Every day I come across so many lost people.
So many beautiful people who are just so far away from God in their own experience yet it's so frustrating because God is so near to them.
Who is praying for them?
Prayer for the lost is mission.
Prayer for the lost is vital.
So vital that God says this.....
"And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him." (Isaiah 59:16)
God here is seeing no- one interceding for the lost! In fact he says therefore his arm brought salvation to the lost.
Of course he is referring prophetically to Jesus Christ here.
One of the reasons he had to send Jesus was that there was no intercessor?
God really wants his people praying.
The salvation of this world really depends on it.
So why does the church so often relegate prayer to some back shelf place in the scheme of it's mission?
You hear comments like, "Well I can't do much else but I can always pray!" or "the house bound people in our church are praying while we do other stuff."
Prayer meetings are often Poorly attended, even discarded.
"I'll pray for you!" often resonates around the draughty corridors of Christianity.
You get a kind of picture that prayer is a bit of an afterthought? Especially praying for the lost.
God says where are the intercessors!
Wow!
That sounds like a challenge! A challenge I think we need to hear in the now.
I've just been speaking to a young girl from the city here in Durham. She is right now, as I speak, hammered with drug addiction. She looks like shes just hit a fix. She is pregnant, she is vulnerable and in danger, she is alone, lonely, and lost. She comes into the Salvation Army everyday for a cheese toastie.
Everytime she comes in she writes a prayer card out.
The prayers she writes out are not your normal prayers.
They are deep cries from the heart.
They are pleas out of the dark mess of vulnerability and mistreatment.
They are not the language of a lovely warm big-cheeked Christian grandma (I'm not talking about you mum) The words are the language of the lost, and some of that language is not very pleasing to the reformed ear.
But they are intercessory. The lost crying out to God whether they know it or not.
And God hears their cry.
She's praying for herself in a way.
But where are the intercessors?
Where are we Christians?
Are we bringing our pleas on behalf of the millions of people who are trapped in all kinds of hellish traps?
Where are we?
Are we feeling the desperate cries of a lost nation? Do we bring them to Jesus?
Are we feeling their pain?
The thing about praying for the lost is that it doesn't seem like we are making headway.
Yeah, in the natural realm sometimes it's hard to see results of prayer.
So?
The thing is prayer is supernatural. But has an effect on the natural world. It's necessary because God has raised the Church to be his hands and feet.
Being Gods hands and feet and eyes I might add, means work.
Hard work.
Prayer for the lost is hard work.
It is about looking beyond ourselves, our church issues, our self indulgence.
And it's not up to a chosen few. We all have a responsibility to chip in.
In fact if God deems it important enough to send Jesus because one of the reasons is that no-one was praying for the lost? I guess enough said?
Imagine a Church on it's knees crying out for the nations, for the needy. We hear guys with a microphone on stages imploring us to pray and what could happen if we pray. A favourite line of loads of speakers is "every great revival was birthed in prayer."
Yeah?
That's cool information.
They are right of course.
So where are the intercessors?
I looked into the eyes of this poor wrecked slip of a girl. O how she needs God. God I look into her eyes and almost see hands reaching upward to be picked up.
It moves me to my knees.
I love it when my two year old grand daughter puts her arms up to me when she is crying. You know the way kids do? I just cannot resist picking her up and holding her tight.
Listen. No matter what we see in a person. No matter how much they have hurt us, no matter how far from God they are, whatever religion they are, whatever race, whatever social standing, whatever they look like, smell like or speak like. That is what God must feel he wants to pick everyone up and just hold them tight.
And we can take them into those arms as we pray for the lost.
I kind of implore those who read this today. And believe me I am challenging myself too.
Let's bring the masses to God in prayer.
Let's trust that God will touch the nations through an outpouring of passion and compassion for those whom we have been sent to reach.
Let's allow the love and compassion of God to move us to our knees.
Whoever is reading this now? You are amazing! God says so.
