Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: I grew up in a very Jewish environment. My mom and dad are both Jewish. I was Bar Mitzvahed in a conservative synagogue. I had no Christian influence in my life growing up. Even in my later years, when my family moved to a more inclusive kind of area, I still found myself in a Jewish bubble because all my close friends were Jewish.

As I started growing a little older, I started feeling insecure inside. I started realizing that there were a lot of things in the world that were dangerous and that adults didn't have all the answers. Without realizing it, what I did was I buried myself in a sport where I was in control. That allowed me to block out all the things in my life that made me uncomfortable.

The problem was, when wrestling ended, suddenly it was like the world was pulled out from underneath my feet. Now it was up to me to begin to build a life and leave my family. My friends went away to different colleges. I was on my own now, and wrestling, I realized, was not really the reality that made me feel secure or that protected me anymore.

I went into my first year of college very much struggling. I spent as much time as I could sleeping, just to try to escape the emotional torment I was in. I kept asking myself, "What can I do to give myself that sense of peace and contentment and just the bliss I felt when I was winning at wrestling?" In desperation, I decided that maybe if I make a lot of money, it'll help to ease some of the pain.

I dropped out of college. I would sell encyclopedias door to door. I went to a meeting one night and it turned out that this other sales manager and I were the first ones there. We began to talk and he started telling me about a book called *Autobiography of a Yogi*. He told me about this yogi that could levitate off the ground. Simply because he was thinking about God in this yoga state, he transcended the material reality.

Because I experienced such euphoria when I would win big wrestling matches, when I thought about this guy levitating off the ground, I said to myself, "That's the bliss that wrestling gave me. That's what I want to feel again." I went out and I bought the book. About halfway through the book, I went to sleep one night. In the middle of the night, the Lord awoke me from my sleep.

Suddenly, I became aware that I was aware. It was a supernatural awareness. My eyes were still closed, but I realized something was going on. Then instantly, in color, Jesus appeared to me on the cross. I could see the ground that the cross was staked in. There were people in the distance looking at Him as He was on the cross. Then a ray of red light beamed down on Jesus' head.

When I saw that ray of red light, I knew that the light was coming from God since it was coming from straight through the heavens, from straight above. I knew that the person on the cross was Jesus. As an American, no one had ever witnessed to me. No one had ever shared the message of the gospel with me. All my friends growing up were Jewish. My closest friends were all Jewish.

I knew nothing about Jesus. I never thought about Him. Jesus to me was like something that was unkosher and something for Gentiles, something that I had no experience with and no desire to be exposed to. But when God broke into my room that night, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had just encountered the Lord, and He was showing me that Jesus was the way to Him.

In an instant, it lasted no more than two seconds tops, hope came into my heart. I knew in an instant that God was alive, that He was real, that He had just broken into my life, and that there was a way out of where I was. The next morning I woke up, I was excited. I knew that I had just found the way. I didn't even know what the way was. I didn't know doctrine. I didn't know about sin. I just knew that God had just revealed Himself to me, that Jesus was the way, and somehow, I could have victory over everything in Him.

I started telling my family about it. We had never talked about Jesus in my home. I had no idea what I was about to run into as a Jew in a Jewish family in a Jewish neighborhood believing in Jesus. I was completely naive. They didn't react much at first. They probably thought it was a dream and we probably just shouldn't say anything about it.

I kept on talking about it. I started telling everybody that I knew about it. Eventually, I told somebody that was a Gentile, and it turns out he was a Christian. He said to me, "Well, you should go get a New Testament." I got a New Testament and I started devouring the word of God. The words in the New Testament were like fire to me. They were like coming off the pages of scripture, going into my soul.

I'd go up to my dad and say, "Dad, look at this." He looked at me completely disengaged from the whole thing. Eventually, they became so concerned about me that I was going off the deep end, that they hired the most famous deprogrammer in the world at the time. My dad set me up for this experience. He told me that we were going to look into a restaurant that we were potentially going to be buying, that we were going to be in business together.

We drove to a hotel for this supposed meeting. Knock on the door, a distinguished-looking man in a three-piece suit opens the door. He's got two big bodyguards with him. One of the bodyguards closes the door behind me and the head deprogrammer, Ted Patrick, looks at me and says, "Kurt, we're going to talk about cults, and I'm going to snap you out of this." I stood up and I said, "I'm not programmed. I just believe that Jesus is the Messiah." One of the bodyguards said, "Sit down."

