Richard Muller

Jews for Jesus Alumnus

The last thing I ever wanted to be was a Jew who believed in Y’shua (the Hebrew way to say Jesus). However, what I wanted and what God wanted were two different things!

I was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario to Jewish parents. We were actively involved in the Conservative synagogue there. I was circumcised, went to Hebrew School, was Bar Mitzvah’d and attended Shabbat services weekly from the time I was six or seven years old until I was well into my teens. As I got older, however, I began to notice a discrepancy between the relationship to God as spoken of in the prayer books and Hebrew Scriptures and what I saw around me. As I reached my late teens and early twenties, I began a spiritual quest.

My search took me far from God. I began to develop a New Age spirituality based on eastern philosophies and occult practices. I also became heavily involved in theatre, using the art of the actor as a way to gain spiritual fulfillment. Unfortunately, none of this was sufficient. I was not unhappy, but I still felt spiritually unsatisfied. By the time I was 32, I had under my belt a failed attempt at university, a failed marriage and I seemed to be going nowhere.

Then I met a Christian woman who began telling me about Jesus. I didn’t believe in God let alone Jesus. “Even if I did believe in God,” I said, “you can’t be Jewish and believe in Jesus.” I argued with her, and I must say her arguments were compelling. I started to read the Scriptures and saw many places where the Hebrew Scriptures talk of Y’shua. The more I read, and the more I watched other believers in Him as they worshipped and lived, the more I sensed the truth of who Y’shua is – and the more I wanted to deny that truth.

One October evening, at the age of 38, I read Jeremiah 31:31 which says, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” God used this passage to let me see that not only was He real, but that Y’shua was that new covenant through whom the Jewish people would be blessed – if only they would believe!

Since then, the Lord has provided me with a wonderful wife, Lynda (yes, it was she who first introduced me to Y’shua) – and two wonderful boys, Aaron and Ethan. Furthermore, I have been blessed by God to serve him in an ever increasing capacity. I was able to receive a Bachelor of Religious Education degree from Tyndale Bible College, and to become ordained as a pastor at my local church. By serving the Lord, I have had more and more opportunities to study the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament and am more convinced than ever that the most Jewish thing a Jewish person can do is to believe in Jesus. What’s more, I feel more Jewish now than I ever did before I knew the Messiah of Israel – Y’shua!