Your prayer rises like incense, and I see in it a pastor’s heart, or perhaps a mother’s, a father’s, a friend’s, burdened for souls that seem so far from the fold. You have spread out before the Lord a great company: church leaders, backsliders, family members, visitors, the lost in every house and fellowship. You have asked for ordinary means and extraordinary visitations; for the preached Word to land with power, and for the Spirit to move where no preacher can reach. Do you know what I see in all of this? I see a soul that has tasted the common salvation and cannot bear to keep the cup to itself. That is a mark of grace. The heart that yearns for others to drink has surely drunk itself.
And yet, I wonder whether, beneath all these petitions, there is a quiet weariness. You have prayed long. Perhaps you have seen little. The ones you love still linger outside the door, and the heavens seem brass some mornings. Let me set a simple truth before you, as plainly as I know how. The salvation you are seeking for them is not a delicate thing, easily toppled by an adversary’s breath. It is the very Thermopylae of the faith, the narrow pass where the battle is fiercest, but where God’s purpose stands most immovable. Justification by faith in Jesus Christ is the fortress that has outlasted every assault of hell. The same Lord who chose Paul, head and shoulders above his fellows in zeal and clarity, to defend that truth, has not left your loved ones to chance. His choice of instruments was never haphazard, and His arm is not shortened now.
What did He say? “Look unto Me, and be ye saved: for I am God, and there is none else.” That is the whole of it. Not look to feelings, nor look to fitness, nor look to long preparations, but look to Him. And this looking is not something a sinner works up by native wit or strong resolve. No, the wind blows where it lists; the Spirit comes upon a heart as mysteriously as the breeze stirs the leaves, and the soul that seemed utterly still begins to quiver with new life. You have asked that the Holy Spirit would convict and convert and teach, and you have asked well. He is the great Revealer. Flesh and blood did not show Peter who Jesus was, and flesh and blood will not show your son, your daughter, your neighbor. But the Father delights to reveal His Son, and the Spirit is not unwilling. Be tender toward His faintest breath. When He stirs a conscience, be plastic in His hand yourself, and trust Him to make others plastic too.
You have prayed the Scripture, and that is no small thing. Paul himself, though an inspired Apostle, kept falling back upon the old Revelation: “It is written,” he said, and that settled the matter. You have done the same. You have laid hold of promises with both hands and refused to let them go. That is faith’s true posture. And here is comfort for you: whatever the Scripture says, the Spirit endorses. The Word you have pleaded, that none should perish, that all come to repentance, is not a doubtful whisper; it is the voice of the unchanging God. He who spoke it yearns over the lost more deeply than you do. Your longings are but a spark from that great fire.
Do not despise the ordinary means, even while you look for extraordinary ones. The gospel is both milk and wine, milk for daily nourishment, wine for feast days. The simple invitation of a friend to a meeting, the tract slipped into a hand, the testimony shared over a cup of tea, the step of a backslider nudged by a word fitly spoken: these are the milk that sustains the work. God uses them, and He uses them with a purpose. He has not asked you to engineer the wind, only to set the sails. Your kind words, your sanctified lifestyle, your patient visiting of house churches and families, these are not small things. They are the ordinary channels through which the extraordinary Spirit often flows.
And for those who seem utterly beyond reach, the ones who never darken a church door, who mock or shrug or simply do not care, I would have you remember that the Savior’s eyes are keener than yours. Old Simeon, led by the Spirit into the temple, saw nothing remarkable: a peasant woman, a poor offering, a Baby in swaddling clothes. A hundred others passed by and noticed nothing. But Simeon’s eyes, anointed for that one moment, saw the Lord’s Christ, and he took Him in his arms and said, “Mine eyes have seen Your salvation.” The Spirit is still giving that sight. He can cause the most indifferent soul to stop, look, and see Jesus where before there was only a common scene. Pray boldly for that vision. It is not too hard for Him.
Do not let your heart sink over those who seem to have wandered farthest. You have prayed for backsliders, and that is a prayer dear to the heart of the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to seek the one. He knows the way back through the brambles. He knows where the thorns have torn the wool. And He is not a Shepherd who easily loses patience.
Let me speak a word about your own household. You have prayed for family members to be drawn to church, to hear and understand, to receive the Word in humility. This is right and natural. Piety, like charity, begins at home. I would give nothing for a love that reaches the whole world but skips the hearth. Andrew found his brother Simon first. Eunice trained her Timothy. God has not reversed the laws of nature but has sanctified them by the rules of grace. Your love for your own kindred is not selfishness, it is the Spirit stirring the affections where they are most tender. Let Abraham pray for his Ishmael, and David plead for his Solomon. The Lord who set the solitary in families means to save families.
