I’m not sure where I read it, but the idea has always been ingrained in my mind – if you want to be a good teacher, be a good student. When Yeshua (Jesus) lived on the earth, his disciples were called “talmudim”. The Hebrew literally means “students”. “Talmudim” comes from the verb, “Lilmod”, “to learn”. In essence, talmudim are learners.

We who know Yeshua as Lord consider Him our Rabbi or Teacher, and ourselves, His talmudim. As such we continue to learn and grow in His wisdom, love, and character.

This learning process involves regular tests from our Lord as He leads us from one level of faith to the next. I recall years ago when I was in school, never being a huge fan of tests – in fact, rather disliking them quite a bit. I’d often find myself attempting to cram mountains knowledge into my poor brain the night before an important exam. Then, after completing the test I would quickly forget most of what I had crammed and scarcely absorbed. Doubtless had I been required to retake the test a week later, I’d almost certainly have failed it.

But in the testing of faith, we cannot cram knowledge or understanding and still hope to pass. If we try this shoddy and superficial approach to learning we will simply find ourselves retaking the test, over and over again. If we are truly His talmudim, we will study, pray and delve deeply into the challenging material at hand, to learn and absorb the lesson well, so that we are educated, transformed, and well equipped to move forward in the Lord. Yeshua wants us to learn today’s lesson – because He has a new lesson for us tomorrow!

What lesson is today’s important lesson? Be diligent to understand and apprehend it, and even to begin applying it. So doing you’ll be thoroughly equipped and prepared for the one your Rabbi will send next…maybe even, tomorrow!

Jesus told His disciples to go into the deep waters and let down their nets for fish. When they did, their nets were filled up with fish to the point of breaking. Being fishermen and businessmen, they may have been tempted to start doing business. I mean, think how much they could make!

But God had a different purpose. The disciples’ occupation as fishermen was just a vehicle for God to demonstrate His great power and love. He wasn’t blessing them with fish so that they would get excited about fishing — He was blessing them with fish so that they could get their eyes off their fishing and on to the greater call He had for them! Thankfully, they left the fishing business and went off with the Lord to do great and mighty things.

Too many of us are wrapped up in fish. We seek the Lord for His blessings, prosperity, and success. But true discipleship is focusing not on the blessings of the Lord, but on the Lord of the blessings!

We can rejoice in our blessings, but let’s not dwell on them! Let’s set our eyes on the Lord and the calling He has for us. When He sees that we have pure and willing hearts, He will be faithful to use us to accomplish His glorious plan!

Did you know that on a rocket’s journey, the most force is exerted at its lift-off? The amount of force that is needed to get that rocket off the ground is so fierce that it could easily blow the whole thing to pieces. Interestingly though, the further the rocket moves from the earth’s gravitational pull, the less energy it needs to move farther along.

Isn’t it true with us as well? Whether it’s breaking a habit, losing those first few pounds or learning something new, taking our first step into a new thing is the hardest part. That initial step always takes the most effort, the most energy. If we keep pressing on, however, it becomes easier and easier to move ahead!

As many of you know, the fact that we have moved ourselves and our ministry here is nothing short of a miracle! God has sustained us as we have pressed ahead through all the difficulties of acclimating to a new language and culture, pioneering a powerful ministry, and living by faith for all our physical needs.

We have come to Israel with a vision and purpose that we truly believe is from God. That vision includes a number of endeavors such as a relief center for needy and hurting Israelis, a leadership training center and much, much more! In so many ways, we, like that rocket are just in our beginning steps of take-off. Please stand in prayer with us as we press ahead to bigger and better things for the Kingdom!

Perhaps there is something new He wants you to be doing! God wants us to get out of our comfort zones and take that first step of faith so that we can see just how truly awesome He is! Together, let’s take our first steps into something new!

Ya know – something occurred to me this past week.

We, and I know many other brothers and sisters around the world have been praying and praying for revival to come. We’ve been seeking God for the seeds we’ve sown in prayer to be harvested in these crucial hours, when they are becoming ripe for the picking. We’ve been asking God to reveal Himself to His people and bring laborers into the harvest.

But people are dying. Ripe fruit is falling and spoiling in the fields. And still, there are few laborers to do anything about it. Why Lord?!

It became clear to me recently why. Jesus said that they will know Him by the love we have for one another. The world will know Him by the love we, believers, have for one another. Where’s the love, friends? Our body is so divided, over silly issues that don’t even matter in the big scheme of things! Our marriages and churches are being torn apart for lack of understanding of the enemy’s tactics upon us!

