In the Messianic Jewish community that I’m part of, we define ourselves as Jews who are at the same time loyal to Yeshua as Messiah and Lord, and loyal to the Jewish community with its values and traditions. This can be a balancing act at times, but it also unlocks a prophetic vision for the restoration of all Israel, not just individual Jewish people, through Messiah Yeshua. This restoration, in turn, is to be the source of blessing for all of humanity. “For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?” (Rom. 11:15).
This vision was rekindled in the late 60s and early 70s as many Jewish people got swept up in the Jesus movement of those days. Today’s Messianic Jewish community was pioneered at that time and on through the 80s, but in North America it’s been in a less dynamic mode in recent years. In contrast with our early days, we are missing:
- Unabashed enthusiasm for Yeshua and his rule present and future.
- Active moving of the Spirit of God among us.
- Simple and powerful reliance on Scripture.
- Constant concern for Jews who need Messiah and how to reach them.
I request prayer for our community to be renewed on these four vital points. We also need prayer for:
- Spiritual awakening among the Jewish communities of North America, including (and probably starting with) our existing Messianic Jewish community.
- Our community to have a new level of influence and impact in the wider Jewish community, with boldness and wisdom in sharing the good news of Messiah, and many Jewish people of all ages responding.
- Renewing our founding vision in terms that younger Jewish people can understand and find compelling, and which remain true to Scripture.
- The growth of a thriving prayer network within our community.
Russ Resnik
Rabbinic Counsel
Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
1 December 2016 BBC News
“Ethnic cleansing is taking place in war-torn South Sudan, the country's UN human rights commission has warned.
It says it has observed starvation, the burning of villages and rape being used as weapons of war across the country.
The three-member commission, which was established earlier this year, has just completed a 10-day visit to South Sudan, which has been blighted by conflict for more than three years.
President Salva Kiir has denied that ethnic cleansing is taking place.
In a statement released on Thursday, the commission says "the stage is being set for a repeat of what happened in Rwanda" in 1994 - a reference to the killing of 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, in the space of three months.
Yasmin Sooka, the chair of the commission, said that everywhere the team went in South Sudan, it "heard villagers saying they are ready to shed blood to get their land back".
South Sudan's civil war has caused more than 2.2 million people to flee their homes. It began in 2013, two years after South Sudan became independent, when President Salva Kiir sacked his cabinet and accused Vice-President Riek Machar of instigating a failed coup.
Government and rebels agreed to attend peace talks in 2014, and a deal was signed a year later.
Mr Machar eventually returned from exile to be reinstated as first vice-president of a new unity government under Mr Kiir in April 2016.
However he was again sacked months later after renewed conflict.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-38174754
Please pray with our Sudanese brothers and sisters in Christ for an end to his conflict and for His peace and restoration to return to this troubled land. Pray that Satan, the ultimate genocidal killer, is bound and that tribal leaders will become peacemakers that can agree on a way forward that will avert the danger of genocide, bringing healing and blessing to both tribes.
http://www.trunews.com/article/one-last-kiss-jihadi-parents-blow-up-own-daughter
December 21, 2016
One last kiss: Jihadi parents blow up own daughter
A still image taken from a video obtained by Reuters shows the damage inside a police station in the Midan neighbourhood of Damascus, after Syrian state television said a young girl of about nine years of age blew herself up on December 16, 2016. REUTERS TV via REUTERS
Disturbing video shows Jihadi parents encouraging and prepping two young girls just before they left the house, One girl would become a suicide bomber inside Syria's capital city police department, except officials say someone blew her up from the outside.
The two girls seven and nine were disturbingly groomed by a man in a video just before the bombing took place in Damascus.
A woman in a burka is also seen in the video hugging and kissing the girls.
The seven year old girl is thought to be the one killed in the bombing at police station on December 16th.
It is reported that the little girl was carrying a belt that was detonated from afar,' the paper posted on its Facebook page.
