Parents should pray early, often for children’s salvation, consultant says_82304

Posted: 8/20/04

Parents should pray early, often for
children's salvation, consultant says

By Sarah Farris

BGCT Summer Intern

KELLER–Parents should begin praying for their children's salvation before the youngsters even understand right and wrong, a Texas Baptist women's evangelism consultant told a Hispanic women's convocation.

Debra Hochgraber and her husband, Dennis, pastor of Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church in Dallas, have prayed for their children their entire lives. And because they prayed the children would understand and be convicted of sin, God brought the children to a personal understanding of Christ at a young age, she said.

Hochgraber, Women Reaching Texas consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, spoke on “Interceding for Our Children” at the annual Hispanic women's conference, Celebrando la Mujer Hispana, in Keller.

When her oldest daughter was 4 years old, Hochgraber worried the girl's love for her father and desire to please him could lead her to make a premature decision about accepting Christ, without knowing what it meant.

Her husband suggested that rather than praying for their daugheter to become a Christian, they pray specifically that she would be convicted of sin.

Hochgraber admits she was skeptical about the idea of a 4-year-old being convicted of sin. “What could she have done?” she asked.

One day, when the girl was still very young, she told her parents she had asked Jesus to come into her heart because she had done some bad things that needed to be erased. When pressed, she admitted she had hit the little boy next door and pinched her baby sister.

The little girl said she and God had talked and “everything is OK now.”

Hochgraber equipped mothers to pray for their children's salvation through personal testimony and seven prayer principles, based on “Praying the Heart of God” by Ted Elmore.

“Pray for the person by name, and pray specifically.” By understanding the things that make a child unique, parents can be better equipped to pray for them, she said.

“Pray for conviction.” Parents should pray the words of the Bible, she said. “When we pray God's will, he hears. So pray his words.” She offered John 16:8-11 as a good passage for praying for someone's salvation.

“Pray for spiritual blindness to be removed, and the enemy's strongholds to be demolished.” A stronghold, she said, is a pattern of thought, a value, a behavior or an ideology that sets itself in opposition to the will and word of God.

“Ask God to restrict the activity of the enemy in their life and soften their hearts toward the gospel.”

“Pray for ears to hear, faith to believe and the will to respond.”

“Pray for laborers to be sent to share the gospel.”

“Pray as God leads.”