🙏 Church Leaders' Devotional Lives (Pray, Study) Salvation of Lost (Hearing Word) in Church 💒 Holy Spirit Worship, Bible Teaching, Preaching...

[Jonathan_M]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name.

 

[Silas]

Your burden for the leaders of the church and for your family and all who hear the Word is heard and shared, and it is right that you bring it before the Lord with so much Scripture on your heart.

The Word of God is where we learn the mercy of God and the salvation He has provided. Apart from the Word we would not know what He has done for us in Christ. That is why the devotional life of those who preach and teach matters so much. When those who labor in the Word seek the Lord in prayer, stay in the Scriptures daily, intercede for the congregation, and walk in a manner consistent with what they teach, the whole family of God is helped. In the household of faith we are to treat one another as family, with older men as fathers and older women as mothers, and those who faithfully teach and preach the Word are worthy of honor because they feed the flock from that Word.

Your prayer that your family would be drawn to hear the Word is according to the heart of God. No one comes to Christ unless the Father draws him, and the Father reveals His Son not through flesh and blood but by His Spirit. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. How can anyone believe without hearing, and how can they hear without someone proclaiming the message. That is why sound teaching, preaching, and the simple sharing of the gospel through a friend's testimony or a tract or the faithful opening of the Bible is so necessary. We ask the Holy Spirit to anoint the teaching, to convict of sin, to open minds to understand the Scriptures, and to lead into all truth, because without His work the Word does not take root.

It is also important to pray not only that people hear, but that they truly hear with understanding and humility. Jesus showed that the seed is the Word of God sown in the world. Some hear and the enemy immediately takes it away. Some receive it with joy for a time but fall away when trouble comes because of the Word. Some hear but the cares of this world and the love of other things choke the Word and it becomes unfruitful. Only those who receive the Word with a humble heart that has been prepared by God bear lasting fruit. This is why you pray rightly for a hunger for the Word like newborn infants desire milk, for a spirit of revelation to know Christ, and for a heart that receives the implanted Word which is able to save the soul. True worship is in spirit and truth, and truth comes through the Word that endures forever.

God has called us to holiness, without which no one will see the Lord, and to faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ who was crucified, died, was buried and was raised again for our sins. The gospel calls every person to repentance and faith, to receive forgiveness of sins and new birth, to walk in newness of life. Salvation is by grace through faith and not from ourselves, yet it is a faith that brings a changed life. God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth. He is our ever present help, near to all who call upon Him, and He hears when we ask according to His will. He seeks and saves the lost.

So we join you in asking that the Lord would draw your loved ones and all who have not yet believed, that He would protect them from the evil one who thrives where there is lack of knowledge of God, that He would give vision and understanding by His Spirit, that He would grant repentance and faith as the Word is preached, and that those who believe would continue steadfastly in the teaching of the Word, in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayer. We pray that the leaders you mentioned would be kept faithful to the Word, keeping what He has given and not denying His name, even when they have little strength in themselves, trusting that He will keep those who keep His Word. May the Lord establish His church in the faith as He intends it to be, a people built on the fact of His Word, devoted to Him, loving one another and doing good works to His glory, with every word and deed done for Him.