The blast in Damascus, the Syrian capital, wounded three police officers.
Daily Mail reports that the video released has been confirmed by Syrian journalists to be depicting Jihadist husband and wife alongside their two little girls seven and nine years of age. They also linked one of the youngsters to the explosion on Friday inside a police station in Damascus that injured three police officers and claimed the life of the one little girl…
Daily Mail copy / TRUNEWS summary.
Already many Muslims are coming to see the demonic nature of radical Islam and turning to Jesus Christ as they witness such horrors as this personally or hear about it in the news. Let’s pray that today’s children and youth will be set free from this horrendous deception and vicious ideology. May we see an immense harvest of millions upon millions being delivered out of Islam and coming to vibrant faith in Jesus! God will use our prayers in that process.
Multiple confidential sources inside of a powerful jihadist group within the United States have informed the Christian Action Network and the Clarion Project that members have been told to arm themselves in anticipation of raids by the Trump Administration. The Pakistan-based spiritual leader of Muslims of America (MOA), Sheikh Gilani, told top MOA officials (known as "khalifas") to order all unarmed members to obtain firearms, licenses and hunting permits in order to resist raids on the group's approximately 22 compounds that they expect to happen under the Trump Administration. Additional "security" was also called up and assault rifles have been mentioned as desirable. The group now expects the FBI "to reopen its cases against them as a homegrown terrorist organization," one of the confidential sources told Martin Mawyer of the Christian Action Network and Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project. The sources independently stated that members across the country were told of instructions from Sheikh Gilani to "be prepared to fight." The message reportedly relayed to members was to "hear and obey," using language identical to the oath of allegiance members sign when they join the group. He predicted, "You will be tested." (Read more)
The Clarion Project https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/american-islamist-group-preps-jihad-against-trump#
Pray too for a wall of spiritual protection over the US Presidential Inauguration and over Donald Trump and his administration due to all the hate and division that the current election produced. Pray for the vigilance of the authorities and the effective elimination of the terrorist threat in the USA, Europe and other parts of the world where ISIS and other such groups are operating.
The first 100 Days of the presidency of a newly elected POTUS is critical for setting the platform and for garnering the success of the administration from the start. This year the first 100 days begins on Inauguration Day, January 20th, and runs through April 29th, 2017.
As we look back in the history of the nation, the idea of this time period and setting of administrative priorities stemmed from the first hundred days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency.
It is critical that we stand together As One for the new administration as it takes power in January. President Trump has an aggressive 100 Day policy. If we do not lift our voice in prayer for this president and his policies, then we will not have a right to complain about what happens during this time frame. Not only that, but we are commanded to intercede first for those in authority over us that we can lead a quiet and peaceable life. (I Timothy 2:1-3).
In that light, a coalition of prayer ministries have banded together to write a prayer guide to cover the first 100 days as part of the As One initiative www.prayasone.org. This is the second major collaboration we have endeavored as national prayer networks. The first involved two separate 40 day periods of prayer walking our cities and neighborhoods that resulted in thousands of people putting feet to their prayers across the America.
Pray100 has a Facebook page as well as Twitter account #pray100. We encourage you to use both of them to request that others join in and post your own prayers for the nation.
Dave Butts
National Prayer Committee
Dave Kubal
Intercessors for America
Lisa Crump
National Day of Prayer
Dick Eastman
Every Home for Christ
Cindy Jacobs
Generals International
John Robb
International Prayer Council
Please pray that President-elect Donald Trump and his Vice-President-elect Mike Pence will seek the Lord for His wisdom and guidance for the very challenging assignment they have been given as the new leaders of the USA. Pray that they will be open to incorporating prayer in the way they conduct White House business and in how they provide leadership to the nation and interact with other nations
(CNN) Political uncertainty in the United States and in South Korea could give North Korean leader Kim Jong Un "an apt time" to develop nuclear weapons "at all costs by the end of 2017," a high-profile North Korean diplomat who recently defected to South Korea said Tuesday.
