To Encourage You

John 17:20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.”

Do you realize that until the Lord returns there will continue to be people who will believe in Him, i.e., with certainty, there are people who don’t believe right now who will believe in the future?  Maybe you are one of those people.  Right now, you could care less about Jesus, God, the Bible, or any other related thing.  You never think about eternity.  You see it all as a waste of time and energy.  You may believe that God doesn’t even exist.  But you may be one of those who will believe at some point, maybe even today. 

If you are still alive, you may be marked for this – one of God’s elect, one of His chosen one’s from before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4).  That’s exactly what the situation was at one time for every one of those who have believed. They were all in the same camp at one time, rejecters of God, sinners, with no relationship to God whatsoever.  But they have been changed. God spoke to their hearts in some way or other, and it finally dawned on them that they were guilty before God, condemned, and lost without Him.  They realized that they needed Him more than they needed anything else in all the world, and they turned to Him for the forgiveness and eternal life that only He could give them. 

Although you may be one who hasn’t the least thought or affection towards Jesus right now, please know that it is you for whom He has been praying for over two thousand years, since the time he walked on this earth and prayed the prayer of John 17 above.  And if you are a believer, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 shows us that those in our lives whom we love and whom we so desire would turn to Christ for salvation may be some of the very ones included in this prayer.  Any one of them may be one of those who will believe, and they may be one of those who will believe through your word, which is actually the same Word that was given to you and through which you believed. 

Don’t give up praying for them. Don’t give up sharing the Word of God with them. Don’t give up loving them with the love of Christ.  Have hope that these ones, for though they may have absolutely no interest in God right now, they may very well be the ones that are included in “those who will believe” in Jesus through either your word or the word of other believers that God has either already sent or will send into their lives.