Messianic Rabbi shares how he accepted Yeshua as Messiah

Glenn when you were growing up obviously you grew up in a Jewish home tell us a little bit about your Jewish heritage growing up well I have two Jewish parents and I had a I was circumcised as a baby and I was raised in a reformed Jewish background a fairly liberal Jewish background and I learned Hebrew and what about my Jewish heritage and I had a Bar Mitzvah when I was 13 years old were you exposed at all to the Christian faith as a child or as a teenager did you know much at all about Christianity as such very very little jesus was part of the surrounding culture but for Jews it was either with them it was outside and I didn't think much about it so you obviously came to know Yeshua Jesus as the Messiah so share with us how did that really happen for you well I really wasn't looking for him but he was looking for me I was at Penn State studying English and I was writing a paper in an empty classroom and writing notes and I was in the middle of writing a paper I had a vision of Jesus Yeshua on the cross I saw him was like red clouds around him and he opened up his mouth and roared I could see it I could hear it and then in my mind I heard the thought he's taken upon himself all the pain of the world and then the vision subsided I didn't know what it meant all that I knew was maybe something out there was trying to get my attention I really didn't have any relationship with God that alone Jesus gradually I began somehow to search and one thing it really helped me was another another class a professor actually required us to buy the Bible at background to 17th century literature and I began to read the Bible no you were a student at Penn State University yes the main campus in State College and this happened during a class did you say one of the classes you were involved in that's right I thanks be to god a professor required us to get a King James Version of the Bible the very nice concordance and I began reading it and I discovered this was the greatest book ever written from purely literary point of view and really love that adler determine began to use it as in my studies of English and American literature so you were reading Old Testament and New Testament first I was a little bit skittish about reading a New Testament but I realized this was also important for understanding literature so what was really happening in you're here you're Jewish and you're reading about Jesus and his death on the cross is burial his resurrection you're reading about that what was something beginning to happen in your in your heart and mind I would write notes and I know I would notice various themes in the Bible I read the Bible as a piece of literature first and I realized that there was a theme of Messiah among other themes and I wrote down for example next to Isaiah 53 I still have this Bible Messiah so I knew that this was the theme of Messiah and then I could connect that with what was fulfilled in the New Testament so how did it all come together for you there has to be a planting of the seed there has to be a death and resurrection for us to come obviously to see with the vision and the Word of God as a seed and then I just kept searching but you know as a Jew I was sort of anything but Jesus so I looked in the Hinduism I looked at the Buddhism I looked in the Zen Transcendental Meditation I took yoga at the JCC finally though I realized the only way to know God as if God reveals himself to us God is unknowable unless he shows himself to us to eliminate the barrier between us and I realized that the Bible told us how he would do this that it would come he would come into the into the world as a human being actually he did this many times but the he fulfilled us perfectly in Jesus and so I was at a Jewish cultural history class at the University of Wisconsin I thought that might be another way to find out maybe maybe there's something in my Jewish heritage and in that class I met a Christian who was interested in me as a Jew and she invited me to come to her hometown and I saw the fact she was attracted so I agreed and before I went I voted to my transcendental notebook I'm going to Janesville Wisconsin to accept Jesus as the Messiah Wow I'd already come to the conclusion based on what he had already shown me mostly from His Word and that's what I did I went to Janesville and accepted Jesus as the Messiah right there at that church service was it well no it was actually someone's house and then they took me to a church service afterwards and frankly I didn't understand it at all and they didn't really tell me what to do they didn't tell me to keep going I was they were in Jennifer I was in was Madison uh 45 minutes away and it didn't tell me to study the Bible consistently to pray every day then get involved in the congregation and so I didn't grow at all I didn't know that what I need to do to grow as a believer but you had invited Jesus the Messiah Yeshua HaMashiach into your life as your personal Lord and Savior I made an intellectual assent okay but I hadn't really made a hard commitment I hadn't come to know him as Lord I knew miss Savior and it's Messiah but not as Lord that is I hadn't really given my life completely to him that happened two years later when I met another believer who led me through a series of teachings or seminars and in those teachings I came to understand that I had to give my life completely to Yeshua and follow him as Lord and then I was filled with the Holy Spirit and then I knew that I had to read the Bible every day and pray every day and get involved in fellowship and thoughts serving the Lord to grow as a believer so you had a hunger immediately after you opened after you really surrendered to him as Lord of your life oh it made a tremendous difference that's so important to make a total commitment to God and give up everything and just follow him that's what you're sure once just to trust him completely and then I began to experience this new life within me isn't it interesting at first you had the intellectual understanding but you knew that there was still something not quite right until you really from your heart and even as in Romans 10 the Bible says that if you will believe with your heart that Jesus is Lord and that he was raised from the dead you will be saved and then you found that he began to lead me and began to guide me and show me what he wanted what he wanted me to do and there was no doubt Glenn that that Jesus is the Messiah absolutely no doubt well the Lord began to change my life as soon as I became believer I was a very lonely isolated person I didn't care much about other people and then when I became a believer I began to care about other people I want to serve I want to give and I want and suddenly I became a leader I didn't know that I could lead anyone but people began to recognize the gift of leadership in me I he also showed me that my Jewish identity was important to me I didn't know that was a by fault I'd become a Christian but in fact my Jewish identity is important to God and I began to grow and understanding what it means to be a Jew

Channel: BeitSimcha

Views: 376,198

Keywords: Messianic, Judaism, Yeshua, Jesus, Messiah, Allentown, Lehigh, Valley, Pennsylvania, Jew, Jewish, faith, testimony, congregation, God

Id: jdZP0UPoFVo

Length: 7min 5sec (425 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 13 2008