Have you ever opened the Bible randomly and found a verse that really spoke to what you were going through that day? I have. It feels neat, like destiny at that moment led me to that exact page. But this past week felt a bit like the “twilight zone” when I read the prescheduled Torah portion, and it paralleled what was happening on the world stage. On the surface, the story of Moses may not seem like it fits what’s happening right now. But the Bible is full of hints of how God does things, and the story of the Exodus spoke volumes to me as I considered the mass prayer push that has grown especially in the past year. With so much prayer, how could things only keep looking worse on virtually every level?
In response to long and agonizing cries from the Children of Israel, the Bible records, “So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.” (Exodus 2:25) What struck me was not how long it took for God to reach this point of “concern”—400 years!—but rather the amount of time that passed between that moment and the day they finally left Egypt.
Beginning the response for the deliverance, God calls their rescuer—Moses—who is in another country busy not being who God called him to be. It takes time for Moses to get his act together and return to Egypt. And even when he arrives, life only gets worse for the Israelites—for a while.
All this is actually part of God’s plan. Sure, God told Moses He was going to show Egypt who is boss, but besides that—and perhaps more importantly—when the time came, God didn’t want any of His people to stay behind. Knowing first-hand how stubborn and fickle Israelis can be, I believe God had to make life so miserable for the Israelites that when the time came, there would be no question as to whether they would leave.
Even after leaving, the Bible records God’s concern that the Israelites would “change their minds and return to Egypt.” So, He leads them to the Red Sea. This both avoided full-on battle with the Philistines—and, once crossed, completely blocked the Children of Israel from being able to return to their slavery.
The question I consider is, if we are witnessing a similar storyline, how miserable must our nations become before God is confident all who are His in that nation will accept His rescue?
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We praise You for sending Yeshua the ultimate Rescuer.
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We ask for revelation in understanding Your ways—they are so different than our ways.
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With so many prophetic dreams and words, the faith of many has been discouraged. We ask for voices of clarity and truth to be restored to the public circles.
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Giving an inaccurate word does not make one a “false prophet.” In the Bible a false prophet led people away from God—whether his word was accurate or not. So we also ask for humility to be on those who spoke in error, but not with intention to turn people away from God.
- Let them be restored to You in humility.
- Let those whom You have called to be a clear voice, and be raised up for Your name's sake.
1. Concerning Politics: To be clear, we keep informed, pray for our leaders, and exercise our right as citizens to vote (those leaders in Israel, United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Brazil, and all the countries from where you might be reading). However, there are two things I always keep in mind when considering politics.
I. History shows the pendulum eventually swings both ways. When it is in our favor, we rejoice, when it is not—well, we pray and focus on the sphere of influence we have—namely, our home.
II. When Yeshua was on earth, His disciples kept expecting His kingdom to overthrow the Romans as they were surely wicked and godless rulers, yet even in His resurrected state, He never made a move toward doing so. He was functioning on an entirely different playing field.
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Father, Your reign is never threatened, it has always been and always will be!
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Help us see history through Your eyes, and understand Your plans as they happen.
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No matter what things look like on earth, we know You are always winning.
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Still, we know, “When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan.” (Prov. 29:2) So we ask for godly leaders to rule over us.
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The next generation of leaders often don’t look like the leaders they will become. Help us identify future leaders when they are young, pour into them, and cover them in prayer.
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The course of a leader’s direction can be dramatically changed if they have offenses or traumatic experiences, and also if they have a revelation from heaven. We pray for the former.
2. Concerning Persecution: It’s always annoying to hear about the work of ultra-religious Jewish organizations coming against the freedom of Messianic Jews in Israel. But in a way, I have some level of compassion knowing that most of them really think they’re doing the right thing for God. They grew up in a closed society that has been told horror stories from church history. They really feel they are defending the unique identity of the Jewish people as the people of the one and only and Living God.
I have much less patience for people who grew up Christian and have “seen the world” but then decide to reject Yeshua (for lack of having a relationship with Him), convert to rabbinical Judaism, and become activists against the rights of Jews to their own Messiah. They should know better. And it’s one thing to mess up their own life, but to impose their confusion on others is beyond reprehensible.
That is exactly the situation we are dealing with right now. To avoid getting involved in the situation directly, I won’t mention names of the attackers or the persecuted at this point, but we can pray specifically for God to silence the mouth of the lions.
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Father, we thank You that for better, or for worse, the freedom to choose was given to us from the very beginning.
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We choose You, and we ask that You spread the freedom of choice throughout the world.
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We ask for leaders who will enforce the laws in Israel that protect our ability to choose who we worship, and the freedom to tell others about that choice.
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With years of evidence that Jewish believers are a positive influence on Israeli society (and are not a missionizing caricature they had been taught to fear), Israeli authorities have begun to embrace local believers into daily life. It is outside influences that are able to pressure them to change this behavior. We ask for You to give local authorities the ability to stand strong against these outsiders.
- Remove foreigners from this land who would do damage to Your work.
- Diminish the voices of Christians abroad who would use their influence to shut down the work of local Israeli believers.
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We wrestle not with flesh and blood—so we ask You to silence these spiritual forces that would silence Your people.
