Izzy here. I wanted to tell you about a recent app I came across. But I'm not going to.
Because I thought you'd find it more interesting to hear from the app's creators, instead. So here are Pip and Curtis!
Parents ask us, "What makes Bible Pathway Adventures different from other Bible apps?” Well, it’s the world’s first Bible story app for parents AND children that includes a Hebraic perspective…and it’s FREE!
Inside you’ll find hundreds of pages of world-class illustration and narration alongside Adventure Scrolls and Discovery Arks packed with fun facts and fascinating archaeological, historical and scientific discoveries...as well as information about the Feasts. We’ve worked hard to ensure the Bible stories are historically and Biblically accurate.
To download from Apple click here, and from Google Play click here.
To learn more about us, visit our website here. Apart from the biblestory app, we’ve also created illustrated Bible storybooks in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, and German - all available for free download here.
We want to serve the Body of Yeshua and help families spend time in discipleship. It’s our hope you enjoy the stories and share Bible Pathway Adventures with others!
To contact Pip, you can email her at pip@biblepathwayadventures.com, or message their Facebook page here.
Ann's Story
Ann is following Yeshua in a Hebrew way! Here's her story.
I have loved Yahweh and had a hunger for more of Him since I can remember. Even as a small child, the first time I wanted to give my life to Him, I was six years old. Jews for Jesus came to my Church frequently as I was growing up and they imprinted my heart drastically. I am truly blessed to have a pastor that understands and teaches us about Israel and the Jewish people in context with the Bible. Our Church has a love for Israel and the Jews and is seeking Yahweh on how we can impact the country in this hour.
I’m going to share an experience with you that is very precious to me and I’m risking that some of you may not understand it and may reject me or criticize me but I believe that there are some out there that will accept it and want to hear it so I’m going to share it anyway as Izzy has encouraged me. I hope that if you don’t understand it that you will just ask the Holy Spirit to open your eyes. And not criticize such a precious gift that was given to me. I would appreciate that very much. I do share this hesitantly because it is so close to my heart but as I said Izzy has encouraged me to be open with you so that’s what I’m going to do.
It happened at The Smithton Revival Network Conference at Lake of the Ozarks, MO, July 5, 1999. My pastor, Steve Gray was preaching about Israel and Her importance in coming together with the Church in the last Great Move of God before Yeshua’s Return. When the altar call was given, I moved to the sidelines to intercede – crying out to Yahweh to put His message of Destiny for the Church and the Jewish people into the people receiving prayer.
As I was praying, Yahweh’s Spirit of Intercession came upon me and it was so heavy, I went to my knees and eventually ended up on the floor and everything around me began to fade away. My mind was on the Jewish people and interceding to bring revival (vigorous life to the half dead) into the earth that would make the Jews jealous (as the Scriptures say, the Glory of Yahweh in the Gentiles will make the Jewish people jealous and draw them to Yeshua and back to Yahweh). Then Yahweh will raise up true Jewish evangelists and the power of Yeshua will be released so that the Word of Yahweh will be preached into all the earth and usher in the return of Yeshua (Everything will have come full circle as it should have, salvation started with the Jews, went to the Gentiles and will return to the Jews).
I can’t explain the attitude of desperation that gripped my heart. It was like Yahweh and I became one person, meshed together. Then softly, my King and Lord began to expose His heart to me. Never have I ever felt such a precious closeness and devotion as when I began to feel the feelings of love that my Father has towards His people! He doesn’t get side-tracked or distracted from His purpose for the people, He is very single minded.
It was as if He didn’t notice at all what was going on around me – the bustle as people finished ministry and were talking and leaving. All He focused on at that time with me was the Jewish people being restored and the world being able to receive Him through this fulfillment of prophecy. It was like He had been working towards this goal for thousands of years - since Abraham first answered His call, and He created the Jewish people as a nation. He created the people to represent Him in the earth, people of priests set apart to accomplish His work and bring Him glory, but more than that – the Jews were a people created to be in the world with the person of God so that God could have a dwelling place here and an intimate connection with His people. This people belong to God. He deserves to have them, and His heart was so grieved for them!