Above all, rest in this: salvation is of the Lord. It is a free salvation, given without money and without price. It is the common salvation, not common because it is cheap, but because it is for every kind of sinner, proclaimed without restriction, mighty to save to the uttermost. The gospel is a feast spread in the open air, and the heralds are sent to the highways and hedges. Your part is to keep pointing to the table and to live as one who has eaten and drunk and found the Lord good. The Spirit’s part is to create the hunger. And He will do it. He will do it in His time, in His way, and with a certainty that will one day make you marvel.
And now let us commend them all to the God who is able.
Eternal Father, You who are God alone and beside You there is none else, look upon these dear souls, the leaders who need fresh anointing, the lost who need finding, the backsliders who need restoring, the families who need gathering in. Send Your Holy Spirit like a mighty wind through every house church and every gathering. Open minds to understand the Scriptures. Give faith where now there is only resistance, repentance where there is hardness, and life where there is death. Protect them from the evil one who loves a famine of the Word. Draw them to Christ, that they may look and live. And steady the heart of this dear friend who prays, for You have heard every syllable. In the name of Jesus, our only hope and our common salvation, Amen.
Preparation, Intercession for Others, 1 Tim 2:1-4, Study Word, Sound Teaching, Visiting Families, Going after Backsliders, James 5:20, Seeking The Lost, Lk 19:10, Visiting House Churches, Acts 20:20, Col 4:15: 
Family & Families Drawn to Church, Jn 6:44, Heb 10:25 -- Family Members, Visitors Receive Word in Faith, by Revelation of JESUS as Messiah by Father, Mt 16:18, Receive Word in Humility which Saves the Soul, Jam 1:21, saved by grace through faith using the instrumentality of the ordinary means of friend's invitations to meetings, testimonies, evangelistic outreaches, tracts, effectiveness in sharing the gospel -- but we ask You also give dreams, visions, gifts, kindness, sanctified lifestyles, 1 Cor 1:30, words of wisdom, knowledge, healings, miracles, 1 Cor 12:7-31, divine appointments through ordering our steps firmly, Ps 17:5, Ps 18:36, Ps 37:23, Prov 20:24, open doors, 1 Cor 16:9, 2 Cor 2:12, Col 4:3, Rev 3:8, salvations, baptisms, community, Acts 2:38-42, etc... Freedom to Worship in Spirit and Truth, Jn 4:24, Anointing from The Anointed One, Jn 14:26, 1 Jn 2:20, Control Tongue, James 3:1-18...
God, You are Our Father and Ever Present Help, Deut 4:7, Ps 46:1, Isa 41:10 -- Thank you for the message of Jesus, The Lord's True Anointed, crucified for our sins, Gal 2:20. Draw our family members to church to hear, listen and understand what You are speaking to each one, Jn 16:13. Grant faith, repentance, salvation, knowledge of the forgiveness of sins, Lk 1:77, and newness of life -- give vision, Prov 29:18, by The Holy Spirit. Protect them all from the evil one, John 17:15, who loves "lack of knowledge," Hos 4:6, Amos 8:11. Help us all attend church, Heb 10:25, and fellowship, Acts 2:42, As often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, 1 Cor 14:26, real covenantal communion vertically and horizontally, Mk 12:30-31.
Give us hunger for The Word, 1 Peter 2:2, Holy Spirit of Revelation, Eph 1:17, Flesh and Blood does not reveal Messiah, Matt 16:17, but OUR Father in Heaven... Father, let the Holy Spirit convict and convert, Jn 16:8, teach us all things, Jn 16:13, open minds to understand the Scriptures, Lk 24:45, faith to pray and receive, Mark 11:24, (Faith comes by hearing the message preached), Rom 10:17 -- God, that none would perish, but all to come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9, that all would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Tim 2:1-5, even all in authority, and all our households, Acts 16:30-32. When we ask You hear and if You hear, we have, 1 Jn 5:14-14, so SEEK and SAVE the LOST, Lk 19:10, save sinners, among whom some are foremost of all, in order to demonstrate Your perfect patience, 1 Tim 1:15-16, thank You and you in Jesus' Name, Amen, 2 Cor 1:20.
