Gilad's Home Coming

Friends, this is a big day. One we've been praying and waiting for a very long time. A day of proof to the world of the effectiveness of those who pray. Less than 24hrs ago Gilad Shalit was reunited with his family. Five years after being in captivity in the hands of the hamas Gilad came home.
Why is this such a big deal? Simple; we here in Israel remember a man by the name of Ron Arad. Another soldier that once kidnapped never came back. This day will be forever known as the day that we remember that there is such a thing as a God of miracles.
Gilad has been gone since the 25th of June 2006 with the outbreak of the second Lebanese war; 2006-2011. Folks, that is 5 years. Today we complete 1940 days in which Gilad sat wondering if he's ever coming home. We need to realize the scope of this period. There were things that didn't exist at the time, like i-phones or i-pads, things we take for granted.
Now as for those who knocked on the doors of heaven and prayed until their knees were raw and their knuckles bloody, I commend you and say what I believe God is saying, 'Well done good and faithful servants!'
And let's not stop now. This is just the beginning of things to come if we do not stop our persistence. I want to encourage all of us to be a nagging generation, just like the widow who would not stop asking until the justice she asked for was given to her. Lets do this until justice is given to the poor, until the unborn finally have a voice, until the trafficking industry is brought to it's knees and until He returns to rule and reign from Jerusalem.
Amen

Yom Kippur And the Lack Thereof

We were walking last night to a friend's house. On the way we ran into some kind of protest. As we got closer we realized it was for animal rights.
Ok, not too surprising. Here in the land you will find weirder things. The kicker was when we came back home, as we passed through the same area we saw an unusual sight. A group of ultra orthodox Jews and regualr looking people with a table set up with signing forms gathered around a truck. To their right and their left there were crates full of live chickens... but not alive for long.
It then connected for us, earlier the protesters were crying about the shedding of innocent chicken blood that was about to be shed. There were people waiting in line to sign up to have a chicken to be spun over their heads and the heads of their family, to remove thier sins, after which the same chicken would be put out of its motion sickness misery by the swift slitting of it's throat by a Rabbi.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold the new and improved tactic of atonement, in which God's chosen have solved, yet again, the problem of not having a temple any longer with the sacrificing of bulls and rams. Now you can have your new and improved, compressed down in size and less messy... chicken sacrifice!
If that's not enough, Israel has once again proven that yes, we are a democratic country, meaning; you can state your opinion loudly as long as no bones are broken and no blood is shed. So then earlier the Animal Rights protesters had their chance to loudly defend chickens.
This coming out of a country that, by quota kills more unborn babies per year than any other country in the world. With this in mind we can pray the following; that the chosen ones, on this day of atonement will receive a full revelation of their state as a people who are still running from their God and repent (meaning; make a complete u-turn) and come back to the more important things... like taking care of the orphan and the widow and calling for justice for the voiceless.
God help us all in this season of sobering and awakening to the true reality of where we are as a nation.
While saying that we also remember what God did for us through Yeshua and receive that for our selves and for those in the sphere of our influence. Our God took care of atonement once and for all and our God is no chicken either.