A HEARTFELT RECONCILIATION WITH ISRAEL

Hello folks, It is with a humble heart that I answered the invitation to speak at a conference in Jerusalem on September 16-18, 2015 entitled "Reconciliation With Israel." An Orthodox rabbi who is also the publisher of Breaking News Israel (with a Jewish and Christian readership of 100,000 daily) will be covering the conference. He has asked for articles from any of the speakers before the event relating to why we are participating.  Below is my article which reveals much of what motivates me altogether and which I felt to share with you, dear readers, as I know many of you share my thoughts and feelings.

The conference will be streamed live and will be available after the conference as well.  Go to: www.reconciliationwithisrael.com to register for watching the conference or to see the line up of speakers.

Here's my article: 

A Heartfelt Reconciliation With Israel

YHVH told Avraham that He would bless the world through his descendents.  And so He has. Much of the world would not be what it is today if it were not for Israel’s technological advancements in science, agriculture, geology, aeronautics, archaeology, communication or medicine.  But the “blessings” came from Jewish people long before Israel was restored to Statehood. To name just one specific instance of medical advancement, in the mid-1800’s  a Jewish doctor by the name of Ignaz Semmelweiss recognized that germs or microbes were the cause of death of both mothers and babies in an obstetric hospital in Vienna.  The number of lives that have since been saved through germ prevention is incalculable beginning with his three words: Wash your hands. Stories like this abound. God has surely advantaged the world through the wisdom and expertise He has given to the descendents of Avraham, Itzaac and Yaacov.

But not every person or every nation in the world, although they may be advantaged by Israel’s discoveries, recognizes the extent to which Jewish people have influenced their lives.  To the contrary, it appears today that Israel stands alone with the exception of very few friends. Among those friends around the world are those Christians who recognize Israel’s place in YHVH’s heart.  A group of those Christians have come to Israel to extend their hands of friendship with the intent of letting Israel know that they are not alone, that they recognize God’s specific call upon the nation and to let Israel know of their love for them as a nation and as a people.

They will be speaking at the up-coming Reconciliation With Israel conference that is taking place on September 16-18^th at the Cinematique in Jerusalem.  Speaking as well will be several Israeli Jews whose life’s work for Israel brings them in contact with literally millions of Christians who are supportive of Israel, not only verbally but financially  – as the expression goes, “putting their money where their mouths speak.” 

The conference speakers, as well as the organizer and inspiration for the conference Kellen Davison, are here in Israel to show Israel that there are believers in Yeshua who are not their enemies as the “church” has too often been in times throughout history, but who recognize that YHVH gave the land to Israel so that they are supportive of Zionism, and that they stand against anti-Semitism that may exist today.  These Christian speakers are people who have largely incorporated the values of Torah in their lives to revere YHVH and to “love others as you love yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).  Most of them observe the Feasts of the Lord which God gave to Israel and who, through their love for Yeshua whom they recognize as the Jewish Messiah, have a deep love and reverence for YHVH in the way that Yeshua Himself did as the Brit Hadashah (the New Testament) reveals.

As early as the 2^nd century, pagan practices and beliefs began to enter the church when the Jewish believers were well outnumbered and basically no longer there to bring correction to the errors.  Ironically, men who are known as “the church fathers” beginning from that time, stripped Yeshua of His Jewishness making Him seem like their gentile God. The 1^st century real fathers of the faith were in fact Jews who lived entirely Torah-consistent lives by faith and the grace of God. The goal of the Christian conference is to help set right what has been wrong for too long. Their hope is that they can put to rest some of the gross misunderstandings of the Jewish people that the church has historically and erroneously believed which have resulted in immeasurable  sufferings and losses to the Jewish people. True Christians are as horrified as any Jewish person at the atrocities that were perpetrated against the Jews through those misunderstandings. 

Notice we use the term true Christian.  The terms “Christian” or “Christianity” did not come about until the second century and were never used by the original Jewish believers in Yeshua.  A true believer in Messiah Yeshua was someone whose faith included living by the unction of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) who would never have led them to distort or misappropriate the teachings of the God-given Torah, nor would the Ruach HaKodesh ever have motivated men to act in such ungodly ways against His people.  It has been quite possible, therefore, for men to call themselves “Christians” but to believe and act in opposition to what God (or Yeshua) would want.  Accordingly, there is a justifiable distinction between the politically motivated “church”  or the distorted ideas of man who thought they were acting for God but clearly were not, and those true believers who were usually a minority and were often persecuted themselves for living as they believed the first Jewish believers in Yeshua would have.

