Hear three inspiring testimonies from Jewish believers in Jesus in this week's episode of Our Hope Podcast.

Welcome to

Our Hope, a production

of Chosen People Ministries.

"Therefore,

if anyone is in Messiah,

he is a new creature;

the old things passed away;

behold, new things have come."

2 Corinthians 5:17.

Springtime is here.

As we say goodbye to the last

lingering days of

winter and experience

the change that comes

with a new season,

we are reminded that

God makes all things new.

He breathes life into that

which is dead and causes

the former things to pass away.

The same God who

transforms a caterpillar

into a butterfly and changes

the sky from dusk to dawn,

also transforms

the lives of those

who have put their faith

in Yeshua.

Today we bring you three

powerful stories

from Jewish believers

who have experienced

this transformation.

The first is Grant Berry.

Grant spent his life pursuing

what he thought was important

– wealth and success.

But one day, a Christian woman

who started working for him

provoked his desire for God.

Take a listen.

I came to America

to chase the American dream

and it wasn't long before

I started my own

cosmetic business

with my brother.

And through a lot of hard

work and effort,

we brought some very new

and innovative products

into the cosmetic industry

in the mass market

and it wasn't long before

I began to experience

the pleasures

and the success of that.

I was driving around town

in a red Maserati.

I have modeled girlfriends.

And I was really sort of

chasing that life,

but it was really a God

that I was after.

As a child,

I was always looking to know

God and I was searching for Him

all throughout my childhood

and I have to be honest,

I couldn't find Him in

the synagogue experience.

I found it religious.

The women were concerned about

what they look like

and what they were wearing, and

there was a lot of

materialism going on.

I was actually looking

for a spiritual connection.

So I was beginning

to experience the high life.

Beautiful restaurants,

a single lifestyle,

money in my pocket,

driving a red Maserati,

and in comes

this beautiful girl,

name is Maria.

A make-up artist

I had started to work with.

And it's like I had it all

but something

wasn't quite right.

And the interesting thing

was, is that Maria was

there was something

different about her.

She just didn't seem to be

too interested in everything

that I was sort of living up

at that particular time,

and she started to

explain her faith to me

as a Christian girl.

She presented her faith to me

in a way

that I could understand that

belief in Yeshua, was

had a Jewish foundation

and it was so different from

from like my synagogue

experience.

You know, here

I was looking for God,

looking for a relationship

and she seemed to

have this dimension

and this intimacy,

and this connection, and here

I was the child of Abraham,

the Jewish guy, and I seem

to have nothing.

It was almost like

I was a Jekyll and a Hyde

two types of personalities

like this young successful

entrepreneur during the day

and at night I was empty.

And a depression

was setting in that

I couldn't contain,

but I wouldn't

let anyone see me.

It was almost like in the world

we have a facade

that everything is

wonderful and okay

and yet inwardly

it's not like that.

There was a depression

and emotional chains

that I was beginning

to get in touch with

and definitely

something was wrong.

I think what was

really different about Maria

is that

she had learned to bring

the message of Yeshua

back to Jewish people,

as if it was their very own.

We reviewed a lot of the

in some of our discussions

we talked about all

the terrible things

that had happened

to the Jewish people

in the name of Christianity

and how Christianity has

been used.

And she worked very hard

in her communication

to separate that stuff.

Mainly most of the time,

saying that most

of those people really

weren't believers

in the first place.

And she began to,

so she began to lay

this foundation for me

that the roots of Christianity

were completely Jewish.

And of course you know

when I began to

open the scripture

and read for myself,

I was overwhelmed.

I was so surprised, okay,

that I was actually

reading a Jewish book.

So I have to

I have to tell you, after

you know experiencing

this dimension that I knew

Maria was experiencing

between her and God, it began

to really get my attention.

And so it caused me

to begin to go after

once again, a relationship

with my own God.

And so I went into my bedroom

for three weeks,

seven days a week.

Every night

I got on my knees and I prayed.

I tried to talk to God.

And it was like my prayers

went up to the ceiling

and dropped

right down to the floor.

There was nothing,

no connection.

And I was frustrated.

I mean here Maria

was this Christian girl

that had a relationship

with my God,

the God of Abraham.

And here I was a Jew

trying to have a

relationship with my God,

the God of Abraham and nothing.

I was disconnected

and so it cause me

to get very frustrated

and one night

we were out for dinner

and I

expressed that frustration

and she turned around to me.

She said, "Grant,

I have been trying to tell you

for six to eight months,

almost every time we go out,

you can't have the Father

without the Son."

So immediately I decided

I've got to go upstairs.

I got upstairs to my apartment

and it was not difficult for me

with all my

spiritual experiences

to visualize this whole thing.

And I laid on the bed,

and I stretched out my arm

in the shape of the

crucifixion tree,

and I shut my eyes.

And Maria had told me

about a scripture,

Revelations 3:20,

and I'll never forget it, "I

stand at the door and knock.

If any man hears

my voice and opens that door,

I will come into him

and he will hear my voice,

and we will sup together."

In other words, we will connect

and have intimacy.

So I close my eyes

and I visualized the door

and I knocked on the door

and I said, "God of Abraham

if Yeshua is,"

this is the exact prayer

I prayed, "if Yeshua is

Your Son

and the Jewish Messiah.

I want to know the truth."

Right at that moment,

at that very second,

physical wind

indwelt my stomach.

I could, I could almost see it

swooshing into me.

And I was got up from the bed.

I was startled, but

from that moment on I believed.

Grant's earnest seeking

led him to find his Messiah,

and afterward,

he was never the same again.

Like Grant, Elaine Caplan

could never find fulfillment

with the material

things of this world.

Having grown up

in a broken home,

she was devastated

to find her own

marriage falling apart.

But God met her at

her lowest moment.

My parents were not

happily married.

When I was about five years old

I would talk to God

and I would say, "Dear God,

I think you've made a mistake.

I'm not supposed to be

with this family."

And I would talk like that

practically every night

because of my unhappiness.

My father backed

horses during the day

and greyhounds

during the night.

He was very unfaithful

to my mother.

He had several affairs

growing up.

It wasn't a happy place.

Well, as time went by,

I met the man that I

was going to marry.

He actually managed

a young man called Jack Wild.

Soon after that

he was introduced

to a band called Yes.

They went on the road

with the first concerts

in America.

As the tour went on, Yes'

album started to climb

and climb and climb

and do so well.

The joy of it was short lived

because I had to

live my life myself.

All this time

I was alone in London

and they were away for

six weeks.

We lived in one house

and then we'd moved to another.

And as things became

more successful,

I was always alone.

No matter how many

clothes I bought.

No matter

how many houses we had,

my life was empty.

It's like

I had a hole inside me.

Just sitting at home

waiting for Brian

to come home from the tours

was very difficult.

And then when he came home,

it was like a stranger

and he wasn't

a good communicator.

I had no idea at the time,

or maybe I did,

but I was in denial

and I didn't want to

look at things as they were

that he was actually

having affairs.

So I was searching

and searching and searching

and a friend in LA

sent me a letter.

The only words

I ever remembered were Donna

Summer got born again.

And I thought,

that sounds good.

What does that mean?

I didn't really know

who God was.

I mean being Jewish, you know

He was Adonai and Elohim.

But on this day

I was talking to God

and I said to Him, born again,

that sounds good to me.

How do you get born again?

How can I make restitution

for everything wrong

that I have done in my life?

At this point in time

I went with Brian

into Beverly Hills

and he dropped me

at my friend, Frankie's house

and we went to

this place called

Carlos and Charlies on sunset.

And then this woman arrived

and she sat opposite

me at the table.

Her name is Susan Maneo

and she managed Donna Summer

and I could not

stop staring at her.

So I said to her, "Susan

can I ask you a question?"

She said, "Yes." I said, "Are

you born again?"

She said, "Yes."

And I looked at her

and I said, "You

have something that I want

and I know that I can't

buy it with money."

