This evening begins Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement–one of two Jewish high holy days. Are you praying for the Jewish people of the world? How can you show love to and serve your Jewish community?
The largest Jewish population in the world (outside of Israel) is living in the United States (5,275,000, or 39% of the world’s total Jewish population). If you are interested in seeing the Jewish Diaspora across the world, check out this very helpful set of tables from the Jewish Virtual Library. I will also encourage you to check out the web sites of Jews for Jesus and Apple of His Eye. Additional helpful information may be found here at NorthAmericanMissions.org.
With 97.2% of the world’s 14 million Jewish people without personal experience of the eternal atonement, may our hearts and prayers go out to them on this very special day on their calendar.
I’ll conclude this post with two very important passages of Scripture. I think they speak for themselves. May they guide your prayers and thoughts today. Click on the links to the full passages.
“For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the LORD from all your sins” (Leviticus 16:30 ESV).
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God”
(Hebrews 9:11-14 ESV).
“For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1-4 ESV).
