發信人: figs@fhlbbs (無花果), 看板: believinglife
標  題: How To Win Your Unsaved Loved Ones (6)
發信站: 信望愛團契電子佈告欄 (Tue Oct  3 19:47:50 1995)
轉信站: fhlbbs

$$ "Claiming" Relatives ...... 

    When it comes to "claiming" your family, you have to do some things.
You must train up a child in the way he should go (Peov. 22:6). You must 
bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), teaching
him the Word. Paul said to Timothy, "...from a child thou hast know the 
holy scriptures ..." (2 Tim. 3:15). How did he know them? He had to taught
them by his parents.

    When it comes to an unsaved husband or wife, you can't always claim that 
spouse's salvation. If you could, Paul would have said so when he wrote to 
the church at Corinth.

    What did Paul say ? "And the woman which hath an husband that believeth 
not, and if he be PLEASED to dewell with her, let her not leave him.... But 
if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under
bondage in such cases ..." (1 Cor. 7:13,15).

    "Pleased to dwell with her" (or him) means to live with you as a husband
or wife -- not run around with everybody in the country. If you could always
claim an unsaved loved one's salvation, Paul would have said so right here, 
because he's writing by inspiration of the Spirit.

    Young people trying to minister to their unsaved parents also need to be 
led by the Spirit. I know of children and teenagers who got saved and then 
led their parents to the Lord. On the other hand, I know of teenagers who got
saved and caused a division between themselves and their parents because they 
pushed things too fast and too hard in witnessing.


$$ The Role of the Will .........

    You can be interested in others and be burdened for them, but you can't 
lay down ironclad rules and say, "You can claim somebody else's salvation,"
just because you want everybody to be saved, but the other person has 
something to do with it. A person's will is involed in accepting or rejecting
Christ.

    Once the power of the devil is broken even people -- if they're free to 
make a choice -- they usually will make the right choice. If their mind is
blinded, of course, they can't make the right choice. But as a usual thing,
people will come to the Lord once Satan's power over them is broken. You can't
say it will happen 100 percent of the time, because some people just willfully
won't follow the Lord.

    So we do have guidelines, and most of the time you can discover them by 
studying the Word. Where there are no guidelines, you must depend on what the 
Spirit tells you to do. But check your motives.

    Let the Lord send whom He wills across your unsaved loved ones' paths. 
Some people are more expert at soulwinning than others. I've noticed that
many who are preaching the Full Gospel today didn't get saved in Gospel
circles; they got saved in fundamentalist or other circles. Later they 
began to see the light on the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in 
tongues and moved on into Full Gospel circles.

    The main thing is to get people saved and get them into heavevn! Whether
they ever get healed or not, they can go to heaven if they're saved. In other 
words, you can go to heaven with a sick body, but you can't go to heaven with
a sin-sick spirit. And once you're saved, you can go to heaven whether or not
you have the baptism in the Holy Spirit.

    Salvation is the important thing. 

                               ---- The End ----