I wanted the peace that I saw

in Susan Maneo's eyes.

I had been searching

for that peace my whole life

through my unhappy childhood.

Through my time of smoking

dope, snorting coke,

taking sleeping pills, drinking

and so at the table

they held my hands

and I prayed.

I accepted Yeshua.

That's just the beginning.

When Brian found out

that I had received

the Lord he went crazy.

What are you doing?

You're Jewish.

This is all antisemitism

blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I never really talked to Brian

about what was in the Bible.

I wasn't one of those

people

that hit him over the head

with the Bible

and all that stuff.

I just quietly prayed

and I lived.

I lived what I had been reading

but eventually he left.

I stayed in that marriage

for three years.

I decided that I

would get a divorce.

If you read Isaiah 53,

it tells you

that He was pierced

for our transgressions.

All our iniquities

were put on Him,

and those stripes

that were on His back

are the very things

that heal us because I

was so lost in my heart,

I know this to be true.

So I would say to

people that say to me

you can't be Jewish

and believe in Jesus,

I would say, "I'm Jewish

and I do believe in Jesus."

Elaine

found a peace and confidence

she had never had before.

Now, being secure in her faith

as a Jewish believer,

she is not ashamed

of the gospel of Yeshua.

Ken Barun is another bold

believer in Yeshua.

He now serves as

the Executive Vice

President of the Billy Graham

Evangelistic Association.

But this is definitely not

who Ken was before.

With a history

of drug addiction

and family estrangement,

you will not believe

how God miraculously

turned his life around.

How did a Jewish kid

from New York City

wind up as an executive Vice

president of the Billy Graham

Evangelistic Association?

I remember coming

home from school

and these Catholic

kids would chase me

and then they

started to throw rocks at me.

"You killed Christ!"

I don't even know who

Christ is.

I didn't kill anybody.

The first time I had heroin,

it was in the

in the bathroom, men's bathroom

at Grand Central Station

in New York City.

What a horrible

degenerative kind of thing.

How did a nice

Jewish boy like me

get into a place like this?

And that led to a

string of drug use

and eventually got to

where my parents disown me.

I was kicked out.

My father said,

"I never want to see you again

as long as I live."

Now I had been a heroin

addict for seven years

and then some people

from a drug program came

and recruited me

to go into this three-year

residential treatment program.

God was my imaginary friend.

I said, "Please God,

if you get me out of this one

I'll never use drugs again."

I wound up being president

of this drug program.

The President of

the United States, comes

to visit that program.

Ronald Reagan shows up

at the front door

of this building

and I'm hosting him.

I sit there for two hours

talking to the president

telling him about this story

and what happened to me.

And then he spoke

to the residents.

He asked me first,

he said, is it OK if I tell the

residents of the program

that your body is

the temple of your spirit.

I said, "You can tell them

whatever you want, you're

the President of

the United States."

The Chief of Staff, Jim

Baker, he said, "We

saw what you did

with drug addicts.

We'd like you to

join the campaign,

because just think

what you could do

with Republicans."

I'm in Washington,

I'm- Here is my title, Deputy

Assistant Secretary

of Public Affairs

slash, Public Liaison

for the United States

Department of Health

and Human Services.

Huge title

I don't even know how you

fit it on a business card.

It was like a miracle.

I mean things kept

falling into place.

Going to England,

being the guest of

the Royal family.

Private visits with the Pope.

The Dalai Lama.

And I wound up becoming

president of Ronald

McDonald House

Charities worldwide.

When I started there,

we had $300,000.

When I left in 2007,

we had $1.6 billion.

I was doing well.

But my heart was all messed up.

I was like

searching

how am I going to ever

get happy?

You could pay me

all the money in the world,

give me nice

cars, a nice house.

All this success

that I was having didn't

fill this emptiness in me.

If I could

just find this answer

that this pain would go away.

This auto race came up.

It was a one lap of America,

a car and driver

magazine sponsored this

and we would get pledges

for miles driven

and we arranged for people

to drive fancy cars, fast cars.

