It’s 3:00 in the afternoon, and I’m re-reading Tom Stolz’s profound last chapter from Y’shua: The Only Hope for Israel AGAIN. (See the quote accompanying this article.)

One of the things that strikes me about WHY WE PRAY FOR ISRAEL, is because when I (as a German/American gentile) am praying for Israel, I am praying for someone other than me and my kind. I am not “looking out for my own interests” (Philippians 2:4), I am acting as the “servant” of the Father’s desire, just like Jesus did. “I am among you as a servant.” (Luke 22:27)

In my willingness to be “other focused”, I am not only resisting the tempters ubiquitous snare of “self-promotion”, I am not only operating against the grain of the curse of enmity (that Tom describes so well), I am not only operating in benevolent, self-sacrificial love, I am operating the way the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ALWAYS relate to each other; “preferential love for the Other”.

Praying for Israel is saying, as Thomas A’Kempis observes in his book, “The Imitation of Christ”: “Taking up the most blessed place of all – to humble yourself, put yourself in the lowest place and become the servant of all.”

Frequently, when asked to pray for Israel, I hear well-meaning, moral Christians pray kind prayers that will eventually include a line that needs to assert “the Jews are no more special than any other people-group. God loves everyone equally.”

Truth-be-told, I don’t believe the Lord has ever heard anyone utter those words and not understood it as their homogenizing attempt to save their own tribe from being overlooked and relegated to second-class.

This attitude is the same self-adulating spirit that animated the disciples as they argued over who was the greatest. (Luke 22:24)

It’s also the same self-elevating spirit that spouts the reptilian response: “All Lives Matter”, when besieged, and fearful racial groups are asking for compassion and understanding.

God sees through these thin pieces of self-salvation and declares them “ichabod”. There’s no glory of the Lord in them, because there is no likeness of the Lord in this kind of thinking.

The question that the Lord asks, and the question that the gentile Church is confronted with in praying for Israel is, “My son, my daughter, can you leave your self-clamoring heart with Me, cease your tribal striving and consider others as greater than yourself?”

When the Lord sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within the multi-ethnic church at Pentecost it was not His attempt to make the Church into a collection of generic, mutually affirming equals. In fact it was precisely the opposite. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit empowered individual believers in Y’shua to live and dwell together in the manner of God Himself; “not considering that anything was their own” (Acts 4:32). Ha. They were even empowered to live with another man’s language in their mouths. (Acts 2:8)

Peter stepped to the microphone that day with no thought to the number of roosters that might crow; no care for who might be reporting him to the magistrates who had dragged his Lord away only weeks earlier. He was entirely selfless, crucified, dead and buried unto Holy Spirit empowered, enmity-shattering, “other-focused” agape.

Here’s the upside down, make our head explode part: Peter’s message that day wasn’t “Hey. All of our lives are equally valuable.” His message was just the opposite: “Repent. None of our lives merit worth and esteem. None more than another. And none less. WE ALL CRUCIFIED THE LORD OF GLORY. We all need our egos pierced to the heart. We all need to repent. We all need to be baptized into covenant death with this Man.”

The only flesh the Holy Spirit can occupy is dead flesh. He hasn’t come to revive the faltering. He’s come to make that which has been dead and buried ALIVE!

Being black and saying BLM is no different than not being black and saying All Lives Matter. They’re both expressions of dead flesh trying to save something that’s not worth saving.

I hope that’s not a novel idea to you. Because it’s the essence of the gospel. NONE of US are worth saving! Apart from His steadfast “chesed” we all live in the land of being the enemies of God. EVERYTHING that is gain to us comes through His mercy. EVERYTHING.

Philippians 2:3-4 is the beginning of the Kingdom living:

“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”

From this posture when we’re called to pray for Israel, and we hear of the Lord’s great love and passionate zeal for Israel, we aren’t filled with prideful rebuttal and jealousy. (Indeed, this is the spirit of the devil in its purest form.)

Instead, because we’re filled with the Philippians 2 mind of Christ, we pray selflessly for Israel SIMPLY BECAUSE OUR LORD HAS COMMANDED US TO “Pray for Israel”. And in praying we are saying, “I’m a dead man. My people are by all rights a dead people. I’ve put myself in the lowest place, and correctly esteemed my self, and my own tribe as nothing, and am nothing but a servant who has come to do Your will O Lord.”

Family of God, we will never achieve the value of “all” by esteeming each other’s intrinsic worth. This is the hallmark of Babel, not Jesus’ Kingdom. In the Kingdom of the Triune God, we will only achieve HIS VALUE OF ALL by esteeming ourselves as nothing – patiently waiting until our Lord should bid us to the head of the table. (Luke 14:10)

This is the only way for the tenacious curse of enmity to be purged from our souls and our relationships with others. This is the selfless love that will win the heart of Israel. This is the selfless love that looks like (Ephesians 5:26-27) “maturity in the Bride”. This is the selfless love that will herald a Jewish messiah to return to extend His supreme and sovereign reign over every heart and tribe and nation.

Let’s serve the Lord! Let’s pray for Israel!
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JSB • May, 2023