Hope in the Holy Land

There certainly has been a lot of activity going on in Israel lately. Four Israeli elections over the course of two years but still no new Israeli government. Rioting in Jerusalem by the Arab population over a 73 year old property dispute between Jews and Arabs with no resolution at hand. 4,000 rockets shot from Gaza against Israel that accomplished nothing except the loss of several hundred lives, mostly people in Gaza, and destruction of millions of dollars of property, mostly property in Gaza. Why does this cycle of disfunction, violence and destruction continue, over and over and over again?

A new film has been produced by my friend Justin Kron, who also happens to be a member of Devar Emet’s Board of Directors, that uniquely brings to light the difficult relationships between people in the Land of Israel.

 

As they state on their website: “Todd Morehead, an American Christian with a deep love for Israel, sets off on a journey across the Holy Land to confront his indifference toward the Palestinians and to search for the deeper truths behind one of the most perplexing and polarizing conflicts in the world. Along the way, he discovers the painful struggles of Jews, Muslims and Christians on both sides of the conflict. The result is an enlightening journey that exposes viewers to perspectives rarely seen in the media, and a challenge to a man’s heart to love his enemy.” You can learn more including where to stream the film at www.hopeintheholyland.com.

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem—May those who love you be at peace!” (Psalm 122:6) Regardless of the politics, please pray for  G-d to bring peace to Israel, especially the peace that comes from the Good News of Messiah Yeshua!

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

Working for G-d!

The Scriptures teach that when we first come into right relationship with G-d through our faith in Messiah Yeshua, we receive the immediate indwelling and the complete fullness of G-d’s Spirit of Holiness as a sign and seal of our relationship with G-d. We did not do anything in order to earn or gain our relationship with G-d, so neither did we take in G-d’s Spirit by our own action or effort. Yet coming into a relationship with G-d, like all relationships, naturally costs the true believer: time, resources, life itself. The Scriptures are filled with the testimonies of those who after coming into relationship with G-d were “tapped” by G-d for roles and responsibilities of service for him. As I have said before, “You cannot walk with G-d and not expect to be doing work for G-d.” It’s important to remember that roles and responsibilities that we take on for G-d, regardless of what they are, are never secular in nature, but are spiritual service.

Communities of faith cannot function unless the individuals within that community of faith are willing to assume roles of spiritual service. The following is a listing of service roles required for Devar Emet to conduct a regular weekly Shabbat morning service; we need a chazzan, a Gabbai, a minyan of ten Jewish men, four readers, the Drash speaker, the Sermon speaker, the music leader and hopefully at least one other musician, a person to handle sound, Zoom and the PowerPoint, a greeter, at least one nursery worker but ideally two, a Shabbat school teacher for the younger kids, and an oneg leader plus their team of hopefully at least three other people so we can all spend time hanging out together over a meal. That’s a dozen people! I am sure your own congregation has a service list like this as well. Every one of these “tasks” are important Roles of Spiritual Service! They are critical and valuable in order for us to effectively gather together for a mikra kodesh, a Scripturally commanded time of corporate worship. By the way, the list of spiritual service roles is innumerable, and goes way beyond just the main weekly worship service.

Hopefully you are actively involved in a community with other followers of Messiah Yeshua. Hopefully you’re already following G-d’s “tap” to assume a role of spiritual service within your faith community. Doing so validates both our faith as individual believers and the quality of our usefulness for G-d’s purposes as a faith community. The value you place on serving in spiritual community with others is a sign of your spiritual maturity and of your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life!

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

Fighting Fear G-d’s Way

The New York Times recently had a very important article titled, Bad News Bias, by journalist David Leonhardt. The author cites research showing that our major American media news outlets, whether conservative or liberal, left or right, have tended to portray negative news over positive regarding the pandemic. The researchers involved created a database of Covid-19 coverage from media sources both here in the United States and overseas and found that the coverage by our major media here in America has been much more negative than coverage by media overseas. In other words, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC all seem to be intentionally presenting the news with a bias that keeps us living in fear unnecessarily! To quote the article, “When Covid cases were rising in the U.S., the news coverage emphasized the increase. When cases were falling, the coverage instead focused on those places where cases were rising. And when vaccine research began showing positive results, the coverage downplayed it…”. But the reason for this according to the article is that Americans like bad news! We are drawn to hearing what is going wrong! To quote again from the article, “Human beings, particularly consumers of major media, like negativity in their stories… “We think the major media are responding to consumer demand.” Sounds like our American mindset needs correcting; our minds need to refocus!

Do you know that the Scriptures talk a lot about our minds and the importance of proper focus? They warn us about keeping our eyes set, not to fear the circumstances, situations and people around us, but set on G-d. The Hebrew phrase Yirat Adonai, the Fear of the L-RD, emphasizes that knowing G-d and being in relationship with G-d begins when we have come to have a genuine respect (fear) of G-d!

