I’ll say it again ... I stand with Israel

Jesus was a Jew. He belonged to the lion tribe, Judah. His mama was a Jew and his earthly father was a Jew. He carried out the Jewish customs of his day and when one or two needed tweaking toward Godliness, he did it without apology. He read from the Jewish standard operating procedure called the Torah.

God, who we may assume was not a Jew, Arab, Asian, or Native American Indian, did make some sort of arbitrary to move his incarnation event through the Jewish bloodline. God as God could have chosen any other bloodline to become flesh. I am glad I did not have to make that decision for him. Or, I would have had no peace. But, as you think about it, he hasn’t had any peace either.

So whatever else you may think, you must swallow the truth that God elected the Jews out of all the peoples of the earth to perform his mission.

From reading the Bible, we see the Jew, Jesus, moved forward immediately with the task of reaching and reconciling people to God. It really didn’t matter who they were: Gentiles, Samaritans, Romans, and yes Jews.

However, some of the religious big boys didn’t go along with Jesus’ strategy or his openness to all people. But his team was Jewish and they went forward with the mission of loving people back to God.

Now, there was another Jew. He belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. His now famous name is Paul, The Apostle Paul. Basically he thought the Jews should have caught on long before to acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah. And throughout his life, committed to Jesus, he held out hope that the Jews would one day become known as Christians.

Listen to the Apostle Paul’s words found in his letter to the Roman Christians: “Now is their leaving triggered this world-wide coming of non-Jewish outsiders to God’s Kingdom, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming!” (Romans 11:15, 16).

Can you see why Israel must be precious to us of the Christian faith? In addition to our roots going back there and that our Savior came from there, and the man who defined much of our doctrine was Jewish and held out hope for them, our very future.

If there is a focus for the world’s future it’s Jerusalem. Jesus commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I love the Jews. They are my rootage as a Christian and they will enjoy the splendor of heaven with me one day.

Today they are surrounded by men, women, and children who want to wipe them from the face of the earth. We may not understand it all. I certainly don’t. But I understand enough to state the facts as above and I will stand with the facts and with Israel.