiah yet, I pray. For every misguided, anti-Semitic Christian I also pray, you open their eyes, to the truth of your love for Israel, and Jerusalem, your city, the city of the great king. In your name I pray Lord Jesus, Amen”