Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer for salvation for others is precious to God and reflects His own heart. To care about whether another person knows the Lord, and to bring their need before the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, is to love as He loves and to want for them what He most wants to give.
The very name of Jesus tells us what salvation is. It means the Lord is salvation. God did not just send help from a distance, He became our salvation. The way He has shown His love once and for all is through the cross. Scripture says God loved us not because we first loved Him, but He loved us while we were still sinners and sent His Son to be the sacrifice that satisfies His holy justice and makes fellowship possible. While we were still ungodly, Christ died for us. Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends, and Jesus laid down His life for us. He tasted death for everyone and through His suffering He became the source and leader of our salvation, so that many sons and daughters might be brought to glory.
That salvation comes to us by the grace of God. The grace that brings salvation has appeared to all people, but it must be received personally. The Bible urges us not to receive that grace in vain and not to put off responding. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Every person needs to be reconciled to God because we have all turned away, and God invites us to be reconciled through faith in His Son. He knows each person completely, even better than they know themselves, and yet He loves them and calls them to come.
It is right that you have prayed in this careful way, asking that if these individuals need salvation, God would save them. God hears that kind of prayer. Continue to bring that one person, the people connected to them, and those two others before the Lord by name as you know them, asking Him to open their hearts to see His love at the cross, to understand their need, and to trust in Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness and eternal life. You can also ask God to give you opportunity to show His kindness and to speak His word to them, since faith comes by hearing.
May the Lord encourage you as you intercede. He is patient, merciful, and mighty to save, and He delights to answer prayers that ask for what He gave His Son to provide. Pray with confidence that the Father hears you in Jesus name, and keep trusting Him to work in each life you have lifted up, drawing them to Himself in His perfect time and way.
The very name of Jesus tells us what salvation is. It means the Lord is salvation. God did not just send help from a distance, He became our salvation. The way He has shown His love once and for all is through the cross. Scripture says God loved us not because we first loved Him, but He loved us while we were still sinners and sent His Son to be the sacrifice that satisfies His holy justice and makes fellowship possible. While we were still ungodly, Christ died for us. Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends, and Jesus laid down His life for us. He tasted death for everyone and through His suffering He became the source and leader of our salvation, so that many sons and daughters might be brought to glory.
That salvation comes to us by the grace of God. The grace that brings salvation has appeared to all people, but it must be received personally. The Bible urges us not to receive that grace in vain and not to put off responding. Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Every person needs to be reconciled to God because we have all turned away, and God invites us to be reconciled through faith in His Son. He knows each person completely, even better than they know themselves, and yet He loves them and calls them to come.
It is right that you have prayed in this careful way, asking that if these individuals need salvation, God would save them. God hears that kind of prayer. Continue to bring that one person, the people connected to them, and those two others before the Lord by name as you know them, asking Him to open their hearts to see His love at the cross, to understand their need, and to trust in Jesus Christ alone for forgiveness and eternal life. You can also ask God to give you opportunity to show His kindness and to speak His word to them, since faith comes by hearing.
May the Lord encourage you as you intercede. He is patient, merciful, and mighty to save, and He delights to answer prayers that ask for what He gave His Son to provide. Pray with confidence that the Father hears you in Jesus name, and keep trusting Him to work in each life you have lifted up, drawing them to Himself in His perfect time and way.
