As we prepare for another year of ministry, we’ve got eyes on our workers and Jewish friends in Eastern Europe this week. To share the details of our work in this region, we chat with Mike Stallard, director of International Ministries for The Friends of Israel, and Timothy Rabinek, our field representative serving in Poland. Timothy updates us on the work he and his team have done to serve the Lord in 2020, as well as their plans to serve in 2021. This week’s program will open your heart to the Jewish people of Eastern Europe who need your help, starting with the hope that can only be found in the Messiah!

How amazing is it that the God of the universe wants to have a relationship with us? Though we often forget this fact, it’s a truth that gives us daily strength and eternal hope. We studied how God relates to us through covenants last week. But the Old Covenant had a shortcoming: We could not possibly obey all of God’s commands. So He made a New Covenant, one that included the birth, death, and resurrection of His Son, our Savior. Tune in to learn about this incredibly encouraging covenant!

Let’s kick off the new year with a happy topic: how God relates to us! We are so blessed to serve a God who loves us and pursues a relationship with us. God Himself is relational through His three distinct persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who interact with one another but are one. Even though we are sinful and lost without Him, He seeks to interact with us, too! Listen and learn how our loving God uses covenants to relate to us.

We hope you’ve had a very merry Christmas! While we studied Isaiah 7 last week, we’re jumping ahead to chapter 53 to read about Jesus’ divine mission to save His people from their sins. Even though this chapter comes from the Tanakh, it’s not welcome in Jewish synagogues. That’s because it so clearly validates Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah that it goes against Jewish teachings. We pray this week’s program directs your mind to Jesus and reminds you of all He has done for you!

Christmastime is here! As we prepare to celebrate during this happy season, this week’s program takes us back to the very first Christmas. The Old Testament prophecies and New Testament context converged in this time to create an incredible account of the virgin birth that fulfilled the divine Messianic expectations and made a way for us to have a relationship with the Lord. This program is bursting with encouragement and reassurance that God loves you more than you could ever imagine, and the proof lies in the details of the first Christmas!

It’s a very special time of the year for our Jewish friends: Hanukkah! And what better way to share how cherished it is than to hear the tales of those who remember it so fondly! We welcome three Friends of Israel employees—Steve Herzig, Lorna Simcox, and Mitch Triestman—to the show this week to swap stories and reminisce about what Hanukkah meant to them growing up in Jewish homes. Their discussion is fun, festive, and full of joyful memories from Hanukkah celebrations past!

Immanuel: It’s a name we hear used for Jesus every year at Christmas meaning “God with us.” But Immanuel is not just a title to think about at Christmas. It’s an incredible truth that should impact every day of our walk with Christ! This week features an interview with Bruce Scott discussing his Israel My Glory article “Immanuel Forever.” The presence of God today is an amazing privilege, and it’s only going to be more glorious in the future!

We all see Jesus differently! We’ve been exploring this fact for the past two weeks, as we’ve learned how the Romans dismissed His ministry and the Jewish religious leaders of His day considered it a threat. But some people were much more interested in our Savior. This week we hear about “The People of the Land,” the average Israelites of Jesus’ day. You might find these Jewish people more relatable than our previous groups, so listen closely this week for their view of the Messiah and how He changed their lives!

Not everyone loved Jesus. Many didn’t accept His saving grace because they saw Him as a threat or an insignificant distraction in their lives. We saw this attitude last week through the eyes of the Romans, who were more concerned with their empire than with the King of Kings. This week we look at Jesus through the eyes of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the religious leaders of His time. It seems unbelievable that they could hate the Savior of the world, but this anger stemmed from a familiar place, which Chris explains today in part 2 of our 3-week series on the different perspectives of Jesus.

Who is Jesus? This question seems to have a different answer for every person. Muslims say He is a prophet. Jewish people say He is a rabbi. Unbelievers say He is nothing more than a moral teacher. But we who believe in Him for salvation know He is our Savior and our Lord. Chris opens our three-week series on how everyone sees Jesus differently with this look at how the Romans saw Jesus in the first century. This study of notable Romans that Jesus interacted with in the Gospels will help you see your Savior through the eyes of a culturally powerful people group!