The conference belief is that to misunderstand the place of the Jews in their relationship with God is to misunderstand God Himself.  As the conference will be streamed live around the world and continue to be available online, the messages are largely to set erroneous facts straight on both sides:  To set aright the distrust that Israel and the Jewish people world-wide justifiably have for the church at large, letting them know that there are Christians who genuinely love the Jewish people and who love Israel and are standing with and for her, and to help the true church to understand the place of Israel in YHVH’s plan of tikkun olam (restoration of the world).

 

 

WHAT ONLY GOD CAN DO - A PROPHETIC WORD

"Those who hope in the Lord will...soar on wings like eagles" (Is.40:31). 

This is a prophetic word I received from the Lord. It has been judged as from the Lord from several seasoned believers, but as always, judge it for yourselves. May it bring rest to your soul and a view from on high.  LL

The church is mine. All mine. My idea, My expression in the earth, My restoration plan for all humanity.   Men have since the beginning almost always had an idea of what would be best and how to express what they thought the church should be, beginning with changing the whole foundational premise of it being a spiritual entity into one of the earth. 

If you take out that which defines what humans have done to try and advance the cause of My body of people, what have you left? Is it the book of Acts?  Is it what is found in the Epistles?  How many words and idea, precepts and actions, requirements and expectations, are there that are supposedly definitive of My church that have nothing to do with Me or My biblically defined Kingdom?

You ask what needs to be restored before she is the bride for which Yeshua returns. You wonder what needs restoring.  Does that mean adding or subtracting; putting in or taking out?   There is a transition that will, and that must take place that is both and neither.  It is not what must take place in the doing or saying but in the very fiber of being of each and every member of My body.  It is to become so one with Me that your every impulse surges with life from above and is so fully God’s that it isn’t even understandable without the Spirit of God. 

The change that must and will take place is not a replacement of worldliness with godliness but such a substantive[1] realignment with the heart and purposes of God that today’s present church vocabulary cannot adequately express it, much less define or envision it. 

It will not be intellectual, nor accomplished by the best of intents of men but will be a matter of my grace entirely and completely; a transforming of what is for what will be – the material to the spiritual, that which man is incapable of accomplishing. Only I can do it. Only I can bring it to pass. The intentions and energies of man cannot. I will have a people wholly given over to God, through whom only I can and through whom I will bring the Kingdom of God to full reality.

Note: A short while later the Lord said to me – “The only thing you can do is to fill yourself with the Word of God and let it do the transforming.”  

Lonnie Lane
August 14, 2014 
  

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[1] Substantive:  belonging to the real nature or essential part of a thing; essential; real or actual.

There's Glory in the Zoo

I spent the day at the Zoo today with some friends. Forty-something of them, actually. It was a congregation outing. What fun. The Zoo in Jacksonville is arranged so that if one has enough of an imagination, one can pretend you are in Africa. You know, the peaceful yet exciting African trip, like you imagined as a kid when Africa seemed so romantic in those movies of years ago (make that decades.) Jax being semi-tropical and it being close to summer, it rained off and on today. Poured! We ran for and huddled under a grove of trees with a thatched roof covering one might hope to find in a jungle.(We're pretending, remember.) The animals lumbered or hopped or scampered or flew for cover in the downpour as we did. Fifteen minutes later the sun came out and so did we all. We looked at the animals. They mostly ignored us. But we were fascinated.

The apes look just a bit too human for comfort and its easy to see why some could consider that humans came from apes. I held hands with a chimp once. It felt so human it was a bit disconcerting. Seeing them brought to mind a story of my daughter Ellen when in 3rd grade was being taught something about evolution. She indignantly stood up in class, as the teacher later told me, shook her little curly blond head and with her arms folded to make the point announced, "God made man in His own image and God is not an ape!"

Some animals are just strange looking and do make you want to ask, "Lord, whatever were you thinking when you made this one?" One extremely loud and gutsy bird that stood about two feet high with a voice that far exceeded his size ran back and forth with one of our boys like he was playing tag with him. Was it fun for him too? The Giraffes were clearly a close-knit family. One of the giraffes, who is evidently named Naomi (Does she know that?)would eat leaves from your hand. Flamingos are that color pink even when they're not plastic. Lemurs seem to have more fun than anybody. The big cats are majestic. See a male lion and you know why he's king. And you know why Yeshua (Jesus) is the Lion of Judah! We got closer to the Leopards though. Magnificent animals. Regal. Assured. Confident. You don't want to mess with a Leopard. Elephants are....well, big. And baby elephants do hold their mommy's tail with their little trunks, like we hold hands. Little, of course, is a relative term. We are talking elephants here. The snakes? Creepy. Big Anacondias do bring up a picture of one chatting with Eve, while plotting the destruction of the world. You can see where this big dude might be convincing.

