In my travels across the country, I hear mothers and fathers praying that their children would get saved. I hear husbands and wives plead for the salvation of their spouses. At times, the picture looks so dark and the mountains so big.
But praise God! There are some things we can do to see our loved ones won to Jesus.
I'm here to tell you that we, as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, can do several things to see our friends and family members delivered out of Satan's kingdom and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.
The Word says we have authority over all the power of the enemy. So, in the name of Jesus, we need to bind the devil's works in the lives of our loved ones.
Once you have commanded the devil to take his hands off the lives of your loved ones and have bound him from interfering with their coming to God, you must claim by faith the promise of God concerning their salvation.
"And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house" (Acts 16:31)
When you have found what God has said about the matter, begin to put your faith into action by speaking the Word only and acting like the Word is so - even if the circumstances don't change immediately. Begin to do what Romans 4:17 says by calling those things which be not as though they were.
This is What Faith is All About.
Say with your mouth: "Father, Your Word declares that if I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, I shall be saved. I believe on You, Jesus, and I am born again of Your Spirit. Therefore, my household shall be saved also. I thank You for it in Jesus' name. Amen."
If you have another believer to stand with you in faith, you can agree together by saying: "Father, Your Word says in Matthew 18:19 that if two believers agree as touching anything, You will do it for them. My prayer partner and I are agreeing today that my loved ones are saved according to Acts 16:31. We are standing in faith in Your holy Word, and we thank You for answering our prayer. We agree that it's done in Jesus name. Amen."
After claiming your loved ones' salvation according to the Word of God, begin to thank the Lord for answering your prayer of faith. (There is such a thing a a prayer of thanksgiving.)
Don't continue to ask for the same thing over and over again. If you prayed, believing, the first time, then you can be sure He has heard your petition.
First John 5:14-15 says, "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him."
God's will is His Word, and His Word is His will. You have asked according to His will; therefore, believe that He has heard you and that He is already moving on your behalf. From then on, continue to thank Him and give Him praise until you see it manifested in the physical realm. The worse things look, the more you should give praise to God for the answer!
Strong faith, according to Romans 4:20-21, is giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what God has promised, He is also able to perform. By doing this, we are operating in Abraham's and Jesus' kind of faith. This is the kind of faith that gets results.
They Must Hear the Word
Even though you have broken the power of the enemy over your family in Jesus' name and are standing in faith on the Word of God for their salvation, they will never be born again unless they hear the Word of God.
"How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. 10:14,17).
How can men or women have faith in what Jesus has done for them if no one shows them in the Word of God? How are people to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior unless they are first told how? People have to hear the message of Jesus Christ.
Someone might say, "Well I have told my loved ones about Jesus and that they need to be saved, but they just won't listen to me."
That is true. Many times it takes someone outside the family to bring the message to them. This is why Jesus tells us in Luke 10:2, "The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest."
Jesus is telling us to pray that God would cause born-again men and women to cross the paths of our loved ones' lives and to have the opportunity to share this all-important message with them.
See the Word as a seed (1 Peter 1:23). The harvest will not come forth without planting the seed first. In other words, your loved ones need to have the Word of God planted in their hearts by hearing it before they can believe the Word and make confession unto salvation.
Praise the Lord! Once that seed is planted, it will never quit working in them. Isaiah 55:11 says that the Word will not return void unto the Father but shall accomplish that which pleases Him. The Holy Spirit will continue to convict them of their need to be born again until they respond to that conviction and surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers