Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for pouring out your heart so honestly and for holding fast to the promises of Scripture even while you are walking through deep pain, attacks and long waiting. The Lord sees what has been difficult and what still is, and He draws near to those who trust Him rather than leaning on their own understanding.
There is real consolation in Christ and real comfort in His love. In the fellowship of the Spirit there is compassion and mercy to sustain you day by day, especially when grief and pressure are heavy. Jesus Himself shows us this comfort. Though He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men and humbled Himself to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Because He has gone so low for us, He can lift us up and keep us.
You have asked for protection, and Scripture assures us that God is a shield around His people, that He encamps around those who fear Him, that He is a wall of fire and that no weapon formed against His children will finally prosper. You may ask Him confidently for that covering, for His warrior angels, for watch over your sleep and over your family, and for deliverance from every evil work. He is faithful to guard you.
You have also asked for salvation, healing, deliverance and restoration for your whole family. Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and it is by grace through faith, and even that faith is a gift from God so that no one may boast. 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 foundation laid by the apostles and prophets still stands, that God has provided one way to come to Him through Jesus. The Scripture says, in an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you, and now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Do not put off receiving His offer for yourself, and continue to hold it out to your loved ones, praying that they will hear the word of the Lord and believe as that jailer and his household did when they heard the gospel, believed and rejoiced together.
God does not save you because you work for it. To work out your own salvation with fear and trembling does not mean to work for your salvation. It means that God Himself has begun the work in you. He puts the desire in your heart, the willing, and then He works in you to do what pleases Him. You can delight yourself in the Lord and trust Him to plant His desires in you and to fulfill what He has begun. He wants your life to be a thing of grace and beauty. You are His workmanship, His poem, and He is expressing Himself through you with purpose. Nothing that touches you is mere happenstance or caprice. Even severe testings and trials have a purpose to force us closer to Jesus and to form Christ in us.
He is able to heal. As the woman who had suffered for years touched Jesus and felt in her body that she was healed, and as many tormented and broken people were made whole by His power, so the Lord is still able to heal bodies, minds and wounded hearts. He restores the soul, He gives a new heart and a new spirit, He pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and causes the fruit of the Spirit to grow, love, joy, peace and all the rest. What has been broken and what the locusts have eaten, He promises to restore, and where a curse has lain, Christ has redeemed us from the curse, becoming a curse for us, that the blessing might come upon us.
As you wait, ask the Lord to search you and try you, to know your heart and thoughts, to see if there is any way in you that grieves Him and to lead you in the everlasting way. His word says He will dwell in His people and walk among them, that He will be our God and we shall be His people, and He calls us to come out from what is unclean and to touch no unclean thing so that we may know His fatherly embrace more fully. That includes relationships. God designed marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He calls His people to purity, to keep intimacy and living together within that covenant. It is right to pray as you have, that He would stop and rebuke relationships that are dysfunctional, harmful or outside His will, and that He would bring conviction, healing and either true repentance and purity or a gracious separation. Do not ask Him to bless what His word calls unholy, but ask Him to make all your relationships holy, honest and whole, and to give favor and wisdom in school, work and every responsibility.
For the hurts of trauma, rejection and abandonment, for the conflicts where you have felt overlooked or where you have spoken in frustration, bring those honestly to the Lord for forgiveness and for grace to do better. He is merciful to forgive when we confess, and He gives strength to walk in integrity even when the world around us lives by polluted standards and thinks us strange for holding to honesty.
You asked for trust, faith, encouragement and strength while you wait. God keeps you by His power through faith, and the end of that faith is the salvation of your souls. He will strengthen you and guide you and draw you into His love. Continue to hold forth the word of life without murmuring or disputing, shining as a light in a dark world, serving Him with joy even as you are poured out in prayer and in ministry to others. He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it.
May the Lord hear your cry in this acceptable time, preserve you, deliver you and your family, heal what is sick, break what binds, restore what is broken, anoint your prayers and your service, and cause His love and grace to abound in you. May you walk in His love and in His grace, kept day by day as you look toward Him, in Jesus name.
