How’s your prayer life? If we’re being honest, most of us probably wish it was better. We know prayer is important, but the quality and/or quantity of our prayers feels inadequate. It’s something each of us needs to figure out.  A victorious Christian life is absolutely impossible without a close connection to the only true source of strength and righteousness.

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We need something big to pray for.

If we’re going to be people of prayer, we’re going to need something to pray for. And it’s going to have to be something big and meaningful and something that only God could do. If all your desires are small and petty, you don’t really need a great prayer life. But if you have a burning desire to see more people know Jesus, you will either develop a strong prayer life to or a deep depression from failure.

 

A passion for the lost pushes us to a life of faith.

A passion for the lost pushes us to a life of faith because we have no way of reaching the lost on our own. Only God can change hearts, so prayer is obviously a necessity. But God also has a part for us to play in helping people know Jesus, and our part is extremely difficult. It’s so hard that without a strong prayer life, we will fail miserably and lose our peace and joy.

 

If we the have the passion and love without the faith, we will become really confused. It will feel like these passions to reach the lost are from God because they are. But if we aren’t strong in prayer, we won’t succeed, and it will be easy to doubt God’s power or the fact that He even cares about the lost at all. We will wonder why God gave us a passion for something that will never happen. It doesn’t make sense.

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People with a passion for the lost all wrestle with these things at some point in life. There are a lot of people in this world who God loves, but who are also headed on a path for eternal destruction. That is hard to reconcile, and it is hard to keep your passion for the lost. Most people give up on their passion, but there is another way: A life of desperate prayer. Our distress over the plight of the lost will either break us until we give up, or it will motivate us to find the only way to succeed: prayer.

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Don’t give up.

Endure. Persevere. Cry out to God for the souls of the lost. Not only will you see God come through, but your faith will be transformed. If you give up, you will have a tiny view of a god who fails and gives people confusing passions that they can’t fulfill. But if you refuse to lose your passion for the lost and persevere in prayer until you see gospel transformation, you will see God bring new life into some of the most hopeless situations imaginable. You will see God for who He really is, the one who relentlessly pursues His loved ones and destroys death with his infinite power.

 

For Reflection:

Matthew 28:18-20, Ephesians 6:18-20, Galatians 6:10, Matthew 17:20