Testimony Ronna Mathetes

“Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada to Jewish parents born to Russian and Polish immigrants. Our home was a conservative Jewish home, keeping kosher, having two sets of dishes, one for milk and another for meat, as well as separate dishes for Passover. My family and I went to synagogue on all the major holidays, but everything to do with our family observance was exterior in nature. I went to Hebrew School full time, nursery to ninth grade, and there was very little to no talk about faith in God or value systems that exhibited righteousness or holiness in my education, at home or at school. I was not taught about the calling of the Jewish nation as being a light to the nations. I was taught about the stories and the people of the Bible, but nothing of the God of the Bible.

After a six-week trip to Israel in 1975 at the end of ninth grade, despite my fascination in seeing the places that I’d been learning about my entire life, I was very disillusioned by modern-day Judaism, within which, I saw great hypocrisy and nothing that seemed relevant to my life.

As I entered high school and public school for the first time, I encountered a new culture of people. Having been sheltered in the Jewish community my entire life and without any solid education about standards of righteousness via making right choices in life, I found my way into the drug culture of the ‘70s to fit in with the crowd. It was a

new experience that led me down a path of rebelliousness, drug addiction and hedonism, which seemed to be the standard of the day. I used and began to sell drugs. I embraced the things that I saw before me without fear or shame. Sadly, the evil of the world replaced the positive things that my parents tried to instill in my life. The beautiful tradition of a weekly Friday night Shabbat dinner with my father’s entire family began to become a loathsome burden. Through drugs and alcohol, satan began to entice me away from seeing any value in Judaism or family relationships. I lived for relationships with people who cared little to nothing about me, relationships based on the common desire of getting high and partying—empty, valueless and completely devoid of real substance, or meaning.

Miraculously, I graduated from high school. I believe that the administration allowed us all to pass in order to get rid of us. We were tough kids to deal with. We were unashamed of our use of drugs and we openly sold and used drugs on the school property. Nothing was done to challenge us and therefore using and selling everything from Marijuana to LSD was common in our daily school life. Every day, kids would gather outside the school and openly smoke pot or hash. At lunch, we would visit local bars and get drunk, and at times we would do more mind altering drugs such as LSD and mescaline.

After graduating from high school, I pursued a higher education in music since I had been playing piano since I was eight years old. I left Calgary in 1979 for Denton, Texas, to attend a highly acclaimed music school, North Texas State University. I devoted myself to diligent study and began playing music professionally in 1981. In Texas, I encountered new drugs such as speed and cocaine, and in 1984, I graduated college with a B.A. in Music and a cocaine addiction. I used the drugs in college to give me supernatural energy to load up on classes and spend six to eight hours practicing the piano. It was a miracle that I could use drugs and still maintain a high grade point average.

Once I graduated from college, my music career included playing keyboards both

for live bands and doing studio work. Besides performing, I composed and taught music. Music was my life. I now know that a person’s ‘god’ is that which one spends the most time and money thinking about and doing. Music was definitely my god.

In 1987, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my music career. I began working in the management side of the entertainment business by day, and the music industry at night. I began meeting people who had achieved “success” in Hollywood. I was surprised to see that many were unsatisfied and unfulfilled. In fact, some were down-right miserable. I saw in them a real insecurity that they tried to overcome through extravagant, self-serving lifestyles. I questioned my desire to walk down that same path and began to shift the focus of my life from music to spiritual things.

Conservative Judaism appeared to have nothing worthwhile, or relevant to my life, so, I began to read and study New Age philosophy, Eastern Mysticism, Buddhism, Taoism, Theosophy and Native American spirituality. I believed everything to be truth and continued down the path of my spiritual quest.

In 1991, a friend invited me to a Christian bible study. As a spiritual seeker, I was open to hear about Christianity, but had no idea that what I would encounter that night would change my life forever. I also had no idea that it would bring me full circle back to my Jewish roots as the foundation for a truly powerful spiritual life, in intimate relationship with God, Creator of the universe.

