Mishpachah Yeshua Newsletter

A Newsletter To The Family Of Jesus From Restoration Ministries

The Hebraic family is not simply an individual or private matter.
Rather, it is an institution in which the whole community has a stake.
Thus, the Hebrew word “mishpachah,” meaning family, not only refers to parents and children,
but to the whole extended family worldwide in the body of “Yeshua”—our Jesus.

[click here for a printable copy]

January 2000  Topic: Hebraic Fruit


Dear Friends,
Please forgive us for the lateness of this letter. Sue and I entered the new millennium with two weeks of flu. Follow-ing our recovery we shared the Hebraic Restoration with Chris-tian Care Ministry in Mel-bourne, FL and conducted a seminar at Solid Rock Assembly of God in Grove City, PA. We came back encouraged by both opportunities to share.
Permit me to share with you a testimony of God’s wonderful grace: In December our health provider closed its operation in New England. We prayed about what to do and discovered that a friend had given our name to The Christian Care Medi-Share  Program (1-800-374-2562). With Medi-Share, Christians share each other’s medical bills on a volunteer basis paying a specific contribution each month.
The ministry contacted us and in the course of conversation we told them about our ministry. That conversation led to us spending three days with them to share the Restoration message! Please pray that God would give them spiritual discernment on how the Hebraic truths could help them. Our Lord has often done these “exceedingly abundant” things for us. You can’t help but cry with joy!
In our last newsletter we discussed the eleven facets of fruit we see being borne by the Hebraic Restoration (see Dec. 1999 Mishpachah). Beginning with this letter I’d like to review each fruit in more depth.

The Fruit of Living the Hebraic Restoration 
Obedient trust authenticates your love for God as you live out His commands. 

• Are you an authentic Christian?

Many years ago as I began Navy flight training, I roomed with a man who had already served three tours in Vietnam as a radar officer and now the Navy was permitting him to become a pilot. During our first day together George said to me, “Mike, the essence of flying is flying. All the ground school and aerodynamics, as important as they are, are not as vital as what you do in the cockpit.”
With George as my mentor (and God has graciously provided me with several mentors over the years!), I went on to set record flight grades and received an award as a Distinguished Naval Aviator.
In the years to follow I had my own three deployments to Vietnam and I was reminded of George’s words many times. You cannot fake being a good pilot. You are either authentic or you are not!
Think about it: Our obedient trust authenticates our love for God as we live out His commands. To authenticate means to make valid or genuine. Hey! A person either loves God and keeps His commands or he doesn’t! Sadly, Christians can fake each other out by what has become known over time as “Christian behavior”: They go to church on Sunday, say grace before meals, and give a pleasant smile and say “Fine” when asked, “How are you doing?”, even though they are hurting inside and fearful of displaying vulnerability.
Friends, people can be known as “Christian” but neither know nor follow Jesus. In our Father’s sight they are not authentic. These are the ones to whom our Lord will say on the Judgment Day, “I never knew you.” They are recognized because they have no living testimony that authenticates a loving relationship with Jesus.
It’s very natural for you to frequently speak about someone for whom you intimately care and the experiences you share together. When you don’t speak about that person, something is wrong! Think about it for a moment...Now ask yourself, what testimony has recently come from your own mouth reflecting, authenticating, real experiences with your Lord?
“For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
This verse was given to me the day I put my trust in Jesus. It has also become the hallmark of our marriage and ministry. Our ongoing experience with our Lord in both His blessings and in the trials He has seen us through cause our love for Him to grow. As we travel and share the truths of the Hebraic Restoration, we can feel Paul’s heart, “The love of God compels me.”
A few months after we arrived back from our research in Israel, Sue and I were given a workbook entitled Experiencing God. The authors encapsulated a progression we had found vital in the lives of early followers of Jesus as they experienced Him.
Please read each of the Seven Biblical Realities carefully and consider where you may be held up from experiencing our Lord. Discuss these with your spouse and family or close friend. Ask yourself what is hindering that intimacy. It is only at the seventh reality that your Christianity becomes authentic.

Seven Biblical Realities To Experiencing God
by Henry Blackaby and Claude King

1. God is always at work around you.
2. God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
3. God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
4. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
5. God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
6. You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
7. You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

• Have you reached reality 7?

Stumbling Blocks to Experiencing God
Note that in the first five realities God is the Initiator. If God is initiating, then why do we encounter so few people experiencing Him? As the Hebraic truths have gone forth we have observed several stumbling blocks that keep people from experiencing our Lord:
 
• God isn’t working anymore
Do you know what the heresy of Deism is? It is a belief that God was once actively involved with His creation but now has left everything up to mankind. You may not know that several of the founding fathers of this country were Deists. Today, if you or your faith community has no testimony of experiencing God, you may be trapped in the heresy of Deism!
Sadly, most "Christians" we encounter have not been taught to see God at work around them. Remember, people learn best by what they see role modeled. If a person doesn’t see a parent or Bible teacher experiencing God, then they consider experiencing God unimportant as well. Can this be why James warns, “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (3:1)?
Anyone can teach the Bible, but it takes each of the seven realities to experience God. People without experience have no testimony and often display tension when they hear authentic testimonies of others who experience God. The authentic strikes fear in the fake.

