For all of the swirling circumstances of your life, for all the quagmire of global politics, for all tumult of “hopes deferred” and the daily wrestle against the “cares of this life,” the most important thing about your life and mine is that we—right now, today—remember we have a good Father in a good heaven whose good pleasure is to give us a good Kingdom. And: He will give you glimpses of that goodness here and now, in this age.
God’s love for us is quite literally unfathomable. And sometimes it can even seem unbelievable. When we take a long look at humanity, or even better, a long, honest look at ourselves, it seems comical that God could and does love humans. But He does. Of course we believe God loves us, on paper. But what about on our pillows? What anxieties keep us awake at night that come from a lack of believing, on a gut-level, that God loves us?
Over years and decades, I began to discover that praying for Israel isn’t necessarily about coming into agreement with a secular nation-state or endorsing the humanistic agenda of a governmental leader— especially when those plans and values may be contrary to the Kingdom of God. It’s not even about adopting those certain traditions from a foreign culture. Simply put, praying for Israel is about loving what God loves because we love Him. And because we love Him, what’s important to Him should be important to us.
He does not relent, continuing to insist upon our full fervency and entire devotion, irrespective of what unfolds in our lives. To demand less would not be love. This is not His being unreasonable. No, it’s simply His being unwilling to deny us our full inheritance and His full inheritance in us. We were made for wholehearted love, and He refuses to relent in establishing that in us.
Written by Dalton Thomas in the months leading up to the birth of FAI in Dec. 2011, UNTO DEATH explores the implications of the resurrection, the imperatives of costly discipleship, and invites those who love and confess Jesus to invest their limited life in this age for an abundant life in the next—driven by the apostolic "blessed hope" befitting those who worship a crucified King & slain Lamb.
The political spirit would like us to think standing up for our rights is paramount. It would like us to destroy people and property in the name of justice instead of bringing healing that only Christ in us can bring. It would like us to see people as their opinions and actions instead of imago Dei. It would like for us to think this battle is indeed against flesh and blood. But we know better.
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