"Due to domestic political procedures, North Korea calculates that South Korea and the US will not be able to take physical or military actions to deter North Korea's nuclear development," Thae Yong-ho, formerly No. 2 at the North Korean Embassy in London, said in a news briefing, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
Thae said Kim has no plans to give up the country's nukes even if he is offered huge sums of money, saying the leader is "racing ahead with nuclear development after setting up a plan to develop it (nuclear weapons) at all costs by the end of 2017."
President-elect Donald Trump signaled last week that he will look to "strengthen and expand" the US nuclear capability, tweeting, "The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." Trump's comments came hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin also pledged to enhance his country's nuclear forces.
What could Trump do about North Korea? Pyongyang will try to open dialogue with Seoul's and Washington's new administrations as a nuclear-possessing state, Thae predicted of the North's strategy to obtain a nuclear power status.
Until then, North Korea will continue to launch military provocations and conduct nuclear tests in a bid to frustrate Seoul's and Washington's sanctions-concentrated policy towards Pyongyang, Thae said.
"North Korea believes that relentless provocations must shift new (South Korean and US) governments' policy lines into more stability-focused ones," he said according to the Yonhap News Agency, one of the few outlets allowed into the briefing.
North Korea has recently stipulated a dual nuclear-economic development policy to be part of the ruling party's official platform, but in reality, the decision puts nuclear development at the top priority, he said.
"Following the ruling party congress in May, Kim Jong-un made it a party policy to finish nuclear development within the earliest time possible," he told the news agency.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in October that it's a "lost cause" to try to get North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons.
"They are under siege and they are very paranoid. So the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever it is, is a nonstarter with them," Clapper said in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "The best we could probably hope for is some sort of a cap."
CNN.com
New satellite photos published by a group investigating the human rights abuses in North Korea have confirmed that secret prisons where detainees are tortured, raped and murdered are expanding in terms of size.
Please pray for the frustrating and overthrow of North Korea’s efforts to develop ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear weapons across the world. Let us also continue to pray for regime reform or change so that this country can escape its prolonged isolation and deep human suffering. Pray too for the closing down of these secret prisons and the rescue of those being so horrifically abused in them.
Fox News, Dec. 29
“The major players involved in the long-running Syrian conflict have agreed to a cease-fire set to begin at midnight on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier in the day.
The deal will be guaranteed by Russia and Turkey. It's set to be followed by peace talks between Syrian President Bashar Assad's government and opposition leaders. The Syrian parties would meet in Kazakhstan for the talks, though no date has been set.
Some terror groups are to be excluded from the cease-fire, though, aside from ISIS, it's unclear which -- if any -- that refers to. The head of rebel group Fastaqim told Reuters the truce only excluded ISIS. The Syrian army earlier said the agreement would exclude ISIS, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front and any group linked to it.
Ahmad Ramadan of the Syrian National Coalition said the truce reached Thursday includes a halt to airstrikes and shelling.
Ramadan said in text messages sent to The Associated Press that members of the Free Syrian Army, a loose alliance of several moderate rebel factions, will abide by the truce -- but retaliate to violations by government and allied forces.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said the truce will include 62,000 opposition fighters across Syria, and that the Russian military has established a hotline with its Turkish counterpart to monitor compliance.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said President-elect Donald Trump's administration would be welcome to join the Syrian peace process once he takes office.
Russia is a key ally of Assad, while Turkey is one of the main backers of the opposition. Several previous attempts to halt the civil war have failed.
Let’s pray for the ceasefire to hold and be observed by all parties and that these peace talks can go ahead and bring an end to this destructive conflict.
