We had an unusual prayer meeting; you will see further down these notes the reason for it.

We read the following verses and then asked a few questions before praying:

Phil. 3:4 although  I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more:
Phil. 3:5  circumcised the eighth day, of the  nation of Israel, of the  tribe of Benjamin, a  Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law,  a Pharisee;
Phil. 3:6 as to zeal,  a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.
Phil. 3:7  But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
Phil. 3:8 More than that, I count all things to be loss  in view of the surpassing value of   knowing  Christ Jesus my Lord,  for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
Phil. 3:9 and may be found in Him, not having  a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ,  the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
Phil. 3:10 that I may  know Him and  the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

Matt. 8:22 But Jesus  said to him, “ Follow Me and allow the dead to bury their dead.”

Is Paul saying that one can stand before the Lord confident in one's flesh?
Is Paul saying that real righteousness can be achieved through the Law?
Is Paul claiming to have done anything heroic by counting all these things loss to gain Messiah?

Of course not! There is no such thing as real righteousness gained through the Law! There is no such thing as real confidence, one that would be sufficient to stand before God, in the flesh!

Paul is not claiming in these verses, to be heroic in giving up his own self righteousness or sense of accomplishment to gain Messiah. No! Only that all these things are in reality, garbage and worse. He may have clung to them as great assets before he met the Lord, but one look at the savior was enough to see his real condition, that is what we need, this is what our nation needs! 

There is only one way, there is only one gate to Life, to the Father and that is Yeshua! Oh, how blind our people are!

The Great Need for Deep Conviction of Need for Yeshua
Oh, how dead in sin are our people!
This need greatly pressed upon as we began to pray for a deep conviction to be poured out upon the religious, the orthodox, the secular and every part of our society.
Oh, how great is our need for the revelation of Yeshua the Messiah; how great is our need for the Blood of the Lamb!

• We prayed for the promised outpouring of the Spirit of Grace and Supplication (which means that God will reveal to our people their need for His Grace, and that the same Spirit that will cause them to cry out to Him in their need!)
• We took time to thank God for opening our eyes to our need of Messiah
• We thanked God for the Blood of the Lamb
• We acknowledged the Mercy God has done to us, "it was your work; nothing to do with us!"
• We asked God to give us a deep burden for our lost people! (We are all apt not to realize that the people we bump into every day are dead in sin to God!)
• We claimed such promises as in Jeremiah 31:34  "....for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more...." There is no knowledge or fellowship with God aside from experiencing this deep work of God!

Now as we prayed this way for quite a while, people in the group began to cry out to God for this same work in their lives!  

• People were moved to pray to know God in a deeper way
• To be revived in their felt need for the blood of the Lamb
• To receive a revelation of the cross and the crucified Messiah. (So many believers today have come to salvation with a very shallow experience and revelation of these things.)
• Some prayed for the Lord to remove the distractions from their hearts
• Some cried out for the Lord to have Mercy on them.
• People prayed for that same conviction we were praying for, to fall upon them as well.
• Some prayed for forgiveness not only for what they had done but for what they are! (Oh, to see our NEED...surely in this revelation, we shall see HIM -- the answer to all our need.)
• How sweet the fellowship with God is when one is undone - we prayed for this tenderness of heart to be given us.

As we prayed for ourselves, the Lord expanded our praying for the Body of Messiah in the Land.

• We prayed for true deep heart knowledge of the Lord crucified, to be given rather than head knowledge.
• We prayed against deception and seductions that come to us to draw us away from the simple (single-eyed) knowledge of God (see 2Cor 11:1-4)
• We prayed for hunger and thirst after righteousness to invade our hearts
• We prayed along the same line as we prayed for our nation and for ourselves

We were then moved to pray in this way for the Body of Christ in the nations...

Please stand with us and pray with us for that heaven sent conviction and confrontation with God at the cross.

May the Lord touch you in the same way till revival breaks forth in your heart and your fellowship and in the Body of Christ you are part of.

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Jer. 23:7  “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’
Jer. 23:8 but, “As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ And they shall dwell in their own land.”

The restoration of Israel and the utter faithfulness of God
As I was contemplating the verses above, a view of the utter faithfulness of God opened to me. I could “see” the long line that I was part of, and I became aware of the depth of the grace and mercy of God, who in His utter faithfulness has brought us through to the present.

