Back home from Israel…what now?
Phl 3:12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Phl 3:14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Now landed back home in Australia after being in the Holy Land, what now? This last trip to the Holy Land, the land where “God walked as a man”, has stirred Helen and I more in the way our first visit to Israel did. Our hearts were softened again and again at different times with us standing in the pit below Caiaphas house where Jesus spent a lone cold night the evening of His arrest after being dragged from the Garden of Gethsemane, and also standing atop the Temple Mount where the Temples of Solomon and Herod had once stood, knowing that in our time a new Temple will again be raised at this very location – simply overwhelming as we know the events that follow this!
But visiting Israel, the city of Jerusalem is not a vacation or holiday journey in any way for a believer. It is hard to put it in words but it truly is a pilgrimage, for we felt we belonged there, we had a connection – it is through Jesus Christ our Lord for this is where He was born, where He died and where He will return to rule and reign.
So what now for us who have had the blessing of being in Israel, of seeing Golgotha, the Garden Tomb? Now it is for us to pray for the people of Israel as God has commanded us, but also it is for us to lay our lives down again before God and have Him use us to preach the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to those who are lost, alone, broken, chained and without hope here where God has placed us.
We cannot return from the Holy Land and simply place our time there in a photo album. No, we are to heed Paul’s words who was met by Jesus powerfully on the road to Damascus. Paul prayed…So he, trembling and astonished, said, “Lord, what do You want me to do?” Then the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
Now we must do what the Lord would have us to do! Mar 16:15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
But how do we do that? Paul gives us the way to achieve this….1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
May now your heart burn like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, may they burn so much that you must tell others of what you have seen and know. “Father, we pray for the people and nation of Australia, help us to reach them and pray for them like never before and give us please the power and courage to not turn from this mission.” We pray this in Jesus name – Amen.