Waves of the Spirit continued to come over me. I literally lost consciousness as God took me through phases of intercession. Each phase was like a different side of God’s heart. There was so much emotion! More than a human being could experience on their own apart from God. The intense love and kindness was very deep. It wasn’t as if God was telling me His feelings; it was more like God was sharing His feelings.
I felt what He feels – He put me inside of Him and everything He is, consumed me – His goodness and especially His holiness. He was so holy, & I knew that I definitely had nothing righteous in myself that made me worthy to stand in His presence. But I wanted Him so badly, and He was so real and holy that I couldn’t speak or bring myself to move out of His presence. (When God comes that close, you don’t want to move!). He is a King and whatever He wanted I was going to give Him.
It wasn’t fear alone that motivated me; it was love and a holy, reverent desire to experience the sweetness and intense desperation of His love! I wanted to do whatever I had to do to give Him what He wanted. God is desperately in love and jealous, but not in an unjust negative way. It was a kind, firm love. The passion and the jealousy are only for God’s people that belong to Him to return to Him as his possession.
Next, I began to feel what the Jews must feel towards the people that were responsible for the Holocaust. To have those things done to your family, and sisters and nation? Imagine the hurt, bitterness, mistrust and pain this opens the door to and lets flood through you. This is just one thing among so many the Jewish people are forced to deal with now. When a person from the very group of people responsible for the Holocaust comes to minister to the Jews, the Jews have to face all of these walls, even if they are trying to receive ministry. What a hard thing! My heart was flooded with mercy as I cried out to God to help them, heal them, and tear down the walls that the enemy has created in their lives by taking advantage of their pain.
Next, I began to feel an urgent fear of what lies ahead for the nation of Israel. God’s Word tells us they will be completely surrounded with armies, and all the nations of the world will turn against them. Understand this was several years ago that I experienced this and at that time in their present condition, they would be annihilated. God’s love was screaming out for them to be grafted into the vine again and to prepare them for what’s coming. Without God, they don’t have a hope. I begged God to draw them to Him again as the true vine and turn their hearts to believe so they, as a nation, can become grafted into Him.
When it seemed God and I had prayed through that phase, His heart turned to Abraham and David and how they feel because of their descendants not receiving the very Son of God – a Father’s heart breaking for His children! Parents experience such an incredible unselfish love for their children. Without even a second thought, a true father will die to protect his children. I was allowed a glance; an emotional taste of Abraham and David’s heart as it was broken in desperation for their children to be restored to them. We, as Believers, fight and believe for our families to belong to God and to walk in the covenant of God. We expect that blessing to rest upon our children, their children and their children.
Our hearts are crushed with unbearable grief when our descendants are smashed out of the hand of God, and an enemy defiles them and locks them in a prison of torment. This very thing happened to Abraham and David’s descendants. Their hearts are torn for their children to return to the fold. Destruction depresses the very people that were given the covenants of God and the kingdom of God. They are the ones that should be carrying the power and glory of God into the earth, to the world. Evangelism belongs to the Jews. The Jewish people deserve to experience the wonderful glory.
In the Old Testament, when the Israelites got into trouble, they cried out to God and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and He would come to the rescue. I wondered if He would do the same thing today – if we cried out on their behalf. I was going to try it – going to find out. If it worked for them then, it will work for us now.
Then, my heart was pierced through as God revealed one last thing. Because so few of the Jewish people know Jesus as our Messiah, and don’t belong to Him, death is in their lives they don’t belong to the kingdom of light. Death and darkness somehow intertwines their souls, bodies, minds, hearts, families, finances and more. When God fought for the Israelites back in Egypt, when they were slaves to the Egyptians, the Egyptians experienced the curses and plagues, not the Israelites!
All through the Bible, the pagans had death, sickness, destruction and torment, but the people of God were protected by God. The Death Angel came to the Egyptians, not the Jews. But now, death - had made its way into Israel – where it does not belong. When that revelation came to me, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back and my heart broke for my Father. I yielded myself completely to the spirit of intercession. I thought, if this could somehow help my Father rescue His people, I’m willing. Yahweh wants life, hope, peace, joy, and prosperity for His people. This is His divine purpose for them.
