Praying For the Salvation
of Your Close Loved Ones
 er all of the articles we have discussing the different prayer strategies you can take
with the Lord, and some of the conditions that He is looking for in order to answer more of your personal
prayers - without question, the number one prayer request that each believer should be putting at the top of
their personal prayer list with the Lord has to be that each one of us pray for any of our unsaved loved ones.
Your unsaved loved ones would be all of your immediate family members and all of the close, personal friends
or acquaintances that you may have in your life.
We can obviously pray for complete total strangers, but what makes praying for all of our immediate family
members and close friends and acquaintances so special with the Lord is the direct personal connection that
we already have with each one of them.
As a result of this direct personal connection that you already have with each one of them, you will have a much
stronger desire to pray for each of them than you would have with a complete total stranger - and that
stronger desire and passion that you will be showing in your prayers to God the Father may be the exact
thing that will get Him to want to move on each one of them before they die and depart from this life.
One very special area in this realm is that every single Christian mother and father should be praying for all
of their unsaved children. Below I will give you a very dramatic and powerful testimony of a man who was literally
spared going down into the pits of hell as a direct result of all of his mother's continued prayers for him.
We all only have one chance, one window, one opportunity in the big-picture, eternal scheme of things to
be used by the Lord to get other people saved in this life before we leave this life to be with Him for all of
eternity. And with all of us only having this one short window to be able to do this with the Lord, every
single one of us should make it our absolute top priority to pray to God the Father that He move mightily on
any of our close loved ones who are not yet saved through the blood of His Son Jesus.
When you really stop and think about the big picture we are all dealing with - the number one thing that we
should all be focused on is our eternal salvation in the Lord. All of the money we will ever make in this life, all
of the personal possessions we will be able to buy with that money, all of the successes we may have in the
different jobs we may take, and all of the personal friends we will end up making in this life will all be for
naught if we do not accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior before we die and depart from this
life.
Not one ounce of all of the money you will make in this life, and not one ounce of all of your personal
possessions will be going with you to the other side when you die and cross over. No suitcases will need to be
packed on your deathbed. The only thing that will be crossing over to the other side when you die will be your soul
and your spirit. Everything else will be left behind. Naked you came into this world, and naked you will leave this
world.
Once we die and cross over, judgment will then be set on each one of us, and our eternal fates will be forever
decided by the Lord - heaven for the saved and hell for the unsaved! There will be no reincarnation back into this
life to get another chance as the New Agers will try and tell you. We only have one chance in the eternal
scheme of things to accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior - and it can only be made on this side of heaven,
not on the other side.
Granted, God has a set plan and purpose for each person's life. But as we embark on that incredible
journey to fulfill whatever God will be calling us to do for Him in this life, we must never forget that the
number one thing we must always do for Him is to keep our radars up to either witness to someone who may not
yet be saved - and/or pray behind the scenes to God the Father for their eternal salvation if for whatever
reason we cannot reach and witness to them direct.
Your direct, personal, intercessory prayers to the Lord for someone who may not yet be saved may be the
only thing that will end up getting them saved and thus preventing them from being thrown into the pits of a
real, live, living hell where they will be forever tormented day and night with Satan and all of the rest of
his fallen angels.
Now here is a dramatic, bone-chilling testimony from a man who was spared from being thrown into pits of hell
for all of eternity as a result of his mother's continued prayers for him. This dramatic and powerful testimony
will show you how God can actually hear and answer your direct personal prayers to Him for a loved one's salvation
- if only you will be willing to take the time to actually pray for that loved one's salvation in the first
place!
The Testimony of Bishop Curtis Kelley
I had just heard this man's testimony the other day on one of the Christian TV stations. This man's name is
Bishop Curtis "earthquake" Kelley. He now has his own church in Hollywood, California. He specializes in dealing
with the worst of cases in his area due to the kind of past he grew up in.
Long story short, he had a very strong praying mother who was always preaching the Word to him, anointing his
head with oil to protect him when he was running wild out in the streets in his early years, and telling him that
he would be preaching the gospel when he got older.
Curtis said he was always running from this call as a young man. When he was 4 years old, he heard a voice tell
him that he did not have to wait for his brothers to lead him to the drugs that could get him high. This voice told
him that he could get to these types of drugs much sooner. As a result of listening to this demonic voice over the
following years, he became fully hooked on cocaine at the actual age of 10!
