The Twelve Tribes is an international confederation of communities –– a spiritual nation of sincere believers in the one true God of the Scriptures. We believe his written and spoken word and seek to live it out every day in our life together.
We have many homes and farms around the world where we live and worship together as an extended family. Our doors are always open to visitors. Our hearts are always open, too, because our lives have been bonded together in love, and we know there are others out there who seek the same living reality.
Love is the source of our life. It is the power that holds us together, that enables us to work together, to share all we have, to give up our lives for one another every day, and to live in peace.
Where We Came From
Before we came here, we were immersed in the struggles of modern life. We hated the world’s problems, and some of us even tried to solve them. But we could never escape the source of those problems in our own personal lives — selfishness. This selfishness is what caused us to be separated from others.
We tried to find our niche in life according to the picture of life that was presented to us growing up, and also our own personal leanings and appetites. Yet we never found the deep fulfillment and satisfaction we were hoping for. Meanwhile, our conscience grieved over our self-serving choices and how they affected those around us.
We tried to numb the pain through losing ourselves in movies, television, sports, video games, fantasy, the internet –– all the things this world has to offer to fill our empty souls. Our hearts ached at the shattering of relationships, the pain we felt when our families fell apart. Our fondest hopes always ended in disappointment. We grew tired of trying to mask those feelings through selfish pleasures, fleeting relationships, substance abuse, or just endless work. Where was the place where we could be real and be accepted for who we really are, and get help with our deep-seated moral defects?
Thankfully, we have been delivered from our sad state of affairs! Those deep roots of the world’s problems are being taken out of us. We now have a living hope to be part of the solution...
Some of us would never have imagined the solution could be in finding God. Some of us thought we knew God, yet we never found the deliverance we hoped for. Others of us were so turned off by religion that we thought God was the one people fought wars over. We thought this mystical belief in God was the source of today’s divided religions, which have evolved into spiritual oppression, apathy and self-righteousness. We thought a belief in God was unnecessary, a mere crutch for the weak-minded. In our pride, we sought to achieve acceptance and success through our own self-effort. Or we yielded to the easy road and became consumers, living off of the sweat of others, justifying our laziness by the examples we saw around us. If we couldn't attain to something great in the world's eyes, we were left feeling like miserable failures.
God is Love
But we were all longing for love, trying to find it in all the wrong places. We didn’t really know that true love is from God. God is love! We have a love God. Love is the essence of God. We found out that the solution to our problems and the world’s problems was to know the true God. We did not know how to love because we did not know God. But now we know the True One. Therefore we know what love is, and we are receiving the power to love with his unchanging love.
We have a God who is love — a source, a Father who is love, a Savior who is love, and a Spirit who is love. All are one — Love. Love is not divided. Our God is not divided. We were divided. We were separated. We were alienated. In the course of our lives and our relationships we always went astray, like the first humans in the Garden. Like them, we needed to be brought back from division to unity, from separation to marriage, from alienation to love.
In the beginning, when man went astray, what did Love do? What did God do? Adam’s and Eve’s fig leaves, which they used to make a covering for themselves, would not have lasted more than a few days. So Love, their Creator, sacrificed the life of an animal in order to use its skin to cover their shame. Don't worry, the precious life of the animal went back to its Creator. But this act expressed God's heart of mercy and compassion towards his fallen creatures in their lowest state.
This was an act of love to help them. When they went away from him, God believed that he could bring them back to him. He didn’t say, “All is lost!” Instead, he believed that through love he could bring man back to him. He knew that through the great love he expressed by sacrificing a precious, innocent life for them –– those who would respond to love, would believe. They might respond to nothing else, but they would respond to love!
A Very Real Salvation
So we were far, far away from him. But then love was communicated to us and we responded. We believed. We came back to our Source. We came back to Love. We came to know his love for us, and by this love he captured our hearts and made us his forever.
Now we have been gathered together. We are the holy (set apart) nation he has established and is nurturing through his great love. Out of gratitude we have willingly become his servants. He won our hearts. He has made a home in us, so now he can use us to strike directly at the root from which comes all the injustice and unrighteousness that plagues the world.
For salvation begins in the household of God. We're learning to put away the pointing of the finger, and face the truth about our own failures to reflect God's image to our fellow man. This would be impossible apart from the power of forgiveness that we experience on a daily basis.
The problems all of mankind face every day as they endeavor to interact with others, are the overwhelming evidence that the whole human race lives under the curse of sin. The fact that these things exist and that man with all his great knowledge cannot escape from or eliminate these problems from his daily life, is positive proof that all men everywhere are locked up under the power of sin.
