This is from Glenn Coon\u2019s Youth Prays\u2013 God Answers.<\/p>\n
One of the questions that is more often asked\u00a0 is this: May we pray with assurance for the conversion of our loved ones?\u00a0 No question sets more hearts in an audience to beating faster than does that.\u00a0 I remember speaking in the Boston noonday meeting, in the old Broomfield Street M E Church, on this subject one week.\u00a0 Perhaps I was speaking rather positively.\u00a0 And at the close of the meeting one day a keen, cultured Christian woman whom I knew came up for a word.<\/p>\n
She said, \u201cI do not think we can pray like that.\u201d\u00a0 and I said, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n
She paused a moment and her well-controlled agitation revealed in eye and lip told me how deeply her thoughts were stirred.\u00a0 Then she said quietly, \u201cI have a brother.\u00a0 He is not a Christian.\u00a0 The theatre the wine, the club the cards\u2014that is his life.\u00a0 And he laughs at me.\u00a0 I would rather than anything else that my brother were a Christian.\u00a0 But,\u201d she said, and here both her keenness and the training of her early teaching came in, \u201cI do not think I can pray positively for his conversion, for he is a free agent, is he not?\u00a0 And God will not save a man against his will..\u201d<\/p>\n
Man is a free agent, to use the old phrase, so far as God is concerned; utterly, wholly free.\u00a0 And, he is the most enslaved agent on the earth, so far as sin, and selfishness and prejudice are concerned.\u00a0 The purpose of our praying is not to force or coerce his will; never that.\u00a0 It is to free his will of the warping influences that now twist it awry.\u00a0 It is to get the dust out of his eyes so his sight shall be clear.\u00a0 And once he is free, able to see aright, to balance things without prejudice, the whole probability is in favour of his using his will to choose the only right.<\/p>\n
I want to suggest to you the ideal prayer for such a one.\u00a0 It is an adaptation of Jesus\u2019 own words.\u00a0 It may be pleaded with much cariety of detail.\u00a0 It is this: deliver him from the evil one and work in him Thy will for him, by Thy power to Thy glory in Jesus, the Victors, name.<\/p>\n
1 Timothy 2:3ASV<\/sub> \u2018God our Saviour, who would have all men to be saved.\u2019\u00a0 This is God\u2019s will for your loved one.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is from Glenn Coon\u2019s Youth Prays\u2013 God Answers. One of the questions that is more often asked\u00a0 is this: May we pray with assurance for the conversion of our loved ones?\u00a0 No question sets more hearts in an audience to beating faster than does that.\u00a0 I remember speaking in the Boston noonday meeting, in … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[11,8],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edmonton-adventist.org.au\/wpcontent\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}