Pray without ceasing

One year ago today I sustained the longest period of fasting and prayer I have ever embarked on. During this time I was called to daily meditation and prayer for Israel and the Jewish people, which I knew in my head and my knowledge is God's will for us, but I spent most of this period asking Jesus to please give me HIS heart for the Jewish people.

You've heard it said "Seek God's will and He will always answer", well I can attest that this is true. The swelling of personal heartbreak, gratitude, and honor given to me over this past year is not something I have been able to put into words successfully. There is a deep ache inside of me, a deep longing to see them restored, to see the partial hardening that was done so that I might be redeemed with the rest of creation lifted. There is an even deeper longing for professing Christians around the world to know the true character of Jesus and who and what He was talking about when He came to us in human form. This year, I am going to spend the same time as last year only this time praying for that same heart and compassion for the western church, to have the same extensive mercy and grace that the Lord gave me my entire life.

I was asked to put together some points for a friend to get some insights into how to pray for Israel, and so of course, I expanded that request to include why we should pray for Israel. Mind you, I was asked to dial my vocabulary down to the elementary school level and try to keep it concise (I am still maturing in that second area)!

Israel & The Jewish People - Why should we never cease praying for them?

Our Jesus is Jewish, and the center of creation, for Him, is Jerusalem.

Israel Became a Burden of God's Mercy for Us (Genesis 11):

When people on earth once again turned away from God, instead of another judgment like the flood, God stopped communicating with everyone else except for one man named Abram whom He later named Abraham. 

Through God’s mercy and Abraham’s faith, humans were once again preserved through this one family (just like with Noah). From the time of Abraham until the time of Jesus, only the chosen family of Abraham, whom God named Israel and we also call The Jewish people, were born into a covenant (a promise) and given the mercy of eternal life with God. All others unless they turned to the God of Israel, perished (Also like the flood).  

The Jewish people were entrusted with the whole revelation of God (Romans 3:2) 

They were given the Law of Moses, which is the way God explains what perfect Love looks like in action.

They were given the oracles (Prophecies/Guarantees) through the Prophets. 

They kept these things protected so that we all could know for certain who the one true God of the universe is based on the perfection of His Scriptures!

God chose them to bring us Jesus in person and to be a light to the rest of the world by showing us what it looks like to serve and worship a Holy God.

They have suffered so much for carrying this burden since the beginning. 

Every generation can point to a time when the Jewish People have been persecuted, hunted, or accused by the world around them. 

The unbelieving world are enemies with God and that makes them enemies with His people. 

Israel is not perfect by any means, just as we are not, but their very existence is physical proof that the God of our Bible is real, alive, and active. No other group of people, no other set of tribes has ever been spared or remained through half of the troubles they have faced. 

God uses His people as a way of showing us that He will never give up on His creation, that He loves His creation, and that He keeps all of his promises. He never changes, nor casts a shifting shadow. (James 1:17)

They are our "Older Brother" :

I like to think of the Jewish people like my older brother or sister. Like the Oldest son in the parable of The Prodigal Son, they understand what it means to be held to a standard to show us younger brothers what it means to serve our Father in heaven.

The father in that story reminds the oldest that he will always be with him and that everything he has belongs to him (Luke 15:31) but that the younger son has found his forgiveness through repentance (Luke 15:32). 

In that story, we see how there is a bit of anger from one brother to another, and Jesus warns us very sternly about how we feel about our ‘brother’ in our hearts.

Right now our older brother, in many ways, has not been setting the best example to us the younger brother, and we as the younger brother don’t fully understand just what things are like for the older brother. We have our own ideas about what things mean because we are still sort of young, so sometimes that makes us proud when we should be humble. Our older brother can be guilty of this too. So one of the things we need to pray for is humility between brothers. 

We need to remember that: Our Older Brother Israel was born into this family naturally, and we were adopted into it. That is where humility began for me.

Our big brother is under attack from the entire world right now, they are surrounded by enemies that are larger in number. Right here in America, there are people in the streets yelling that the Jewish people be punished or even killed simply for being Jewish. Zechariah 12 warns us that this will happen, and it is how God is going to remind Israel that they belong to Him and only He can save them, and also the way God is going to judge the rest of the world.

How can we Pray for Israel & The Jewish People?

Pray that the Jewish people who love God but do not know Jesus yet will begin to read their Bible - the Tanakh, which we call the "Old Testament" instead of books written by men (like the Talmud and Midrash ) - For so many Jewish people this is what stops them from understanding or seeing who Jesus really is - we do this as Christians too, if we don’t read our Bibles and only listen to what other people tell us the Bible says, we can become really confused about who Jesus is. We see this in the church today.

