Israel (MNN) — As Israel and Iran trade missile fire, Brother Y serves in Israel with Global Catalytic Ministries. He urges believers to lay down polarized viewpoints and seek God’s perspective instead.
“The Body of Christ needs to be engaged in fervent prayer,” he says.
Questions like these are a good starting point:
- God, what are you saying? What are you doing?
- Where are you going, and can we collaborate with you, even if it’s just through prayer?
“Many times, prayers will lead to action,” he says.
People in Israel are not naive to where this conflict could lead. Brother Y’s own family just welcomed a new grandson into a sobering reality.
“I had to run with him to the bomb shelter less than 24 hours after he was born,” he says. “That brings a whole new perspective of ‘God we really need you.’”
He describes the Iranian regime’s vague threats — statements similar to “We haven’t even begun to use the weapons we own”— as psychological warfare.
Brother Y spoke this week with a friend from Iran. Despite the fear Iranians are experiencing, “They’re crying out for freedom…. Many are hopeful, hoping that this will topple this current regime and bring in freedom.”
(Photo courtesy of Dave Herring/Unsplash)
Brother Y believes his people have a strong calling to the nations. When the Gentiles joined Jewish-background believers in the early Church, Scripture says “the hand of the Lord was with them” (see Acts 11:19-30).
“I believe, as it was, it’s going to be the same during our time when Jews and Gentiles collaborate together and take the gospel strongly,” says Brother Y.
Still, there’s something he wishes more people understood.
“We (Israel) have been faced with [the] Islamic desire to destroy us. We decided to take them at face value and just believe what they say, that as soon as they can nuke us, they will,” he says. “Many people around the world are so upset with Israel because they don’t understand that we are standing against global Islam. Not against the Muslims, but Islam and its agenda [which] is to subdue every nation.”
(Photo courtesy Global Catalytic Ministries)
He adds, “Don’t get me wrong: my nation as it is now is not a righteous nation as a nation. But God still uses the nation to ‘take the heat’ and stop this advance [of Islam].”
“But what we’ve seen throughout history [is] that what brought down kingdoms is the gospel. It’s as radical as elite units going into battle behind enemy lines — only the people going with Yeshua’s message are the ones giving their lives, not taking other people’s lives.”
Please pray
Pray for God’s will in Iran and Israel. Ask Him to bring this conflict to a clear and lasting resolution.
“Definitely pray for Israel that we will not trust in our army and in our own strength,” Brother Y says. “Whenever we did that [in the past], we were severely humbled.”
Pray also that believers will be sanctified. Brother Y points to how God dealt with Jerusalem and its enemies in Zechariah 12.
“He needs to cleanse and to purge so all of us — in Iran, in Israel — that we will have a spirit of prayer, grace and supplication, that we will humble ourselves so that God can show mercy and compassion.”
Header photo of Jerusalem, Israel courtesy of Dariusz Kanclerz/Unsplash.