How can the fields be harvested? We are not prepared for them! We are not ready to minister! We’re so busy looking at ourselves and our problems! Most of us are not even aware of the critical condition we are in as a body! This is an EMERGENCY! We need to wake up and smell the desperate stench of dying souls! Not only those out there in the world but the ones who are part of us — we, and our hurting brothers and sisters in the Lord! We need to start loving one another, that the Lord may be glorified, that His Kingdom come!

Let’s start overlooking offenses today! Let’s learn the devils schemes! Let’s win the hearts of the lost by our love for one another! There’s soooooooooooooo much work to be done!

I used to sell newspaper subscriptions door to door and deliver flowers for a living. I also volunteered for years with my churches inner city bus ministry. My wife waited tables and cleaned houses. She volunteered with a number of ministries, doing youth work and teaching worship dance among other things. Never could we imagine that the Lord would take us to Israel and use us in full time ministry in this capacity. Neither of us ever did anything great in this world but we were faithful in some little things and God found it in His heart to promote us.

D.L. Moody once said, “A good many are kept out of the service of Christ, deprived of the luxury of working for God, because they are trying to do some great thing. Let us be willing to do little things. And let us remember that nothing is small in which God is the source.”

The Lord is always looking for opportunities to promote us – to take us to a higher calling. The problem is that we’re often so busy trying to promote ourselves that He can’t get a word in edgewise!

Let’s not neglect the little things God has put in our path to do. Help clean the church once a week, bless that neighbor or family member God has put on our heart, share the gospel with a coworker. Those little things will eventually lead to bigger things — don’t you doubt it! There’s so much work to be done!

When I first gave my life to the Lord, like many of us, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. If God would have shown me, at that time, all the things that would have to change about me, I think I would have gone running for dear life!

Now, here we are, in Israel, a whirlwind of events going on around us, a toddler, a baby on the way, a growing ministry, all the trials you can imagine in relating to a different culture, language, etc. Ha! If you would have shown me this picture back in the days of my rebellion, I think I would have laughed my head off in unbelief!

But that is the Lord’s way. God is a gentleman. He doesn’t show us more than He feels we need to know. He knows that we are weak and He’s merciful enough not to give us more than we can handle. What He desires for us to lay our worries upon Him and trust Him for our future.

God has not given us power to overcome all the problems we have yet to face. He has given us only the power to overcome what faces us today! Just as the children of Israel could collect only enough manna for one day, the power God gives us to face our trials — it only comes one day at a time.

God has so many wonderful adventures ahead for us who love Him and are called according to His purpose — and He will surely give us the strength to endure the trials we’ll face with each adventure. Let’s trust Him only for today’s trials — and let Him worry about the rest!

We’ve been talking about freeing others from their burdens and bonds. This scripture tells us we are to remember those that are bound — as though we are actually bound along with them!

The North American Indians have a more eloquent word for ‘friend’ than we do in English. In their language, the word for friend literally means, “the one who carries my sorrows on his back.” Isn’t that the ideal friend? One who truly carries our problems!

All of us are bound by different things and suffer from our individual struggles. And we need to be carrying each other’s sorrows as if they were our own.

Our best friend has carried our sorrows. Let’s strive to be more like Him. There’s so much work to be done!

Have you ever noticed that most of our phone conversations go something like this? You call, say a word or two, they’ll say a short thing or two in reply and then something like “Ok, in the middle of something, gotta run, talk to you later”! That’s a good example of most of our telephone conversations with people when we were living in the United States.

Now that we’re living in Israel however, it’s a slightly different story. When we call America now, people are always making time to talk to us. In fact, usually they excuse themselves and go into a separate room so they can hear us loud and clear! And vice versa when they call us! But that got us thinking.

If we make some time and excuse ourselves from a room to talk to someone important on the telephone, how much more should we do these things for the Lord of Glory?!

William Wilberforce, Christian statesman of Great Britain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, once said, “I must secure more time for private devotions. I have been living far too public for me. The shortening of private devotions starves the soul. It grows lean and faint.”

We don’t starve our bodies, do we? Then why do we starve our souls? We would never dream of not eating for a month or two, but how long has it been since we’ve gotten to a quiet room to nourish our souls with the Lord? Seems ironic, doesn’t it? Our bodies our only temporary — they will be buried six feet under some day, along with our belongings eventually. Our soul, though, is what we should be nourishing daily, what we should be guarding as our most prized possession, because it will always be around!