Pray that the Jewish people who KNOW Jesus (Messianic Jews) who are growing more active in Israel and the US today, receive all the help that they need: prayer, encouragement, and money to support what they are doing to bring other Jewish people to Jesus. Pray for them to keep feeling strong and not grow tired or frustrated and to remember Jesus and the Holy Spirit are there to keep them going! 

Pray that we as Christians can take that same advice and stay in our Bibles and read what it says about God’s promises, purposes, and love for Israel and the Jewish people. Pray that we do not grow arrogant against our big brother (Romans 11:18) just because many of them don’t know Jesus - God has caused this for a little while so that we could be adopted into their family! Jesus has big plans for the two ‘brothers’ to become close again, and learn from each other. Pray for us to be humble so that we can be able to speak kindly and find ourselves able to share about Jesus, Our Messiah! Pray for revelation within the Gentile Church around Israel and the context of our Bible so that we might be able to better relate with them and draw each other into fellowship.

Pray that both Israel and Christians around the world can keep going the way Jesus told us to - Loving our Enemies and Praying for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44) - this is the only way that the enemies of God and Israel might be shown what it means to know Jesus, and by doing that no longer being enemies. Pray that we can keep emotions like anger and frustration from taking over when we hear harsh words or see bad things happening and stop and pray for the people doing and saying them. Learning to love them like Jesus does. 

Maturity, Radiance & A Pair of Trees

I was raised western evangelical Christian. One of the earliest Biblical narratives taught through colorful felt scenes, puppet shows and coloring pages was the story of the Garden of Eden and the two trees. [1]

The tree of life & the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. First tree = good second tree = bad.

The story goes: God commanded Adam not to eat from the one tree the knowledge of good and evil, and of course, they could not resist. Forever and ever - God is the dangler of knowledge of things we should not desire and yet He gives us the choice because He desires to have a union with His creation but only on the fair terms that they choose Him and are given the choice. Simple enough right?

Until you get a little older and you read about Solomon and how he asked for wisdom, for knowledge, and it says this pleased the Lord and was granted [2]. When you read through the book of Proverbs it is clear, that the wisdom given Solomon was both filled with knowledge of good and of evil. Solomon was renowned far and wide for his wisdom [3]. And then he fell just as tragically [4] as that couple in the Garden about 3000 years prior.

This raises many questions if one is paying attention. First, why are Adam and Eve immediately chastised, banished and given a mortal death sentence while Solomon is patted on the head, handed what is requested and sent along to live his life ?

And why didn’t all of that wisdom provide him with enough good sense to finish well?

I think the first questions can be answered when you look at how the knowledge was acquired. First, Adam and Eve were defiant and helped themselves [5]. Solomon at least had the manners and reverence to ask [6]. Second, the Lord Himself dwelled physically in Eden and the reality of the cosmic laws of our universe as created are unbreakable : God cannot be in the presence of sin. Or rather, sin cannot withstand the presence of God.

All throughout the scriptures we see that the Holy nature of the Most High will burn up wickedness.[7] In our numb and modern minds it is hard for us to see pride, self-centeredness or willfulness as being wicked enough for death. Yet I ask you : where do the seeds for horrific crimes like murder, rape, torture and genocide grow from? They are the fruit of the seeds of those very things. These things cannot exist without being burned out of existence by the mere proximity to the Lord of All Creation [8].

So Adam and Eve were banished for their own protection.

By the time we get to Solomon, the fullness of Lord’s presence has left the earth [9]. Through anointing, atonement and ritual cleansing the Spirit of the Lord would appeal and communicate with men [10] [11] [12] [13], making banishment unnecessary.

What we do see, is that Solomon was still unable to endure the temptations and pitfalls of those exact same seedbeds planted in that very first Garden. He was lured into adulterous worshiping of other gods, fueled by his already idolatrous appetite and obsession with women. [14]

So where do we go from here? What is God trying to teach us about knowledge? The scoffer might say: “Your god wants the dull-minded, gullible fools who blindly follow his irrational rules.” Or the Atheist: “These are the glorifications of irrational and illogical minds that created a god to explain the universe.” Or the conspiracy theorist: “These are the ways kings and rulers would tell stories to frighten the masses into willful submission, never to question authority.”