But we who have come back to the living God are now in a place where these external problems of man can be dealt with at the source. This is demonstrated in a life of love where the poor in spirit find compassion and comfort, where all who have, share with anyone who has need, where the hungry and thirsty of soul find a righteous standard to live by, and where true justice can find its expression through a government that serves their people.
It is only within these tribal communities where God dwells, that this true change can come about. It is in this life together that the deep inner struggles which come from guilt and rejection find the balm that will sooth and bring healing to the soul. For our God regards the prayer of the destitute, the needy, the comfortless, and the friendless.
God Makes a Home for the Lonely
A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy habitation. God sets the lonely in families; he brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. (Psalm 68:5,6)
Love makes a home for the lonely. It is only the rebellious that choose to dwell in a parched land of alienation and division, where they see the disintegration of basic human relationships as a normal way of life. God is searching the earth to find men and women from every nation who desire with all their hearts to know him and do what is right. And when he finds them, he draws them with lovingkindness, and welcomes them into his dwelling place.
Once we knew that our God makes a home for the lonely, we understood why continuing to live in a state of loneliness and alienation is rebellion against him. Loneliness was proof that we had fallen away from our connection to the Source of Life, since our God made man to be one –– integrated into families where each person can care for others.
In order for our God to fill the earth and eventually the universe with his love, he must first win our hearts and bring us into dwelling places where we can be integrated, renewed, restored, perfected in unity. Each part of the whole is an integral part, making what was incomplete to be whole. We saw that we as individuals are necessary to make up God's living body on the earth. You are necessary. When all the members are gathered together, it will make up the completed whole of his body on earth –– the eternal dwelling place of God.
What We're Living For
This is what our lives are all about. This is what we live to see accomplished. This is the very purpose for which we were created. This is where we’re headed as a people. Our goal is that this life of love and unity would be a powerful light to all the nations of the earth, demonstrating to them the reality of God’s salvation. This demonstration is the only witness that sets apart the one true God from all the rest. It is the only proof that God sent his son to this earth, and that the sacrifice of his life actually accomplished its purpose. We came to see that this ultimate sacrifice was an act of love for us, and when we saw this, love won our hearts.
Yahshua –– Powerful to Save!
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Yahshua (Yah Saves), because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)
Yahshua, the Son of God, gave himself as a pure and willing sacrifice, and endured the agony of death –– a death that we deserved because of our sin. God raised Yahshua from the dead, and appointed him as the King and Savior of all who would follow and serve him where he is. He sent his Spirit to make us into a new creation –– individually and corporately, breaking down the barriers that have always separated mankind. Yahshua brought us into the same unity that he has with his Father –– a visible, tangible unity that he demonstrated when he walked on the earth. Those who are one with Yahshua and his father, are also one with one another.
Therefore, the power of his blood (forgiveness), and the spiritual power of his grace for us, has shattered everything that would keep us from being together. When we come to him, all of our self-will –– the root of the problem, has to die in our baptism in order for us to express to the world what they have not yet seen with their eyes. We can see it and know it personally because we have been touched by that love. But those who have a heart for God must see in us the same unity as our Master Yahshua had with his father, a unity without diversity. Then they will truly believe that God sent his son, because of his great love for us. This kind of faith causes one to devote his whole life to bringing God's Kingdom to the earth.
In the world right now, human beings are living in alienation and separation. They are so far from the foundations that were laid by our Creator, that they are beyond any hope of restoration within themselves. God did give man a provision to live according to his conscience, but this has largely been lost.1This is a great tragedy when you consider that all the different kinds of human beings were meant to be together –– integrated into one, made whole again –– one human race. In the coming ages this will be restored. But, in this age, man's redemption is only possible within the Twelve Tribes, where God dwells by his Spirit. It is only here that we can be perfected in this unity.
This unity is the only hope for the human race. It is the promise to which our twelve tribes hope to attain as we earnestly serve our God night and day. For this hope we strive to overcome all that comes against God's will and purpose. And this hope does not disappoint, because the One who created us has poured his love out into our hearts by his Spirit.
We see this love growing daily as we allow God's work in our lives to heal us of our fallen ways. We are learning to walk in his ways –– in true justice and righteousness. It is a very deep work and we have not attained, but we are making real progress, especially in passing our life and hope to the next generations. Without this life being passed on to others, especially our children, our movement would just fade into obscurity like all the others before us.
It was spoken by the prophets of old that in the last days, there will be a holy nation that will bring Yahshua back to the Earth to establish an age of peace. We believe it is coming now because we experience it every day.
If this good news stirs something in you, please come and visit us and see what the God of Heaven is doing in our midst...
Footnotes
- 1See “The Three Eternal Destinies of Man”
