"Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved" Romans 10:1
Do you ever get sad about the state of those who do not know God, or who knowingly disobey him. You want to help them, jsut as you would want to stop a child from doing something that might harm him or her. But sometimes people are bent toward their own destruction. Still, we must pray for the lost and the ones who are so confused that they put themseles in peril. It is our Christian duty to pray for them in love. Jesus warns of eternal torment for those who reject Him.
We already see the first reason why we should pray for the lost: People are sinners by nature. Salvation requires an overthrow of what we naturally are. Ephesians 2:3 recalls how that,"We all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others"
Satan is at work in the world. This sounds terribly old-fashioned to the modern mind, but Scripture teaches this repeatedly. For example, Ephesians 2:2: "You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." The sinister influence of the evil one is internal and dynamic. It has an influential and powerful effect upon the person. Other passages teach the same basic premise and add other nuances of insight:
The Bible teaches that the devil has ensnared the lost. Paul tells us what kind of attitude we should demonstrate in dealing with opponents of the Christian message: "In humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will" (1st Timothy 2:25-26). Notice the entrapment: God has to grant repentance because they are so spiritually disabled that they cannot do it on their own. And notice why this is: they are ensnared and taken captive. We know about substance abuse addictions and sexual addictions and gambling addictions; this is an addiction of self enthronement, a God-rejection addiction.
The devil has deceived the lost. "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1st John 5:19). Yhe unbeliever, in the arms of Satan, islulled to sleep, and unaware of their dangerous plight.
The lost have been blinded. "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded" (2nd Corinthians 4:3-4). One of the problems of being lost is that one cannot see the obvious, they simply do not get it. It is not that it is too deep to fathom; it is not a matter of intelligence. It is a spiritual seeing problem. Ever notice how sometimes you can talk to a person and while otherwise they are very friendly and intelligent, when the conversation turns to Christ suddenly they sound like they don't have any common sense?
So we are burdened for someone. What are some things we can pray for them?
We can pray for God to send conviction, that is that they will sense the urgency of their need. At Pentecost, Peter's sermon was interrupted by his listeners, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" (Acts 2:37) Conviction is when God call us to call to account and show us our fault.
We can ask God to send enlightenment. Paul was commissioned by God to go to the gentiles, "To open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me" (Acts 26:18). We can pray that God would call and draw, attracting them to Christ. We can pray that mental strongholds against goodness and God might be pulled down. May their eyes be opened and may they be surrounded by His Love! IN JESUS NAME!
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