I knew I wasn't going anywhere. I asked if I could go use the restroom. They said yes. I walked into the restroom and I got down on my knees and I just said, "Father, I don't know where this is going to take me, but I ask you to keep me through this." I came out of the restroom, they continued their spiel about how they were going to snap me out of this.

Then they take me back to my home. The bodyguard came with me to my home. He was basically there to physically restrain me and take me to California. I literally was abducted. The next day, he and I, through no choice of my own, get in my van and we drive to their rehabilitation home in California. They just basically took me to the beach in the day and the bars at night.

After several weeks, they took me to Ted Patrick's home. I asked if I could leave now. He said yes. Next day they gave me back my stuff and I drove back home. I actually felt bad for my parents because I knew that that cost them a ton of money. I realized it didn't change anything, and I knew that they were hurting because they didn't know what was going on. They lost their son. They didn't know what happened to him.

I didn't hold that against them at the time at all, but I did try to be a little bit more wise in how I conducted myself. But there was so much zeal in me that it was still a huge upset for my family and my friends. All of them felt like they didn't know me anymore. My parents then decided to take another move to try to get me out of wherever they thought I was.

Number one, it was very shameful for my parents because to have a Jewish son in a Jewish neighborhood walking around talking about Jesus is as shameful as if your son or daughter was in jail. Jewish people associate Jesus and Christianity with the people that have persecuted them. Many times Jewish people look at Hitler and Jesus as being part of the same team. When six million Jews were put to death under Nazi Germany, the churches had pictures of Hitler hanging on the walls.

To them, Jesus is not a friend. When I started walking around talking about Jesus, my parents were very embarrassed and very ashamed. Plus, they thought something was probably wrong with me because they knew that I was struggling after wrestling ended. All of a sudden when I got Jesus, it's like, "He's gone crazy." What they did when the deprogrammer didn't work, they found a Jewish psychiatrist. I believe they found him with the agreed-upon mandate of getting me probated to the psychiatric ward of a famous hospital in Cleveland called Mount Sinai, so they could have a chance of getting me back to what they thought was normal.

Certainly, that would involve giving up Jesus. I was still fairly cooperative. This was an opportunity for me to tell this Jewish psychiatrist all that Jesus had done for me. I just began to tell this Jewish psychiatrist what would have happened to me if Jesus hadn't saved me. I just let it all out and told him what Jesus had done for me. The conversation ended peaceably. He thanked me for sharing my story with him.

I went over to my Christian friend's house. A few days later, I come home and I walk in the door and I notice off to the side are suitcases that are all packed. My parents were standing there. He says, "Look out the window over there. You see that police car in the parking lot? You can either come with us peaceably, or the police are going to come in here and forcibly take you." In those days, on his own witness, without any other evidence, psychiatrists could go to the court system and say we need to probate this person.

Dustin Roberts: Wow, this is *Discovering The Jewish Jesus* with Rabbi Schneider, and he's going to be right back with the rest of his story. As you're learning today, as a Jewish person, it cost Rabbi a lot to hold on to his faith in Jesus. God saved him and works through him, not just to reach him, but so that he could preach the message of salvation to other Jewish people all over the world. God wants to restore Israel to Him. Jesus said in Matthew 23 about Jerusalem, "How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you are unwilling." Friends, this is so dear to Rabbi's heart, but we need you. We can't do it without you. We need people led by the Lord to join us financially as we engage Israel and Jewish people with the gospel. Would you become a monthly partner or donate today at discoveringthejewishjesus.com? Now, back to Rabbi Schneider.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: My parents were successful through this psychiatrist of getting me probated to the psychiatric ward of Mount Sinai Hospital, hoping somehow I would come out delivered from this illusion and delusion of Jesus. But of course, that wasn't to be because I was supernaturally saved by the Lord. It was a very, very dark time, one of the darkest times in my life. I couldn't go anywhere. I was trapped in the psychiatric ward. I couldn't leave.

After two months, the law stated that anybody that had been probated there against their will would have an opportunity after two months to go before a board of psychiatrists and represent themselves. At two months, they brought me before a board of psychiatrists. I talked about who I was, about my journey, and they instantly released me, saying we don't have any right to hold him against his will.

I went home, but my parents meantime, by this point, they were just disgusted with me. They had tried everything. They wanted to get free from the shame that I was bringing them. When nothing they had done worked, at this point I think my dad was just disgusted and angry at me. It ended up we got in a fight in my home, my dad and I. He threw me out of the home. I got an apartment.

