“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.” Because it’s God’s “desire that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1, 4

God invites us to be a part of his emergency rescue team to help save his lost children. That happens when we “go”, but we forget that it happens when we pray as well. In fact, a strong case could be made that we need to do the work of prayer before we do the work of going. [If you haven’t already done so, I’d encourage you to check out the last two Petra sermons on this topic. This article is simply a reminder and an expansion of those thoughts.]

How can our prayers help to bring people to Jesus?

#1. We can plead with God on their behalf.

This word, de’-as-ses (1162) comes from the word that means “to desire, long for, or to beg.” This is a fervent emotional request to God to intervene. Here’s some examples.

• The man with leprosy pleaded with Jesus to heal him
• The father pleaded with Jesus’ disciplines to heal his boy
• Zechariah pleaded for God to heal his wife’s infertility
• Paul pleaded to God to save his people Israel
• Even Jesus pleaded with the Father with loud cries and tears

God does supernaturally intervene in this world, but he does so in partnership with people. Your desperate pleadings with God move him to intervene in the lives of those aimlessly wandering. They aren’t even aware of their collision course with disaster, but you can plead for him to intervene.

#2. We can invite God into their lives.

This word, pro-seuche (4335), is the most generic word for prayer—at all times, in all places, and for any reason. The idea is that we are inviting God in. We don’t want him to be standing on the outside; we want him in here with us—present in our situation.

If you’re like many people, so many of our prayers are focused on ourselves; on our own business, or our own needs. But as God’s servants, we have the opportunity to invite him into other people’s lives, even when they haven’t invited God into their lives (sly smile). So we can pray that God inconveniently shows up in their conversations. We can invite God to fill them with an incredible hunger for him. We can pray that he surprise them with his goodness and compassion.

I just heard of a nurse who, though she wasn’t interested in a conversation about spirituality, broke into tears because her patient shared a prophetic word the Lord gave him for her daughter. The word was so relevant and timely that she had an encounter with the compassionate God. Eventually, she later gave her life to Jesus. Prayer opens the door for those kind of miraculous conversations.

#3. We can negotiate with God for their lives.

This word, enteuxis (1783), was only used twice in the New Testament. In the second reference it speaks of meat that had been sacrificed to a demon, was prayed over by a Christian, then became holy to the Lord and ready for digestion. What!? Think about that one!

By our “negotiations” we can move things from being committed to demons to being committed to God. To be clear, God is not the evil that these people are being rescued from. He is the one rescuing them from the evil. However, in the mystery of prayer, this rescuing process sometimes takes longer than we’d like. This kind of intense-negotiation prayer teaches us not to take “no” for an answer, but to pray until we see the prayers answered.

Recently a friend of mine, who has an adult son, told me that his prodigal son called him, out of the blue, to tell him he just gave his life back to Jesus. After fifteen years of wrestling in prayer for his son, his son came back to Jesus. Those fifteen years were filled with intense negotiations!

#4. We can Thank God for them.

So how exactly does thanksgiving help people get saved? It’s a bit of mystery; there’s something in thanksgiving prayer that receives them as a gift--not only for who they are, but for who God designed them to become.

Thanksgiving is the same word, eucharistia (2169), some Protestant denominations use for communion—the Eucharist. By receiving a person, with thanksgiving in prayer, you are unwrapping the gift of their limitless potential, just as Jesus unwrapped his own body as a gift for all of us.

Summary
These four prayers are the tools God gives us to move people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Don’t forget to use them—Jesus did. Farmers used different tools to plant, tend, and harvest their crops, and these are the tools the Apostle Paul gave us to pray for the revival of our communities and the people we are trying to reach.

Tags: prayer, salvation, thanksgiving, invite, revival, harvest, persevere, give thanks, negotiate, plead