Zebra Ministries

Good morning Zebras,

The second thing I liked about the movie “In Our Hands” was right at the beginning.

Every year Israel celebrates their Independence Day.  The day Israel was officially declared a state in 1948.  On the same day, the Muslim countries observe a day of mourning.

When Israel was made a state, the city of Jerusalem was not part of the territory they were given, it was controlled by Jordan which is why there’s a Mosque on the Temple Mount.  Israel took back Jerusalem in the Six Day War.

When the movie started it showed the streets of Israel filled with people celebrating. Everyone was joyful and happy because Israel had a home.  Then they cut to a Rabbi who was explaining to his students why he couldn’t celebrate.  According to the movie he gave this lecture just a few weeks before the war started.

He could not celebrate, he said, because he saw the events through the eyes of Scripture, he saw that giving away their Holy Land was something to mourn.  They should not celebrate what they had been given instead they should be mourning what they had lost because they’d lost the land given to them by God.   

I felt his tears because I see God’s people settling and living everyday with far less than God has promised to His people.

We are like the Israelites lapping the desert too afraid to really trust God and go into the Promised Land.  Instead we live with one foot in the world and one foot with God, never realizing by doing that we displease God and rob ourselves of His peace.

James 4:4–10: You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?  Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?  But he gives us more grace.  That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  Submit yourselves, then, to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and he will come near to you.  Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.  Grieve, mourn and wail.  Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.  Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Maybe if we humble ourselves before God, live like we believed Jesus when He said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you,” and pray for the revival we so desperately need, God will do a miracle for us give us back what we have lost, our high view of God.

Love,

Jill