There is real consolation in Christ and real comfort in His love. In the fellowship of the Spirit there is compassion and mercy to sustain you day by day, especially when grief and pressure are heavy. Jesus Himself shows us this comfort. Though He was in the form of God, He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men and humbled Himself to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Because He has gone so low for us, He can lift us up and keep us.
You have asked for protection, and Scripture assures us that God is a shield around His people, that He encamps around those who fear Him, that He is a wall of fire and that no weapon formed against His children will finally prosper. You may ask Him confidently for that covering, for His warrior angels, for watch over your sleep and over your family, and for deliverance from every evil work. He is faithful to guard you.
You have also asked for salvation, healing, deliverance and restoration for your whole family. Salvation is through Jesus Christ alone, and it is by grace through faith, and even that faith is a gift from God so that no one may boast. 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 foundation laid by the apostles and prophets still stands, that God has provided one way to come to Him through Jesus. The Scripture says, in an acceptable time I have heard you and in the day of salvation I have helped you, and now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. Do not put off receiving His offer for yourself, and continue to hold it out to your loved ones, praying that they will hear the word of the Lord and believe as that jailer and his household did when they heard the gospel, believed and rejoiced together.
God does not save you because you work for it. To work out your own salvation with fear and trembling does not mean to work for your salvation. It means that God Himself has begun the work in you. He puts the desire in your heart, the willing, and then He works in you to do what pleases Him. You can delight yourself in the Lord and trust Him to plant His desires in you and to fulfill what He has begun. He wants your life to be a thing of grace and beauty. You are His workmanship, His poem, and He is expressing Himself through you with purpose. Nothing that touches you is mere happenstance or caprice. Even severe testings and trials have a purpose to force us closer to Jesus and to form Christ in us.
He is able to heal. As the woman who had suffered for years touched Jesus and felt in her body that she was healed, and as many tormented and broken people were made whole by His power, so the Lord is still able to heal bodies, minds and wounded hearts. He restores the soul, He gives a new heart and a new spirit, He pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit and causes the fruit of the Spirit to grow, love, joy, peace and all the rest. What has been broken and what the locusts have eaten, He promises to restore, and where a curse has lain, Christ has redeemed us from the curse, becoming a curse for us, that the blessing might come upon us.
As you wait, ask the Lord to search you and try you, to know your heart and thoughts, to see if there is any way in you that grieves Him and to lead you in the everlasting way. His word says He will dwell in His people and walk among them, that He will be our God and we shall be His people, and He calls us to come out from what is unclean and to touch no unclean thing so that we may know His fatherly embrace more fully. That includes relationships. God designed marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He calls His people to purity, to keep intimacy and living together within that covenant. It is right to pray as you have, that He would stop and rebuke relationships that are dysfunctional, harmful or outside His will, and that He would bring conviction, healing and either true repentance and purity or a gracious separation. Do not ask Him to bless what His word calls unholy, but ask Him to make all your relationships holy, honest and whole, and to give favor and wisdom in school, work and every responsibility.
For the hurts of trauma, rejection and abandonment, for the conflicts where you have felt overlooked or where you have spoken in frustration, bring those honestly to the Lord for forgiveness and for grace to do better. He is merciful to forgive when we confess, and He gives strength to walk in integrity even when the world around us lives by polluted standards and thinks us strange for holding to honesty.
You asked for trust, faith, encouragement and strength while you wait. God keeps you by His power through faith, and the end of that faith is the salvation of your souls. He will strengthen you and guide you and draw you into His love. Continue to hold forth the word of life without murmuring or disputing, shining as a light in a dark world, serving Him with joy even as you are poured out in prayer and in ministry to others. He who began a good work will be faithful to complete it.
May the Lord hear your cry in this acceptable time, preserve you, deliver you and your family, heal what is sick, break what binds, restore what is broken, anoint your prayers and your service, and cause His love and grace to abound in you. May you walk in His love and in His grace, kept day by day as you look toward Him, in Jesus name.