But what the Bible actually teaches us is that God’s original intention was to walk with man (in the cool of the day) [15] and teach him and grow him. Why else would they start in a garden? We can glean that the Lord desired to create something He could dwell with and give authority to, something that He could connect and have relationship with, which was created in His image with the same desires to create, love, and share. A creation that could experience joy, laughter, compassion and be able to comprehend who God is. God knew that this would require a process of maturity and growth. The process described for man appears to be different than the process for the other unseen beings in the heavens, we won’t know for certain until the Lord reveals that to us, but we can see that for whatever reason the ‘angelic hosts’ who had a more direct and dimensional perspective of who God is, still were able to fall into the traps of the seedbed of wickedness and separate themselves from His presence [16]. It is clear that our process on earth is deliberate and methodical as a form of refinement.

The entirety of the scriptures shows us exactly how Adonai is maturing His family. We are also watching that refinement take place today. I am just starting to understand the truth around this lesson.

Do any of you have an iOS device you’re reading this on? What’s the logo? It is no coincidence that less than 5 years after the birth of the first personal home computer, a company with sights set on making information and knowledge accessible across the world was birthed and chose the name and logo ‘Apple’. Though the fruit of the trees in Eden were never disclosed, I would bet that Jobs and Wozniak were victims of the same Sunday school coloring pages that I was as a child.

Jesus has been walking me through this in my own maturity process. Recently, He showed me in a vision during prayer that I needed to address an information consumption problem. That my appetite for information has surpassed my current level of maturity. This prompted me to do an information fast. No internet whatsoever, aside from listening to scripture via audio, checking emails, listening to music and communicating with friends and family. No teachings, No other books, even books about The Book, no social media and absolutely NO TWITTER. This fast lasted 6 days and this morning when I opened up my Twitter feed to get updates on the current war in Gaza, the weight of this lesson from the Lord was both clear and piercing. My tolerance for the vitriol, violence, and delusion had drastically decreased while paradoxically, what also decreased was the anger, outrage and offense that it triggered in me as I looked at it. Instead, I felt only deep grief.

When our tolerance to absorb certain knowledge that we aren’t mature enough for is increased, our reactivity to that knowledge is equally increased. This is NOT the seedbed we want to be planting in our hearts.

Please understand, the purpose of this exercise is not to become an Ostrich, definitely not to advocate for sticking one’s head in the sand - in fact, the Bible is pretty derogatory towards the Ostrich if you want to go on a little side quest - being ignorant is not praised even if the ostrich seems to be delighted without a care in the world, she is not given wisdom and is described as cruel, harsh and labors in vain.

When God came to earth as Jesus [17] to teach us at the time when a portion of His firstborn had matured to the point of receiving the gift that was His life, death and resurrection (and this portion appears to be SMALL in number compared to the population of the time), He revealed to us the exact way by which He would keep His promises [18], and ensure that once again, after ALL of His children have grown and matured in both love and obedience, something ONLY possible by Trusting fully in Him, will be able to be in the fullness of His presence as it was before. That through this Grace, our ability to trust enough to walk with Him, following what was given by Jesus and in this process maturing into our own personal revelations given by His Spirit until the day when the entirety of those who belong to Him have been matured to the place of receiving all of His wisdom, the same knowledge from that tree will ultimately be given to us when we are ready.

So what does maturity look like? Just how can we be made ready to finally eat from that tree without it leading to our destruction? In Ephesians there are mysteries revealed that not only describe what this looks like, but also explains the purpose for God's process. We learn that He equips all those in Christ with specific gifts that work together in harmony while being unique, however this harmony only occurs in maturity, and that maturity is found when unified under Jesus as the head of the body [19]. This means we no longer allow things like denominations, doctrines, theology or 'isms' lead our walk or interpret the Bible. It means we as a single entity rely entirely on the two witnesses that were given to us as guides. God provided us with the Word and the Spirit and they are not meant to stand in isolation. Truth is revealed spiritually [20], if we are reading in our own spirit we can easily apply our own ideas on the text, but when read in His Spirit, truth is illuminated. In the same vein we do not rely solely on the Spirit [21], discernment is a grace given as part of maturity, we are prone to deception from enemy spiritual forces as well as self-deception, the word provides a light to hold up to spiritual wisdom to ensure it is truth [22]. It means we allow God's body (Jesus) and soul (Holy Spirit) to free us from our own mind (our will) and calibrate it to His mind, His will (The Father). This is what it means to be mature and unified, the wisdom of the mind of God is what the fruit of that tree really is. Ephesians chapter 3 gives us the reason : What the Most High is doing here on earth with His Assembly of devoted disciples through this process, is revealing the multifaceted wisdom of His very mind to the unseen angelic and demonic rulers in the air [23]. Our role is to have the ultimate truth of God Himself revealed in us and how we respond to His example of what love looks like. Love is laying down our desires, our dreams, our own lives so that another might live, so that God's truth and love might be revealed in that action.

