I am so excited for this topic. As I was finishing up the end of the strife series, I was in prayer and felt led to switch over to the subject of prayer. This is one of my favorite topics, spending time with the Lord. There’s such a burning passion of prayer within me. I’ve spent a lot of time with the Lord learning to listen to Him and taking direction from the Holy Spirit. I can’t wait to share what I’ve learned.
The Bible says in 1 John 4:16 NKJV
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
and in 2 Peter 3:9 NKJV
Lord is… not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
God is love, and His desire is that all should spend eternity in Heaven. If you want to experience powerful Holy Spirit prayers in your life, this is the first place to look! Loving people, even people you don’t know, enough to pray that they make it to Heaven is understanding the true heart of God.
Praying for The Lost – The Challenge I, like most people, prayed, “God save — from their sins,” and then I would yammer on how they needed saved, as if the Lord needed convincing. Hehe One day I was challenged in my prayer life. I was asked why I am praying for someone “to be saved.” I responded with the obvious answer, “so they go to Heaven.” I was questions about what I meant when I said, “Lord, save them.” Upon deep reflection, I realized I didn’t know exactly what I was asking God to do, and just repeating what I heard everyone else say. Then it was explained to me that if I thought more about it, I was saying that Jesus didn’t do enough on the cross and this person needed something more, or I was asking God to force a salvation choice upon a person. I disagreed! Because of my teenaged shallow thinking, trust me, I never got that far! The challenge continued, it’s not the lack of saving ability that they’re missing, but the lack of knowledge or lack of belief in God. “NO!” I protested. “How did everyone you prayed for get saved? Did they just randomly get saved?” the questions were posed. That’s easy, I knew the answer, “I prayed for them to be saved!! Then I brought them to church and then they gave their life to the Lord at… the… alter… call. Oh…” They all got saved at the alter call after hearing the good news. I was in shock. “Right, they got saved because they heard and believed the good news.” They were completely right! My mind started going over scripture. They preached Jesus, people gave their life to Jesus. No one ever prayed “save them,” or anything of the sort. The gospel means “good news,” and they’re missing the revelation of it. My mind was blown. It would take me days of mediation and prayer to warm up to the idea that I had had been taught very wrongly.
Acts 2:22, Peter starts off by telling them, “hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth,” and then proceeds to preach the gospel, the good news! After he’s done preaching, in verse 40, he tells them to, “Be saved,” and then verse 41 says, “those who gladly received his word were baptized… about three thousand souls.” All without anyone praying, “God save them, because…”
One more! Acts 4 in verse 2 Peter and John were teaching, “the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.” Of course the officials were mad and imprisoned them, but it was too late! In verse 4 it says, “many of those who heard the word believed… number… about five thousand.” They heard the gospel and believed, again no one prayed, “God save them!” You might say that we don’t know that they didn’t pray it. Well, we don’t have evidence that they actually did!
After I threw that style of prayer out, I needed to learn a new way to pray. I focused on the two problems of why people have not given their life to Christ.
1. They don’t know anything about Jesus and salvation.
2. They don’t believe what they heard.
Through years of praying and listening to the Holy Spirit’s directions, I have some prayer points that I am excited to share with you. There is a printable PDF below to help you get started. They are written in short sentence fragments with explanations of what they mean here on the blog. There is extra room for you to write your additions and what the Holy Spirit speaks to you. I want your prayers to be heartfelt, creative, and your own, as opposed to me pushing you towards boring cookie-cutter prayers.
Holy Spirit speak to them in their quiet times. Name some quiet times: car, shower, toilet, golf course, work, shopping. You might think, golf? If one plays golf, pray it over everyone. If someone should happen upon the golf course prayers are waiting for them!
Every thought comes to the conclusion you are God. If they think about a pencil, a pencil came from wood, the wood from a tree, a tree came from a seed, a seed came from… God!
Prepare their heart to receive the gospel. This where to pray over their ground: rocks, roots, weeds, and seeds not of God be removed. Soften the ground so their heart is prepared to receive (Luke 8, Matthew 13).
Magnify the missing space in their life. People that don’t live for Christ often feel like something is missing. We found it for them, Amen! Ask the Holy Spirit to show them the Lord belongs in that space.
Excitement for the name of Jesus. Pray their spirits get excited, even if they don’t know why, and have a desire to know more about Jesus.
Send laborers. We’re all familiar with this, but elaborate, “Lord repeat the words of that laborer in their spirit over and over.” Pray that they feel peace, shalom, and His love as the laborer speaks to them. Quick testimony of this prayer: A Christian lady’s daughter was in jail for drugs. She would call her mother on the phone and ask her to pray for her over the phone in jail, because listening to her mother’s prayers were the only way she would feel some peace. She had not given her life to the Lord at that point, but her spirit could recognize the Lord’s peace. A few weeks later, she gave her life to the Lord. If the Lord did it for her, He’ll do it for others!
