Thursday, July 3, 2025

How to pray for Israel and the Jewish people; A Call to Pray for
the Jewish People; Why We Should Pray
for the Jewish People; Prayer Leads to Action;

 PRESIDENT'S LETTER

How to pray for Israel and the Jewish people

How to pray for Israel and the Jewish people

Shalom in His grace,

I am still reflecting on my trip to Israel last month, and I can tell you that my heart continues to break for my people. Such sadness, hopelessness, and fear! Yet, I also saw sparkles of grace throughout the land as I spent time with Israeli congregational leaders, the Chosen People Ministries—Israel staff, and a growing number of new believers trusting the Lord for answers.

Right before our group left for Israel, we heard about the tragic murder of two beautiful young Jewish people, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who were twenty-six and thirty respectively and working for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Yaron was Israeli, and Sarah was his soon-to-be fiancée, a lovely American Jewish woman. They were both mercilessly gunned down by a self-proclaimed pro-Hamas terrorist who shot them point-blank as they were leaving a reception for young Jewish diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum.

As word of their murder made its way through the media, it was discovered that both Yaron and Sarah were Messianic Jews—Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah. Many of our Chosen People Ministries—Israel staff have ties to Yaron’s family, and Yaron was part of a Chosen People Ministries program a few years ago as well. Their deaths were taken very personally by Jewish people in the United States and, of course, in Israel.

I assumed I would find a very somber mood among the Messianic believers in the Holy Land as both leaders and congregants would be searching for comfort and trying to understand how something like this could happen, especially to believers! My assumptions were correct, and our group spent hours talking about God’s faithfulness and the mystery of His will with our young staff and those we are discipling.

As Isaiah wrote,“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

2507PZLW Muchan Prayer DNC 0423

And so we trust Him through tragedy and leave the lives of our loved ones in His holy and all-powerful hands. My hope is that this senseless murder will encourage Christians to pray for the Jewish people and for Israel during these dark moments, especially as threats against God’s chosen people intensify around the globe.

During our brief time in Israel, we also visited some of the Israeli communities near Gaza, a short distance from the war zone. Many of these communities were destroyed by Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023. It was an incredibly emotional experience to witness the aftermath of what took place.

Despite the challenging environment, an encouraging part of the trip was taking part in Living Waters, a mentoring retreat that our ministry has hosted for the past eighteen years. I had the privilege of spending a long weekend with forty-plus young Israeli Messianic leaders who love the Lord and are eager to grow in their understanding of Scripture and service for the Messiah in Israel. The seemingly endless war and especially the deaths of multiple Messianic soldiers, and now the passing of Yaron and Sarah, made this mentoring retreat more sensitive and meaningful as most of those attending are of a similar age.

The Lord did speak to me and our staff amid these difficult circumstances, as He always does. We were again driven to the well-worn passage of the apostle Paul in Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” On this trip, we also dedicated our new Tel Aviv Messianic Center to the Lord’s service in the Holy Land. This milestone was the fruit of many years of prayer and hard work.

A Call to Pray for
the Jewish People

While acknowledging God’s sovereignty, I also urge you to pray for the Jewish people and especially for those who follow Jesus, as we need your prayers more than ever before!

The great Messianic Jewish leader, the apostle Paul, shared a deeply personal and heartfelt prayer request with the believers in Rome when he cried out, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (Romans 10:1). As a twenty-first-century Messianic Jewish man, I would be grateful if you would pray for the salvation of the Jewish people.

It is also important for us to pray in agreement with the will of God, and therefore our prayers should align with Scripture. There are many passages in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament that encourage us to pray for the Jewish people and for the nation of Israel.

Why We Should Pray
for the Jewish People

Prayer leads to a deeper communion with the Lord and motivates us to pray more fervently through the Spirit about what is on the heart of God. I believe it is important that our requests to God are, as much as possible, in accordance with His will as revealed in Scripture.

The Scriptures tell us that God’s heart beats with unending love for His chosen people. In Jeremiah 31:3, the Lord declares, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.” This is not a temporary affection but an eternal covenant that transcends time and circumstances. Like a mother who cannot forget her nursing child, God says in Isaiah 49:15–16, “Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. Behold, 
I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.”

We pray because God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew (Romans 11:1–2). Despite the historic struggles of the Jewish people and the present rise of antisemitism, we know that one day God will fulfill His covenant with His chosen people. And we pray in light of the future He has prepared for Israel and the nations (Romans 11:25–29).

Isaiah 59:20–21 prophesies that “the Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob.” This is not wishful thinking but prophetic certainty. We expect a spiritual awakening as God fulfills His promise in Ezekiel 36:24–28 to give His people a new heart and a new spirit. Zechariah 12:10 speaks of a day when “they will look on Me, whom they have pierced, and mourn for Him”—a recognition that brings redemption.

Prayer Group

We also expect global blessing as Genesis 12:3 reminds us that, through Abraham’s descendants, all nations will be blessed. Israel will fulfill her calling to be “a light of the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). The entire world will benefit, and one day Jerusalem will become a center of worship where all people will seek the Lord (Isaiah 2:2–3).

By praying for the salvation of the Jewish people, we are praying in accord with God’s plan for world redemption!

Prayer Leads to Action

My hope is that the church would understand the significant role non-Jewish people have in God’s plan as founded on the Abrahamic promises. Gentile believers are participants in the Abrahamic covenant as spiritual descendants of the patriarch (Galatians 3:6–9). Through Christ, Gentile believers have become spiritual sons and daughters of Abraham by faith as God’s blessings have come to “those who were formerly far off” but are now one body with Jewish believers through the Jewish Messiah (Ephesians 2:13).

This will hopefully lead the body of Christ to fulfill the mandate found in Romans 1:16 and 11:14, which instructs believers to bring the gospel “to the Jew first” and to make the Jewish people jealous of the word of Messiah received by the Gentiles. We cannot allow Jewish evangelism to become the great omission of the Great Commission.

As both Messianic Jews and Gentile followers of Yeshua, we are bound together through the Messiah and the shared blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. Let us then work together in unity, as partners in the gospel, until that great day when Israel will turn fully to God, and Jesus will return to reign as Messiah on His rightful throne in a renewed Jerusalem on earth. Both Jewish people and Gentiles will then rejoice in the knowledge of the Lord that will fill the earth as the waters fill the sea (Isaiah 11:9–12).

Let us join our hearts in seeking the presence of the Lord and the beauty of His person. As the psalmist reminds us, “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seekthat I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple”(Psalm 27:4).

And let us pray together for one another and for these requests:

  • The salvation of Israel
  • The return of the hostages
  • The families of Yaron and Sarah (the couple murdered at the Capital Jewish Museum)
  • The global work of Your Mission to the Jewish People
  • The peace of Jerusalem and all those who live in the Holy Land and the Middle East

On behalf of the Chosen People Ministries global family, thank you for loving the Jewish people and standing with us as we reach our beloved Jewish people with the gospel message!

Your brother,

mitch signature

Mitch

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