Repentance is Needed Between Jews and Gentiles
Our Messiah’s House ministry in the New York and Connecticut areas has a para-Church focus and acts as an arm towards the local Church for Jewish ministry. We are hosted by Harvest Time Church in Greenwich Connecticut and work alongside many other Churches in the area who are open to our ministry focus, not only to reach out to Jewish people but also to reconnect spiritually with Israel during these days and all that goes along with that in the Church. We celebrate all of the main feasts of the L-rd with a New Covenant focus, with Yeshua/Jesus right in the midst of them, and help revive much of the Jewish flavor that has been lost in the Church.
Two of the feasts that we celebrate, Passover and Tabernacles, are now joint celebrations with Harvest Time Church, where Jew and Gentile truly gather in unity in the one new man. The Feast of Tabernacles will be celebrated by all in the Millennium when Yeshua/Jesus returns (Zechariah 14:16). It was during one of these Tabernacles celebrations that Pastor Glenn Harvison got a specific download from the L-rd to preach on identificational repentance to the entire Congregation. It was an unbelievable message and truly a breakthrough moment in the Spirit for both Jew and Gentile in the Church. I want to encourage all readers of this article to watch and listen to his message.
Something very strategic happened that weekend in the Spirit which will affect the body of Messiah/Christ for its future in this area and which will also affect your local church and community. In light of the Church’s ancestral position towards the Jewish people, the church as a whole is in great need of this kind of healing and spiritual reconciliation, in order for us to be able to move into everything that God has for us during these days. It’s as if we need to be cleansed from any past influences in order for us to receive our futures and especially in the one new man.
I write from the heart of all the Jewish believers that were present that day. There were a number of us in all 4 services who Pastor Glenn acknowledged with love and gratitude, including my wife Hali and two of my children, Madison and Jonathan; my eldest son, Joshua, lives in California. Words cannot describe the depths of the emotions and tears that welled up in our hearts and spirits as all of our Gentile believing family moved out in love, forgiveness, repentance and reconciliation towards us from any acts of anti-Semitism, hatred or persecution and any ancestral or demonic influences that has been used to keep us apart. There was hardly a dry eye in the place, and in each meeting every soul felt and experienced the reconciling power of the Holy Spirit heal the wounds from our past.
That weekend we also had the great pleasure of Marty Goetz leading out in our worship services, as the Lord used him to help usher in this powerful moment in the Spirit. So I asked Marty to share with you from his own experience. Marty and his wife Jennifer are also Jewish believers in Yeshua/Jesus.
Here is what Marty wrote:
Grant Berry and I have been friends for a while now. Both of us had the opportunity to minister in the former Soviet Union after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. In those days, G-d began to move mightily upon the Russian Jews, awakening them to faith in Yeshua, Jesus…their Messiah.
In recent years, Grant has started a work called ‘Messiah’s House,’ in the New York and Connecticut area. This inspiring ministry promotes healing and reconciliation between Jew and Gentile, calling all believers into their respective roles in these ‘end times’. My wife, Jennifer, and I, have had the opportunity to partner with him, periodically, in helping to grow and establish the work there.
But it was on our second invitation to Messiah’s House last Shavuot/Tabernacles, as I ministered in music, that something wonderful—and rather unusual— happened. Harvest Time is a thriving congregation in that area and, as a finale to the Tabernacles celebration, I was blessed to lead the worship in all four services. The senior pastor, Glenn Harvison, then preached a powerful message on identification repentance, moving those who were assembled to tears and making room for a sovereign move of the Ruach HaKosesh, the Holy Spirit.
Toward the end of the service, he invited Grant Berry up to the platform to represent and identify with the Jewish people, and to receive the expression of repentance from the Church. We witnessed Pastor Glenn pour out his heart, asking for personal forgiveness for any wrong acts toward the Jewish people, as well any anti- Semitism in his own family line. He then led the entire congregation in one of the most eloquent and sincere prayers of forgiveness any of us had ever heard.
Grant then reciprocated, asking all Gentile believers to forgive the Jewish people for any wrong attitudes toward them. The presence of the L-rd was strong, provoking much emotional response throughout the whole assembly and in every service. We were all personally touched, feeling deeply the heart of our Father for His dearly beloved family, both Jew and Gentile alike. Jennifer and I were humbled and, well, speechless, as we received this outpouring of love and affection for us and for our Jewish people. It was a magnificent manifestation of the love of G-d, and very personally moving for us all.
It was, indeed, a memorable event; one we hope and pray will be repeated in many other places throughout the world. Such reconciliation and mutual repentance is greatly needed in this time; a time of tearing down of walls, whether in Berlin…or in our hearts!
Grant Berry is a Jewish believer in Jesus and author of The New Covenant Prophecy and The Ezekiel Generation. He has founded Reconnecting Ministries with the specific focus to help the church reconnect spiritually to Israel and considers it vital to the kingdom of God in the last days.
