Silas
Beloved of All
Your heartfelt prayers for your elderly loved ones reflect a deep desire to honor God and to honor your parents, and that is good and pleasing in His sight. It is beautiful to see your longing that they would know the Lord more deeply, be nourished by His Word, be renewed in their minds, and experience His mercy and care in both soul and body.
You mentioned the verse that speaks of prospering and being in health even as the soul prospers. It is helpful to see that those words were written as a personal greeting of love from the apostle John to his friend Gaius, much like we might write hoping a letter finds someone well. It is a warm and sincere wish, not a formal promise that God guarantees perfect health to everyone in this life. At the same time it does point 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 our whole person.
Scripture places great importance on honoring father and mother. To obey parents in the Lord is right, and that command carries a promise that it may go well and bring length of days. Part of that honor, especially as parents grow older, is to show piety at home and to repay their care by providing for their needs. When children care for aged parents and grandparents, they fulfill a basic family responsibility that God calls good and acceptable before Him. When that structure breaks down, families and society suffer, and the consequences of broken homes are often felt by children in painful ways that cannot be easily overcome. Your desire to share the Word with your elders in a way they can hear, and to provide for their physical and emotional needs, walks in line with that calling.
Your prayers for healing are also close to the heart of God, who is compassionate toward our sicknesses. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Messiah bearing our infirmities and sicknesses, and Matthew shows how Jesus fulfilled that in healing the sick and afflicted. Jesus healed in many different ways. Sometimes with a word, sometimes with a touch, sometimes gradually and sometimes instantly. There was no single pattern He was bound to follow. Any true healing, whether it comes in a moment or through a gradual process that God has built into our bodies, is from Him and is to be received with thanks. He also cares about the ordinary stewardship of our bodies, including what we eat and how we care for cleanliness and health, because these things affect our well being.
At the same time, Scripture helps us keep a balanced view. The apostle Paul prayed earnestly for relief from his thorn in the flesh, and the Lord did not remove it, showing that healing is not granted in every case according to our request. Paul also gave practical counsel to Timothy for his frequent ailments rather than a miraculous cure, which reminds us that continued sickness is not necessarily a sign of lack of faith or hidden sin. Jesus Himself made clear that a man born blind was not blind because he or his parents had sinned, but to display the works of God. When healing does not come as we hope, it is not to be taken as failure on our part, but entrusted to the wise and loving purposes of God which we do not always understand.
Your longing for faith, for the Word to dwell richly, and for minds to be renewed is exactly where growth comes. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and God opens our understanding by His Spirit, giving wisdom and revelation to know Him better and to understand the Scriptures. He calls us to crave the pure milk of the Word so we may grow, and then to move on to solid food, being rooted and grounded in love so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. As we continue in His Word, retain it, and do what it says, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, come to have the mind of Christ, and learn to prove what His good will is. That abiding in Him and His words abiding in us bears fruit, leads to answered prayer, and results in lives marked by love and the fruit of the Spirit.
So we join you in praying that the Lord would pour out grace upon you and your patriarchal and matriarchal loved ones. May He pardon, heal according to His perfect will, crown your lives with tender mercy, and satisfy your years with good things. May He provide all that is needed for life and godliness, grant bodily and emotional strength, keep you from the evil one, and let peace be within your walls. May He sanctify you in the truth of His Word, wash you with the water of the Word, and cause the Word of Christ to dwell richly and spread in your lives. May He strengthen you to be doers of the Word, to grow from foundational principles into maturity, to increase in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to bear fruit as true disciples who make Him known to others.
You mentioned the verse that speaks of prospering and being in health even as the soul prospers. It is helpful to see that those words were written as a personal greeting of love from the apostle John to his friend Gaius, much like we might write hoping a letter finds someone well. It is a warm and sincere wish, not a formal promise that God guarantees perfect health to everyone in this life. At the same time it does point 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 our whole person.
Scripture places great importance on honoring father and mother. To obey parents in the Lord is right, and that command carries a promise that it may go well and bring length of days. Part of that honor, especially as parents grow older, is to show piety at home and to repay their care by providing for their needs. When children care for aged parents and grandparents, they fulfill a basic family responsibility that God calls good and acceptable before Him. When that structure breaks down, families and society suffer, and the consequences of broken homes are often felt by children in painful ways that cannot be easily overcome. Your desire to share the Word with your elders in a way they can hear, and to provide for their physical and emotional needs, walks in line with that calling.
Your prayers for healing are also close to the heart of God, who is compassionate toward our sicknesses. The prophet Isaiah spoke of the Messiah bearing our infirmities and sicknesses, and Matthew shows how Jesus fulfilled that in healing the sick and afflicted. Jesus healed in many different ways. Sometimes with a word, sometimes with a touch, sometimes gradually and sometimes instantly. There was no single pattern He was bound to follow. Any true healing, whether it comes in a moment or through a gradual process that God has built into our bodies, is from Him and is to be received with thanks. He also cares about the ordinary stewardship of our bodies, including what we eat and how we care for cleanliness and health, because these things affect our well being.
At the same time, Scripture helps us keep a balanced view. The apostle Paul prayed earnestly for relief from his thorn in the flesh, and the Lord did not remove it, showing that healing is not granted in every case according to our request. Paul also gave practical counsel to Timothy for his frequent ailments rather than a miraculous cure, which reminds us that continued sickness is not necessarily a sign of lack of faith or hidden sin. Jesus Himself made clear that a man born blind was not blind because he or his parents had sinned, but to display the works of God. When healing does not come as we hope, it is not to be taken as failure on our part, but entrusted to the wise and loving purposes of God which we do not always understand.
Your longing for faith, for the Word to dwell richly, and for minds to be renewed is exactly where growth comes. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, and God opens our understanding by His Spirit, giving wisdom and revelation to know Him better and to understand the Scriptures. He calls us to crave the pure milk of the Word so we may grow, and then to move on to solid food, being rooted and grounded in love so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. As we continue in His Word, retain it, and do what it says, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds, come to have the mind of Christ, and learn to prove what His good will is. That abiding in Him and His words abiding in us bears fruit, leads to answered prayer, and results in lives marked by love and the fruit of the Spirit.
So we join you in praying that the Lord would pour out grace upon you and your patriarchal and matriarchal loved ones. May He pardon, heal according to His perfect will, crown your lives with tender mercy, and satisfy your years with good things. May He provide all that is needed for life and godliness, grant bodily and emotional strength, keep you from the evil one, and let peace be within your walls. May He sanctify you in the truth of His Word, wash you with the water of the Word, and cause the Word of Christ to dwell richly and spread in your lives. May He strengthen you to be doers of the Word, to grow from foundational principles into maturity, to increase in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to bear fruit as true disciples who make Him known to others.
