Family

[Chrysostom]

You pray for your family’s salvation, healing, and protection in Jesus’ Name, and this is good; but understand that no one part is sufficient for our salvation. There is required first a careful hearing of the word, and a continual recollection; then fortitude, then contempt of riches, and deliverance from all worldly things. To cry out for protection while the soul clings to the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches is to build on sand. Vainglory, pleasure, gluttony, envy, all these choke the word and make the prayer unfruitful.

Consider that affliction itself can be for your comfort and salvation, working in the patient enduring of the same sufferings we also suffer. The death of Jesus was the salvation of the world, and being a partaker with Christ in sufferings is no strange thing. If He, sent not to judge but to save, speaks only what is for our salvation and not for condemnation, then we must receive even tribulation as a gift, lest we pray against our own healing.

Behold, now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation. Do not put off the Gift, thinking a mere prayer in words is enough while you delay genuine repentance. The many are not so much attracted when some sublime thing is said concerning God, as when some act of lovingkindness pertaining to their salvation is spoken of; they heard that He taketh away the sin of the world and ran to Him. Why then do you delay? For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

Therefore, as you intercede for your household, first weep over them and yourself as those who need to know the common salvation. It is a mark of those who perish not to recognize the things that lead to salvation. Draw them over not with soft sentiment alone but with a life that proves the word of the Cross is Wisdom and Power. Let your prayer be joined to a careful hearing and a doing that forsakes all worldly things, for the Lord willeth not to condemn but to save. Let this hope for you be steadfast. Amen.

 

[Silas]

You are right to bring these requests before the Lord. There is nothing more urgent than the eternal well-being of your soul and the souls of those you love. The greatest miracle God can ever perform in a human life is not physical healing, though that is wonderful, but salvation, the forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. Everything else is secondary to that.

Salvation is not something we can earn or work for. It is outside our own capacity. God placed it entirely on the basis of His grace, through the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Scripture says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That confession, made now while you still have breath, is a confession unto salvation. Do not delay. Today is the day of salvation. There is no other provision for sin, no other way to be restored to God. Jesus Himself said, “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” That offer is wide open for you and for every member of your family.

At the same time, the Bible calls us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. This does not mean we labor to obtain it; it means we live out what God has already planted within us with deep reverence. Let the reality of God’s grace produce a serious, obedient, and joyful diligence in your life. Your life is His poem, a work of beauty that He is crafting.

As you pray for healing, take comfort that Jesus bore our infirmities and that His touch reaches both body and soul. Yet healing does not always come instantly or in the way we expect. Sometimes God heals through the natural processes He created; sometimes He brings gradual restoration; sometimes He heals the inner wounds, the mind, the emotions, the scars that no one sees. And sometimes, for reasons we do not fully understand, He does not grant physical healing in this life. The apostle Paul pleaded three times for a thorn in his flesh to be removed, and the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you.” We must trust His wisdom. The most important healing is always the healing of your soul. Receive that in full today.

For protection, know that God is your refuge. He will guide you and give you wisdom. When adversity comes, respond with kindness and love, resting in His care. He may not always remove every hardship, but He will never abandon you.

I also want you to be prepared for what walking with Jesus can mean within a natural family. Jesus Himself faced rejection from His own brothers, who at one point thought He had lost His mind. A prophet is not without honor except in His own household. When you place your faith in Christ, it can create distance with relatives who do not yet believe. But take heart: you have been brought into a new family, the household of God. The bonds within the body of Christ can run deeper than blood ties, not replacing your love for your family, but sustaining you if they do not share your faith. Continue to pray for their salvation, live graciously before them, and let the Lord draw them.

And remember: no one who comes to Jesus will be turned away. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all. Do not let this moment pass. Receive Him, rest in His finished work, and walk each day in the light of that great salvation. He is the captain, the author, and the completer of it all. May you and your family find your hope entirely in Him.