On September 1, 2014, Anne Graham Lotz called us to 911: An Urgent Call to Pray for Jerusalem.  I hope you were blessed in joining thousands of other prayer warriors, and that you continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122).  Yesterday, we gleaned insight into praying with confidence, and today I want to jump back into that prayer to focus on the section beginning “We pray with compulsion.”  There, we find a very interesting paragraph:

“We are compelled to pray for Your people because they are facing their enemies without the strength, wisdom, peace, comfort, security and hope that You reserve for those who are indwelt by Your Spirit through faith in Your Son, Jesus.  They have no deep, blessed assurance that their sins are forgiven, that eternal life is theirs, and that a heavenly Home is waiting to welcome them.”

As believers of Jesus Christ, we have the eternal advantage of the indwelling Holy Spirit who grants us everything we need for life and for Godliness.  Yet, the Bible teaches us that God’s chosen people (the Jews), for the most part, have eyes that are blinded to the truth of the Messiah.  Thus, unless they have confessed Jesus Christ as Messiah, they have no assurance that sins are forgiven, that they have eternal life, and that heaven is waiting to welcome them.

Romans 11 is a favorite chapter of mine, as it describes God’s incredible grace extended to Gentiles.  But in verse 8 we are told why most Jews do not accept Jesus as Messiah: their eyes do not see and their ears do not hear (John 12:40, Isaiah 6:10), because they missed the day of their Messiah.  (Jesus laments that in Matthew 23:37-38.)

But God is not done with His people, and His plan is still intact!  Ezekiel 36 tells us that God will act on behalf of His people, and indeed we see the final phases of the fulfillment of the Ezekiel 36 prophecy in our day!  He has re-birthed the nation of Israel, and is gathering the Jewish people from all lands back into their own land.  However, He also promises in verse 26 to give them a new heart and a new spirit, and to remove the heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.  He will put His Spirit within them so they will have the same eternal advantage that we have as believers!

I’m compelled to pray for fulfillment of that prophecy, aren’t you?  O, that blindness would be removed from the eyes of God’s people, that they might see and recognize Jesus as Messiah!

For that to occur, a time of national mourning and repentance must occur.  Certainly, that will occur during the tribulation.  However, are you aware that many Jews are becoming more and more open to the gospel of Jesus Christ the Messiah?  In fact, word from reliable sources within Israel is that a number of Jewish rabbis covertly meet with Christian leaders to discuss and (I believe) search for the truth about Messiah!

That compels me to pray…how about you?  Could God be removing the veil that prevents most Jews from recognizing and acknowledging the Messiah?  Let’s pray for that!

Finally, the prophet Jeremiah also spoke of Israel’s future:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah…I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people…for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
~Jeremiah 31:31-34

Fellow Christians, what more compelling reasons to pray for God’s chosen people than that?  We are called and compelled by love to do so!  Meet you at the foot of the throne!