Share good news – Share this and any page freely.
Share this link on your media, eg Facebook, Instagram, Emails:
Exploring Israel:
https://renewaljournal.com/2011/04/08/exploring-israel/

FREE RENEWAL JOURNAL SUBSCRIPTION: for updates, new Blogs & free offers
FREE PDF books on the Main Page

Part 1: Journey

Reproduced from my 1982 newsletter as included in

Looking to Jesus: Journey into Renewal and Revival

Part 2: Journal

Reproduced from Our Trip,

Handwritten Journal, December-January,1981-1982

Preface

Our family of five visited Israel in December-January of 1981-1982, with our friends Di Reynoldson, Diane Farmer, Paul Varendorf and David Baker. This book combines two resources to tell that story.

Part 1: Journey, from page 5, I reproduced from pages 103-109 of my autobiography, Looking to Jesus: Journey into Renewal and Revival (2009, BookSurge) with an overview of our trip and my impressions.

Part 2: Journal, from page 17, I reproduced and expanded from Our Trip, my handwritten journal of entries made during the visit with daily notes of events and my thoughts at that time.

Israel is unique. This land of the Bible, the land of Jesus, grabs you. My memories remain vivid, strong and transforming. Being there brings the Bible alive in new ways. Scripture leaps from Bible picture books into the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch of living, breathing people today, saturated with yesterday’s events.

Walk around the present Crusader walls of the old city of Jerusalem and you literally walk around the land and ruins of the smaller city of Jesus’ day.

Wander on the pebbled shore of Galilee at Capernaum and you literally walk where Jesus walked. Or you can sit in a boat on the lake as he did.

Everywhere you go there, names of Bible places jump at you off large, modern road signs pointing to yet another biblical location, full of history’s blood, sweat, toil and tears. The hundreds of signs in Hebrew and English remind you of events from 4,000 years of history there and the astounding miracles seen in those places.

I pray that these brief memoirs will bless you and inspire you.

As you look through my eyes and our family’s experiences with our friends I hope that you too may glimpse something more of the wonder of God’s mighty purposes for us all, demonstrated in the long history of Israel and especially in the life of Jesus who lived there, died there, rose again there, and ascended in glory and authority there.

To God be the glory, great things he has done – especially in Israel. There he revealed himself in and through his one and only Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of kings and the Lord of lords who reigns forever.