Loving and Praying for the Lost

How we pray is shaped by why we pray. Jesus warned us not to pray like those who heap up many words, imagining they will be heard because of how fervent or intense they sound, as if our praying could move God. Notice that when Scripture says the effective prayer of a righteous person accomplishes much, the weight falls not on the fervency but on who is praying, the righteous. And the power made available is not added to God; God's power does not grow because we pray. Rather, we grow into God's power when we pray.

For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.

Matthew 6:8

So here is a truth worth sitting with: we do not pray to move God. We pray so that God can move us. We do not pray to increase God's power over a situation, but to increase in God's power within it. When you grasp how far ahead of you God already is, and that prayer is how you catch up to where He is, you will find yourself talking with Him constantly, not to twist His arm, but to be brought into step with His heart.

Then Why Pray for the Lost?

This raises a hard question. If prayer does not move God to act, then why pray for the lost at all? Let me lay down a few facts. You do not love the lost more than God does. You do not want them saved more than He does. Someone already gave His life so that they could be saved, and that someone was not you. It was God, and He moved to save them long before you ever arrived on this planet.

So your prayer is not what finally persuades God to care about your lost child, your drifting spouse, your distant friend. Which makes the question sharper, not softer. Some of us know this ache personally. You raised your children in the faith, did your imperfect best, and today they are far from God. You married someone who once led fellowship and prayed with you, and years later you hardly recognize their heart. You have a sibling, a colleague, a neighbor, kind and good and completely lost, carrying life in their own strength. You have spoken and spoken, and nothing. How do you pray for them in a way that actually bears fruit?

Could it be that the reason we see so little fruit is that we have been praying for the lost with the wrong reason, which produces the wrong kind of praying?

The Question the Samaritan Reversed

The parable of the Good Samaritan gives us the clearest hint. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once reflected on why the priest and the Levite passed by the wounded man. We imagine they were busy, or bound by religious duty. But, he suggested, the deeper reason may have been fear, for the road to Jericho was dangerous and winding, perfect for an ambush.

The first question that the priest asked, the first question that the Levite asked was, 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?' But then the Good Samaritan came by, and he reversed the question: 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?'

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

That reversal is everything. And notice why the Samaritan could ask it. The wounded man had been stripped and beaten unconscious. In those days you identified a stranger by his clothing or his accent, and this man had neither. He could not be labeled a Jew, a Roman, or a Samaritan. He was simply a nobody on the ground. And the Samaritan, who had spent his whole life being treated as a nobody, an outcast, an unwanted half-breed, looked at this man and saw himself.

He stopped because he knew what it meant to be invisible, to be voiceless, to be helpless and to know that unless someone stopped, it was over. So he came near and, in effect, said: I see you. I hear you. Nobody wants you, but I want you. I know what helplessness feels like, and I will help you. He poured out his own oil and wine, tore up his own clothing for bandages, spent his own money, and gave two days of his journey to a stranger, not to earn a reward in heaven, but because he could not bear to watch happen to another what he knew all too well himself.

The Problem Is How We See Ourselves

Many of us remember when we first came to Christ, how we burned to see others saved. Then we spent more time among religious people, other priests and Levites, and somewhere the fire cooled. Now the days and years pass, and we see the lost and quietly take the other road. Too busy. Too committed. Too occupied with our own walk to notice that the person in front of us could be us.

This is exactly why God calls us to pray for the lost, so that no matter how long we have walked with Him, we never lose the ability to see ourselves in a lost soul. The problem was never mainly how we see the lost. The problem is how we see ourselves. When we stop praying for them, we start to forget what it was to be lost, forget how God saved us, forget that the same sacrifice that forgave us is the only thing that can forgive them.

Your lie nailed Jesus to the cross just as surely as anyone else's sin did. But for the grace of God, you are no different from the addict, or the person trapped in immorality, or anyone else you might be tempted to hold at arm's length. If we quietly believe we are fundamentally better, then we have not yet been brought with clear eyes to the cross. We have not truly seen how lost we ourselves were, and how it is only grace that makes us anything at all.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Prayer That Changes the Pray-er

So we pray for the lost until our heart and God's heart for them become one and the same, until we see them the way He sees them: robbed by sin, left dying, and yet deeply loved and already provided for in Jesus. Praying for the lost is how God changes us, so that through us He can reach them. And here is the sobering wonder of it: without you, God has chosen not to reach a certain lost person, and yet until God first reaches you, you are of little use to Him in reaching anyone.

And when we do pray for them, let us pray the way Jesus prayed, announcing the goodness and blessing of God over their lives. It is the experience of God's kindness that opens a person's eyes to see that He has been on their side all along, not against them. So do not condemn the lost. Bless them. Speak favor and love over them, and keep identifying with them until, somehow, God reaches them through you.

Names Worth Praying For

Remember what is at stake. One day you will close your eyes for the last time. You will no longer need the house, the car, the savings, or the job you worked so hard for; all of it will pass to someone else. But that lost person you bring home, the one you spent hours praying for, the one you spent yourself on, you will never lose. The missionary Jim Elliot said it best.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Jim Elliot

So let me ask: whose name would you write down today? One or two of the lost, to carry before God day and night, to speak blessing and favor over, to identify with until God can reach them through you. Do not expect the prayer to change God; He already loves them and has already given everything to save them. Expect it, instead, to change you, until your eyes are clear, your heart is soft, and you become the kind of person through whom God can bring another wanderer home.