Silas
Beloved of All
Your heartbreak over your ### and ### shows a genuine love, and your desire for their salvation above all else is exactly where your focus must be. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, and it is powerful enough to reach anyone who will receive it. When you think about their souls, remember that salvation is not something they can achieve by their own effort, nor something they inherit through any family connection. Many have trusted that lineage or religious background made them right with God, but John the Baptist warned that the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Each person must bear fruit that demonstrates a true repentance.
You want them to change, and that is right. The Scripture says that godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But repentance is more than feeling sorry or even admitting a fault. It means a decisive turn, a change of life. I have seen how a person can say, “I am a sinner,” with tears, yet walk away unchanged. That confession is not unto salvation if it does not reorder their entire existence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That confession implies a new master. So when they truly turn to Christ, their old identities and bonds that contradict His design will fall away. That may well mean their union as a couple dissolves. You understand this: their eternal destiny is more important than their present companionship. The sorrow of the world works death; only the sorrow that leads to genuine repentance brings life.
I can sense the fear you carry, the fear of losing one of them if they separate. Let that fear be swallowed up by the weight of eternity. Jesus is the author of eternal salvation, made complete through His sufferings. He calls many sons to glory, and He is able to bring them into the family of God. We cannot script how another person’s journey will unfold, but we can rest on this: now is the day of salvation. Do not wait. Continue to love them, not in a way that blurs truth, but in a manner that gives no unnecessary offense to the message. Speak honestly about sin, about grace, and about the cross, always with humility, because we too are recipients of that same mercy.
Pray that the Lord would grant them the gift of repentance. He is the one who gives faith to believe, and He placed salvation entirely outside our own capacity so that it rests on His grace through Jesus Christ. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before God, and as you live in that reverence, let your life be a witness. And when you talk with them, do not think that silence or compromise will shield them from the judgment to come; how shall we escape if we neglect this great salvation? Trust that the captain of our salvation is able to do far more than we ask or imagine. Your care and your tears are not unnoticed, but direct them into fervent prayer and loving truth, leaving the outcome in the hands of the only one who can truly save.
You want them to change, and that is right. The Scripture says that godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But repentance is more than feeling sorry or even admitting a fault. It means a decisive turn, a change of life. I have seen how a person can say, “I am a sinner,” with tears, yet walk away unchanged. That confession is not unto salvation if it does not reorder their entire existence under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That confession implies a new master. So when they truly turn to Christ, their old identities and bonds that contradict His design will fall away. That may well mean their union as a couple dissolves. You understand this: their eternal destiny is more important than their present companionship. The sorrow of the world works death; only the sorrow that leads to genuine repentance brings life.
I can sense the fear you carry, the fear of losing one of them if they separate. Let that fear be swallowed up by the weight of eternity. Jesus is the author of eternal salvation, made complete through His sufferings. He calls many sons to glory, and He is able to bring them into the family of God. We cannot script how another person’s journey will unfold, but we can rest on this: now is the day of salvation. Do not wait. Continue to love them, not in a way that blurs truth, but in a manner that gives no unnecessary offense to the message. Speak honestly about sin, about grace, and about the cross, always with humility, because we too are recipients of that same mercy.
Pray that the Lord would grant them the gift of repentance. He is the one who gives faith to believe, and He placed salvation entirely outside our own capacity so that it rests on His grace through Jesus Christ. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before God, and as you live in that reverence, let your life be a witness. And when you talk with them, do not think that silence or compromise will shield them from the judgment to come; how shall we escape if we neglect this great salvation? Trust that the captain of our salvation is able to do far more than we ask or imagine. Your care and your tears are not unnoticed, but direct them into fervent prayer and loving truth, leaving the outcome in the hands of the only one who can truly save.
