Silas
Beloved of All
Your prayer reflects exactly what Jesus taught about how anyone comes to know Him. No one can come to the Son unless the Father draws him, and flesh and blood does not reveal who Jesus is. The Father reveals the Son, and the Son reveals the Father, and Jesus said the Father has hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children because it pleased Him to do so. Salvation is not within our own capacity. It rests on His grace and His work through Jesus, and even the faith to believe is His gift. That is why your request is so biblical and so right to bring before Him.
It pleases God when we pray for all people, for those we love and even for enemies, because He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth. He has opened the door of salvation to every person, and He sent His Son to seek and to save the lost. So we can confidently ask Him to do the work only He can do, to draw your family members today, to open their ears to hear and understand what the Spirit is saying, to grant them faith and a true turning from sin, and the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.
As you pray, ask for more than a sorrow over consequences or a desire for blessing. Scripture shows the difference between a sorrow that is only about losing something, like Esau who wept because he lost the inheritance but did not truly turn from his sin, and a godly sorrow that works repentance leading to salvation and brings a real change of heart and life. Pray that God would grant that godly sorrow, a genuine repentance where they turn from sin and turn to Christ as the only way, the truth and the life.
Remember the heart of the Father in the story Jesus told. A son deliberately turned his back on his father and was lost by his own choice, dead to that relationship. Yet the father waited, ready to forgive, and when that son came to himself and returned saying Father I have sinned against heaven and before you, the father ran to him, put the best robe on him and a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet as a son and not a servant, and ordered rejoicing. There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, and the same joy fills the Father's house when the lost are found. That is the grace held out to your loved ones and to any who have strayed from the truth.
Continue to contend for the faith once delivered, to learn the elementary teachings of Christ and build on that foundation, and to pray for protection from sin and temptation and evil and the evil one, that you and your family would be kept in His ways. He is faithful to keep those who trust Him, and He gives a peace that guards hearts and minds in Christ Jesus as we make our requests known to Him.
It pleases God when we pray for all people, for those we love and even for enemies, because He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth. He has opened the door of salvation to every person, and He sent His Son to seek and to save the lost. So we can confidently ask Him to do the work only He can do, to draw your family members today, to open their ears to hear and understand what the Spirit is saying, to grant them faith and a true turning from sin, and the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of sins.
As you pray, ask for more than a sorrow over consequences or a desire for blessing. Scripture shows the difference between a sorrow that is only about losing something, like Esau who wept because he lost the inheritance but did not truly turn from his sin, and a godly sorrow that works repentance leading to salvation and brings a real change of heart and life. Pray that God would grant that godly sorrow, a genuine repentance where they turn from sin and turn to Christ as the only way, the truth and the life.
Remember the heart of the Father in the story Jesus told. A son deliberately turned his back on his father and was lost by his own choice, dead to that relationship. Yet the father waited, ready to forgive, and when that son came to himself and returned saying Father I have sinned against heaven and before you, the father ran to him, put the best robe on him and a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet as a son and not a servant, and ordered rejoicing. There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, and the same joy fills the Father's house when the lost are found. That is the grace held out to your loved ones and to any who have strayed from the truth.
Continue to contend for the faith once delivered, to learn the elementary teachings of Christ and build on that foundation, and to pray for protection from sin and temptation and evil and the evil one, that you and your family would be kept in His ways. He is faithful to keep those who trust Him, and He gives a peace that guards hearts and minds in Christ Jesus as we make our requests known to Him.
