Our Guest: Dr. Susan Michael
For more than 40 years, Susan has pioneered the development of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem in the United States and around the world. She currently serves as the ministry’s USA President and is a member of the ICEJ’s international Board of Directors. Upon completing her master’s degree, she returned from Israel with a heart to further the Embassy’s mission among fellow Americans.
After a season assisting the ministry’s international leadership to host a series of high-profile pro-Israel conferences across the USA, she was asked to head up the ICEJ’s USA Branch. Susan is an author, gifted teacher, and international speaker. Her experience working with Arabs, Jews, and Christians from many national and denominational backgrounds has equipped her to handle delicate topics central to an understanding of Israel with extraordinary clarity and grace.
In recent years she has produced several educational tools to enable other Christians to do the same, including the IsraelAnswers.com website, a series of highly accessible educational seminars, online courses at ICEJ U, course curricula for Christian colleges, and Embassy Publishers.
Susan is the author of Encounter the 3D Bible: How to Read the Bible so It Comes to Life, Antisemitism: What Every Christian Needs to Know and How to Counter It, and Every Generation’s Story: 75 Years of American Christian Engagement with Israel. Recently honored as a 2023 Christian Woman of Distinction by She Leads America and the US House of Representatives.
She was also included in the Israel Allies Foundation’s recently released annual listing of Israel’s top 50 Christian Allies from various denominations and church networks around the globe. Susan and her husband lived and worked for many years in Washington, DC, where she developed a close working relationship with the Israeli Embassy and strong connections with the US Jewish community at large.
Key Thoughts and Scriptures:
Romans 15:4 NIV For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
Psalm 1 NIV …whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither—whatever they do prospers…
- The word of God roots us deeply so we can stand strong, even when circumstances are hard.
“The Bible is God’s voice speaking to us.” – Billy Graham
- Every time you open scripture, it’s an invitation to sit with God.
- Susan discovered that as she spent time in the Bible and in fellowship with God, He would use it to speak to her heart.
- The Bible isn’t just a theology book. It’s a history book about real places and real people.
- And when you realize how true and how accurate the Bible is, you understand how you can base your life on it and stand on it in faith.
- After reading the New Testament from beginning to end, Susan felt a power at work in her life that hadn’t been there before. And it’s because she spent time in the Word of God in fellowship with the Holy Spirit.
- Then she began to spend time in the Bible every day to hear from the Lord what she was to do that day or how to live her life.
- The Bible is the primary way He speaks to us.
- Without that constant communication with the Lord, we can so easily go astray.
Susan explains about the Feast of Tabernacles
- There are three major feasts of the Lord. The Spring Feast, primarily the Feast of Passover, then the early Summer Feast of Shabuwa, which we know as Pentecost.
- And the third one is the Feast of Tabernacles.
- If you study them, you see almost an overview of the history of salvation in the Feast of Passover, which symbolizes the death of Christ as our Passover lamb and our forgiveness of sins and our being set free from our bondage to sin.
- And then Shavuot is celebrating where the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the empowering of the church is.
- Then you have this Feast of Tabernacles.
- We have the Christian fulfillment of Passover and of Pentecost but we do not yet have the fulfillment of Tabernacles.
- The feast of Tabernacles is a forward-looking prophetic feast and is celebrating the coming of the Kingdom of God to earth.
- It is an eight-day feast. And the children of Israel were commanded to rejoice during the Feast of Tabernacles.
- So it’s a feast of great joy and of celebration of God’s provision, His promises, and of the coming kingdom when He comes to Tabernacle with man.
Susan’s time pioneering
- People don’t always like things that are new.
- But it was time for the church to begin to relate to what God was doing in the Jewish people and the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland.
- It can be lonely. But it’s also been Susan’s privilege to be on the cutting edge of what God is doing.
- God’s heart works for all people, including the Arab people.
- Susan asked God to give her His love for them. And He began to change her heart.
- With the Arab-Israeli conflict, it’s easy to see people as objects and you lose the perspective of the human price that’s paid on both sides of this conflict.
- Obedience is not always easy.
- The Christian church is a hard place for women to be in leadership.
- Sometimes, because most of Christian leaders are men, they don’t know how to relate to the woman leader that’s in their midst. And so they tend to go over you or around you because they’re just not comfortable.
- There was a study done about women leaders, and that said organizations that were built by women tended to grow slower, but they were longer lasting.
- God always prepares us for the seasons ahead.
- We can’t keep doing things the old way.
- “God has led us even without us understanding where it was headed.”
As a branch office of the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, Susan has three priorities.
- One is raising funds for their projects in Israel because the focus of their ministry is to demonstrate Christian support for Israel.
- Susan’s second priority is education.
- The third priority for her is advocacy.
- While in DC she built a lot of relationships and discovered that when we work together, we have much greater political impact.
- As Susan prays about what God has for them to do and where to focus, she cannot get away from the need to be there for the next generation of Christian leaders.
- Opportunities are opening for them on college campuses to provide educational resources, equip tomorrow’s Christian leaders, and help students understand the biblical significance of Israel while discerning the daily misinformation they face.
- Many are constantly exposed to anti-Semitism and false narratives about Israel.
- The government of Israel is not necessarily always right in everything they do, but God’s support of Israel is unwavering.
Mary and Martha
- Susan feels like Martha, the doer.
- Be reminded to stop and spend time at the feet of Jesus like Mary did and to stop being so busy all the time.
- When Scripture comes alive, our faith comes alive. And when faith comes alive, we can endure long seasons where we don’t see the fruit because we know that God’s working.
- God’s story did not end when the Bible was written. It’s still going on today.
James 4:8 NKJV Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…
Links:
- International Christian Embassy Jerusalem/USA branch
- American Christian Leaders for Israel
- IsraelAnswers.com
Books:
- Encounter the 3D Bible, How to Read the Bible So It Comes to Life by Dr. Susan Michael
- Good News for the Modern Man Bible
- Antisemitism: What Every Christian Needs to Know by Dr. Susan Michael
- Every Generation’s Story: 75 Years of American Christian Engagement with Israel by Dr. Susan Michael
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