Silas
Beloved of All
Your heartfelt prayer for your elderly loved ones and for your own growth reflects a deep desire to honor God and to walk in His Word, and that desire itself is pleasing to Him.
You mentioned the verse about prospering and being in health even as your soul prospers. It is helpful to see that this was a warm personal greeting from the apostle John to his beloved friend Gaius, much like we might write today hoping a letter finds someone well. It is a beautiful wish, but it is not to be taken as a blanket promise that God guarantees perfect health to everyone. At the same time it points to something true that we are learning more and more, that there is a real connection between the health of the soul and the health of the body. Attitudes, peace, and inner well being do affect us physically, and God does care about your physical health as well as your spiritual life.
That care is seen in how Scripture speaks about honoring father and mother. This is given as a command with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long. Honoring parents is at the heart of the family as God designed it, and when that honor is lived out, families and communities are strengthened. Part of that honor, especially for older parents and grandparents, is practical care, showing piety at home and repaying them by providing for their needs as you are able. Your prayer to be enabled to share the Word with them in a way they can hear, according to their capacity, is right and good. Ask God for wisdom to speak clearly, patiently, and with love, and to root all of you more deeply in Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith.
You also asked for healing and deliverance from evil, and for God to rebuke sickness. The Lord Jesus indeed bore our infirmities and sicknesses, as Matthew applies the prophecy of Isaiah, and He went about healing every kind of sickness and disease. He still heals today, and we should pray boldly for healing. Yet Scripture also shows that His ways of healing vary greatly. Sometimes He healed with a word, sometimes with a touch, sometimes instantly and once gradually, and He was never bound to one pattern. Any true healing, whether sudden or through the natural processes God has placed in our bodies, is from Him. And there are times when healing does not come in the way we ask, as with Paul who prayed three times concerning his thorn in the flesh, or Timothy who continued to have frequent ailments despite prayer. In those cases it is not necessarily a lack of faith or hidden sin, but often belongs to the purposes of God that we cannot fully understand. So we keep praying with faith, trusting His power and His wisdom, and resting in His grace whether the answer is immediate relief or sustaining strength through the trial.
God is also concerned with how we steward our bodies day by day, including what we eat and how we live, and with simple matters of cleanliness that help prevent disease. To ask Him for a strong body while neglecting the means He has given us for health is inconsistent. Caring for bodily health in ordinary, practical ways is part of honoring Him.
Your longing to grow from the milk of the Word to solid food, to have your mind renewed, to have the Word of Christ dwell richly in you, and to be doers and not hearers only, is exactly how spiritual growth happens. Faith comes by hearing the Word, understanding is opened by the Holy Spirit who gives wisdom and revelation, and transformation comes as the mind is renewed and we come to have the mind of Christ. Continue to crave the sincere milk of the Word, to retain it in your heart, and to let it become lived out in love, obedience, and the fruit of the Spirit. As you abide in Christ and His words abide in you, you will know the joy of communion with Him and bear fruit that remains.
May the Lord grant you and your loved ones grace to keep growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to be grounded in love, established in the foundational truths of the faith, and built up toward maturity and love for Him and for others. May He keep you from the evil one, sanctify you in the truth of His Word, grant peace within your homes, and provide for all that you need for life and godliness as you continue to seek Him and honor Him together in Jesus name.
You mentioned the verse about prospering and being in health even as your soul prospers. It is helpful to see that this was a warm personal greeting from the apostle John to his beloved friend Gaius, much like we might write today hoping a letter finds someone well. It is a beautiful wish, but it is not to be taken as a blanket promise that God guarantees perfect health to everyone. At the same time it points to something true that we are learning more and more, that there is a real connection between the health of the soul and the health of the body. Attitudes, peace, and inner well being do affect us physically, and God does care about your physical health as well as your spiritual life.
That care is seen in how Scripture speaks about honoring father and mother. This is given as a command with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long. Honoring parents is at the heart of the family as God designed it, and when that honor is lived out, families and communities are strengthened. Part of that honor, especially for older parents and grandparents, is practical care, showing piety at home and repaying them by providing for their needs as you are able. Your prayer to be enabled to share the Word with them in a way they can hear, according to their capacity, is right and good. Ask God for wisdom to speak clearly, patiently, and with love, and to root all of you more deeply in Christ dwelling in your hearts through faith.
You also asked for healing and deliverance from evil, and for God to rebuke sickness. The Lord Jesus indeed bore our infirmities and sicknesses, as Matthew applies the prophecy of Isaiah, and He went about healing every kind of sickness and disease. He still heals today, and we should pray boldly for healing. Yet Scripture also shows that His ways of healing vary greatly. Sometimes He healed with a word, sometimes with a touch, sometimes instantly and once gradually, and He was never bound to one pattern. Any true healing, whether sudden or through the natural processes God has placed in our bodies, is from Him. And there are times when healing does not come in the way we ask, as with Paul who prayed three times concerning his thorn in the flesh, or Timothy who continued to have frequent ailments despite prayer. In those cases it is not necessarily a lack of faith or hidden sin, but often belongs to the purposes of God that we cannot fully understand. So we keep praying with faith, trusting His power and His wisdom, and resting in His grace whether the answer is immediate relief or sustaining strength through the trial.
God is also concerned with how we steward our bodies day by day, including what we eat and how we live, and with simple matters of cleanliness that help prevent disease. To ask Him for a strong body while neglecting the means He has given us for health is inconsistent. Caring for bodily health in ordinary, practical ways is part of honoring Him.
Your longing to grow from the milk of the Word to solid food, to have your mind renewed, to have the Word of Christ dwell richly in you, and to be doers and not hearers only, is exactly how spiritual growth happens. Faith comes by hearing the Word, understanding is opened by the Holy Spirit who gives wisdom and revelation, and transformation comes as the mind is renewed and we come to have the mind of Christ. Continue to crave the sincere milk of the Word, to retain it in your heart, and to let it become lived out in love, obedience, and the fruit of the Spirit. As you abide in Christ and His words abide in you, you will know the joy of communion with Him and bear fruit that remains.
May the Lord grant you and your loved ones grace to keep growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to be grounded in love, established in the foundational truths of the faith, and built up toward maturity and love for Him and for others. May He keep you from the evil one, sanctify you in the truth of His Word, grant peace within your homes, and provide for all that you need for life and godliness as you continue to seek Him and honor Him together in Jesus name.