The Fall of Aleppo
December 13, 2016
I sit in safety, less than one hour by air, only a few hundred miles from the besieged city of Aleppo that today has finally fallen to the forces of the Assad regime. I hear the cries of the innocent who wait for death even as they race to find a place of safety, a way out of the inferno of madness that is war. Their cries echo through the fractures of my breaking heart, tears fall and I grieve for the unjustifiable loss of life, for the children, for the men and women who will not see tomorrow. In the wrong place at the wrong time, some are simply civilians whose crime was that they lived in a rebel enclave. Others - aid workers, rescuers who sought to save and heal, remain alongside activists for freedom – all trapped together under the threat of indiscriminate armaments roaring over their heads, exploding in their streets. War, its strategies of conquest and death, its madness and sophisticated violence, its use of ever stronger force blindly focused to eradicate all resistance whatever the cost.
The world watches, waits for the aftermath when the last enclave falls. Breaking news informs of reprisal, the inevitable massacre has begun. The execution count unashamedly includes tens of women and children, all of them deemed enemies.
Helpless to help, I can but weep and plead for mercy
The Fall of Aleppo
We close our eyes
and think because
we cannot see the darkness
it is not our own.
War in real time,
voices emerge from the rubble,
disembodied cries rise amidst the ruins.
From under mounds of wreckage
telephones still beep their signals
to an anesthetized world.
Death-rattles tweet
into the hollow bright realm
of supercomputers,
thought-fast communications.
Their android voices twitter
through labyrinthine cyber-nets,
crossing continents
at the speed of light,
disseminating darkness
as multitudes fall, swallowed
in the maw of today’s real time war.
Lisa Loden ©
December 13, 2016
Sunrise Prayer Relay
As we wrote earlier in the week, many interdenominational groups of praying people will greet the dawn of the New Year with others from all around the world as the sun rises in your own community this Sunday morning, January 1. Please join with brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for your church, city, nation and our world, trusting the Lord to do new and extraordinary things in 2017.
For more information about participating now or next year, please see this brief video and website that our Australian friends have created:
New Year’s Day 2017 Sunrise Prayer Relay Short Promo Video 1:23 Secs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF0cvSl8UcE
Great Commission Prayer Summit
Prayer and mission to those who have never heard the Gospel are integrally linked. All the great breakthroughs in mission have been preceded by united prayer from the book of Acts till the present. With this in mind, the Great Commission Prayer Summit will gather those with a heart for both prayer and mission in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Jan. 19-22. Please pray for a spiritual “critical mass”, a divine explosion of His presence and power that will propel a new thrust of taking the Good News of Jesus Christ to the unreached peoples of our world. Pray for all who will be speaking and those attending to be guided clearly and stirred deeply as we prepare to take part. Here is more information about participating on site if you are able to register and come:
Theme: "Contending For Global Harvest" Expectation is Rising! We are expecting a powerful time in the presence of God from January 19-22, 2017 as we discern His heart and learn more about how to align with Him in spiritually contending for global harvest. Plan to join us in beautiful Chiang Mai, Thailand and catch God's fire of devoted prayer and intercession for the nations
http://www.svm2.net/special-events/great-commission-prayer-summit/
Youth and Children’s Prayer Movements- A Request for your Prayer Support
Please pray for crucial meetings that will be held in and near Jakarta, Indonesia, January 22-26, to plan for the further development of both the youth and children’s international prayer movements. International teams who focus on the Next Generation along with some from the IPC leadership will gather to seek the Lord together for the growth and expansion of both these movements throughout our world. Please pray with us for the following:
- God’s wisdom, clarity and unity as we pray and deliberate together on the best ways to go forward.
- The possibility of a world youth prayer assembly, including children, in 2018.
- That Christian leaders and churches worldwide will realize the importance of nurturing the prayer experience of the Next Generation and partnering with children and youth in tri-generational ministry.
- That as He has in the past, the Lord will move powerfully by His Spirit upon children and youth worldwide, calling them into relationship with Himself and using them to do great exploits in revival of the Church and reaching those who have never heard the Gospel.
