How to Pray for Your Unsaved Loved-Ones

Perhaps you've prayed for an unsaved loved-one, but a long time has passed, and they haven't been saved yet.

So maybe now you find you've succumbed to treating it a little bit like you're not in all that much of a hurry for an answer to your prayer; or you've become a bit general and vague in how you pray for them.

But time is slipping away! The Lord is coming with and for His bride. Today is the day of salvation! 

So maybe what we can do is change the way we pray for them. 

When I was still not much more than a teenager I think, I remember reading a small booklet by Corrie ten Boom about how she learned to pray for the lost. 

Instead of just asking God to save them, she used her authority (which believers have been given, to use the Name of Jesus), and rebuked specific demons which were hindering them from coming to the Lord - and then she saw results, she said.

I also recall brother Kenneth E. Hagin telling how he learned to pray a similar way. Instead of repeatedly asking God to save a particular unsaved relative, brother Hagin said he changed the way he prayed for him.

This time he 'claimed' his salvation - and he contended with the devil over it - he laughed, right back at the devil, with the stance of faith he was taking over it - and in just a matter of days his relative got saved!

So one night at a church Connect Group meeting, we decided to do it. 

(Actually, it so happened that I saw a 'vision' of a big red book - bigger than foolscap size - so I told the guys. 

One of the guys went to his room, then came straight back out and said, "Does it look like this?" - and held up a big red ledger book that had been given to him but he'd had no use for.

Perfect! So he wrote on the cover, "The Book of Souls'. In it we wrote the names of specific friends and relatives whom each of us desired to see saved.) 

Then instead of just asking in a general way for God to save them (like perhaps some of us had already done in the past), for many of them we prayed in a very specific way.

First, we 'claimed' their salvation. 

Then, we rebuked specific spirits which we felt were hindering them from coming to the Lord. That was something 'we' did - not something we asked God to do. 

Then we just thanked God for it, like God was now on it - in fact, like it was already done.

The very next Sunday, the friend I'd prayed for told me he was coming to church with me that morning - and I didn't even have to ask him! 

Another member of our group prayed for his family-members. Within just a few days his mother, brother and sister came to church and got saved. 

As each person got saved, we wrote a tick ✓ beside their name. We were on a real roll! 

Has everyone we desired to see saved been saved? No, not yet. (With some cases, for some people, a different kind of prayer might be necessary - like the prayer of intercession, perhaps - or some other kind of prayer.) But for many whom we felt led to pray for in this way, it made all the difference - often an immediate difference!

(I've prayed this way for believers who seemed to have drifted away from fellowship too, over the years - and often, the very next Sunday he or she was back in church! 

We can pray for finances the same way too. Instead of just asking God for it, 'claim' the amount you need; 'command' the devil to take his hands off your money - then by faith confess that the angels of God have been sent forth on your behalf and are causing the money to come in.)

Pray for your unsaved loved-ones like this:

"Father, I claim _______ 's salvation [name him/her]. 

I rebuke any spirit(s) which may be hindering him/her, in Jesus’ Name! [name the hindering spirits or hindering issues or circumstances, if you've discerned them]."

Then just thank Him for it!

"...Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mark 11:22-24).

"And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. 

Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full...

...At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: 

For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God" (John 16:23-24,26-27).