An Insider’s Look at Jews for Jesus

No one can afford to take their spiritual health for granted—least of all, those on the mission field! That’s why our staff are not only members of local congregations, but we also receive spiritual care from our own ministry chaplain, and regular encouragement from our Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

The following is a brief message to our staff from Aaron Abramson, one of our chief operating officers who serves on our ELT. Whether or not you are in full‑time ministry, we hope his message will be a timely word for you as well.

“In the busyness of life and ministry, the state of our own spiritual lives can be sidelined. John Wesley would often start his gatherings with the question, ‘How is it with your soul?’ We need to be asking ourselves and those we serve alongside questions like this. Are we seeking God and putting His kingdom first in our lives? Are we spending time pondering His Word and inviting His Spirit into our hearts to convict us of sin and to shape us into the men and women He wants us to be? If this isn’t a regular part of our lives, we are putting ourselves at risk.

“Christian writer John Ortberg called a healthy soul, ‘the hinge on which the rest of your life hangs.’ He wrote, ‘Many souls are starved and unhealthy, unsatisfied by false promises of status and wealth. We’ve neglected this eternal part of ourselves, focusing instead on the temporal concerns of the world—and not without consequence.’^*

“We all know it is possible to look the part but to be unhealthy inside. Jesus makes one of His harshest statements against the Pharisees and the scribes when He called them ‘whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones’ (Matthew 23:27).

“These religious leaders looked strong, but inside, they were far from it. Let us not neglect this side of our health. None of us would expect to complete a marathon without conditioning our bodies, hydrating, and eating well. So we, too, are running a race, and we want to finish strong. May we find ways individually and in our teams to challenge and spur one another on to greater spiritual health as we serve the Lord together.

“In Messiah,

Aaron”

*John Ortberg, Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014).