Could anyone provide me with verses that pertain to praying for the salvation of someone? I know in Christiandome we do that a lot but I can't seem to find any verses to support it!
Help!
Posted by: Missamae80
Have you searched on Ask?
Posted by: MamaCat
Is that like Ask Jeeves? No I have not done that.
I searched the online Bible a bit but didn't find anything.
Posted by: Missamae80
Yes, its ask jeeves. Just type in what you are looking for and it should lead you in the right direction. You will probably have to search through the sites, but atleast its a starting point. Hope this helps. God bless...
Posted by: Shawn
Here are just a few
Paul said he prays for the salvation of his family.
Rom 9:1 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, Rom 9:2 That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. Rom 9:3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: ...... 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved
Jesus ever lives to make intercession (prayer) for the lost
Hbr 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
God wants all to be saved
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1Ti 2:3 For this [is] good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 2:4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
Posted by: MamaCat
Thanks Shawn, those are pretty close to what I needed.
I just wish I had more specific verses that said something like PRAY FOR A PERSON TO BE SAVED or something like that.
Posted by: Rachel R
'd like to know this, too.
I have had some real doubts about this.
We are commanded to go and we are commanded to tell.
We are to give out the information, but it says that God knows who are his.
It also says that no one can be saved unless the Holy Spirit draws them.
I still pray for people to be saved.
It just seems wrong not to.
But, still, I never could find any commands to do it.
I hope someone has just the right answer for us.
Rachel R
Posted by: MamaCat
I totally agree with exactly what you said Rachel!
We are told to preach and to give and to share and to help and heal the sick, raise the dead, etc., but there isn't any verse I can find that says PRAY FOR THE LOST! Yet we do it all the time.
But shouldn't we pray Biblically and not what 'seems right to us'?
No one is saved apart from God's Spirit, God knows who are His, He knows the end from the beginning and when the time is fulfilled, if someone is pre-destined to be saved, they will be saved.
I know this seems controversial when you bring up topics that are deeply rooted in the church to be so, but I have to ask! I have to know.
I realize God wants all men to be saved, but He also knows they won't. Meanwhile, as we share the good news with everyone, Romans 8:19 says The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
Posted by: akabezalel
I put a sticky thread in the Salvation Forum way back when that contains the verses you need. I transcribed Jerry's notes on how to pray for the Salvation of someone.
Excellent prayers all around, very biblical, very right on, but none of them show me verses that say pray for the salvation of the lost.
I don't believe there are any.
Posted by: sonrise
I was very interested in your question you posed and the resulting dialogue. I love a good challenge so I have searched thru the concordance and there is not one scripture commanding us to pray for salvation as you questioned.
Is it scriptural to pray for salvation? yes. As imitators of Christ, just as He interceded for the lost, so we INTERCEDE for the lost. This is where it gets nit-pickky. Many people pray, "O God save so and so." Yet intercession is to plead a case, or to mediate between two parties. Just like in a court case the lawyer uses the law to mediate between the judge and the client. So I speak God's word back to the Father concerning the person/persons; He has to perform His word because He is not a liar. The "fervent" prayers prayers of the righteous...
The word fervent means effective not how emotional or ardent we are in prayer.
There a difference between general prayer and intercession. So I would say I don't pray for salvation, I intercede. I do believe intercede is the key word here. Does this help? blessings!!!! sonrise
Posted by: eagle4him
Quote:
Originally Posted by MamaCat
Excellent prayers all around, very biblical, very right on, but none of them show me verses that say pray for the salvation of the lost.
I don't believe there are any.
Mama Cat, I hope this helps...
The devil has deceived the lost. "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1st John 5:19). The word for lies pictures a mother holding a baby in her arms. And the this verses pictures the unbeliever, in the arms of Satan, lulled 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. While we, in our natural condition, are turned off by God, He has a way of engineering circumstances that cause us to be drawn to Him. "He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2nd Thessalonians 2:14). Jesus said, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day" (John 6:44)
We can ask God to destroy mental strongholds, to remove the barriers between them and Christ. Being a lost person is hard work. God gives witness to Himself in powerful ways. And the person who doesn't want to turn to Christ has to defend himself against the guilt and feelings of foolishness for rejecting Him. So they build defensive walls to keep those feelings out -- and to keep God from "meddling" in their lives. Some of these wall are made of intellectual rationalizations, some of the memories of bad experiences at church or with people who professed to be Christians. Some walls are made with the bricks of procrastination. But all the walls are a hardened bunker to keep God away. Prayer, however, can penetrate these walls: "The weapons with which we fight are not human weapons, but are mighty for God in overthrowing strong fortresses. For we overthrow arrogant `reckonings,' and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the knowledge of God, and we carry off every thought as if into slavery -- into subjection to Christ" (2nd Corinthians 10:4-5)
--Derek Gentle, Sermon: How To Pray for The Lost baptiststart dot com
Posted by: Christian Commando
Both the Scriptures Shawn gave, plus the others Akabezalel "stickied" up in the Salvation section are directions to pray for lost souls. Ask yourselves this people-
If God was a puppeteer and we were all puppets, He would pick and choose who He wanted saved and do it for them automatically. But, He don't.
Instead, He gives all people a choice to make. You and I may not know who God knows will accept the message of Salvation, but God wants those of His Children to go out and share that message, so that all who God knows will accept, can hear the Truth to be able to make that choice.
Since you and I don't know which ones will, we must do as God declares, and be praying for them. Remember when the Apostle Paul was terribly beaten and left for dead with skull crushed in the dump at Lyster"-(check name and spelling)? The other Apostles came and prayed over his body for God to restore and heal him. He was.
This is why we should pray for others. The only way to accept Salvation is thru the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit for understanding the spiritual nature of this offer. God could fesibly work more on a person, if there are enough people praying effectually for this.
Thus, as said before, those Scriptures actually instruct us to, for the fact Jesus, Paul and others show they did this as well. You might call this an unspoken command of God, for the descriptions of others doing it, but not directly commanded of us to do so.
Besides that, in Jesus' story of the richman and Lazarus, the richman, after dieing and going to Hell, asked Abraham to send others from the dead back to prove to his relatives the dangers in not listening to God.
But, Abraham told him, they already have the Gospel there and people to share with them, if they won't listen to that, they won't to spirits of dead people coming to warn them of it.
Thats why it is important to pray for Salvation for others.