I said, "Lord, what am I doing in Cleveland anymore? I've got no friends here. My family has disowned me. I've got no future job-wise here. What am I doing here, Lord?" I said, "Father, I'm going to take a map of the United States and I'm going to flip a quarter. Wherever that quarter lands, Lord, that's where I'm going to go. I'm just going to start a new life, just you and me together."

The next day I loaded up my orange AMC Gremlin and I headed out towards Park Rapids, Minnesota on the freeway, just imagining what the Lord and I were going to do together. Finally, I get to Park Rapids, Minnesota, and there were no jobs there. I said, "I've got to get out of here. I'm going to run out of money soon. I've got no work, no job."

I said, "Where's the warmest place I can get to so when I run out of money I'll be able to survive?" I took out a map and I figured that the warmest place I could get to was Corpus Christi, Texas. I feel I have enough money for one last meal. I stopped in Kansas City, Missouri. After my last meal, I said, "All right, that was it, my last meal." I'm excited. I get in my car and the car wouldn't start.

What am I going to do? I've got to get my car fixed, but then I won't have enough money to get to Corpus Christi. I figured I need to get a job quick. Went to a few restaurants there. I kept running into the same problem. I started filling out the application, and then it would come to, "What's your phone number and where are you living?" After that happened a couple of times, I realized no one was going to hire me without an address and without a phone number.

I went to the next stage of radicalness. I said, "Lord, I'm turning it all over to you. I'm going to give away everything but the clothes on my back." I went to my waitress that had waited on me. I said, "Listen, my car's in the parking lot. I don't know exactly what's wrong with it, but I'd like to give you my car. Here's the keys." I gave her my car keys and then I went to the freeway and started hitchhiking.

I'm hitchhiking on the road. First night, no one had picked me up. I literally slept on the side of the freeway in the weeds. Second day, no one picks me up. I literally slept that night on a plastic bench in an all-night sports coliseum by a bowling alley. Third day, go out, start hitchhiking. Somebody picks me up, this Chevy Camaro pulls over.

The guy tells me he's going to see his neighbor from Florida that had moved to Amarillo, Texas, and owns a restaurant there. If I want to come with him, he said he'll get me a job. I figured it wasn't like I had a definite plan. I thought, "Well, maybe this is the Lord. Maybe this is what I'm supposed to do." I said okay. We made it to his friend's condominium in Amarillo and I'm working in the restaurant as a line cook.

Eventually, my eyesight ran into a problem. I couldn't see the ticket, so the job wasn't going to work out. I call an aunt in California. I'm in Amarillo and I want to get to California. I asked if she would be comfortable with me living in her home for a little bit. She said yes. Took the bus to California. Got to Los Angeles. Started working as a graveyard dishwasher in Los Angeles.

I'm riding my little cousin's bicycle to work every night. I was twenty-whatever years old, and I'm really starting to feel like a failure now. I'm thinking, "Man, I trusted God. I trusted Jesus with everything. It's not like I'm after success, but I'm really starting to feel like a loser." Forgive me for saying it, but being from a Jewish home where careers are so stressed and success is such a priority, and here I am riding my little baby cousin's bicycle to work as a graveyard dishwasher, I'm just starting to feel bad about myself.

I'm just fighting this feeling. After being in California for a little while, my dad called me and he said come back home. Shortly after returning home to Cleveland, I met Cynthia. I started sharing Jesus with her. She couldn't believe that her Jewish friend was sharing with her, who had been raised in the Lutheran church, about Jesus.

But when she went away to school, she started questioning whether she had been brainwashed because she started meeting Muslims and she started meeting people of other faiths. She just started wondering, "How do I know if really Jesus is the right way? Maybe they're right." That questioning and doubt just kind of led her on a downward path.

When I began to witness to her, she said it was like a bolt of light hit her soul. It was like something filled her in an instant and God said to her, "I am the way." From that point on, it was like there was no turning back. Cynthia and I started dating after that. Then eventually, we actually got married in a relatively quick amount of time.

As soon as we got married, the next day we headed out to Bible school. Graduated Bible school, started pastoring. After pastoring for several years, I was just at a place where I realized I had a lot of growing up to do. There were just some personal challenges in my own life that needed to be addressed. So I went into business.

But after being in business, in sales, in management, I started asking the Lord, "What is the one topic that I'm uniquely qualified to speak about?" I felt like the topic that I could speak about was courage. The reason that I felt like that was because I was an unusually good salesperson. I asked myself, "Why do I have the courage to close the deal?"

