Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer has been heard and your compassion for this man reflects the heart of God who desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
God does have a holy plan for every life, and His thoughts are far higher than ours. When a person puts faith in Jesus, God gives a new identity and a new relationship. He no longer sees us in our own righteousness, but He sees us in Christ, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. That is our standing before Him. It is not a legal relationship where we try to earn favor, but a loving relationship where we serve Him in the Spirit and in newness of life. The proof of that relationship is the fruit we bear unto righteousness as we abide in Him and His words abide in us.
Scripture teaches that the body of the believer is a member of Christ Himself, joined to the Lord as one spirit. The Lord has said that in sexual union the two become one. For that reason we cannot take what belongs to Christ and join it to an ungodly relationship. This is why the Word says to flee fornication and to have a purpose in our hearts to live in moral purity. Like Joseph in the Old Testament who purposed that he was God's child and would not defile himself, we are called to glorify Christ in our bodies. For me to live is Christ, and that should be the desire of each of us, that Christ would be glorified in this body. Sex and living together belong only within marriage as God designed it, the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Any relationship outside of that is sin and has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, and Scripture warns not to be deceived about this.
There is a false kind of love that the world talks about which is really sexual impurity. To walk in true love as a child of God is to walk in the light, circumspectly, giving thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. That means a clear break from evil and from ungodly influences that would pull a person back into darkness. Jesus prayed in John 17 not that the Father would take us out of the world, but that He would keep us from the evil of the world. We are in the world but we are not to be of the world, and that licentious freedom the world offers cannot be escaped except through conversion of the heart.
Deliverance is twofold. When we believe in Jesus Christ we are delivered from the hold the world has on us, and He keeps delivering us while we are in the world until the day He delivers us out of the world. This deliverance does not mean we are free to indulge the flesh. Far from it. We are now bound by a greater law, the law of love. Victory does not come by trying harder in our own strength. It comes at the place of defeat where we cease from our own efforts and turn everything over completely to Jesus Christ, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. Then the Spirit conforms us daily into the image of Jesus.
For this man you mentioned, pray that God would break a stony heart and give a soft heart that fears His holy name, that his eyes would be opened to see who he truly is in Christ and to see the false identity he took on when he followed his own desires and strayed from the narrow path. Pray that he would understand the depth of God's love and also understand the danger and bondage of relationships where he is controlled and led into sin, and that he would find courage to depart from evil and to choose the narrow path. Pray that he would be separated from ungodly influences, even those in his own household, and be strengthened by fellowship with the body of Christ, because we draw strength from that fellowship that we often do not realize until we need it.
Continue in travailing prayer for him, as one who labors in birth until Christ is formed in him. Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has set us free and ask God to bring this man into that same liberty, not entangled again in bondage, but enjoying forgiveness and new life through faith in Jesus alone. Ask that he would turn from sin, receive the new righteousness which is by faith, and then by the power of the Holy Spirit bring forth fruit that proves he abides in Christ.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the cross where Your holy Son Jesus suffered for all who believe. We ask in the name of Jesus that You would open the eyes of this man, reveal to him his true identity in Christ, give him repentance and faith, deliver him from every controlling and sinful entanglement, set him free from the power of the world, and cause him to walk in purity, in light and in love, glorifying Christ in his body. Keep him from evil and lead him in Your narrow way for Your glory. Amen.
God does have a holy plan for every life, and His thoughts are far higher than ours. When a person puts faith in Jesus, God gives a new identity and a new relationship. He no longer sees us in our own righteousness, but He sees us in Christ, clothed in the righteousness of Christ. That is our standing before Him. It is not a legal relationship where we try to earn favor, but a loving relationship where we serve Him in the Spirit and in newness of life. The proof of that relationship is the fruit we bear unto righteousness as we abide in Him and His words abide in us.
Scripture teaches that the body of the believer is a member of Christ Himself, joined to the Lord as one spirit. The Lord has said that in sexual union the two become one. For that reason we cannot take what belongs to Christ and join it to an ungodly relationship. This is why the Word says to flee fornication and to have a purpose in our hearts to live in moral purity. Like Joseph in the Old Testament who purposed that he was God's child and would not defile himself, we are called to glorify Christ in our bodies. For me to live is Christ, and that should be the desire of each of us, that Christ would be glorified in this body. Sex and living together belong only within marriage as God designed it, the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Any relationship outside of that is sin and has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God, and Scripture warns not to be deceived about this.
There is a false kind of love that the world talks about which is really sexual impurity. To walk in true love as a child of God is to walk in the light, circumspectly, giving thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity. That means a clear break from evil and from ungodly influences that would pull a person back into darkness. Jesus prayed in John 17 not that the Father would take us out of the world, but that He would keep us from the evil of the world. We are in the world but we are not to be of the world, and that licentious freedom the world offers cannot be escaped except through conversion of the heart.
Deliverance is twofold. When we believe in Jesus Christ we are delivered from the hold the world has on us, and He keeps delivering us while we are in the world until the day He delivers us out of the world. This deliverance does not mean we are free to indulge the flesh. Far from it. We are now bound by a greater law, the law of love. Victory does not come by trying harder in our own strength. It comes at the place of defeat where we cease from our own efforts and turn everything over completely to Jesus Christ, so that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us. Then the Spirit conforms us daily into the image of Jesus.
For this man you mentioned, pray that God would break a stony heart and give a soft heart that fears His holy name, that his eyes would be opened to see who he truly is in Christ and to see the false identity he took on when he followed his own desires and strayed from the narrow path. Pray that he would understand the depth of God's love and also understand the danger and bondage of relationships where he is controlled and led into sin, and that he would find courage to depart from evil and to choose the narrow path. Pray that he would be separated from ungodly influences, even those in his own household, and be strengthened by fellowship with the body of Christ, because we draw strength from that fellowship that we often do not realize until we need it.
Continue in travailing prayer for him, as one who labors in birth until Christ is formed in him. Stand fast in the liberty where Christ has set us free and ask God to bring this man into that same liberty, not entangled again in bondage, but enjoying forgiveness and new life through faith in Jesus alone. Ask that he would turn from sin, receive the new righteousness which is by faith, and then by the power of the Holy Spirit bring forth fruit that proves he abides in Christ.
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the cross where Your holy Son Jesus suffered for all who believe. We ask in the name of Jesus that You would open the eyes of this man, reveal to him his true identity in Christ, give him repentance and faith, deliver him from every controlling and sinful entanglement, set him free from the power of the world, and cause him to walk in purity, in light and in love, glorifying Christ in his body. Keep him from evil and lead him in Your narrow way for Your glory. Amen.
