The AMAZING love and grace of God and our total unworthiness of such love - Hosea 11

God: when Israel was a child I loved him….out of Egypt I called my son
Us: they sacrificed to Baals…
God: I taught Ephraim to walk…taking them by the hand… I drew them with cords of kindness..with the bands of love…eased the yoke…I bent down and fed them
Us: My people are bent on turning away from Me
God:  How can I give you up Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel…I will not execute my burning anger…. I will not come in wrath…When He roars then His sons shall come trembling…they shall come trembling like a bird….I will return them to their home! 

How amazing is God's faithful love. How can a just God not come in wrath? Ultimately, because He wreaked His wrath in judgment on His Son, our savior! 

How can the roaring of the Lion attract rather than sow fear in our hearts? We must understand this roar in light of Calvary! His Word and Voice and Call issuing out, calling us all to come and see, and be saved, and come near this Holy God who has loved us.

What love is this?!  How unworthy are we as a nation of this love and grace. How bent have we been, on turning away from the one who bent down to feed us?  Not that there are other nations or people more worthy, but still, this is a record that, we here in the land, have to take in.

We were much moved by this sight of God and were helped to intercede with a deep sense of God’s grace and presence. 

• We called on the Lord to utter His voice and 'roar' in this land
• We cried out for His Spirit to fall upon His people.
• We cried out for a heart of flesh instead of the heart of stone! (See Ezekiel 36:26, see Jeremiah 31:31-34)
• We called on the Lord to be washed in the blood of Yeshua
• We called on the Lord to reveal His own nature and being in this land
• We cried for the Lord to reveal the sufferings of the Messiah on the cross 
• We asked for the Lord to reveal His own heart and passion that propelled Him to the cross
• We prayed for the breaking of the bondage of religion in the land
• We prayed for the Lord to shake us and wake us, again, from our spiritual lethargy.
• We prayed out of Deut. 30:5-7 for the circumcision of our and our people’s heart to love the Lord with all our hearts and souls that we may live before Him.
• We called on the Lord to ‘heal the wounds of this nation' (see Jeremiah 30:17)
• We called for His Mercies and Compassions to come upon the tents of Jacob (see Jeremiah 30:18)
• We cried for the Lord to un-bend us from our bent on turning away from Him

The Lord roars from Zion - The Lord is a refuge to His people - Joel 3 
Last week we prayed from Ezekiel 34:25 ….I will banish the wild beasts… we compared some leaders (Assad, Nasrallah and the Ayatollahs) to devouring beasts. 

Jeremiah speaks in a similar way: Jeremiah 30:16 “all who devour you shall be devoured..those who plunder you shall be plundered..all who prey on you I will make a prey…”
No wonder then, that in the midst of this ‘jungle’ God likens Himself to a lion who roars…the King of the ‘jungle’ roars. But whereas the roaring of God in Hosea attracts His people, the roaring of God in Joel 3 causes a quaking of the heavens and the earth (and all therein), and He becomes the refuge, the protection of His people.

• We prayed for the voice of the Lord to shake the nations (See Psalm 46:6)
• We prayed for that ‘roar’ of God in the midst of Israel
• We prayed for God to be Israel’s refuge
• We prayed for God to become Israel’s stronghold
• We prayed for God’s intervention on behalf of Israel
• We prayed for the subduing of Hezbollah on our northern borders
• We prayed for Hamas’ plans to cause havoc and chaos in Samaria and Judea to fail
• We prayed for the wellbeing of Israel in the midst of amazing shifts in the political world
• We stood on the Word and God’s eternal purpose for this nation, to become a refuge for all the Jews in the world (they need to come home of course.)

We concluded the meeting with a reading of the last verses of Joel 
Joel 3:20 But Judah shall dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.
Joel 3:21 For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.

Thank you for standing with us, for His eternal purposes to be fulfilled in the earth! May the God of Israel and the Father of our Lord Yeshua, bless you at this special time of the year, and may His Presence by your joy throughout this Christmas season.

Please note that we will not be holding our regular prayer meetings, December 26 and January 2 

Blessings from Jerusalem,

Conviction

Hos. 5:15 I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face: in their affliction, they will seek me early.

The Hebrew for this verse reads: “till they are convicted.” That is until they feel they're guilt.

Conviction can come to the heart by different agencies. 
First, as is the case above, as a result of circumstances. See Ezekiel 5 to get a sense of it. 
Second, through the direct Word of God spoken by the Holy Spirit through his servants. Remember the Word in Nathan’s mouth to David? “You are the man!” See 2Sam 12:1-9. 
Or in Acts 2:36 A mighty conviction came upon all who heard Peter cry out: “God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” No theory was this! Many of the hearers were present in Jerusalem at the crucifixion. How penetrating a Word, it must have been! Nowhere to flee from it; they “were pricked in their heart, and cried back, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?!” (Acts 2:37) 
Third: Conviction can also be granted as a visitation of the Lord as He pours out His Holy Spirit, who is called in Zechariah 12:10 “The Spirit of Grace and Supplication” That is, the Spirit of Repentance.

