Pray for the Lost: Week of July 18
What?
Every day pray that unbelievers in your immediate sphere of influence, your community, and around the world would come to saving faith in Christ.
Why?
We were all subject to sin, floundering in chaos, destruction, and darkness. But God, by sheer grace, “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6) so that we might have new life in him. So why would we — or how could we — hide the light of the gospel and keep it to ourselves? In praying for the lost, we are beginning to allow that light to shine and trusting that God really does desire that all should be saved (1 Tim 2:4), that he really does pursue sinners, and that he can soften even the hardest of hearts.
How?
The motivation to pray for unbelievers ought to arise out of gratitude for what God in Christ has done for us. We do well, then, to meditate on his saving work in our own life first — recounting, as the Apostle Paul sometimes did (see Acts 22:1-21, Acts 26:1-18; 1 Cor 15:9; Phil 3:1-11), our past bondage to sin and current freedom in Christ. We remember that we did nothing to contribute to our salvation but that God drew us to himself because of his abundant love. This places us in the perfect position to request that he do the same for others.
But how exactly should we frame our prayers? What should we pray for? Scripture guides us on that point, and these resources draw out a number of biblical principles to shape our prayers:
