|City on a Hill - Writings for Refuge

Israel has to fight.  There is no way around it.  There is no negotiating with those sworn to not only your destruction as a people, but those willing to carry it out in the most inhumane way possible.  The State of Israel would be irresponsible to not fight for it's people.  All of them, Arab and Jewish, not to mention the host of other nationalities here, should be protected from hatred, evil, and murderous apathy towards life.   Israel must fight. Biblically, Israel are God's people.  Their God reigns.  The people of Israel have paid a very high price to bring forward the Messiah.  You cannot divorce Jesus from Israel.  Humility demands we see the way Israel has been persecuted by the devil (symbolized as the dragon in Revelation, Chapter 12) for bringing forth the Messiah. Israel is, in fact , God's people with all the beauty and struggle of what that means.  God blessed those who bless her.  He curses those that hate her....

Genesis 12:2-3 NKJV — I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Watch among the nations. Can you see the Lord? Many will fight Yeshua when He returns. Most. The nations declare war AFTER He comes. What starts as a regional war against Israel will become a global war against Jesus. Worldly believers will declare war against Yeshua, as well. Worldly believers will fight faithful believers because of strong delusion. He did not come to bring peace, though He is the prince of peace. He came to bring a sword and division, because He refuses to make anyone choose peace. You find peace when you die to yourself leadership. Some are choosing it right now: Matthew 10:27-39 NKJV — “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. “And do not fe...

God gives everyone what they want. Realizing the purity of God's ways is the source of "the fear of the Lord," or recognizing the way you deal with God has solid consequences for good AND bad. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. David wrote Psalm 18 as he was coming out of one of his darkest moments of his own doing.  God rescued David from a web of his own lies and schemes in Ziklag. It was a season of compromise, but David clearly came out of it.  He had been devious and paid the price for it, and pure and was experiencing the reward.  He had been haughty and humble and owned them both. Psalm 18:24-28 NKJV — Therefore the LORD has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in His sight. With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; With the pure You will show Yourself pure; And with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. For You will save the humble peo...

The patience of eternity is found in living with God day by day. You can only do this by letting go of your worry and anxiety about how your life will work out. Matthew 6:24-34 NKJV — “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; “and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. “Now if God so cl...

If you are a follower of Yeshua, evil doesn't try to kill you, it tries to lead you. It waits for opportunities of offense to sway you to it's ways. Genesis 4:7 NKJV — “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” To be killed for resisting evil makes you like Jesus. Evil isn't trying to do that! Evil wants no one to act like Yeshua! Read that again. Evil's goal is to get you OUT of meekness. That's the whole point of the devil's wiles. To save your own world by embracing evil is the goal of evil. Romans 12:17-21 NKJV — Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If h...

Ephesians 2:1-3 NKJV — And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. Your nature is one that invites wrath. So is mine. There is a way that seems right to you that leads to death. It isn't in some areas that this is true. It is all areas that haven't been intentionally submitted to God. The way God leads us is such that we come to the conclusion of our own weakness, not our own strength. If God is making you a better person, you still haven't really found Him. If God is re-birthing you... Leading you to kill the you He found and let Him make a new creation... Then you are learning to live and love in a differen...

The Tabernacle of David isn't like other prayer. It is musical and antiphonal. The reason that David organized his tent of praise this way was because that is the way the throne room in heaven is. David just wanted to be there, in heaven, as much as he could be with what God gave him. It was temporary... In a tent. Getting into antiphonal, prophetic, prayer to music will change you. It requires humility, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. It increases a person's capacity for the Holy Spirit by highlighting their need for the Spirit just to stay in it with other zealous people. Nehemiah 12:24 NKJV — And the heads of the Levites were Hashabiah, Sherebiah, and Jeshua the son of Kadmiel, with their brothers across from them, to praise and give thanks, group alternating with group, according to the command of David the man of God. Those willing to humble themselves and search it out will find that David's Tabernacle is the entire point of the redemptive plan becaus...

Whatever you war against in the Spirit will manifest in the natural. If you war alongside, with, God, you will sacrificially love the people God is trying to save. You will spend your strength forgiving, blessing, believing, hoping, enduring. You won't war against flesh and blood, but against Satan and his scheme to get you out of love. Because Satan presents himself as an angel of light, and has been at this a long time, man is easily drawn into the wrong war. This is one of the main points of Ephesians. The humble take this seriously. If you war against God, you will protect and empower yourself and fight the people God is trying to save. You will unknowingly be drawn into fighting people thinking you are serving God. John 16:1-3 NKJV — “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. “And these things they will do to you be...

My thinking, emotions, and will don't need to be adjusted, they need to be crucified. The flesh is slippery in how it tries to stay it's execution. It wants to offer something less than itself in an attempt to live a little longer while still in the presence of the king. The less is always self effort. God will not resurrect what refuses to die. Matthew 15:15-20 NKJV — Then Peter answered and said to Him, “Explain this parable to us.” So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? “Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? “But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. “These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” The flesh wrongly believes it's good, it just needs to be "tweaked." This ...

Because the salvation process is betrothal, everything in the believer's life must increasingly become about the return of Jesus and the limited amount of time alloted to be ready. You don't know when He is coming and you don't know how much time you have to get ready. He is coming like a thief and He will only accept the ready. No groom wants to marry a bride who doesn't care enough about the wedding to get married. There is much to do. There is little time to do it. Jesus said, "I am coming soon" to everyone who reads His words. Revelation 22:12 NKJV — “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. There is an impatient disconnect in much of the church that says he is delaying. We put years on it where the Bible takes years off of it. Urgency is the message of the Gospel. Not an urgency that everyone else gets saved... An urgency that we get ready. The Gospel is more effectively witnessed to the w...

When confronted with truth, the flesh makes excuses for why it can't change. Your flesh can accept something is true and then excuse itself: Luke 14:16-24 Then He said to him, "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, (17) and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' (18) But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.' (19) And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.' (20) Still another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' (21) So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and t...

Concern and caring are expressed in the flesh as anxiety, impatience, and controlling behavior. The flesh really only feels a couple of options: 1. care and do something about the object of concern. 2. Let the concern go and become indifferent to the outcome. These are both loveless. The flesh cannot love. The flesh wars against the Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love. Care and concern not under the restraint of the Spirit result in "works of the flesh": Galatians 5:15-25 NKJV — But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another! I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sor...