Branch of Israel

I want to talk on a something that is near and dear to mine and my wife’s heart, so I am devoting today’s topic to all the animal lovers out there. More importantly, I want to answer why I believe we will see our pet’s in heaven. Before I do, let me preface it with this, I read a few different websites just to see what the various opinions are, and I have to admit that some of the information to me was very sad, where others gave it their best shot. I remember one site gave the impression that animals do not have feelings, therefore they do not have a soul. To me, it was very obvious this person has never owned a pet before. We are born with a body, soul and spirit. The Bible tells we are born into sin and the spirit is not of God, this is what I believe influences our soul.   When an animal is born it has a body but what about a soul and possibly a spirit?    In Genesis 2:7 God breathed into man and he became a living being. In verse 19 the animals are called a ...

In the spring just like the fall we have different feasts.  The spring brings about two main feasts Passover and Shavuot (Pentecost), in the fall it gives us the third which is the Feast of Tabernacles.  These are the 3 main feasts in which the Lord wanted celebrated in Jerusalem every year.  The same was true in the days of Yeshua (Jesus) when He and His family went there as well as He and His disciples. A lot of people think of Pentecost as a New Testament festival but there was a reason the disciples and everyone else were all in Jerusalem that day, it was for Shavuot. In other words, this is a celebration that has been going on since the days of Moses. Traditionally the rabbis claim it is was the day when Moses received the Ten Commandments, but if you calculate it out according to Exodus19 you see that it was more than 50 days after Passover. Shhh! Do not tell them that, it will be our little secret. Yet… the Lord tells us to celebrate this holiday and how. According...

 This COVID virus has really caused people to do some good things, bad things, and not sure whether the last is classified as strange or weird things. Recently my wife and I were watching the English news channel for Israel and they showed that people were hugging trees.   Now I know that this is not something new but they showed a clip where people were hugging trees not to protect “Mother Earth” but it was helping them to overcome separation anxiety.   The one I really do not get is they interviewed a lady hugging a tree and her “partner,” as she called him, was right there hugging another part of the same tree.   Partner? Is that like a dance partner? The other question to ask, why is she not hugging him instead of the tree?   The tree is hard, cannot hug back and has no emotions or feelings towards you like your spouse, not partner, would give you.   So where am I going with all of this? It is surely not to make you think because of Corona that th...

I do not know about you, but I hunger and thirst to walk in God’s glory and presence just like Moses did. See during the early to mid-90s my wife and I learned how to soak and move in the glory of God.   This was during a time when a movement called Times of Refreshing was moving through the body. What was it and what was it all about? Truthfully, it was a time of God’s spirit being poured out on the body and revitalizing them to be able to have the strength and ability to move on to the next wave of God. How did this work? Soaking was becoming a big thing almost like a fad but for the body of believers. But what is soaking?   It is a time of relaxing in His presence while soft worshipful music would play and the people would just relax and let God minister to them without intervention from anyone else.   Before you can ask, how do you know when God has showed up?   Let me ask you a question, how do you know when someone has walked into the room without you see...

One evening my wife and I were watching a movie of a true story that took place in the early 1900’s around the time of WWI.  Though I was not familiar with the content it was still very moving in how one of today’s hymns came about. Many have written books and songs about the love of God and have done very well at it. Some of you might be familiar with an old hymn called Love of God. Yet out of the 100% of you who know the hymn, I would be willing to say that probably less than 1% are familiar with the derivation of the words in the third stanza.  Frederick M. Lehman was forced to take a job at a packing plant because of a business loss. While there he had written two stanzas to a hymn about the love of God. Unfortunately he was unable to come up with a third stanza. In those days a song had to have three stanzas. In the movie it was mentioned three represented the trinity and a song was incomplete without a third line.  According to Al Smith’s Treasury of Hymn Hist...