For the first time in my life, I was told of the Messiah, a Savior. His name was Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew. The God of Israel had come to Earth in the form of a man to give up His life and die as a perfect and final sacrifice for the sins of humanity. He was born as a child in Israel and His Hebrew name, Yeshua, actually meant “God is salvation.” The story seemed far-fetched, but the supernatural power that accompanied it touched me in a very real and very deep place. I knew that it could only be the power of God working to reveal the truth to me. I accepted the message that night as truth, asked Jesus to pay for my sins personally, and be the Lord of my life. In

A New CompositionA Daughter of Zion Finds Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah for All!

Testimony (continued) Ronna Mathetes

doing so, He promised to give me power to live a victorious life now, and the future assurance of eternal life with God in heaven. I put my faith in the Messiah and my life has never been the same. Since that point in time, miracles have happened that I can only attribute to the power of God that now lives inside of me, as a result of my confessing faith in the Messiah Jesus. I put my complete trust in Him and He has proved Himself to be faithful, time and time again.

Since beginning a walk with the Lord, He has delivered me from 24 years of drug addiction. Gradually, He has shown me, through the study and application of His Word, how to live a life that’s pleasing to Him. He’s taught me the power of the spoken Word, as well as allowed me the privilege of walking in the spiritual gifts that He’s given me as His child. It’s my delight to know the truth about the spiritual side of life and be a vessel that He can use however He wants.

One of the major lessons that I’ve learned since walking with the Lord is that all things come from God. Our gifts and talents come from the One who created us. I was given the gift of music not to please myself, but to worship Him. It’s a gift that I now use to sing songs of praise to God. Since I’ve come to that understanding and began to walk in that truth, wonderful things have happened. In 2003, I completed what had been a dream of mine for 20 years; I got off a 33 month tour that took me across the United States four times! The Bible says “Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4) Well, it’s true. I traveled as the keyboard player/vocalist for a music group called, “The Liberated Wailing Wall.” The ‘LWW’ is the traveling evangelistic music ministry of Jews For Jesus. In the context of touring, not only did I get to play music and travel, but I had the awesome opportunity of leading hundreds of people to the Lord for the first time and encouraging thousands more to rededicate their lives to Yeshua. The Lord used me mightily as His mouthpiece, a great honor

and a privilege to serve Him. After getting off the road, God began

to use my creative gifts in different ways. I led worship at a congregation in Southern California and having gained the experience in evangelism, I began to be used to coordinate part of the evangelism programs and I even wrote evangelism curriculum for the church’s Bible Institute. The season on the road was so intense and the lessons learned were so profound and universally applicable to the entire Body of Messiah that I felt a real need to put them on paper. I finished the book, “On The Road”, and had it published in 2006. Along with that I began writing devotional materials that I published on the web. (www.messianicbiblestudy.com)

In 2006, the Lord moved me out of the church I had been attending and put me in a Messianic congregation in Hemet, CA. As a result of walking out the full Jewish Calendar from Passover to Succoth, and beginning to set aside Shabbat (Saturday) as the holy day God ordained it to be, I have experienced a joy deep in my soul. I found a new sense of fulfillment celebrating my faith in Messiah biblically by following the Feasts of the Lord.

In January of 2007, the Lord moved me to Phoenix to work with Jewish Voice Ministries. It’s been a blessing to enter this new phase in life and to serve the Lord alongside my brothers and sisters here. As the Events Director for the ministry, it has been my privilege to serve the Messianic community, our donors, and the Jewish people of Ethiopia through the different events that we put on as a ministry. I rejoice at the new relationships that I’ve made and in the opportunities that I have to serve my people and the Lord, I continue to be blessed as I see the “story” the Lord has for my life unfolding day by day.

In relationship with God, through faith in the Messiah of Israel, I’ve found true happiness and fulfillment. My spiritual quest hasn’t ended though. It’s only begun. As I get to know my Heavenly Father and Savior more each day, my

life becomes richer and fuller. To God belongs all the praise, all the glory and all the honor! I hope and pray that the testimony of my life encourages others to follow the God of Israel wholeheartedly and see Him lead and guide them to fulfill their life destinies. God has created each one of us for a specific purpose and allowed us each to be born on earth “for such a time as this.”

Music was Ronna’s first creative outlet and in 1999, before going on the road, she produced a solo piano CD. Within the past four years, she has written 50+ songs and is working on getting them produced and mastered to share the music with the world. She’s hoping and praying to see some released in 2008.

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