Gentile, Greek, Roman, Mexican, African, Chinese, Native American, etc.? We know people by their fleshly, physical origin but do we know who we are called to be spiritually? What’s more important our physical origin or our spiritual destiny?
We are called to be ONE people, CHOSEN, a holy nation, a royal priesthood… We are called to be Israel.
“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”
Deuteronomy 7:6 NKJV
“Yet hear now, O Jacob My servant, And Israel whom I have chosen.”
Isaiah 44:1 NKJV
“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light”
I Peter 2:9 NKJV
How are we Israel if we are not technically physical descendants or if we are uncertain if our bloodline is that of Israeli lineage? What does it mean to be Israel? Israel is more than 12 physical tribes. The very name Israel in Hebrew is so meaningful and prophetic:
Genesis 32:28 NKJV
And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Wow! Did you catch that? One who struggles with God and men and yet overcomes. The name is incredibly significant to all of us and indicates our destiny. Let’s break the name Israel apart. First, what does it mean to struggle with God and men?
The word struggle means to contend, make every effort, plug away, dig, go all out, toil, try one’s hardest, pursue, ask, and seek. If we are called to be Israel we need to be constantly striving towards God (John 4:24). Many of us desire to seek God and grow deeper, but how many of us really struggle with God daily? We have to ask ourselves how deep do we want to go, how much are we willing to surrender, and what price are we willing to pay? The deeper we descend the more accountable we are.
Here’s my question and challenge to all of us: how are we able to really dig in, toil, and go all out if we do not read and grapple with the very Word He provided? I spent so much of my life and time reading a few ounces of NT Scripture (through a daily devotional), adding a verse or two to my notes while listening to a quick “drive by sermon” every Sunday. I attended many conferences, bought countless books written by men and women trying to find depth with God, but I wasn’t really striving, toiling, or struggling. I filled my book case with said books, studies, etc., but ironically I didn’t study His Book. When friends asked me to participate in a Bible study, it was always through another book outside of the Bible. The Bible was just a reference here and there, giving me exactly what I thought was sufficient: a tiny slice of God. Thankfully, God didn’t let me stay there… He was calling me to something deeper and greater— a depth I now know He is calling all of us to. He was calling me to my spiritual destiny, a destiny to be Israel.
When we arrived at this realization, my husband and I started shopping churches thinking this was the problem, that we were lacking depth. We didn’t want to be at a “seeker sensitive” church anymore. After visiting a few different churches over a 2 year period of time, I began to get frustrated and the same question would reverberate through my mind and heart: Is this all there is to God? He has to be deeper than this! Although I grew up in a faith based home and went to church all my life, I realized my relationship with God was superficial and shallow. Why? Because I didn’t dig in, toil, and struggle with the very Word He gave me.
In my shallow pursuit, I spent most of my life skimming the NT Scripture, and rarely did I venture into the Old. I finally went back to the beginning of the book where God laid the foundation, the Rock. It was here He used the physical aspects of His Torah to teach us how to love Him and treat others, but that was only the beginning. As we continued through His Word, He continued (and is continuing) to unveil more, so that what we see we may perceive, and what we hear is understood; the physical directed and continues to point our attention to the Spiritual, to show us “… on Earth as it is in Heaven” (Mathew 6:10). The things that are given to us on earth (physical) are a “copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:5). I believe THIS is the struggle: to not only understand that we, even though born of flesh in a physical world, are destined to be spiritual just like Elohim, but that this requires a knowledge, an understanding of His heart, mind, and nature. To do so means that we must spend our lives on this earth wrestling and toiling as Israel did–both the man and the nation–to ascend the physical into the spiritual.
To refuse or avoid this struggle is to accept a struggle opposite in nature than the one God calls us to: it is a toiling of laziness, idleness, and compromise.
If we don’t struggle with God we let idleness creep in, we become lackadaisical, and we avoid really asking for or seeking depth. Once this happens compromise follows. We forget who we are and who we are meant to be in the end. We will become status quo, numb or frustrated, neither hot or cold, but in the middle somewhere. To pursue our identity as Israel, though, we must struggle with men and ultimately with out Maker. We must struggle with every Word that comes forth form His mouth, tossing us to and fro until we, with unveiled faces, are born into our spiritual destiny: Israel.
Torah Discovery 