I would like to share with you something that I feel is probably not discussed in church and is something I am not sure too many have seen. It comes from the book of Revelation in chapter 6 and deals with the first four seals which I believe very very strongly they have already been released upon the earth. You will see why shortly.     Seal 1: Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer .   I want to first dispute any thought that this is Jesus on the white horse. Why? In Revelation 19:11-16 it describes him on the white horse and He is wearing many crowns and is not described as a conqueror but as Faithful and True.  Seal 2 : When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” And anothe...

I need to let you in on a little secret about myself. It seems like when I have something that I am very comfortable with, I absolutely refuse to let it go. For example, I have a pair of Israeli sandals that once I got them broken in, or as my wife lovingly tells me, I broke them out , I will not let them go because they are extremely comfortable. Well, the same is true with one of my Bibles. I have had it for well over 20 years and some of the pages in it literally look like something you would see in a Bible museum in Jerusalem with fragmented pages. I rarely call it my Bible but my notebook because I have written so much in it that I tend to use it as a point of reference. I noticed in Deuteronomy 8 a note I had written, Why the Lord had the Israelites in the wilderness .  You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep ...

On Monday, March 2nd, Israel is voted for the 3rd time in the past year. This time however, the turnout seemed somewhat smaller. Even the people sitting outside representing their respective candidate were very few in number. Yet there was still an excitement in the air about wanting to vote Benjamin Netanyahu in again. In Israel he is known as Bebe for short. One lady and her husband, an older couple mind you, were pulling up to park and had their music blaring, horn honking, and the woman in the passenger seat was dancing and shouting “Bebe! Bebe! Bebe!” The people obviously are tired of it, but at the same time the majority of the people still want Netanyahu. According to the media it was the largest turnout since 1999. Out of the top 2 contenders he was the only pick, and for now I believe God still wants him in office. Besides, it is for such a time as this. But why is that? Purim follows a week later on March 9. If you are not familiar with this minor holiday then y...

As believers we tend to accept things for granite. It has been a problem within the body for years with most people accepting what they hear as gospel. That is, people make comments or quotes as if it is directly from the Bible. Well… I thought that we could just play a little game and see how many you can guess are in the Bible or where did it originate from? Some will be obvious and others not so obvious. So are you ready? God helps those who help themselves   Answer... While most people might give credit to Benjamin Franklin, its earliest appearance was found in one of Aesop's fables—Hercules and the Waggoner. Where the waggoner prays to Hercules for help while neglecting to try to move his stuck cart himself. Philippians 4:13 states, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Cleanliness is next to godliness   Answer... Rabbi Phineas ben Yair in the 2nd century AD wrote this in the Talmud. It is popularly credited to John Wesley's sermon in 1...

In the days to come Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit. Isaiah 27:6 One New Man Bible. What we see here is the prophecy that Israel will become prosperous exporting its fruit to the world. Living in Israel has taught us to eat fruit in season rather than out of season. In other words, when the mango is gone, unlike in the United States, you have to wait until next year to get more. It makes you really appreciate the fruit that much more. Israel today is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world leader in agricultural technologies considering the fact that the geography of Israel is more desert than arid enough to have the ability to grow anything. BUT! not only just produce and agriculture but technology , health , and environment to name few more. The last Hebrew word in that verse is t'nuva which can be Biblically translated to fruit or produce . Today it means: produce, crop, yield or output; the modern ...

In the Bible a lot of times people read the word law but never really know what it means. A Greco-Roman mindset, or western way of thinking, would think of it like a set of rules over us to keep us in line. While this sounds all good and true it is not necessarily correct. Background The Greek word for law is nomos which means: anything established, anything received by usage, a custom, usage, or law . This is the same word used for Torah in the Septuagint. The Hebrew word Torah means: teaching, instruction, or doctrine.

I have found that over the years that I can get on a whim about something, write it down, then forget about simply because I get distracted, or move onto something else. The problem with that is I found that I have material here and material there, but pulling it together is another story. Surely, I am not the only one that has run into this before. Recently, I was asked a question about the different feasts, and as I was explaining it I told him that I would email him something about it. Well, being able to pull all the material together is another thing. It may be in one place in my mind, but in 10 or 15 places on my hard drive. Anyway...