When he turned 15, the demonic voice came back to him and told him that he could get a bigger and better high
than what he was getting from just using the cocaine by itself. The voice told him he could mix the cocaine with
some of the other drugs he was using to get that bigger and more intense high.
Again, not realizing what he was dealing with, he went ahead and mixed the cocaine with the other drugs and he
immediately overdosed. He was at a bar when this happened. He was then given some alcohol to top the drug mix he
had just taken. He then told some of the people in the bar to take him home.
As he was in this overdosed condition from this lethal mixture, he literally saw demonic spirits coming out from
underneath the bar floor. They started to grab and pull on him. When he got into the car, they were then able to
literally drag him out of his body and into an actual pit in hell itself.
He said the demons then started to do horrible and evil things to him in this pit. But right in the middle of
this horrible torment and torture being done to him by these demons, a "hand of light" all of a sudden
appeared, grabbed him by his shoulders and pulled him back up into his body. After he was pulled back into his
body, another voice came to him and said:
"Because of your mother's prayers, you were spared."
Shortly after that experience, he went to a church. The pastor called him out from the back of the church and he
then received his salvation from the Lord. He later became a professional boxer and then a pastor of the church he
now has. This man has now written a book on his ordeals and you can order it direct from his website if you would
like to hear the rest of his testimony. His website address is - www.earthquakekelleyministries.org. The title of
the book is - "Bound to Lose, Destined to Win."
As you are listening to his testimony, the thing that he kept repeating was that a strong praying mother
has the power to turn their sons and daughters back to the Lord with their strong prayers to Him. He said the only
reason he is alive today and not burning in the pits of hell is all due to the powerful prayers of his mother on
his behalf to the Lord.
His testimony just cuts right through you like a knife when he gets to the part of the hands of light coming
right down and pulling him back into his body from the pit of hell he was in - and then telling him that he was
spared this final horrible fate as a result of his mother's continued strong prayers for him to the Lord. His
dramatic testimony shows how powerful and important it is that all parents keep praying for their children,
no matter how far off the track they may be, and no matter how hopeless and dire their situation may appear to them
in the natural.
He said he was as wild and messed up as you can be, but yet the power of God was able to come upon him and set
him completely free, which was all as a direct result of his mother's continued prayers for him! His testimony
shows very graphically and very vividly how the power of intercessory prayer can help set a captive completely and
totally free from the clutches of pure evil.
Conclusion
With the above testimony showing you how powerful of a thing it really is that we all pray for the salvation of
all of our loved ones, my personal recommendation is that you take an index card and write down all of the names of
your close love ones who are not yet saved.
Pray for each one of them as the Holy Spirit leads, even if it means staying with them for 10, 20, 30 years or
more. Some people will literally get saved on their death beds. I would pray for their eternal salvation to the day
they die, as you never know when the Lord will move on them based upon your direct, heartfelt, personal prayers to
Him.
I do not believe you can "over-pray" to the Lord or pray in vain on these types of extreme situations. You will
not be bugging, bothering or pestering God with your continued and repeated prayer requests that He move on them in
a mighty way to get them saved before they die. In fact, I believe God will really be moved and touched by your
continued prayer requests, and this constant wrestling and prevailing with Him may be what will get
Him to eventually make that move on your close loved one like He did on the above testimony.
The above testimony is a perfect example of God actually moving to save this young man's eternal life - and this
was all as a direct result of his mother's continued, passionate and intense prayers to Him to save her son in the
first place.
I would play it out with each one of your unsaved loved ones until the last pitch has been thrown in the bottom
of the ninth inning, which will be when they die and depart from this life. Sometimes games are actually won in the
bottom of the 9th inning, with two outs left and one strike left to throw.
Again, if no one else is praying for any of your unsaved loved ones, your direct personal prayers to the
Lord for their eternal salvation may be the only thing that will end up getting them saved before they die and
depart from this life - and there will be no greater act of love that you can do for another human being than to be
able to be used by the Lord to save that soul from a life of eternal torment and punishment.
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Michael Bradley
Bible Teaching and
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Lessons
Scripture taken from New King James
Version.
Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005-2008 by Michael Bradley.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
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