As we all know and have experienced, New Year’s resolutions don’t usually work out that well due to the ingrained weakness and habits of our human nature. However, as we prepare to plunge into a new year, let us remind ourselves that we as born-again, Spirit-filled Christians have access by faith to His higher power that can fundamentally and totally transform us and our world. Paul’s word, “if anyone in Christ, he is a new creation” can and should be a recurrent reality, not just at the moment of conversion but throughout our earthly existence. It is a reality that is to be daily, even moment by moment experienced by those who walk in the Spirit through a life of prayer.
Now, at one year minus 70 years of age, I can fully agree with the former Rt. Rev. John R. W. Stott, the much-esteemed British preacher, when he bravely admitted to us young seminary students: “I am continually repenting.” Whatever sins and failures are part of our past, we can repent of and be recreated in His image. Wow, there is nothing like the Gospel and its ability to continually reinvigorate and thus transform anyone who repents, turns away from sin to trust in that power from above that can make all things new.
Two poems by my old friend, Don McCurry, former missionary to Pakistan who at about 90 years of age now is a prime example of how the Lord can continually renew and empower a human being. To the admiration of many, he still itinerates globally, making Jesus known to Muslims and teaching Christians how to love and reach out to them. What an inspiration!
Don is also a gifted poet who penned the following two very touching poems and is graciously allowing me to share them with you. They capture the continual total cleansing and supernatural new life that flow to us from Jesus’ all-powerful sacrifice and His victorious resurrection. It is these two things freely given that are the real meaning of Christmas and that guarantee that 2017 can be a year of wondrous, joyous transformation for us and also our world.
I PRESS MY CHEEK AGAINST YOUR BLEEDING SIDE
I press my cheek against your bleeding side;
My sins I no longer want to hide.
Because of what I ‘ve done, You suffered so.
There is no other place I want to go.
At your feet I sit in grief and pain,
Saying Lord, “I never want to sin again.”
It was my sin that drove You to your death,
While You cried, “Forgive him,” with your dying breath.
In sorrow and shame I sit and weep:
My heart breaks before love so deep.
“Now you are clean through my life I’ve given,
Washed by the blood from my side riven.”
Words fail – my tears are all I can provide,
As I press my cheek against your bleeding side.
Mary
Forlorn, standing there in the morning gloom;
My heart breaking besides the empty tomb.
Blinded by tears, I could not see
Christ standing there from death now free.
Supposing Him to be the garden care-taker,
I did not recognize the Lord, my Maker.
With the veil of grief covering my eyes,
I asked him to tell me where the body lies.
Then He spoke my name that glorious morn;
My heart awakened with hope reborn.
Joy filled me soul as I fell at his feet
To worship the one who death did defeat.
He would not let me hold him there;
For He had others under his care.
“Run and tell them I’m alive again;
Now they are free new life to begin.”
Listen to Him, friend, calling you by name;
From the Father for you He came.
Death, sin and Satan are defeated now;
Come to the Savior, before Him bow.
Let’s go with Him, the Lord of life and new beginnings, full of confidence and expectation as to what He can and will do through our prayers and actions this New Year!
European Election Guide – 2017
Canopy of Prayer over Europe recently wrote, ‘When we look back on this year 2016, the most outstanding events for Europe were the Brexit vote of Great Britain, the victory of Donald Trump, the breakdown of the cornerstone of the EU - the solidarity of her members - and therefore the endangering of the EU as a Union. All these events have to do with the fear of migration: from Mexico to the USA, from the Near and Middle East into Europe. These anxieties were readily used by all European populist parties to fuel fear, envy and negative prejudices; cheering Brexit, congratulating Trump, and supporting every opposition against Europe.’ In 2017 there will be significant leadership elections in many discontented European countries, and within the hierarchy of the EU. Click the ‘More’ button for insights to help you pray about the elections and situations that could bring about political changes in Europe next year.