Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Brother. Your site is such a blessing to me.

My question is can we have an impact on someone’s salvation through our prayers? I have always believed that we could, after all, Jesus said to ask anything in His name and it will be done, it’s certainly in His will and two or more have prayed and claimed it. I just read your response to “Can we save the dead” and now I am wondering if my prayers will help.

I have two daughters, neither of whom are believers. I have spoken in depth with my oldest and she just doesn’t “buy into” Jesus. I pray that they will come to know the Lord before the Rapture. I admit that I am not always a great example to them, I am impatient and do other sins that I ask God to forgive me of. The problem is they don’t see that I am forgiven and redeemed at the cross – they only see me as an imperfect person. But, all this aside I am a loving, frustrated mother.

I am a totally born again, sold out to God Christian. I know in my heart that Jesus is coming back soon. I dream about being able to boldly witness to the many people that God puts on my heart but when the time comes I just lose courage. So what I do is pray for their salvation instead. I am so discouraged about this. I do not want to stand before the Lord and have Him say that since I was ashamed of Him, he is ashamed of me. I would appreciate your counsel and prayers about this.

Where should a church be drawing the line in the use of visual arts in Christian worship?

Our worship director indicated that he is going to be bringing more visual arts into worship so that there are additional means for the range of worshipers to express themselves in worship since some make connections visually. He thinks our church is too focused on head knowledge and not enough on expressive worship.

When we came to Christ, we were thrilled to have a church where the Word of God of God and the Holy Spirit were the focus. One concern is whether the Word will be de-emphasized in any way through this move to the visual or the senses.

I don’t want to be overly dogmatic because I love expressive worship. I know we are cautioned about visual representations in worship through the second commandment. But honestly, I don’t know where the line should be drawn in this area. What are your thoughts?