Instantly I knew the reason I had courage was because of my relationship with Jesus. In an instant, when I had that realization and revelation, I knew that I needed to leave the business world and preach the gospel. Very quickly, God began to bless that decision. In a very short amount of time, I was in full-time ministry.

One thing led to another thing. A national network picked up my program. I was not paying for it to be broadcast, but a Jewish man in California got saved basically from watching *Discovering The Jewish Jesus*. He was so overwhelmed with how the Lord hit him that he literally hunted me down. He said, "What can I do for you?"

I said, "Well, I'd really like to take *Discovering The Jewish Jesus* and take responsibility for broadcasting it, but I don't have any money to do that." The next day a significant check arrived in the mail from that man. In a few months, he sent me another significant check. It was through that financial seed of that Jewish man that the Lord was able to empower me financially to give me the resources that I was able to begin to broadcast *Discovering The Jewish Jesus* internationally all over the world.

Here we are today all these years later. People are getting saved on a daily basis through this ministry: Muslims, Jewish people, secular people, people that are witches, people coming out of homosexuality, every single walk of life. God is saving people from every different culture through this ministry.

The goal is to represent Jesus so that He can be seen in His beauty. I don't want anything of religion on me that's going to get in the way of people seeing the beautiful, natural Jesus. The word that I preach, it's not complicated. It's simple and profound truth. I believe there's a banner of breakthrough that the Lord has placed over my life. He literally said that to me, and I'm believing Abba, Father God, to continue to give me and my staff breakthrough at *Discovering The Jewish Jesus* to release the revelation of Messiah Jesus into the earth during these last days, that multitudes of people will continue to be saved through this ministry.

Holy brothers and sisters, as you've heard in today's show, being a Jewish believer in Jesus can come with a cost. But at the end of the day, it's not just about my salvation. It's about how the Lord wants to use me and the ministry that He's anointed me with to reach other Jewish people. This month is a month where we are particularly focused here at *Discovering The Jewish Jesus* on reaching Jewish people.

But I can't do it without your support because all the things that we're doing to reach Jewish people, whether it's television, radio, billboards, digital marketing, all these things cost money. I want to ask you today for your partnership. Would you become a monthly partner with us in helping us to reach Jewish people on the earth today? Beloved, it's so important. In fact, Yeshua's return is tied to the salvation of a massive Jewish people. I want to ask you humbly today, will you financially support this ministry?

Dustin Roberts: Amen. If you feel God calling you to give generously to *Discovering The Jewish Jesus*, you can do that online at discoveringthejewishjesus.com, or you can give any amount over the phone by calling 800-777-7835. As a token of our appreciation for your support, we want to send you our latest newsletter and Rabbi's monthly teaching booklet. It's full of additional teaching points and insights. I believe it'll help you stay grounded and rooted in the faith.

As Rabbi just mentioned, we're trying to sow seeds of the gospel, and you may have heard us mention our campaign to reach Jewish people all over Israel with the message of Messiah. I want you to know that Rabbi and *Discovering The Jewish Jesus*, we can't do this alone. I want to invite you right now, be a part of it. Be a part of it through your prayers and through your financial support.

We've got billboards throughout major cities across the Holy Land, and they lead to a website about Jesus and how He fulfills Messianic prophecy. Not just billboards leading to this site, but digital ads targeting people, Jewish people in Israel. They're declarations for the truth that Jewish people are encountering every single day. Scripture tells us that when Jewish people come to faith in Messiah, it hastens Jesus' return. So your partnership makes a difference. If you'd like to give and become a part of this historic outreach, would you visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com and give? Here's Rabbi to wrap up our message with God's special blessing.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The Aaronic blessing in the book of Numbers, chapter six, is not a blessing that comes from an impersonal being out there somewhere in the heavens. This special blessing comes from a person, Yahweh, God Almighty, our creator and maker. So receive God's blessing into your life right now.

*Yevarekhekhah Yahweh ve-yishmerekha. Ya'er Yahweh panav elekha vi-hunneka. Yissa Yahweh panav elekha ve-yasem lekha shalom.*

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with His countenance, and the Lord give you, beloved ones, His peace. God bless you and Shalom.

Dustin Roberts: This program is produced and sponsored by *Discovering The Jewish Jesus*, and I'm your host, Dustin Roberts. Come back next week when Rabbi Schneider reveals who the Father truly is and why we need Him. That's Monday on *Discovering The Jewish Jesus*.