With two parents who survived the horrors of the Holocaust but also lost many family members in Auschwitz and Treblinka, Michael was furious with his mother when she finally went public about her faith in Jesus after being a secret believer for twenty years. Raised in an observant Jewish home fractured by divorce, Michael felt betrayed by his mother for not only rejecting her people but also causing the breakup of their family for such a ridiculous idea. But when Michael sought to convince his mother’s Messianic Jewish Bible teacher that Jesus was not the Messiah, he was surprised to find himself convinced that the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 is not Israel (as many Jewish people believe) but the Messiah. After asking God to confirm whether Jesus is the Messiah, he became convinced of the “surpassing value of knowing Messiah Jesus” (Philippians 3:8).