I had met a gentleman

who owned the one McDonald's

restaurant in Atlanta, GA.

Name is Paul Sabre.

I arranged for him

and his friend to come up

from Albuquerque

and drive a Ferrari,

and it was all logoed up.

It looked like one

of those NASCAR cars

with all kinds of logos on it.

It had Ronald McDonald House

charities on it.

I'm driving and he says,

"Kid, go faster,

go faster we're on two lane

highways, go fast."

I said, "Paul,

you don't act like you're

afraid to die."

He says, "I'm not,

'cause I know where I'm

going." I said, "What

does that mean?"

And he says, "Now,

let me tell you about

my friend, Jesus."

Then he starts to talk to me

about his religion.

He said, "You need to accept

Jesus Christ into your life."

And I screech on the brakes

and pulled aside

and said, "Look,

I'm a Jew." He said, "No.

You would be a completed

Jew." Right,

So what does that mean?

He said that means

that you've accepted

Jesus as your savior,

that you've accepted that

Jesus is the Messiah, that

Jesus went to the cross

and died for our sins.

Well, that was a big

philosophical conversation.

I knew as a Jew that

we weren't supposed

to read the New Testament.

It was taboo.

When I opened it up, I saw that

it was just an extension

of the Old Testament.

It completed the story for me.

If that's going to fill

up this emptiness,

then how do we do it?

I mean, do I need to

go to a synagogue?

Do I need to like

step on a glass and

or build

a chuppah or something?

He said no.

Just pray with me.

God forgive me for my sins.

I accept Jesus as my savior.

I repent

for all

the things I've done wrong

and I ask you to

come into my heart

and into my soul,

clean this stuff out

and make me new again.

And I started sobbing

and the tears were

coming out of me

and it was like a

fog came over me.

I couldn't stop sobbing.

But I felt like this

whole weight had been

lifted off my shoulders

that I had been freed.

This emptiness was full.

It was a physical reality.

I said, you know,

I've heard this word born again

Christian a whole lot of times.

I never,

ever would have believed that

I would be one of them.

But I know,

after that night

what it's like to

be born again.

So I called up my father

and I figured I'm

getting disowned again.

But I might as well tell him

'cause I was so excited

about it, and I said,

"Dad!" He said, "Kenny,

how are you?

What's going on?"

I said, "I want to tell you

something happened last night."

He said, "What is it?"

I said, "Last night

I prayed to accept Jesus Christ

as my Lord and Savior."

(He) Didn't say a word.

He started to cry.

He started sobbing.

My mother gets on

the other phone, "What

did you say to your father

to get him so upset?

You know he's not well.

He's 85 years old.

He's in a wheelchair."

Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah,

typical Jewish mother.

So I told her.

It was dead silence.

Dead silence.

I figure I better hang up now

so I don't have to hear

about it.

And she came back

into the conversation

said, "He's not crying

tears of sadness,

he's crying tears of joy

because when we were looking

for help for you

with your drug problem,

we found Jesus too."

How did I get from here

to there?

All about Jesus.

Ken's testimony reminds us

that when we surrender to God,

he can rewrite any story.

An unlikely believer in Jesus,

Ken is now faithfully

helping to share the word

with all the nations.

We hope these testimonies

remind you

that there is no person

or circumstance too

difficult for God's restore.

He is always reaching out,

pursuing and waiting

and in His perfect time,

He will make all things new.

This year, as we wait

on the Lord for new

season to begin,

let us persist in hope

and steadfast endurance.

Because He has given us

a new heart in spirit

through Messiah,

we can now walk in

hope and freedom

as we wait until the

Messiah comes again.

We hope you've enjoyed this

week's episode of Our Hope.

This episode was

brought to you by.

Dr.

Mitch Glaser, Abe

Vazquez, Grace Swee,

Kieran Bautista,

and IFoundShalom.com

in partnership

with One for Israel.

I'm Nicole Vacca.

Until next time.

Thanks for

listening to Our Hope.

If you like our show

and want to know more,

check out ourhopepodcast.com

or chosenpeople.com.