Call them to a specific church. Not our church, God’s choice! We can pray they accept an invitation to our church, but ultimately, we want what God wants. A quick side note, there are times people get saved and I think, “No, not that church this other one you went to is better.” We don’t know why they’re called where they are, but we want what the Lord wants.
Ministering angels on assignment. Angels are for those who will inherit salvation (Hebrews 1:14). We don’t often talk about angels. I pray dangerous prayers against the kingdom of darkness. There was a situation where a woman needed to get her life right immediately, so she didn’t die in sin. I was directed by the Holy Spirit to put angels on assignment to “wake her up in the middle of the night and remind her of her sins until she repents.” Months later, she told her son that she had been waking up in the night crying. I was relentless in my prayers. Please don’t do this just because, make sure the situation calls for it. If a family member is out at night with gangs doing drugs, “Angels, wake em up during the day when they sleep! Holy Spirit show them their life is producing death, and you have plans for life. You created them and gifted them for a purpose.” Put warrior angels on assignment for a hedge protection. This is especially good to do for children! We don’t want anyone dying without accepting Jesus.
Know God’s call on their life. They can know when they are unsaved. Quick testimony: Many years ago, a minister told how his mother was praying over him constantly. He was in bar drinking beer and felt the call to be a pastor. He made announcement to everyone in that bar, that he was going to be a pastor. He bought everyone a round of beer to celebrate. He gave his life to the Lord a couple days later and ended up in ministry, never drinking again!
Dreams from Heaven. Get creative in your prayers! Pray they have dreams of walking inside a church, hear preaching in their sleep, following their destiny in Christ, or however the Holy Spirit leads you. Might sound a little wild, but we see in Genesis 28:16, Isaac had a dream from the Lord. He woke up and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” Pray they have dreams that the Lord is real and in their room. Remember, Isaac was not born again. Speaking of, in Genesis 40 we see pharaoh’s baker and butler, who were not saved, “dreamed a dream both of them.” They were very far from being saved, and also the Lord. If He did it for them, He’ll do it for you.
Surround them with God’s love. The Bible says that faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). They need faith to be saved, so ask the Lord to surround them with His love. God’s love is real and tangible. We live with God’s love inside of us, and those of us that have been saved a long time forget what it feels like to be without His love.
Sing songs over them in faith. Psalm 31 has stuck with me for many years. Verse 7 says, “You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.” What a comforting thought that the Lord loves us so much that He is surrounding us with songs of deliverance in our time of need. What a beautiful thing to surround someone else who doesn’t yet know Christ with such a blessing. Pick a song for them and sing. Sometime I change words of songs for them. One of my favorite songs, “O, The Blood.” O the blood of Jesus. It washes white as snow. Keep going… Salvation in the blood of Jesus. Victory in the blood of Jesus. Thank you for the blood of Jesus. Healing in the blood of Jesus. Forgiveness in the blood of Jesus. Don’t know that one? “Amazing Grace” how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like them. They once were lost, but now they’re found. Were blind but now they see. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a song.
I don’t know about you, but my faith is stirred up to pray over the lost. We are victorious prayer warriors in Christ! But on that note, I want to remind you that it’s not our job to save the lost. We share the gospel in love and pray. It’s the Lord’s job to do the work. If they haven’t yet received, it’s not our faith that failed, they’re still a miracle in the making!
You might be like me a few years back wondering, “Who do I pray for? I only know a few people, but…” The Lord told me how to help fill up Heaven. Isn’t that exciting to say? We can fill up Heaven more easily than we think! He told me to get a notebook and write:
– Everyone’s first name that I knew wasn’t saved
– Go to YouTube (my only social media) and write everyone’s username I’m subscribed to that I do not know is saved
– Write names of actors/actresses from shows and movies that I like
– Ask friends and family to write a list of names of people that aren’t saved
– Take the notebook to church, and ask people to write first names of who they are praying for to be saved
When I pray for everyone, I take the notebook and either hold it or put it on my lap. There is no deep spiritual reason. I want to respectfully show the Lord who I am praying for without reading a list of names. Then it’s time to unleash the power of Heaven on everyone. I personally pray over them once a week. If you’re led to do more, that’s great. If you feel led to do less, that’s ok too!
Before printing, while in the print preview, change your printer settings to print borderless.
These are for cutting vinyl stickers on machines like Cricut. There are two more below, one has a shadow, keep scrolling!
I’m excited to invite you back for the next post on prayer. We’re going to talk about inviting the Holy Spirit to pray with you, and how to let Him lead you in powerful prayers. Until next post, be very blessed! Lord lead you and guide you in powerful prayers against the enemy that nobody on your watch will step over into eternity without Jesus. Amen!
Christi
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My Prayer Notebook 
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