In 2010 my wife and I did a One New Man Passover with Sid Roth. Below is the haggadah he outlined for me. He told me, the whole service should reflect Yeshua (Jesus). We want each and everyone of you to be able to celebrate it this year yourself, as well as all the coming years ahead. We need to be ready to celebrate/practice for the final feast that we all will partake in with Yeshua in His Glorious Kingdom.  Hope that you all can enjoy and have fun with it, and remember to celebrate it with Yeshua in the middle of it. Chag Semeach (Happy Holiday)!

Before moving to Israel we celebrated Shabbat with a group of people in our home every Friday evening. We always opened our meetings with the lighting of the candles, and then had communion with my wife's wonderful ( I cannot emphasize this part enough ) homemade challah. After this, if God did not already take over the meeting we might worship, or talk a little about something God had shown one of us, discuss different scriptures, or even do a teaching. In one of our meetings a 10 year old boy taught us from the book of Habakkuk and what the Lord showed him it meant. Whatever we did, we never tried to put God in a box, and He always showed up faithfully every time. That is why no two meetings were ever the same.

Recently my wife and I were at a beach in Kiryat Chaim ( click on the location link below this article ) after Shabbat, where we stood and watched a crowd of people, mostly adults, dance in a large circle ( see photo ). It reminded me of dances like The Freeze and Line Dancing . As if on cue, everybody knew the dance routine to each song, and it appeared as if no two dances were identical. I was told that they learn these dances from kindergarten age.

There are some things that I have been learning since living here in Israel that I was not aware of before. Because they are so new to me, I have decided to let Wikipedia do the explaining this time. As most of you know, the month of April ended with Passover and it turns out that there is one holiday that Israeli's make a big deal out of. On the last day of Passover there is a celebration called Mimouna .  It is my understanding that it originally came from Morocco. Either way,  businesses close down and everyone enjoys this day with cookouts and get togethers.  I thought that I was the only one who got excited about getting to eat bread again after Passover, but here it is a common thing obviously.  Now we all know why they like to have this celebration.

The Passover season is finally upon us and we can celebrate one of most momentous feasts talked about in the Bible. It is also one of the more enjoyable holidays by both Jews and Christians alike. Even though the two groups differ only in one area, the Jews choose to keep it yearly (Lev. 23:4), whereas, the Christians go one time. Consider this feast as part of the cycle of blessings ( see Keeping the Feasts ) which should be kept yearly if we want to walk in them. As is with every tradition, things always get added to or taken away from. In the case of Passover it was added to quite a bit from its original inception. Let's look and see what happened.

Recently I was on my way to the Ministry of Interior to apply for Aliyah, after having been there a few times before. As I was going to transfer buses the Lord spoke to me saying “ meet Me at the wall. ” I said, “ Lord can’t you talk to me here? ” Considering He is omnipresent. "Why the wall?" I asked. All I heard was “ less distractions. ”

Generally when we think of a blessing we usually think of it as something that is a standard to say or to do. Like the Catholics bless with the signing of the cross over people so as to sanctify them, the Jewish people raise their hands spreading their fingers apart representing the Hebrew letter shin ( the first letter of the Hebrew word for Almighty ). Others believe that it is to be an exclamation like, "bless you brother/sister" , or "I am so blessed."  But does anyone really know what it means? This is the problem because we tend to use words in our vocabulary without checking them out. We hear our kids do it all the time. They use slang words because they want to be cool like their friends, but really have know clue what they are saying. The body of believers do it as well.

The book of Proverbs was written to be used as a wise set of rules that we should follow. That is why some of them were written as parables so that it would be easy for us to understand and remember. The Hebrew word for proverbs ( pronounced: mish-lay ) actually means to compare as a parable or a story. The root meaning behind this word is to rule or have dominion . This would be someone who compares, as a rule, to help keep one on the right path. Or as parents we have dominion, or authority, to help set our children straight based on the Word of God. As stated in Deuteronomy 6:7 (NAS), "You shall teach them [God's Word] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up."