WE MUST NEVER GIVE UP

All over the world today, multitudes of Christian parents agonize because their children are under the devil’s power. In our church, I see the sorrow of mothers who visit their sons in prison. They know the pain of sitting on one side of the thick-glass window, gazing at a boy who once was tender in spirit. Somehow he got hooked on drugs and then attempted a robbery to support his habit. And now he’s in prison, becoming even more hardened. She has prayed for him for years, but now she’s losing hope. She doesn’t think he will ever change.

I also see heartbroken fathers who never dreamed their daughters would turn to drugs. They saw their little girl fall in with the wrong crowd at school and get hooked. Soon she was so rebellious her dad had to ask her to leave the house because of her influence on her siblings. So now she’s on the streets, selling her body to support her habit. And her father lies in bed at night crying a river of tears. He’s convinced he has lost her forever.

I know one father who drove to the slums to try to find his drug-addicted son. He had to ask around until finally a pusher told him the boy was in a crack den. When the man walked into the place, he saw a mere shell of the son he had known. The boy’s body was skeletal from drug use. When the father pleaded with him to come home, the young man wouldn’t even look at him. He just said, “Get out. This is my life now.”

That broken father walked out onto the street in tears. He had lost all hope, agonizing, “That’s my son in there. He’s dying, and he won’t let me help him.”

The devil has told these parents their children are hopeless, that their problems can never be fixed. He has convinced them of a powerful lie—that God is unable to help them.

Maybe you think your unsaved husband is hopeless, that he’ll never come to Jesus. Or, perhaps you have given up hope for your wife, who leaves you at night to go out partying. But no person is ever too far gone for God to fix. I know many Christian spouses who testify today, “I prayed for my spouse for years. Then one day, after I’d given up hope, God broke through. He saved and delivered my loved one.”

We must never give up on anyone. “With God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).