When Israel leaves Egypt, they rejoice in the freedom from Egypt's slavery but soon thereafter encounters something they didn't truly expect: A wilderness. No water, no food, just a desert ready to swallow them. In their minds, they only traded the curse of Egypt for the curse of the wilderness, and they complain and even rebel against God. Jesus also entered a wilderness. Even though He was free from sin and the world (Egypt), He had to walk through the wilderness. But He took 40 days instead of Israel's 40 years, and He never complained or rebelled. Throughout scripture, we see the reality of the wilderness season every man/woman of God will encounter. It's everywhere. But what are we to do when we enter it?

Feeling weak, without hope, without talent and therefore useless for the Kingdom of God? While our competitive world believes talents and skills equates to success, the Kingdom of God is upside down in this regard. Throughout scripture, we see God using people who didn't always have the necessary background or skills for jobs that they seem unqualified for. But what was God after? Humility. Skills, talents and other weaknesses can be empowered by God, but the heart of a man is the one thing God does not always own. A heart of humility is the most important attribute of a man and God cherishes it and pours grace upon grace upon it. What does it help you that you possess all knowledge and skill, yet don't have the humility that empowers you to walk out love?

Have you ever been to a store, you finished shopping, and you have everything you need to checkout. But as you approach the line, you see it extending further than you thought. But you look down upon your cart and items and decide: "What I have is important, I'm willing to wait." Do you feel like you're waiting in line for God? Throughout the scriptures, we have story upon story of characters like Joseph, Hannah and even Jesus, who waited on God. Waiting is sometimes hard, and sometimes confusing, but what you do while you wait often matters more than what you're waiting for.

I would like to ask for prayer. I and my wife has been without our home for 2 weeks (going on 3) now. After coming back from a conference a month ago, we both got sick as soon as we entered our home and remained sick for about a week thereafter. We thought it was just down to the fact that we slept at an airport the previous night and our bodies were a little weak and vulnerable. However, thereafter I started getting severe allergic reactions inside our home starting about two weeks ago. After initially thinking we have bugs, to other possibilities, after prayer the Father revealed that we have mold in our venting system (HVAC) of the home. We were soon thereafter forced out of the home for our own health and we are now living with my in-laws until the home is cleaned. As you can imagine, this is impacting my work in the ministry. So I may not be able to deliver all the teachings I wanted to deliver this week as well as next week, I apologize. I am working from where I am as much as possible, but I'm away from my workspace and computer to render videos and my laptop cannot handle it as well. We don't always know why these things happen, but we had a mold inspector at our house the rental management company had sent, who I had to let into the house to inspect it. He ended up seeing the home studio where we shoot Rise on Fire videos and asked about it. I had an opportunity to witness to him, and upon leaving he even asked the ministry name so he can look-up the teachings. If by all this God knew that this would be the only way to reach this mold inspector, then it's all worth it. Just 2 weeks ago He turned our plane around mid-flight to let us bump into a waitress whom I had to meet, and it ended up restoring her faith in God - all glory to God! So in all this, rejoice in your suffering, for you may not know what it's end and fruit may be to your own life, or even the lives of those around you. Rom 5:3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Please pray for our house to be cleaned up soon. It has been a slow process with our home management company and we hope to be moving back in soon so we can continue with the work He has prepared for us. Many blessings! PD

Sometimes we pray, and God doesn't heal. But why? Scripture and the walk of Jesus Himself teaches us various reasons for why people are sick, and perhaps why they may not get healed immediately upon being prayed for. Here are 4 of those reasons.

When I was a teenager, I started reading conspiracy theories, it became a passion. I was spending much of my time on researching the next big thing, and as a Christian, I was convinced that I would be able to use my "revelations" to show people the deceptions of the world and thereby lead them to Christ. But then I realized, I was not effective for the Kingdom, I was not really doing what Yeshua did, even though I tried convincing myself and others otherwise. I was only effective in telling people about deceptions going around and the “truths” surrounding them. My treasure wasn't God and spreading the Gospel of His Kingdom. My treasure was in conspiracy theories and other knowledge. Where is your treasure?

When I met Christina, she couldn’t pronounce my surname. I was from another culture, another language, and my name was almost impossible for her American tongue to figure out at first. Should that have offended me? Of course not! Yet why do we think our perfect Father is offended when we struggle to say His name in the correct spelling or pronunciation? Many have gone as far as to say that if we pronounce His name wrong, He won't hear or answer our prayers. There are various pronunciations that have been adopted for His name, even our current pronunciations might be slightly off as scholars disagree all the time, but the name we do know we should honor, especially through our actions. The reality is, God is more merciful and understanding than any man could ever even be. He is more concerned with whether we represent His name well than whether we can pronounce and spell it perfectly well.

Marriage is hard. And sometimes it becomes really hard. But it shouldn't be a surprise, Satan is after marriages - for if the marriage fails, it takes a house down with it. Marriage is also hard because it involves two different individuals becoming one flesh. No matter the reason for the struggles of marriage, how we deal with them is something everyone who marries will need to face and it comes down to this: Will we "love like the world" only as long as the person loves us back (and in the same amount), or will we love like Jesus, even when the partner doesn't love us all the ways we desire? Christ has suffered all we could ever suffer (Hebrews 4:15). Even though He was never married in the flesh, God experienced the same pains when His Bride has sinned or fallen away even temporarily. Yet Christ overcame and loved us to the end. Will we love like He did, in a love that is sacrificial, merciful and kind? We need the kind of love that draws others to repentance as He did us. John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

In our western, capitalist mindsets, those in full-time ministry have adopted the world's ways of doing business to start charging for the gospel - making it inaccessible to those unable to pay. What has happened? Would Yeshua have put a paywall in front of His revelations, teachings, and deliverance? So why do we? Isn't it disturbing that we have fallen this far into what is now considered a "normal" way of doing ministry. Freely you have received, now freely give. God is calling ministers out to separate themselves from the world and be an example to the sheep, to actually trust in the Master who pays His laborers their wages. If we continue to trust in our devices and models of doing ministry instead of what our Messiah clearly laid out in scripture, our ministries will be robbed of blessings - and even worse, we will have to give an account on judgment day (the day teachers will be judged more strictly on).

Are you so zealous for God that you would be willing to lay everything down for the sake of His righteousness to prevail? When no says anything nor does anything about the evil, the evil prevails. Turning a blind eye is participation if you have the power to put an end to the evil around you. Evil prospers in the world due to believers too involved in the world to speak up, for various reasons: Either the evil profits them, or they are afraid of what might happen to them if they blew the whistle on evil. Ultimately, they lift their own life above seeing God's Kingdom come on Earth. This is why Jesus chased out the moneychangers from the temple with whips. This is why Jesus cursed the fig tree. This is why Phineas pierced a man and woman in idolatry with a spear. And all these were righteous acts, even though they may seem "radical" or strange. And this is why our Messiah (and later His disciples) gave their lives: To put an end to the evil, and to let His Kingdom come and prevail. Torah Portion: Pinchas | Phinehas / Phineas | פנחס