To describe what the sweet presence of God felt like through this time seems impossible. It is so difficult, and my best efforts in words fall so far short that I came very close to not even trying. My thought was just to leave off this part, because after I wrote it, it’s also very, very short of expressing the essence of the experience. Yet, for the purpose for which I entered into the experience cries out in me to go ahead and do the best I can and pray God smiles on my efforts.
I could feel waves of glory like the wind of kindness flowing over me and every time it would float over me, I would go back into unconsciousness. It wasn’t the kind of wind that blows over; it was more like it went through me, consuming every fiber of my being. Everything around me would fade and God’s brightness would increase. It was very bright with Him and clear. His thoughts were clear but not in words – more like waves of emotion, but not the kind of emotion that leaves you feeling torn and upset. It was emotion that saturated in love and peace that was somehow absorbed into me.
I felt very light and very happy at the same time. I felt like I was floating, but my body wouldn’t move; it was glued to the floor. The awe of God and His Holiness was so incredible that I was almost afraid to move. He is so holy and pure and I didn’t want to go back to a sin filled world. I knew that with Him was an answer. I knew He could rescue the Jewish people and I was so close to Him, I knew He heard me I didn’t want to leave because I didn’t want to quit praying until I got a breakthrough for Israel.
I knew as long as I stayed with him, I would be safe. God is a person and to be with Him was more than strange feelings. It was to see His character. He is powerful, yet kind; loving, yet holy; pure goodness, without any trace of compromise or unrighteousness. I had never seen that kind of holiness and righteousness. He was so holy that I almost felt as if I shouldn’t talk or move because I might dishonor Him, and He would go away, & I didn’t want Him to leave. Everything else in my life completely faded into irrelevancy. He was all that mattered.
The experience itself left me with a new sensitivity in my heart to God and the Jews. It did something inside of me, like my Father left a trace of Himself with me – as if I had been branded with a new vision of urgency and soberness of the heart of God. There is inside of me a new merciful patience. I want to go back to that place in the spirit with God and be with Him again like that. Only this time I want to stay with Him longer to see what He will do.
My next experience was a dream. In the dream I was in Israel and an older lady was teaching me Hebrew and in exchange I was serving her as her assistant in all areas. It was an interesting dream as we were so closely united together. It was a Saturday night that I dreamed this dream. Sunday morning I went to church and my pastor Steve Gray at World Revival Church preached a sermon about Ruth and Naomi. Naomi being an older lady who was a Jew and Ruth was a Gentile and Ruth did not know anything about the Jews but Ruth serves Naomi and takes care of Naomi and in exchange Naomi taught Ruth her Jewish ways.
Pastor Steve taught that in the end days this was the way that Jews and Gentiles were to play out. The Gentiles were to bring the Jews back to you Yeshua and then the Jews would teach the Gentiles the Hebrew Way and bring us, the Gentiles back to the Hebrew roots. It would come full circle. It starts with the Jews and it ends with the Jews. And in the end days the Jews are the ones who will be the great evangelists again, the apostles again, the prophets again and they will bring the gospel to all nations and then Jesus can return. Ruth and Naomi where a picture of what is going to happen and what is supposed to happen between Jew and Gentile in the end days.
What my pastor was preaching was the translation of my dream. The Gentile serving the Jews and then the Jew is teaching the Gentile the Hebrew ways. I believe this dream has several meanings but one of those meanings is happening now in the Holy Language Institute. I am a Gentile and I am serving as a volunteer and in exchange, you, the Holy Language Institute is teaching me the Hebrew ways. Years ago I had this dream and it was a picture of what is happening today in my life and a picture of what is to come.
Ephesians 2:14-16 NLT describes this as Jew and Gentile coming together as one new people, one BODY. The KJV describes it just as intimate by coming together as ONE new man.
14For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. 15He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. 16Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.
So as you can see this is why I am here at the Holy Language Institute. This is the story of what brought me here. There’s much more to my life that I could tell you about my experiences but I wanted to focus on my experiences with you and Yeshua about the Hebrew Way that related to the Holy Language Institute. I hope they help you to know my heart and my love for Israel and for the Jewish people; for you.
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Hats off to Renee Ramirez for this meme! Make your own Hebrew meme here or here and send it to meme@holylanguage.com and we'll share yours too.
Shavua tov - have a good week!
Izzy Avraham
Executive Director
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