Silas
Beloved of All
Your desire for better face to face communication and for Christ to dwell in your hearts by faith is right and good, and God delights to answer that kind of prayer. Scripture says that when Christ dwells in the heart by faith, His love takes root and overflows beyond what we can ask or think, and it is that love that makes real communication possible.
God is sovereign over circumstances. Just as He moved Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that prophecy would be fulfilled and the child would be born in the right place, He is able to order the details of your family life for His purposes. He also watched over that young child when a cruel ruler sought to destroy Him, warning Joseph to take the child and His mother away by night. In the same way, the Lord is able to protect your child. His angels are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation, and there are more with those who trust Him than against them. Your help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth, and He is able to keep your little one by His power through faith, so that the evil one does not touch him.
You asked for grace and wisdom to bring up your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is the calling of a father, to teach the Scriptures diligently and to model a life of holiness as a child of God walking as his Father. The greatest heritage you can give is to steep your child in the Word from the earliest years, moving beyond rote words to a real heart conversation with God, giving the child back to the Lord as a trust from Him. Jesus took a little child and set him in the midst and said we must become like little children to enter the kingdom, and that whoever receives such a child in His name receives Him. He loves the simple faith of a child, and it is a serious thing to harm or to destroy that faith. To train your child to honor both father and mother, as the commandment promises, is to give him a foundation that will bless him all his days. In these perilous times when many are without natural affection, your faithful love and protection matter deeply.
You also prayed for your wife, that the Holy Spirit would convict her and hedge her way with thorns to keep her from sin and its destructive consequences. It is right to pray for conviction, for Jesus said the Spirit convicts of sin, and for salvation, for God desires all to be saved and to come to repentance. But true repentance is more than feeling sorry. There is a sorrow of the world that leads to death, where a person regrets the trouble that sin brings but does not change. Godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, a sorrow after a godly manner that brings a real change of mind and life. John preached a baptism of repentance, a dying to the old life, and then said to bring forth fruit that proves repentance, fruit that agrees with a changed heart. If there is true sorrow, there will be fruit, a carefulness, a clearing, an indignation against sin, a fear of God, and a vehement desire for what is right. Pray not only that her path would be blocked if she strays, but that God would grant her that godly sorrow that leads to a complete turn, to forsake what is outside the covenant of marriage and to walk in purity.
God's design for marriage is clear, that to avoid sexual sin each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband, rendering to one another what belongs within that lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Sex and living together belong only within that covenant. We cannot ask God to bless what violates that design, but we can and do ask Him to strengthen and restore what is according to His design, and to call each person to holiness. A believing parent also has a covering influence for good in the home, a shelter and a godly example that can lead a child toward a holy life and can even be used to draw an unbelieving spouse to Christ as they see the life of Christ lived out daily.
You mentioned weakness and insults, and the promise that when we are weak then Christ is strong in us. It is good to boast in weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon you. God is not restrained to save by many or by few, and where two or three agree in prayer He hears. He is able to keep you from deception, from false profession that honors Him with words but lives differently through the week, from temptation and from the lies of the evil one who deceives the whole world. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
So we join you in praying that the Lord will deepen your fellowship, that your communication would be truthful, gracious, and consistent, that Christ's love would overflow in your home, that your child would be filled with the Holy Spirit and know the Scriptures from childhood which are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, that your wife would hear the conviction of the Spirit, experience godly sorrow that leads to lasting repentance and faith in Jesus alone for salvation, and bear fruit that confirms it, and that all of you would be kept from the evil one under the shadow of His wings until that salvation is fully revealed.
God is sovereign over circumstances. Just as He moved Joseph and Mary from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that prophecy would be fulfilled and the child would be born in the right place, He is able to order the details of your family life for His purposes. He also watched over that young child when a cruel ruler sought to destroy Him, warning Joseph to take the child and His mother away by night. In the same way, the Lord is able to protect your child. His angels are ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation, and there are more with those who trust Him than against them. Your help comes from the Maker of heaven and earth, and He is able to keep your little one by His power through faith, so that the evil one does not touch him.
You asked for grace and wisdom to bring up your child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is the calling of a father, to teach the Scriptures diligently and to model a life of holiness as a child of God walking as his Father. The greatest heritage you can give is to steep your child in the Word from the earliest years, moving beyond rote words to a real heart conversation with God, giving the child back to the Lord as a trust from Him. Jesus took a little child and set him in the midst and said we must become like little children to enter the kingdom, and that whoever receives such a child in His name receives Him. He loves the simple faith of a child, and it is a serious thing to harm or to destroy that faith. To train your child to honor both father and mother, as the commandment promises, is to give him a foundation that will bless him all his days. In these perilous times when many are without natural affection, your faithful love and protection matter deeply.
You also prayed for your wife, that the Holy Spirit would convict her and hedge her way with thorns to keep her from sin and its destructive consequences. It is right to pray for conviction, for Jesus said the Spirit convicts of sin, and for salvation, for God desires all to be saved and to come to repentance. But true repentance is more than feeling sorry. There is a sorrow of the world that leads to death, where a person regrets the trouble that sin brings but does not change. Godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, a sorrow after a godly manner that brings a real change of mind and life. John preached a baptism of repentance, a dying to the old life, and then said to bring forth fruit that proves repentance, fruit that agrees with a changed heart. If there is true sorrow, there will be fruit, a carefulness, a clearing, an indignation against sin, a fear of God, and a vehement desire for what is right. Pray not only that her path would be blocked if she strays, but that God would grant her that godly sorrow that leads to a complete turn, to forsake what is outside the covenant of marriage and to walk in purity.
God's design for marriage is clear, that to avoid sexual sin each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband, rendering to one another what belongs within that lifelong covenant of one man and one woman. Sex and living together belong only within that covenant. We cannot ask God to bless what violates that design, but we can and do ask Him to strengthen and restore what is according to His design, and to call each person to holiness. A believing parent also has a covering influence for good in the home, a shelter and a godly example that can lead a child toward a holy life and can even be used to draw an unbelieving spouse to Christ as they see the life of Christ lived out daily.
You mentioned weakness and insults, and the promise that when we are weak then Christ is strong in us. It is good to boast in weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon you. God is not restrained to save by many or by few, and where two or three agree in prayer He hears. He is able to keep you from deception, from false profession that honors Him with words but lives differently through the week, from temptation and from the lies of the evil one who deceives the whole world. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
So we join you in praying that the Lord will deepen your fellowship, that your communication would be truthful, gracious, and consistent, that Christ's love would overflow in your home, that your child would be filled with the Holy Spirit and know the Scriptures from childhood which are able to make him wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, that your wife would hear the conviction of the Spirit, experience godly sorrow that leads to lasting repentance and faith in Jesus alone for salvation, and bear fruit that confirms it, and that all of you would be kept from the evil one under the shadow of His wings until that salvation is fully revealed.