Let’s get our priorities straight. Let’s excuse ourselves from the hustle and bustle and spend some time nourishing our souls and hearing the Lord loud and clear!

The word “midst”, in the Greek, is ‘meros’ which literally means “the middle”. In the ‘meros’ of the throne in heaven is the Lamb of God. The very focus of heaven — the center of attention — is the Lamb of God!

So often we receive emails asking specific doctrinal questions about this new “revelation” or that new “teaching”, and the very first thing I must ask myself is — is Jesus in the center? If all of heaven is centered on the Lamb of God, how much should every doctrine be centered on Him? And how much more should our lives be centered on the Lamb that was slain for us?

The Lord expects us to test all things (1 John 4:1), and see if they are of God. Let’s not get distracted with doctrines in which He is not the center.

D.L. Moody spent many hours praying for faith. He once said, “If all the time I have spent praying for faith was put together, it would be months. I thought that someday faith was going to come down and strike me like lightening. But faith did not come. Then one day I read in the 10th chapter of Romans, “So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” I now opened my Bible and began to read God’s Word and faith has been growing ever since.”

Much of what believers describe as ‘faith’ has nothing to do with Biblical faith. Our faith must not be based on emotion, or want, and not on the latest Christian seminar. But it must be centered on God’s Word, on Messiah, His death and resurrection, His salvation. The Living Word is the eternal, everlasting love of God which has been poured out upon our lives.

Read, hear, apply and live the Word, and you will grow strong in faith.

I’ve never had a green thumb but I recently found out that my name (George) means “farmer” or “worker of the earth”.

What does a farmer do? If he or she is a good farmer, he works hard at preparing the ground for the sowing of seed. Each year, he waits in expectation for a harvest. Hopefully he toiled the ground well and the seed sank deep into the rich soil. Hopefully his watering was consistent and the seed will grow and bear large delicious fruit. But really, he can’t know for sure until many months later when it’s time for the harvest.

Perhaps you know that one of the trees for which Israel is best known is the olive tree. It doesn’t take months, it takes YEARS for an olive tree to develop fruit! Hmmm.Who wants to plant a tree that doesn’t bear fruit for many years? But guess what, once it starts bearing fruit it can keep producing on it’s own for dozens of years! That was an encouraging word to us personally.

But we are all called to be farmers — to bring in God’s great harvest! What we often lack is the patience to wait to see fruit! We want those seeds to sprout right now and we lose heart when we don’t see instant results.

The Lord promises that His Word will not be sent in vain, but will accomplish what He pleases and shall prosper where He sends it! Our job is to be faithful and patient! Let’s not get discouraged when we don’t see our seed producing. It will bring forth fruit in His timing! Be patient! Keep planting! And expect a bountiful harvest!

My wife tells a story about an interesting experience she had as a new believer. She was still single at the time and wasn’t happy with her living situation. She was renting a room from a family in her congregation and wanted to get out and rent her own apartment. The only problem was that she was rebelling against a feeling she had that God wanted her to stay there for a season, to get grounded in the Lord and to be a blessing to this family. Still, she convinced herself that getting her own apartment would be a good thing.

After much searching, she found what she was looking for. Although it needed some work and the rent was rather high, she managed to bargain her way into fixing up the place in lieu of three months rent.

Six weeks went by and all the work was done. New tiling, carpeting, painting, curtains, it looked just fabulous and it was time to move in. As she finished unpacking and putting on all the finishing touches, she sat down and marveled at all her hard work. Yet she still battled this little still small voice saying “This is not My will.”

The next day she went to work. About midday, Rivka received a phone call from her new next door neighbor. “Water is gushing out of your front door,” she said, “You might want to get over here and check it out.” A sick feeling arose from the pit of her stomach as she picked up her things and dashed out the office door.

Sadly, it was true. The whole apartment had been flooded by a random break in the pipes outside of her basement apartment and much of her hard work and some of her belongings were damaged. When the landlords didn’t even want to pay for the clean up, Rivka decided to take them to small claims court for the cost of her labor and damages (not to mention the three months of rent she never received). Without any explanation, the judge ruled in favor of the landlords. Even more ridiculous was that they didn’t even show up that day!

Truly, Riv learned the hard way that the bad feeling she had throughout this whole ordeal was the conviction of the Holy Spirit urging her to be obedient. She would be very careful not ignore that leading again.

Are you trying to get your way with the Lord today? Take this as a warning!

will have His way one way or another. Give Him your heart again today. He has such great things planned — and there’s so much work to be done!

