Israel, My Beloved

I grew up in East London (UK not South Africa) just a 15 minute bus ride from a community of Orthodox Jews, my secondary school (Convent type) was smack bang in the middle of the same community so I had quite a bit of exposure to Jewish life.   Even though I could see the Jewish community, it was always from the perspective of an outsider, and even though many of my peers thought their behaviour strange and ridiculous, to me they held a certain type of mystique because they represented a physical connection with the God of the Bible.

As I got older and as I wandered from church to church, denomination to denomination I began to realise that every Christian that i met seemed to have a view about Israel and the Jewish people.  I found that many in mainstream Christianity tended to have a negative perspective of Israel which resulted in subtle signs of anti-Semitism whilst those who were either Jewish Believers or who had adopted the Hebrew roots belief were more likely to have a prideful and almost idolatrous perspective of Israel and ethnic Israel.  As a Messianic Believer I find both of these extremes upsetting, they are definitely not godly emotions or thoughts; but what does God think about Israel and who does He view as being Israel?  The answers to these questions are in the bible but I think we might be surprised by what is revealed and I hope that these answers will change our opinion about Israel and the Jewish people so that we become more aligned with God’s heart.