In Revelation 22 we are given the picture of the kingdom, and that the crystal waters flowing from the throne of God has "The Tree of Life" "On either side of the river" - How can one tree be on either side of the river? Is this describing a dimensionality we have yet to experience, maybe? Or perhaps at the end of the process of maturity these same two trees both possess the name Tree of life for all who eat from them, as they are watered by the same river, which flows from the Lamb through the great city.

Our maturity must be as radiant as pure gold [24], something that can be refined in fire and not incinerated. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was never meant for us to have to choose between life and wisdom, rather it was an example of what is in store for us if we choose obedience and trust God’s process and wisdom. If we can Trust His process and follow His guidance, then all of His wisdom awaits us when we reach the maturity that turns us into pure gold, where we can walk through the fire of His presence and dwell with Him forever.

Prayers for the Middle East & the Globe - A Call to Intercession, Fasting & Scripture Study -

One year ago this Saturday, I embarked on a personal time of intercessory prayer, fasting and study of the scriptures. It was an intense and rapid period of growth, revelation and humility for me.

Less than 5 months ago, International House of Prayer petitioned for a global period of intercession and fasting for 21 days specifically for Israel called the Isaiah 62 Fast. Over 5 million christians worldwide joined in on this corporate movement. The last time a 21-day fast for Israel was recorded in history of any scale was in the book of Daniel. Interestingly, it was also the only other time in history when Persia (Iran) stood as a Global power on the world stage. Hamas being funded by Iran today and waging war at this time in this way, is by no means coincidental.

There is a vast educational gap in the west around the middle east. Mostly a mix of ignorance and confusion. Alarmingly, a growing aggression towards the idea of Israel and the Jewish people has once again begun to emerge in recent years. I spent some time in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic traveling down the dark recesses of the conspiracy rabbit hole. While there were certainly nuggets of truth to be found there as well as awakening from a sleepy western mindset, I also found far too many Hitler-reminiscent sentiments brewing. I firmly believe that the ingredients of the next Holocaust can be found at the bottom of that rabbit hole.

My heart is being pressed to offer some clarity to my circle of western friends and family who once again find themselves swimming in the deep chaotic waters of Middle Eastern Conflict and narratives. As this war escalates (and this war has already begun to escalate in ways that will very much include every nation on the earth), and the fog of war begins to settle in, I am being called into another period of deep clarity and spiritual growth. I do not believe in coincidence so timing for me is, again, interesting.

I would like to invite you to join me beginning Saturday, October 14th in a corporate time of prayer, fasting & study. This particular study was originally done during the Covid Pandemic and has been such a source of incredible fruit and maturity for me ever since. I am using the sessions as a daily anchor for myself and encourage anyone interested to do also. You can do this as your schedule permits. You also can fast in whatever way you feel you should or are led to do so. Not every fast needs to be a water fast. Do what you can, or what the Lord draws you into. If you are not a believer, this invitation is for you who might be curious about how any of this connects with the ancient people and their books and their wars. This is a place to find historical clarity and let the Spirit of God perhaps open your heart and eyes.

Here is the link for the info about the original Study Sessions for the fast to set expectations:

Maranatha Global Bible Study 14-Day Fast

Here are some links and resources for those of you who might not be interested in joining something like this but want to better understand the truth of the conflict that has been going on for over 4,000 years in that part of the world. I want to share first that Frontier Alliance International is not simply a channel I follow. This ministry has become family to me and my family. These are individuals who have left the comfort of a western lifestyle to live in the conflict zones of the world and provide shelter, food, bomb shelters and medical attention to ALL civilians caught in the crosshairs of conflict (Muslim nations, Palestine as well as Israel). They are a boots-on-the-ground mission in the middle east who live and love these people. They have resourced us in the global west all that they have learned and continue to learn as things develop. Here is the Bomb Shelter campaign they began over a year ago knowing that this scourge was on the horizon.

Covenant & Controversy Docuseries

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

A Clip from Covenant & Controversy : What about Gaza, a recent history lesson.

A response yesterday in the aftermath of brutally slaughtered babies and infants.

Who is more dangerous : The stupid (ignorant person) or the malicious person?

My intention is that if it were at all possible, that I am able to share enough grounding truth that those who might be plucked from the coming fog would be. The book of Zechariah tells us that the controversy of Israel will be a cup of staggering for all nations. My hope is that it need not be for anyone unnecessarily.

Please also feel free to forward this to anyone you like - all are welcome to join us in this time of focus on the conflict and our part as citizens alive for such a time as this.