• No love relationship with God
The second stumbling block is “Christians” going on through life without experiencing God’s love. My own testimony of how I began to experience God’s love is in the introduction to Demolish-ing Strongholds. When the demonic influence of rejection was demolished I began to both experience God and share His love with others. Paul’s words came alive: “[That you] may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3: 18,19).
Sue and I know without a doubt that God’s love cannot be shared with others until you have experienced it personally.

• Rejecting God’s invitation
The third stumbling block: not joining God in what He is doing. Again, Deism causes many to participate in religious activity that suits their own motivation and talents but has not been commanded them by God. Their success brings them praise but no glory to the Father! (“Oh, you’re such a good teacher, Ann!” “I wish I could sing like you, Barry.”)
A key factor to accepting God’s invitation is a life which relies on the Holy Spirit. To accomplish His work, our Lord will use the gifts He has empowered you with. In our workbook God’s Instruments for War, we emphasize the importance of spiritual gifts. “As a follower of Christ, you need the Holy Spirit to guide you at three different levels:
• Knowledge of your own gifts.
• How your gifts can function with those of others.
• Which specific faith community of believers the Spirit wants you connected with.”

In the Oct./Nov. 1999 Mishpachah we wrote that followers of Jesus are under the priesthood of Melchizedek, not Levi. We encouraged you then to discover where Jesus is working and join Him. Recognize this difference: Deism causes people to do something for God, while those who experience His love join Him as they are empowered by the Holy Spirit. The first group builds edifices to man, the second brings glory to the Father.

• No need for guidance
It’s no surprise that so few “Christians” seek God’s guidance. This is the fruit of Deism: He is no longer actively involved. Man’s reason now rules, not God’s rhema, that is, His revealed specific will for you. If you are part of a faith community in which God’s will is not being revealed, then you are going on without Him. Bad choice!

• Fear is greater than trust
The next stumbling block is a crisis of belief. Over the years, many who embraced the message of the Hebraic Restoration have stopped at the crisis. This is because everyone who embraces these truths must confront prior doctrinal beliefs and face ostracism from their church leaders, family, or friends. The parents of the blind man whom Jesus healed demonstrated this. Fear of ostracism stops many from going any further.
Our confession: As we have shared this message and encountered the many who have stopped at the crisis, Sue and I have found that we have to fight feelings of cold love. Cold love tempts us to protect ourselves against the hurt and let-down we experience when people leave us because of the crisis. That’s when Sue and I have to cry out to our Father for help to love even more and to face the hurt again. How many of you know what I mean?
Do you know, possibly we really are in the last days. Jesus forewarned, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:12,13). I believe that “standing firm” applies not only to our trust to press on but also to our love for God and others.

• Inability to adjust
The sixth stumbling block is the refusal to make major adjustments. In our June-July 1999 Mishpachah we wrote that embracing the Hebraic Restora-tion was like crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land. The Lord impressed on us to write, This message is not intended to divide marriages. They will both stay in the river until they both, in earnest, decide to cross.
Foremost in keeping a married couple from crossing is the husband. So many refuse to make the time adjustment from other priorities and activities to discuss these truths with their wives. Our forefathers in the faith knew that when God’s Word is discussed, the Holy Spirit gives understanding and application. “Christians” are so accustomed to being lectured at in services, Sunday schools, and Bible studies that a simple discussion between a husband and wife to apply God’s Word is all but non-existent. (And how difficult as well for a single person with no trusted loadbearing friend...)
A husband finds no ego gratification in the humility it takes for a wife to experience the love of Jesus from her husband. We estimate that only one out of two hundred husbands who have heard this message focuses long enough until our Lord’s love blooms in him. How do we know? We hear from too many wives who’ve heard these truths with their husbands but are sad and hopeless. They’ve never experienced what they long for, the love of Jesus through their husband.

Restoring Experiencing God
Remember that you become a child of God when you meet the conditions of the covenant that require you to repent, to love, and to trust Him. He consummates the covenant by sealing you with His Holy Spirit. If you haven’t received the Holy Spirit, then you have not embraced the Gospel of the early Church.
If you have the Spirit and you find that you or your spouse are stumbling over one of the seven realities, repent. Turn away from whatever is hindering you and turn to God for forgiveness and the grace to press on. You need His empowerment!!!
Our Father longs to be merciful to His children and He desires to be glorified by testimonies that bear witness to His love and faithfulness. Your ongoing readiness to repent as you ask for help gives our Lord the opportunity to move you along through the realities so that your experience produces testimony. And those testimonies evidence a living relationship with the Lord you trust!
“To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen” (Jude 24,25).

Mike & Sue Dowgiewicz