The Power of Praying for the Lost

One of the things that we absolutely love to do here at Christianityworks, is to ask our faithful supporters if we can pray for them.

And there’s one prayer request that comes out on top each time – I mean by a country mile!

The single most frequent prayer request that we receive is for the salvation of a loved one – son or daughter, husband or wife, grandchild …

So many people have been waiting for so long for God to save their loved ones. So many have shared the Gospel with them until they’re blue in the face and still … nothing.

If that’s you, I’d like to share an excerpt with you , from a booklet that I wrote some years ago, called The Freedom to Share Jesus with Others:

Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Have you ever tried to assemble a new toy for the kids on Christmas morning? We pick it up, try, fail, get frustrated … and eventually as a last resort, we read the manual.

It’s a bit like that when it comes to praying for the lost. Oh – we know we should pray. But somehow it’s a last resort! Come on – it’s true isn’t it?!

We go out on our mission to share Jesus and we do and we say and we huff and we puff. And … nothing.

Well – it’s time to let the Holy Spirit breathe some  of His freedom into your heart. Here it comes….

If you and I can never do anything more than pray for someone’s salvation, then we’ve already done the most powerful thing that we can possibly do.

Just let that sink in.

Maybe they’re so close that they won’t listen. Or so far away that they can’t hear. But when we pray in faith for that person in secret, we’ve just invited Jesus into that place. And there’s no one in the universe with more passion and more power for winning that lost soul than He.

Not long after Jesus walked into my life I discovered that some friends had been praying for my salvation for eighteen years! Eighteen years!! That rocked me to the core.

Back then I was a tough, “head kicking” businessman – you have to understand that my salvation was totally “mission impossible”. Totally! And yet these days, almost two decades on, every day millions of people across the globe hear my voice on radio and through the internet telling them about Jesus.

Who could ever have imagined that my friends’ 18 years of faithful prayer could pack such a punch?!

Prayer isn’t some half-hearted, last resort. It’s the place where we rest our trembling hand in the gentle, scarred hand of our Saviour, look Him straight the in eye and ask “Lord, will You go out for me and bring home that lost sheep?” 

Sometimes we have a further role to play. Other times not. He knows.

So how long will it take? A week? A month? A year? Eighteen years? Thirty?

In His perfect time. And whatever that is, it’ll be but a drop in the ocean of eternity.

Be encouraged! And just in case you’d like to get your own copy of that booklet, here you go …

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