She is in her second year of a doctoral program at TKU (https://www.tku.edu/), The King’s University in Southlake, Texas. In November of 2023, Lucille intends to open a Worship Center that focuses on Messianic Judaism.
Michael Mistretta is the CEO of FIRM: Fellowship of Israel Related Ministries (https://firmisrael.org/). Born in Toronto, Canada, Michael was raised in the church and later received a call to Israel where he met Pastor Wayne Hilsden and helped to start FIRM. From starting his own company as a teenager to his 10 years of ministry experience, Michael is an entrepreneur and innovator who is passionate about seeing ministries in Israel thrive and people coming to know Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah.
My guest, Eva Marie Everson, talks about her trip to Israel and how it changed her life and the way she read the Bible.
Eva Marie Everson is a multiple-award winning author and speaker who hails from the picturesque Southern town of Sylvania, Georgia. She is president of Word Weavers International and the director of the Florida Christian Writers Conference. She enjoys coaching new authors through her company, Pen in Hand. Eva Marie and her husband make their home in Central Florida. They are the parents of three fabulous children who have blessed them with the world’s greatest grandchildren.
Fellow blogger Carole Sparks wrote “Sabbathing: Is that a word?” on her blog Not About Me. She brought up a lot of good points in that post as well as her follow up post. You can read it here.
As I read her post, it made me think of my time in Israel and celebrating a Shabbat meal with a host family. They were so kind and allowed 17 of us to share a meal with them while they taught us about their custom that night.
I am working on a Bible study on the Book of Hebrews. Hebrews is probably a book of the Bible some would avoid like Numbers or Leviticus. It has a lot to do with the Moses, the Law, and the Levitical priesthood. However, the author of Hebrews wrote his letter to people who were leaving their faith in Yeshua to return to Judaism.
He wants to show them how superior Yeshua is to everything from angels to Moses, to the Law and even the Sabbath. In Hebrews 4:1-11, the author reflects back on Old Testament verses found in Psalm 95:7-11. God is speaking of the generation from the time of Moses, their rebelliousness, and eventual death in the wilderness. They were unable to enter God’s rest which was Canaan because of their disobedience.
The Hebrew passage takes a course change from the Canaan rest to the Sabbath rest. At this point, without going into everything I cover in my study, I will give an excerpt from my Hebrews study:
In Exodus 31:13, God wants us to keep (or to remember) the Sabbath so we may know that he sanctifies us. He also says in verse 14,
“You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you.”
Sanctify means to set us apart or to make holy. Why is this important?
God wants us to be His light. He wants us to be different. How can we be His lights if we are as tired and overworked as the rest of our culture? If each day is like all the rest, how do we show the world that we are set apart? How do we display that our Sabbath is holy to us as God said it is?
When I was in Israel, the group I went with was fortunate enough to be part of a Shabbat (Hebrew Sabbath) meal. Shabbat is 25 hours long and includes turning off all electronics (yes, all of them), spending time at the synagogue (at the time of Yeshua, they recited Psalm 95:7-11 every week on Shabbat), and spending time in the Torah with God and family. Friends and family members eat a meal which consists of many courses. Dinner begins with a blessing over the breaking of bread which represents peace from any conflict that may have occurred during the week. Next, there is blessing recited over a glass of wine or grape juice which represents sanctification of the day of rest. It is like Communion.
Psalm 95:7-11 (ESV)
7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” 11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”
At one point during the meal, the head of the household sings Proverbs 31 to his wife to bless and honor her. He and his wife then take the face of each of their children in their hands and speak blessings over them individually. The look on the kid’s faces was priceless! They loved it and looked forward to it.
I felt almost intrusive as I watched their interactions and the intimate way they spoke to each other. There weren’t many dry eyes in the room.
So, let’s look at the Sabbath another way. Every week, an Orthodox Jewish family gives reverence and praise to God, makes peace with God and family, blesses and honors the women and children, all while resting from work and spending time together reading the Word. How different would our families be if we kept the Sabbath like this, instead of just hurrying to church?
This is an example of being set apart, not like the rest of the world, but living out devotion, faith, honor, obedience, and rest.
