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Peter 3:1-2 Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that
even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the
conduct of their wives, when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied
by fear. NKJV
I must admit that this verse of Scripture is a
rebuke to me because of the disposition it puts forth that has the ability to
lead a lost soul to Jesus Christ our Lord. I all too often think that if I do not
have just the right word from Scripture to say and in the right way to a
specific person that I have failed miserably. Or I will desire to leave a
gospel track and then pray that God would use it to pierce the heart and
repentance and faith would take place. It rebukes my often half-hearted prayers
for people that need Christ and my impatience in persistence in fervent prayer.
I know that this word is true because it comes from God the Holy Spirit through
Peter and surely Peter was speaking also of a truth that he had witnessed
personally along his pilgrimage. I don’t think Peter is saying here that a
person can be saved apart from hearing a clear gospel message and it being
energized by God the Holy Spirit, but he is saying that much heart softening
can be accomplished by a person living their life daily in reverence and awe of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
I heard the following testimony that sums up every
word spoken above by the great Apostle Peter and it goes as follows: A woman
and her husband both were lost but the woman heard the gospel and got saved and
loved our Lord Jesus dearly and lived in said reverence and awe before her
unsaved husband day after day for many years. She would daily pray for his
heart to be softened to hear the gospel for years. She would walk to Church
every time she went and her dog would follow her there and sit underneath her
seat during the service. Her husband despised her new found love for the Lord
Jesus Christ and did not like sharing her affections with Him and it would make
him very angry but he observed her chaste conduct and her submission to him as
head of the house was much more evident after she knew the Lord.
Well, the woman became ill with some disease and she
prayed for healing and fought the disease with all that she had but one day
lost her battle and went to be with our Lord. Well, the husband was grieved and
saddened for a long time after her death but he noticed that their dog would
leave the house every Sunday at the same time and come back at the same time
each Sunday. Finally, one day he decided to follow the dog and find out where
he was going for this time period. He followed and found the dog would go to
the Church and sit under the same seat that his wife sat in every time and he
went and heard the gospel and was saved (born again) all because of a wife who
loved him so much that she prayed every day for his salvation and our Lord
Jesus Christ answered her prayer after her death.
Psalm
143:1 Hear my prayer, O LORD, Give ear to my supplications! In Your
faithfulness answer me, And in Your righteousness. NKJV
“You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the
reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with
human beings which will only increase their submissive content to being out of
touch with God. In intercession you bring the person, or the circumstance that
impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that
person or circumstance. Intercession means filling up "that which is
behind of the afflictions of Christ," and that is why there are so few
intercessors. Intercession is put on the line of – "Put yourself in his
place." Never! Try to put yourself in God’s place.
As a worker, be careful to keep pace with the
communications of reality from God or you will be crushed. If you know too
much, more than God has engineered for you to know, you cannot pray, the
condition of the people is so crushing that you cannot get through to reality.
Our work lies in coming into definite contact with
God about everything, and we shirk it by becoming active workers. We do the
things that can be tabulated but we will not intercede. Intercession is the one
thing that has no snares, because it keeps our relationship with God completely
open.
The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul
is patched up; a soul must get through into contact with the life of God. Think
of the number of souls God has brought about our path and we have dropped them!
When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can create
in no other way than through intercessory prayer.” Oswald Chambers
Sincerely in Christ,
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you
Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus
Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and
Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle e-books
now and will be available in a couple of weeks @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod,
Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reader, Kobo, Copia, Gardners,
Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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