There’s an acronym that I learned recently: FUD. It actually stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. I think too often as believers we live lives of FUD. This unfortunately results in spiritual paralysis. How can G-d use someone who lives in fear of taking a stand for G-d’s values? How can G-d bless someone who is uncertain in their walking out of G-d’s instructions? How can G-d work through someone who doubts G-d’s promises as laid out in the Scriptures? Maybe FUD is the reason that America is so negative! Remember the quote from Richard Wurmbrand? There are two kinds of believers: “those who sincerely believe in G-d and those who, just as sincerely, believe that they believe. You can tell them apart by their actions in decisive moments.” America needs more true believers who will live not in fear, but in faith!

The Scriptures teach that when we first come into right relationship with G-d through our faith in Messiah Yeshua, we receive the immediate indwelling and the complete fullness of G-d’s Spirit of Holiness as a sign and seal of our relationship with G-d. We grow in relationship with G-d by faith as well! “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of realities not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). Part of the Spirit’s work in our lives is to encourage us, to strengthen us, to empower us as we follow in faith His leading and prompting in our lives. But He can only do this when we accept who we are in Messiah Yeshua: G-d’s spiritual children! He can only do this if we honestly admit to Him that our faith is weak: G-d makes us strong! He can only do this when we intentionally step out and take G-d at his word: G-d knows the way!

Who or what are you afraid of? Are you paralyzed by FUD: Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt? Take seriously the Spirit’s work to encourage, strengthen and empower you for G-d’s purposes!

• Where do you have your eyes focused? How deeply do you respect and fear G-d?  Renew your commitment to live your life by faith alone. Seek the Spirit of Holiness to encourage, strengthen and empower you through whatever it might be that G-d will allow to come your way!
• What doubts do you harbor regarding G-d and his ways? Who is hurting your faith in G-d? We all will struggle from time to time with doubts and uncertainties, but don’t be influenced by anyone, believer or unbeliever, who is cynical or skeptical about G-d’s truth and goodness!

Keep your eyes focused on the truth of who G-d is, and who you are because of your faith in Messiah Yeshua. Don’t let anyone or anything divert your attention or discourage your faith! Trust and rely on G-d’s Spirit to encourage, strengthen and empower your life!

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

Walking in the Spirit

G-d’s plan made it possible through the atonement of Israel’s Messiah Yeshua for all people to be spiritually transformed, to be made positionally righteous before G-d, and therefore capable both to be in relationship with G-d and also to live according to G-d’s expectation of order. The sign of this spiritual transformation is the immediate indwelling of G-d’s Spirit of Holiness within the true believer which at the moment of decision makes them righteous before G-d. The Spirit then works within the true believer to progressively change their actions and values into alignment with G-d’s expectations as long as they continue to submit to the Spirit’s leading, guiding and conviction in their lives.

It would seem based on this spiritual transformation that from the moment a person chooses to accept Messiah Yeshua’s atonement that they would be not only spiritually transformed from G-d’s perspective, but also from an obvious human perspective; that all sin (anger, lust, jealousy, disrespect, laziness, bitterness, etc.…) would just disappear, and that the believer would never again be tempted to do anything displeasing to G-d. But this doesn’t happen. I personally know believers who have murdered, committed adultery, have stolen from their employers, who gossip, lie, and who hold serious bitterness against other people. How is this possible? Are they not transformed? The problem is not because of what G-d has done, it’s because of who we are, and our sinfulness and lack of obedience to G-d’s instruction in the Scriptures.

The Spirit of G-d desires to work in the life of a believer to progressively change their actions and values from the inside out, but only as long as the true believer continues to submit to the Spirit’s leading, guiding and conviction in their lives. We need to understand and see sin the way G-d understands and sees it. We need to recognize how influenced we are by the values and priorities of the world and repent of choosing the world and its ways over G-d and His ways. May we remain sensitive to G-d’s Spirit of Holiness!

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

Spiritual Dissidents

It’s been pretty snowy in Chicago lately. Makes sense; its Winter of course. But do you know some people in Chicago don’t prepare for winter? No shovel, no salt! They are seemingly oblivious to what season they’re in. The same can be said regarding the state of our world and the state of our spiritual preparedness as followers of Messiah. Are we oblivious to the fact that our world, including America, is spiritually bankrupt? Have we forgotten that the Scriptures told us that this would be the case before Messiah ‘s return?

Recently I was encouraged to read a book called “Live Not By Lies” by Rod Dreher. The author warns that the societal shifts currently occurring in America are reminiscent for Christian immigrants from the former Communist Eastern Europe of their own experiences within an oppressive secular state. Dreher tells the stories of clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the Eastern Block, and offers their practical advice for how we should be more aware of what is going on and be preparing ourselves to live as spiritual dissidents in our own time.

A few weeks earlier I had read the following chilling statement from an Orthodox Rabbi in a Jewish Magazine, “At the root of anti-Semitism, then, in all its protean forms, is intolerance for a Jewish view of G-d and His relationship with man. Given the current global rejection of Divine authority, religion and any and all absolute values, the projection from rabbinic thought would be that there will be much more anti-Semitism ahead before it gets better.” His call is for American Jews to prepare themselves for harder times and growing anti-Semitism because of the growing secularization of our society.

No one likes to suffer or be labeled as an outsider, yet isn’t that what G-d has called us to as followers of Messiah Yeshua? We must not focus our hope on political solutions to fix serious spiritual problems. Instead we must heed the call of the Scripture which says, “Therefore, to make the people holy through His own blood, Yeshua also suffered outside the gate. So let us go to Him outside the camp, bearing His disgrace. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come (Hebrews 13:12-14 TLV).

Despite the moral and ethical bankruptcy of our society today, we know that G-d is moving our world to where he wants it to be before Messiah Yeshua returns. Let’s be prepared and keep proclaiming a bold spiritual message of hope to those around us as Messiah’s spiritual dissidents!

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

I’m Hopeful for the Future!

For an individual who reads and believes in the Scriptures, our current world easily seems out of order. But that is not G-d’s original plan. G-d’s perfect creation, as we live in it now, has been made imperfect because of mankind’s sinfulness. G-d, knowing our disordered and imperfect state, determined to redeem and restore his creation. As the Scriptures teach,  G-d’s plan for redemption has two phases: first the spiritual restoration of individual people and then the full physical and spiritual restoration of all of creation. Phase one of G-d’s plan made it possible through the sacrificial atonement of Israel’s Messiah Yeshua for all people to be spiritually transformed, to be made positionally righteous before G-d, and therefore capable both to be in relationship with G-d and also to live according to G-d’s expectation of order.

Even though people today can come into right relationship with G-d individually through faith in Messiah Yeshua’s atonement, the true believer is still subject to living in a world that is imperfect and in outright rebellion against G-d and G-d’s expectation of order. No long lasting political, economic or moral solution for the real issues that plague our world is possible because of the spiritual brokenness of mankind. Our world needs phase two of     G-d’s plan: the full physical and spiritual restoration of all of creation. In order for this to happen, G-d will impose himself and his expectation of order upon sinful mankind and his imperfect creation to bring this renewal. G-d will intervene in our world to bring final and complete judgement on sin and rebellion against him. All those at that time, both living and dead, who are not in right relationship with G-d through their personal faith in Messiah Yeshua’s atonement for their sin, will be subject to this judgement, a judgement of complete and total separation from G-d for eternity. All those at that time, both living and dead, who have come into right relationship with G-d through their faith in Messiah Yeshua’s atonement for their sin, will be blessed both spiritually and physically into a full and complete relationship with G-d as they live out G-d’s expectation of order on an earth that has been restored to its original perfection which will continue for eternity. At that time Israel will be the leader of the nations with Messiah Yeshua reigning as King over all G-d’s creation from Jerusalem.

True believers today seeking to impact their world for positive, Scriptural change, should focus their attention on living out G-d’s expectation of order in and through their lives as a public witness for G-d, regardless of personal loss or cost, and also to actively work to strengthen other true believers in Messiah Yeshua as individuals or as communities through the use of their spiritual gifts, resources and time. Live your life today focused clearly on the reality of Messiah Yeshua’s imminent return tomorrow. Live out values and priorities in your daily life today that demonstrate your personal investment in G-d’s eternal kingdom and his award for you tomorrow.

Forward for Messiah!

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director

In the Beginning … there was Order

Don’t we live in interesting times? By the time you read this the election should be over but the disorder in society will not. Below are reflections I’ve written out as a reminder that only G-d’s order endures:

The Scriptures teach that a G-d of order, in creating a world in perfect order, dictated to his creation an expectation of order for those who wished to be in relationship with Him.

The Scriptures teach that G-d’s world in perfect order was corrupted through the rebellion of his perfect creation, and that the disorder of our world is perpetuated by this ongoing rebellion of G-d’s now imperfect creation against G-d’s expectation of order.

The Scriptures teach that G-d provided a perfect plan to restore the world to perfection, a plan that includes most importantly the person and actions of our perfect Messiah Yeshua.

The Scriptures teach that suffering, conflict, confusion, prejudice, sickness and death in this now imperfect world are the direct results of this perpetuated rebellion against G-d and His order by His now imperfect creation, and that His imperfect creation will not ever regardless of secular effort be able to bring lasting order to this now imperfect world.

The Scriptures teach that spiritual perfection for imperfect people can be found today for those who humbly accept Messiah Yeshua’s atonement for themselves, making a restored relationship with G-d possible for those who desire to live according to G-d’s expectation of order.

The Scriptures teach that the complete renewal of perfect order for G-d’s world and creation will come about by G-d’s effort only with the return of Messiah Yeshua. מרנאתא (Maranatha)!

Forward for Messiah,

Kirk Gliebe

Rabbi & Director