Author: Moti Cohen

Moti Cohen | | 1 Comment on Our Most Important Investment

By far our most important investment as a messianic congregation in the Land of Israel is our youth and raising up strong Jewish believers in the Messiah to be a light and a witness in this end time generation. According to most of the statistics in the Body of Messiah, the most critical age for kids growing up in believing families is the teenage years. Why? Because it’s the age when believing teens make decisions that will have profound effects on their walk of faith. It’s the age that they make the decision to either commit to the Lord and ask Him into their lives, while some of them decide to reject their faith altogether. Therefore, the ages between 13 and 18 are the critical years to get know and respond to the gospel of Yeshua the Messiah. Why did I write until age 18? Because at the age of 18 teenagers in Israel are conscripted into the army, and we as their spiritual family at the congregation have until then to prepare them for the intense challenges and social pressure they’ll face in the army.

This summer at Tiferet Yeshua we are planning our annual youth trip: youth trips are an instrumental time to strengthen the teens’ relationships with each other (most of them are the only believers in their schools, so social interaction with other believers is so important),to encourage them, to delve into the word of God together, to challenge them to use their gifts. Every youth trip we take, we also find a way to serve the community in some way which opens awesome opportunities for us to share the gospel.

Testimonies from the youth who have participated in our youth trips in the past tell us that the intensive time of spending a few days together is incredibly important for them and contributes much to their spiritual lives. These trips give us more time to learn God’s word together, to worship and pray together, to listen to each other, to get to know them better and give individual attention to them: during the concerted time we spend together, the youth open up more and we’re able speak into their lives.

Every year, Shlomit, our dedicated youth group leader, and I invest time and prayer in planning everything, logistically and spiritually. Please stand with us in prayer for the young Jewish believers we’re raising here in the Land, that the Lord would give us wisdom, insight and grace during this trip, that each one would have a deep encounter with the Lord and His love, that each young person joining the trip would be strengthened in their faith, and that those who haven’t yet made commitments to the Lord would do so.

Moti Cohen | | Leave a Comment on A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

For two months now we’ve been reaching our goal of making 1,000 meals for the poor and needy every month through our project Feed Tel Aviv. Additionally, we cook these meals fresh and bring them directly to the outreach center. There are other organizations which send food which is often day old and past its prime. The food we’re preparing is fresh, homemade and nutritious, and the people we’re serving it to express their gratitude for the quality and come back for seconds and thirds.

So, who exactly are these needy individuals in Tel Aviv we’re reaching out to? To answer that, I’ll make use of a cliché: they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and the picture above that I took at our outreach kitchen in south Tel Aviv tells it all:

The man standing in the foreground dressed in black is ultra-orthodox of Sephardic descent. Next to him in line is a secular, Ashkenazi Jewish man, and next to him is an Arab Muslim man. Finally, the man at the head of the line is a Sudanese refugee. From the picture you can see that we’re serving a very diverse cross section of the Israeli population!

There are also women who come to us for food who are working in prostitution, as well as the homeless and drug addicted. What these people all have in common is that they are hungry. We’ve discovered is that these people aren’t just hungry for food. Their souls are hungry for the Word of Truth; after they’ve sat and satisfied their physical hunger, some of them begin asking spiritual questions. Therefore, whenever we serve the immediate physical hunger of the needy, we also end up sharing the gospel, giving witness to what Yeshua has done in our lives and talking about the biblical prophesies which tell about who Israel’s Messiah is.

Just recently we shared with two drug addicted women who are involved in a lesbian lifestyle and living on the street. They were so open and hungry for the gospel, and we ended up praying for them. While we prayed for them, one of them began weeping for a half an hour. She repented for her lifestyle and said that she needs nothing short of the almighty hand of God to pull her out of her lifestyle (which involves highly addictive drugs).

Please continue to pray for these two ladies who come back every week, who are open and hungry for the truth, and in desperate need for a powerful encounter with God’s love to pull them out of the darkness, and that they would be willing to enroll in one of the drug treatment facilities run by believers that we’re involved with. Please pray that God gives us grace and wisdom and uses us in a mighty way to help the desprately lost and suffering we encounter every week.

All of this important work that we’re doing is thanks to your generous support, and therefore I want to say “thank you” with my whole heart in the name of all of those who receive food from us every week, both physical and spiritual food. Please continue to keep the Feed Tel Aviv project in your prayers. We know that the Lord has called us to support the poor and needy in our city, Tel Aviv, and you’re helping us fulfill that call.