A story is told of Peter Miller, a plain Baptist preacher of Pennsylvania, in the days of the Revolutionary War. Near his church, lived a man who maligned the pastor to the last degree. The man became involved in treason and was arrested and sentenced to be hanged. The preacher started out on foot and walked the entire way to Philadelphia roughly seventy miles away to plead for the man’s life. George Washington heard his plea, but he said, “No, your plea for your friend cannot be granted.” “My friend!” said the preacher. “He is the worst enemy I have.” “What!” said Washington, “you have walked nearly seventy miles to save the life of an enemy? That puts the matter in a different light. I will grant the pardon.”

Like this precious pastor, although we don’t go out looking for enemies, we somehow seem to acquire them just by doing the work of the Lord! Many of you know how many times we’ve been attacked by hackers since we moved to Israel. These people probably spend weeks — not hours, not days — but weeks or even more trying to figure out passcodes and configurations in order to destroy our sites and all the work of the Lord going on there! It can be extremely upsetting to see someone steal away years of your hard work like that. You just want to know who?! and why?! and what did I do to deserve this?!

I’m sure many of you are experiencing your share of enemy assaults too and can relate to what I’m saying! But how should we react to these assailants? Should we curse them and hunt them down to get our revenge? This pastor had every earthly right to be satisfed with this man’s sentence. After all, this man probably destroyed his reputation — perhaps even his entire ministry! But this wise pastor saw right through the man. He realized that the offense committed did not originate with the man who slandered him. This man was merely a pawn in the hands of a cruel and crafty adversary, satan himself. Clearly, it’s our ultimate enemy, satan, who is out to slander us, to steal from us, hurt us, lie, kill and destroy us and he’ll use any means possible to do it.

In the same way, we must realize who is truly our enemy and come against him the best way we can — determine to press forward for God’s Kingdom even more than before!

When we strive to do the work of the Lord, we will undoubtedly gain some enemies! But we must ambush our archenemy who is manipulating these people and situations! How? By praying more! Learning the word more! Sharing the Gospel more! Forgiving more! Becoming wiser and stronger in the Lord! Becoming more like Jesus! Press forward toward the Kingdom of God today — your great reward will be with Him!

Nearing the ripe old age of two and half, our sweet Elianna, has quite a mind of her own lately. The glory days, when she used to be happy with wherever we were going and whatever we were doing.hmmmm.those days seem to be over. Now she has her own agenda. She wants to do what she wants to do when she wants to do it and boy, don’t even think about getting in her way! Why is she suddenly behaving this way? We think it is maybe because she is maturing. And as she grows in ability, she grows in desire to act upon that ability. She wants the right to do the things she has become able to do. But she needs accountability. She needs direction. She needs guidance. She needs boundaries. Her will and her life need to be shaped by her loving parents. She may not appreciate the boundaries and discipline but deep down, I believe she knows it is because we love her that we do it.

In the same way, we are growing in gifting and calling as we walk with the Lord. We were created to be mature, responsible, accountable people who operate freely and powerfully in the gifts and abilities our loving Father has given us. But we too need guidance, boundaries, discipline. We must strive to know God deeply and to understand His direction for our lives. We must love His discipline and accept it humbly. Because He knows what’s best for us.

Are you feeling discouraged or frustrated about you gifts and your calling today? How and when will I be used, Lord?! Let’s lay it all out before the Lord today…our gifts, our abilities, our desires. And let’s ask the Lord to tame us and to shape us for use in His Kingdom. He wants to use us but we must be made ready for His use! There’s so much work to be done!

As many of you know, our first child, Elianna, is just over two years old now. She is a joy and a treasure to us. We thought we’d be teaching her lots, but it turns out that she’s teaching us some great lessons! Here’s another one.

We’ve noticed that Elianna is open vessel which will take in any and everything around her — like an empty treasure chest that we have the opportunity to fill with all the treasures of the Lord. If we don’t fill it with good things now, she will later seek to fill her empty chest with the treasures of the world. But if we are faithful to fill that treasure chest with holiness, righteousness, joy, peace and all the good things of the Lord, she’ll not only be full but she will later defend those treasures with her life!

This is our challenge as parents. But as believers, we all share this challenge — to train and disciple the young –whether they are children or new believers in the Lord. They are each empty treasure chests, just waiting to be filled with God’s goodness, and we have a responsibility to fill them! Just as the disciples in Jesus’ day left all that they had to go and make disciples of men, so should we make ourselves available to train up and teach those new open vessles that God brings our way.

Let’s get serious about the calling of the Lord on our lives. There is SO much work to be done!