קהילה משיחית בתל אביב-יפו רחוב יפת 42 ת"א-יפו
Searched for eternal life – the story of Yaron
My name is Yaron. I was born in Tel Aviv in the seventies and grew up in the area of Hatikva neighborhood and Yad Eliyahu neighborhood. I was to elementary school “Hayarden” and then “Ironi Tet” high school. My parents were Jews (my father died 11 years ago) which grew me up according to Jewish tradition. On Fridays, my father would make kiddush and my mother lit candles. On Saturdays we did not lit the fire and we’d use the electrical plate of Saturday. Although we did not keep six hours between eating meat and milk, we did not eat milk and meat together. On Passover we ate only unleavened bread, on Yom Kippur we fasted and Hanukkah we lit the menorah. When I was eight days I was circumcised and at age 13 I went to the synagogue for bar mitzvah ceremony. When I was little my father would take me on the Sabbath to the synagogue but I do not remember much of it
Searched for eternal life
My mother was a Messianic Jewish believer even before she married my father and it did not bother her to keep the tradition as long as it was not incompatible with faith in Christ Jesus. From an early age my mother was reading me stories from the Bible. As a child I did not understand much, but I remember some of the stories and what my mother said about the stories. Until I turned 10, my mother was going alone to the congregation in Jaffa. Seldom, my brothers and I joined her and also my father. At the age of 10, I and my younger brother who is two years younger started visiting the congregation more regularly, every Saturday afternoon. I do not remember much of what I heard in the assembly, but at the age of 12, one of the older members of the assembly told me I should read the New Testament before I go to bed and pray in my heart to God before I’m sleeping. And really from that day I began to read one chapter each night from the New Testament in Hebrew and after I finished reading, I would pray to God in my words
Searched for eternal life
From the age of 12 to 15 I thought I am really a believer in Jesus because I saw changes in my life. The daily reading of the New Testament book has affected my behavior and how I was talking with my friends. For example, I remember when I stopped swearing, and I had a reputation of one who is not lying. When class members wanted to know if anyone is fooling them, they would ask me and say, “Yaron always tells the truth”. But at age 15, at the end of ninth grade, I stopped visiting the congregation, claiming that I do not believe in Jesus any more and I just want to be a good person like my father who did not believe in Jesus. What’s interesting is that even though I stopped reading the New Testament, every evening I prayed to God from my heart, but not in the name of Jesus. It was like that for ten months, I was in 10th grade in high school and met new friends and had some bad influence from them. Today, I thank God that the friends I had did not influence me in a way that made me do something that I could not go back from and have life long implications
Searched for eternal life
In Passover holiday that year my cousins who believed in Jesus visited us. We spent about a week together, they did not speak to me at all about Jesus and never tried to convince me to go back to the assembly’s meetings. Today, I guess they were praying for me in that time. When they left I remember standing at the window and thinking. It was sad that they had to go and it also made me sad to think that things do not stay forever. I began to think that everything in this life will be over, whether it’s high school, military, university, family and life itself. And then I thought, will I really die and cease to exist? Somewhere in my heart I did not believe I will cease to exist, and I believed I will always exist and live forever. Later I discovered that the book of Ecclesiastes says: “He has also put eternity in their hearts” meaning that God places in people’s heart the eternal life, namely eternity. These thoughts pushed me to search for eternal things that never end
Searched for eternal life
Today when I look back I realize that in fact it was God who was active in my thoughts, and counseled me to look for it. I think it was God who was active in my thoughts because I see so many people who avoid thinking about eternity and it’s not so important to them. I do not think I’m better than other people and I believe that if God did nor work in my thoughts, I was not coming back to him. The next day I went to my older brother who already believed in Jesus. My brother has an interesting story about how God worked in his life and directed his steps back to him. I remember that a few months earlier he tried to show me the biblical prophecy that was fulfilled in the New Testament, but I was angry and refused to listen. This time, I asked my brother to help me on how to check if the faith in Jesus is the right way which would lead me to immortality. My brother gave me a small book called “the messiah in the two covenants,” which compares the Old Testament prophecies about the messiah and the fulfillment of the prophecies in the New Testament. That day I began to read the prophecies and found that many prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. During that month I prayed and asked God to guide me to the truth.
Searched for eternal life
There were a number of prophecies in the book that did not convince me, but there were several other prophecies which only Jesus cold fulfill. For example, Daniel Chapter 9, verse 26 says the Messiah shall be cut off, and then the second temple will be destroyed. Indeed, Jesus died in 30 AD and forty years later, the Second Temple was destroyed. Another powerful prophecy in Isaiah chapter 53. This chapter describes a pure and holy man who died to bear the sins of others, even his death and resurrection are described in this chapter. The book of the Prophet Micah chapter 5 verse 1, states that Christ should be born in Bethlehem and indeed Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Other prophecies revealed to me the truth that God has a son, and it’s written in the Bible
Searched for eternal life
I remember it was Thursday and on that week on Saturday was supposed to be a Lag B’Omer (a holiday in Israel in which children make a fire). On Thursday morning I woke up with a decision that I believe in Jesus and I want to follow that only way to have eternal life. At that time the assembly would gather at Saturday afternoon rather than the morning and I decided I come back to visit in the congregation. That Saturday I was supposed to meet with classmates to buy food and drink before we the fire. On Friday, I called one of the friends, and I told him I would not go with them to buy the groceries and I will come only later. He asked me why?, and I told him that I believe in Jesus and I’m going to a meeting in the assembly. I think it scared my friend a bit and that same weekend when I joined my friends at the fire I told them I believe in Jesus. Some laughed, some thought I’m weird but none of them could argue with me because they had no knowledge of the prophecies of the Bible
Searched for eternal life
Three months later I attended a Christian youth conference and met teenagers who also believe in Jesus. After the conference ended I fulfilled the commandment of Jesus to be baptized. When I was baptized at the beach in Jaffa, there were many people who witnessed the baptism and then we spoke with some of them about faith in Christ. I see no purpose living without Jesus, and I’m glad that God has called me to come back to him at a young age. Now I see my purpose in life as a servant for God and the Jesus the messiah. God took me from darkness to light in order to tell others about what he did for me. I invite you to visit our assembly’s meetings, or at the nearest congregation to you and hear the truth. If that sounds too scary, I encourage you to read the New Testament and ask God to guide you to the one and only truth
I’d be happy to hear from you
Yaron
