Luke 18:18-43 Salvation is a gift from God. We cannot earn it, and we do not deserve it. Everyone needs to know about this priceless gift, which includes forgiveness of sins and love that lead us into wholeness in this life. The question is, “Who then can be saved?” Anyone who comes to Jesus because the Father has drawn him can be saved.
Is there someone you have been praying for years to be saved and nothing has happened? Things that are impossible with you are possible with God. No man can save a soul, but any man who is led by God’s Spirit can give the gift of salvation to even the hardest heart. The Scriptures tell us he who wins souls is wise. The Holy Spirit needs a voice on earth to share this great gift of salvation with others. He softens the hard heart and prepares it to receive the seed of God’s Word. Your intercessory prayers work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit to remove the obstacles standing in the way of a person’s salvation, obstacles such as religious tradition, wrong beliefs, pride, unbelief, fear and generational bondages. Someone must then deliver the Word to this person, so you also can pray for laborers to be sent to witness to the person. You must, however, pray believing that it is God’s will to save this person.
A lady training me in sharing the gospel with others doubted that it was God’s will to save her son, who was strung out on drugs. She had prayed for him for years and nothing had happened. I read her the verse that tells us that God’s will is that none perish, but that all should come to repentance and the knowledge of His Son. As I shared with her, she confessed her unbelief as sin, and we prayed in faith for her son. One year later a young lady who was visiting Atlanta came up to me after a Bible study I taught in my church. She said, “You do not know me, but you know my mother-in-law. She came with a group of people to train others in sharing the gospel, and she was your trainer. You prayed together for her son. I am her new daughter-in-law. Before I married her son he was delivered from drugs and committed his life to Jesus Christ.”
Another lady shared with me that she had been praying for her father’s salvation for years. He was now in his eighties. One morning when she was in prayer the Lord spoke to her heart, “Do you fear that your father will not be saved before he dies?” She responded with a yes and then confessed her sin of fear to the Lord and asked Him with faith to save her father. Two weeks later she got a call from someone in her home town who shared that her father had responded to the invitation to receive Jesus and was gloriously saved in the church she attended as a child.
Scriptures tell us if we pray anything according to the will of the Father, He hears us and he will grant the petitions we desire of Him (1 John 5:15). You can rest assured that when you pray for the unsaved to be saved, you are praying according to God’s will. This morning with faith and no fear pray for those who need to receive the gift of salvation.
READ: Joshua 15:1-63; Luke 18:18-43; Psalm 86:1-17; Proverbs 13:9-10