Whatever way conviction (from the Lord) comes it is a blessed thing, is it not? It is the most wonderful thing in the world, and it comes from heaven. 

Why is conviction a blessed thing? 

Because He convicts us that we may have Him. He convicts us that we may come back to Him. He convicts us because He wants to give us His Grace and the fullness of all His blessings and nearness. It is Love coming to make you His own. It is Love coming to prepare you to live before Him. He is all that is Good, Holy, Blessed, Fulfilling.  

Hosea’s cry reveals God’s desired end:

Hos. 6:1 Come and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
Hos. 6:2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
Hos. 6:3 Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.

See how excellent is the result of the conviction and of returning to God?  Why its life from the dead for the nation of Israel. This mighty conviction will be Life from the dead for us.

We prayed for conviction unto salvation

• We prayed for a mighty conviction to fall on Israel, from heaven
• We prayed for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of repentance to flood the land
• We prayed for a great Hunger and Thirst for a heavenly Righteousness to invade our land
• We prayed that God might take away our ability to enjoy our self-righteousness 
• We prayed for a strong conviction, especially among those who are in a mighty effort to keep the Rabbinical interpretation of the law… see Hos. 6:6 For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
• We prayed for the Holy Spirit to reveal the Son and cause men to long for Him
• We prayed for a mighty revelation such as Isaiah had, such as Paul had, such as Thomas had, of the glory and holiness of God and His mercy and grace at the cross

We prayed for conviction unto Aliya (returning to the land)
With anti-semitism rising so ferociously in the world, we felt an urgency to pray for a return to of the Jewish people to the land of their forefathers.

• We prayed for stirring in the hearts of the millions of Jews who are very satisfied in staying in other countries, totally ignoring the rise of the hatred for them in the nations they live in. Click here for more info: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46150677
• We prayed that God would do what He promised (Ezekiel 37:12) and what no man or agency can do by themselves, and that is to bring His Word to pass! 

We prayed for conviction to sweep the Church
In the book of Revelation, we see Yeshua, ascended and glorified, coming for His Bride. He will not tolerate a bride with a distracted heart, with a wayward heart. He who is Love comes with a mighty sevenfold word to His people to reclaim them for Himself! This is what Love does. So for instance, her rebukes the Ephesian Church Rev. 2:4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.

• O’ that Love may ‘nail us.’
• O’ that Love would convict us
• O’ that Love would shine His Light into our hearts and souls
• O’ that we may see you as John did at Patmos
• O’ that we may have a revelation of the Son of God
• We prayed for the Lord to stir up the memory of His people, how it was at the first
• We prayed for a strong conviction, and deep desire in the hearts of God’s people For him 
• We prayed God's people would eschew substitutes. “As we needed you then, we need you now.”
• We prayed for a great deep desire for the Lord Himself to be given to His people

We prayed for the security of this land due to the present dangers
Although everything seems calm, things are so tense on our northern borders that at any moment the tension can break out into a full-scale conflict.

Ezek. 34:28 They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid.
Ezek. 34:25 s“I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.

Nassarallah is a wild beast, Asad is a "beast" and so are the other leaders of those nations which are intent on devouring us! If you want to know what they want, read Ezekiel 35. If you want to know what God will do, read Eze 35 and Eze 36.

• We prayed for the Lord to fulfill His Word and remove those men who, through demonic hatred, have become beasts and not men. 
• We prayed for the Lord to remove the evil wisdom in these men as they plot our demise
• We prayed for divine intervention in removing Hezbollah as a threat to our nation
• We prayed the same for Iran, Hamas and every other “beastly” nation on our borders
• We prayed for the continued success of Israel’s efforts to locate and destroy the attack tunnels in the north
• We prayed for success for Israel in coming up continually with a strategy to overcome the demonic strategy of those terror organizations to fight within civilian centers

The Lord reigns let the earth rejoice! 
​
Blessings from Jerusalem,

And I will not hide My Face from them anymore

There can be no greater and desirable thing than the nearness of God and to live in the presence of the Lord. Think of it, living in the Presence of God! Can there be anything more wonderful, sweeter and fulfilling than living In the presence of God?  

Can there be anything more terrible than losing the presence of God? This is what Israel lost; the Presence of the Living God. Ezekiel, who had been exiled to Babylon, was shown in the Spirit the departure of the Presence of the Lord from the temple, and then from the land. Nothing can be worse than that!

Seeing that the Presence of the Lord left Israel for its unfaithfulness to Him, His return is a wonder of Grace. See Eze 39:25. This is the main focus of Ezekiel 38-39, not the invasion of God and Magog, nor the judgment of God that comes upon them.

Isaiah 54:7 “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies I will gather you.
Zech.1:16 “Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy;

O’ how wonderful this! Just read these verses, let them sink in and tell me that you are not blown away by the sheer grace and wonder of the Lord coming back to dwell with His people. He actually wants us! He wants to dwell with us! He will dwell with us and we with Him!

Ezek. 39:25 “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name--
Ezek. 39:26 after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid.
Ezek. 39:27 When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations,
Ezek. 39:28 then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land, and left none of them captive any longer.
Ezek. 39:29 And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord GOD.”

And it will all be done by the Holy Spirit!

We prayed for the nation of Israel

• We prayed much for the Return of the Shekhinah (abiding presence) and Glory of God to our nation
• We called upon the Lord to fulfill His covenant promises as declared in these verses, and to pour out His Spirit upon our people, without limit!
• We prayed for the Lord to open the eyes of this nation to His Son and their King and Savior
• We prayed much for the Holy Spirit come in heart-breaking power upon us
• We prayed for the mercies of God to flood the land with His Holy Goodness
• We prayed for such a move of God in this land that there would be no one left who does not know the Living God in Messiah (Jeremiah 31:34)
• We prayed from Hosea 2:19-20 God’s return to Israel is a time of the blossoming of Love, a time of Grace and Mercy and Compassion.
• We prayed for the Lord to pour out a Hunger for the Word of God into the hearts of His people so that they might seek Him, as the Shulamite did in Song of Songs. (Song 3:3)

We prayed for the Body of Messiah in the Land
Since we are in the midst of Hanukkah, in which we celebrate the victory God gave us over the enemies of Israel who invaded the land, and of the cleansing of the temple from idols and the reestablishment of the true worship of God in His temple, we prayed along those lines. (Adding this line of prayer to the passage from Ezekiel as quoted above.)

• We prayed for the Light of God to invade the Body of Messiah.
• We prayed for an unrelenting zeal in the Body to cleanse itself from any idols, or flesh or any other thing that does not belong in the House of the Lord
• We cried to God for that same outpouring of His Holy Spirit in the Body
• We prayed for the Lord to come in great mercy and revelation of Himself and ravish the hearts of His people
• We prayed for the Presence of God to fill the House of the Lord
• We prayed for a renewed sense of amazement at the incarnation, and of Calvary
• We prayed from 2Cor 4:6 For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
  
• We prayed from Cor 6:16
• We asked the Lord to make His Body a living Menorah full of light to give light to those who sit in darkness Isaiah 9:2 (which is the whole nation really.)

We prayed for Israel’s security as it faces grave danger on its northern border
As some of you may know Israel is in the midst of an operation to destroy attack tunnels that have been dug by Hezbollah into Israeli territory. Some of the tunnels are right by Metula, a small city at the very tip of the North of Israel, jutting into Lebanon.

Israel has known about the tunnels for several years but has lied to the public regarding the existence of the tunnel (read in article number 3)

For those interested in exploring further here are a few links to some newspaper articles:

1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-may-have-to-act-inside-lebanon-senior-official-says/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2018-12-06&utm_medium=email

2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/army-claims-hezbollah-aimed-to-use-tunnels-to-cut-off-metulla-start-war/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2018-12-06&utm_medium=email

3. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ex-defense-minister-admits-officials-lied-about-hezbollah-tunnels-for-years/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2018-12-06&utm_medium=email

We were inspired by the story of Hanukkah to pray for Israel's security. God can save by the few rather than the many.

• We prayed for the current on-going operation to destroy the tunnels to be very successful
  
• We prayed for the IDF to find every last one of those attack tunnels
• We prayed for the Lord to keep His hand on the situation and not let the enemy take advantage of it to start an all-out war
• We prayed from Ezekiel 39:1-4 and Eze 39:17-22 There the Lord promises to deal with Israel’s enemies. (Although the wording paints a gruesome picture, the meaning of it is total victory over the enemy; those who have chosen to brazenly and unremittingly rebel against the creator and Lord of all, and to resist His purposes on the earth.
  
• We prayed for the Lord to glorify His name that the nations will know that He alone is God, and that Israel may know the same through that great deliverance
  
• We prayed from Jeremiah 30:10

Thank you for standing with us in these unusual and challenging days. May you have an amazing Holiday Season as the Lord invades your life with His light and presence and love.

Blessings from Jerusalem,