We saw the largest rodent in the world. If no one had told me this was a rodent, I might have even though he was cute. Sort of. But that rodent title ruined it. Yuck. He was in the recreated river scene with the ant eater. A vacuum cleaner with fur. It was interesting to see what kinds of animals live side-by-side with other species and pretty much ignore each other, or at least aren't antagonistic. Some are even symbiotic, like birds that ride on hippos or water buffaloes - what they eat keeps the buffaloes clean. Works for them. Then there were the fleet-of-feet (not that they had anywhere to go) elks and ibexes (ibexi?) that appear to be growing shofars on their heads. Some might call them antlers.

All in all, being with the animals revealed anew how vastly creative our God is. I became aware of how He's made more kinds and variations of animals and birds than I was aware of. Some are rarely seen by man unless in captivity. He creates them just for His own pleasure, it would seem. All this takes you outside of yourself. It's so easy to get pigeon-holed (no pun intended, though we might note that there were no pigeons in this zoo, unlike, say, the Philadephia Zoo which is replete with them) in your own mind and emotions so that all that we're aware of is is our own little lives and what concerns us. We city-folk who are largely detached from the world of raw nature and animals and birds of all kinds, except for our domesticated and civilized pets, can easily loose sight of how small our lives are in the vast scheme of God's enormous plan in the earth.

Being in that environment, even imagining we were in the rain forests of Africa or South America and being with what is indigenous there, gave me the sense that this world is so much bigger and more beautiful and more unique than I have been imagining in my tunnel vision and self-focus. God is so big and so in control of all these extraordinary manifestations of His power and beauty. The sounds of the voices calling for their same-species mates are distinguished to the ears of the summoned lovers from all the other voices in the forest. They come together and soon babies of the uniquely beautiful perfect replica of their parents is born. Each new little one looks and acts just like it's parents, without deviation in the patterns and colors of feather or fur, and its instinctual nature.

We saw a big tree full of storks with a plethora of nests. My friend Bonnie said it looked like a high rise apartment building for storks. A loud humming noise came from the tree and then we realized we were hearing baby storks in the nests. Lord knows how many of them. A whole society of storks was happening right there in front of us. Now, I'm pretty sure that God isn't as concerned about their society as He is about ours, at least I think so. You know, that "Aren't you worth more than a sparrow" comment made by the Lord, comes to mind (Matthew 10:31). But God is not just concerned with our problems, with keeping us protected and with helping us, by any means. He's running the universe. And if He can do all that so perfectly and beautifully, then surely He can take care of me. Surely if He can take care of the world, He can even take care of our country.

Taking a trip to the Zoo was a heart and mind expanding journey. God was everywhere. Not that He's not anyway, but sometimes something lifts your chin to Him and your eyes open and you feel yourself smile. That's what happens when your heart awakens again or to something new of God and His goodness. There's such an order to His creation. It's all so beautiful. If that's how beautiful the creation is, how beautiful must the Creator be?!

Along with the animal life the plants and vegetation is beyond beautiful and exceedingly well landscaped to look authentically African or Australian, etc. On our way out, we noticed some richly darkish purple flowers blooming happily next to what can only be called bright chartreuse leaves. You would never paint your living room those colors, but when God does it -- magnifico!

Our trip to the Zoo today brought a deeper rest to my soul. God is so much bigger to me tonight than He was this morning. I am so much more aware of how attentive to detail He is in His commitment to bring beauty and symmetry and order to the world. He is so faithful to keep it all going.And all this continues beside or despite the goings on in mankind and our societal ills. We are part of a vast scenario of beauty, for His pleasure. In Him we ALL live and move, whether we fly, crawl or lumber, hop, swim or slither. In Him we all exist. His diversity awakes within me an awareness that there is so much more available in God to me, and to whomever will look to Him for it, than I have partaken of, or trusted Him for. His evident Lordship over it all in its order and beauty brings me to a new awareness of His glory and His beauty all around us. It's not just in the zoo.