I could “see” that long line being kept throughout our very long history: Egypt, desert, Canaan, destruction, exile, dispersions; as my ancestors went from city to city, from nation to nation, God was always there; unseen and unknown by them, yet nevertheless there. I could “see” how day by day, year by year, decade by decade, centuries — stretching to two millenniums— God was always there; preserving, watching, guarding and finally leading us back to the land. And now, I was sitting before the Lord, in the land, in His Son. 

This view was overwhelming to me. God is so lowly, so full of mercy, so patient for so l o n g!  God is utterly faithful to Himself, and to His Word; it reaches us as a great mercy.

But God is not done, and the glory of His acts in the hopefully soon future will outshine all that has ever gone before. His glory will outshine all that has gone before.

Jer. 23:5  “Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper, And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
Jer. 23:6  In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE Lord OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Yeshua will rule, His people will be saved, cleansed, sanctified. All past failure and defeat will be forgotten in light of the enormity of the victory of Messiah’s grace in the Land.  

Psa. 72:18 Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things.
Psa. 72:19 And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen

• We celebrated and acknowledged the greatness of God
• We acknowledged and thanked God for who He is
• We acknowledged His faithfulness, mercy, and patience
• We thanked God for His faithfulness to His Word, to Himself
• We acknowledged our people’s total unworthiness of all of this

 

• We prayed for the fulfillment of those scriptures
• For Aliya - the greater-than-exodus ingathering 
• For the revelation Yeshua King of Israel
• For the outpouring of the spirit of Grace and Supplication (Zech 12:10)
• For the repentance of our people and the knowledge of the Blood of Messiah as the only means of justification
• For the fullness as declared in Jeremiah 31:34 (b) …”For they shall all know me, from the last of them unto the greatest of them, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Security
Jer. 23:6 In His days Judah will be saved,  And Israel will dwell safely…”

The threats to Israel’s security and existence are enormous. Iran is developing its nuclear capabilities with a declared goal of destroying the nation of Israel from the face of the earth, Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, has amassed over 150,000 rockets of all ranges covering all of Israel. They are ready and willing to use them if Iran orders them to unleash this fiery fury. Too, the Palestinians have stepped up terror attacks ever since the president of the US declared recognition of Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. 

But God has declared that Israel shall dwell safely - our future is determined, yet we are called to intercede that it shall be so! 

• We prayed that God would rise on our behalf to defend us (Zechariah 12:9)
• We prayed for into the situation with Iran
• We asked the Lord to give Israel the technology it needs to meet those threats. For an interesting commentary on this read 2Chronicles 26:15 in the KJV. “Cunning men invented engines…” and Judah and Uzziah were “marvelously helped.” 
• We prayed for Israel to be protected against the unceasing cyber attacks coming from her enemies (Iran especially).

The Body of Messiah
Daniel 11:32 …. but the people who do know their God shall be strong and do exploits. KJV
The word “exploits" is not in the text…. the ESV has it as “shall stand firm and take action.”

The Hebrew text can be translated in the following manner: “the people who know their God will get a hold of Him and will act." (Or carry on).

Oh how we need to know the Lord and get a hold of Him in these days, it's God’s calling, see Isaiah 64:7 ("stir" in that verse means to awaken oneself)
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• We prayed for the Body 
• To be ready
• To be in the Spirit
• To be separated from the spirit of the world
• To be holy 
• To be prophetic
• To be mature
• To be awake
• To know God
• To get a hold of God and His strength 

Thank you for standing with us before the Lord for the fulfillment of His Word - all for His Glory!

​Blessings from Jerusalem

Dear Friends, many times we share here more than just prayer points, this is with the hope of inspiring you to dig into the Word of God yourself, to inspire your prayers and sometimes, to only give more background to the things we pray about. Perhaps you will not resonate or will not be able to connect with every point; we suggest you just use what you can and pray the way you feel to pray. As you learn to pray, especially from the Word of God, you will grow in your understanding and experience. May the Lord open your eyes to see wonderful things from His Word. 

The restoration of Jerusalem and Israel in light of her role and calling in the last days
Dan. 9:15 And now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made Yourself a name, as it is this day—we have sinned, we have done wickedly!
Dan. 9:16 “O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I pray, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all those around us.
Dan. 9:17 Now, therefore, our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and for the Lord’s sake cause Your face to shine on Your sanctuary, which is desolate.
Dan. 9:18 O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.
Dan. 9:19 O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and act! Do not delay for Your own sake, my God, for Your city and Your people are called by Your name.”

These verses are only part of Daniel's prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem and God's people. We just quote here part of the whole prayer which we read together. Read it and be inspired! 

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A note about Daniel and his prayer
We pointed out the fact that Daniel's prayer, and that little incident where he got to spend a night with lions (Daniel 6), happened in the same year, the first year of Darius. 
The enemy was apparently so threatened by Daniel's prayers that he roused the jealousy of Daniel's peers and used them to try to kill him.  
HIs prayer was so important that the Lord preserved it in His book. His prayer was so in line with God's will, and so effective that the Lord sent the angel Gabriel to reveal to him the ultimate fulfillment of all he was praying for. May we learn to pray like that, to live like that. 

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We followed the outline of the prayer and used many of its verses. 
Where Daniel confessed Israel's rebellion and sin, you can use those verses to ask the Lord to bring conviction of those things upon us (rather than confessing them yourself - which would not be fitting). The matter of conviction is entirely in line with other portions of scriptures such as Zechariah 12:10, Ezekiel 36:25-27 and Ezekiel 36:31 

• We prayed for the Holy Spirit to come in conviction, repentance, a revelation of the crucified one.
• We acknowledged God's greatness, and His goodness (Dan. 9:4)
• We admitted and confessed that as a people we rebelled against the Lord (Dan. 9:5)
• We acknowledged that our people have a history of rejecting the Word that He spoke through the prophets (Dan.6:6)
• We prayed earnestly for our nation and Jerusalem with these amazingly moving and profound words found in Dan. 6:15-19 

Jerusalem - destined to be a blessing in the midst of the earth
We were moved to continue to pray for restoration, keeping in mind Jerusalem's destiny. 

Is. 62:1 For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace,  And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns.
Is. 62:2  The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, And all kings your glory. You shall be called by a new name, Which the mouth of the LORD will name.
Is. 62:3  You shall also be a crown of glory In the hand of the LORD,  And a royal diadem  In the hand of your God.

These verses open an amazing view, and that is that Israel's salvation will shine as a great light in the earth. 

The Word will issue again from her midst (Isaiah 2:1-3) 
The Light of Salvation will break forth and shine in the world - a veritable Light House shining into the earth's darkness. Imagine the light of the Grace of God, the light of His forgiveness, the light of the cleansing blood, the light of conviction that Yeshua is the only way, and all else is a disaster and eternal ruin. The Light of the Word and the truth of God. The world needs the light of God! 

Just imagine what it would be like for the nations around us to see the shining forth of God's salvation from Israel! To see Israel worshiping and praising her King and Messiah! Israel repentant and broken before God, Israel rejoicing in her King. 

• We prayed into these verses for Jerusalem to fulfill her God determined destiny in spite of the God-resisting will of the nations (Psalm 2)

Israel's enemies need God, and they need to be stopped
With Isaiah 62:1-3 in mind, we prayed for the Iranian people. There is much unrest there at the moment as the people are longing for a change; they are under much oppression

• We prayed for a regime change in Iran. 
• We prayed for Iran to open for the gospel's sake
• We prayed that the uprising would be as an earthquake in Iran 
• We prayed God would stop Iran from advancing towards Israel (they are, through their proxies, 11 K from our borders on the Golan.)
• We prayed into the situation with Hezbollah; some Israeli experts are warning that war is imminent. 
• We prayed into the tension with the Palestinians and Hamas. The issues regarding Jerusalem are insoluble, humanly speaking. Tension is rising and could easily slip into much more violence, especially with Hamas' help and encouragement.  

Our leaders as shepherds 
Some in the prayer group expressed a burden for our people and the social issues so plaguing Israel. 

Did you know Israel has no constitution? Did you know that many of our laws have their root in a soup of Ottoman and British and Israeli law? Did you know Israel has no separation of "Synagogue" and State? Did you know that Israel has 106 political parties? " Only" 11 parties in the Knesset (our parliament)

There is much in the Word of God which is being fulfilled right before our eyes, Israel is prosperous, strong, vibrant. 

Many other parts of the Word of God have not yet come to expression. There is much inequality, corruption on many governmental levels, poverty, lack of affordable housing, low wages.

This is all contrary to the Word of God see for instance Ezekiel 36:29-30 and it  is something God wants us to pray into (see Ezekiel 36:37)

• We prayed for our leaders, to come clean from corruption
• We prayed for leaders who have a heart and vision broader than their agenda
• We prayed for a change in the political system
• We prayed for the many talented people that are leaving Israel for lack of work or opportunity
• Pray with us for a massive Aliya (immigration) from the US and France; it has the potential of bringing about a great change, just as the Aliya from Russia did in the 90's

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Thank you for praying with us and for us. 

Blessings from Jerusalem