Question about praying for others salvation

[Riverwalker]

I recently posted a prayer request and was reminded (shame on me) the prayer request site that worthy  has and going though and praying for some of all those prayer requests, (I will return) I was struck by how many people are asking for prayer lost love ones

How do you go about praying for someone's salvation

To my understanding,  Salvation is a issue that is strictly determined by the will of the person to be saved, and God will not violate that free will  to cause a person to believe (obviously I do not hold to Calvinistic thinking but lets please not turn this into THAT discussion)

To my mind we can pray for the person's environment

• To pray for the person to be surrounded by Godly conditions
• To pray for the person to have good and Godly people come into the their life
• For God to shape their course to bring them to the point of decision (predestination) Such as putting stumbling blocks down the wrong path, and making straight the path to the Lord

But in the end the person will choose to follow God or not....and there is nothing we can do, or God will do to change that moment of decision, for it it is the act of reaching out in faith our choice that brings the moment of salvation

I am interested in your take on this issue that effects SO many.  If you are of a Calvin mindset feel free to say so , lets just please not turn this into an Armenism Calvinism Hamster wheel argument (lots of action going no where)

[ladypeartree]

Any prayer is like asking to change someones mind or actions so why not for salvation ?    We are not asking to impose our will onanother person just asking our Father to " nudge " that person in the right direction.   When a parent goes to a teacher to say their cild is having difficulty with .....insert anything here .....    the parent is not asking the teacher to remove the problem but to help the child to either solve the problem with some guidance or to learn how to deal with it same thing applies when we pray 

[Riverwalker]

19 minutes ago, ladypeartree said:

Any prayer is like asking to change someones mind or actions so why not for salvation ?    We are not asking to impose our will onanother person just asking our Father to " nudge " that person in the right direction.   When a parent goes to a teacher to say their cild is having difficulty with .....insert anything here .....    the parent is not asking the teacher to remove the problem but to help the child to either solve the problem with some guidance or to learn how to deal with it same thing applies when we pray 

I am reminded of the old adage " You can bring a horse to water ,but you cannot make him drink"

[ladypeartree]

At least you give the horse the opportunity and the knowledge of where the water is   

Edited March 14, 2022 by ladypeartree

[Dennis1209]

2 hours ago, Riverwalker said:

I recently posted a prayer request and was reminded (shame on me) the prayer request site that worthy  has and going though and praying for some of all those prayer requests, (I will return) I was struck by how many people are asking for prayer lost love ones

How do you go about praying for someone's salvation

To my understanding,  Salvation is a issue that is strictly determined by the will of the person to be saved, and God will not violate that free will  to cause a person to believe (obviously I do not hold to Calvinistic thinking but lets please not turn this into THAT discussion)

To my mind we can pray for the person's environment

• To pray for the person to be surrounded by Godly conditions
• To pray for the person to have good and Godly people come into the their life
• For God to shape their course to bring them to the point of decision (predestination) Such as putting stumbling blocks down the wrong path, and making straight the path to the Lord

But in the end the person will choose to follow God or not....and there is nothing we can do, or God will do to change that moment of decision, for it it is the act of reaching out in faith our choice that brings the moment of salvation

I am interested in your take on this issue that effects SO many.  If you are of a Calvin mindset feel free to say so , lets just please not turn this into an Armenism Calvinism Hamster wheel argument (lots of action going no where)

Good idea to avoid Calvinism, omniscience, and foreordained to prevent arguments. I been there and done that, so to speak.

Our job is planting a ‘seed’ of the Gospel, and it is the Lord’s job from there on out. On what ground that seed lands in a person’s heart will determine their eternal destiny.

The way I view it:

James 5:16 Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. [emphasis mine]

Nothing is impossible with the Lord! There are plenty of biblical examples of the Lord hardening someone’s heart and, conversely, giving someone a heart of flesh. There is no pun intended for my following example.

The infamous Jeffrey Dahmer accepted the Lord Jesus as his personal Savior in prison before being murdered by all accounts and credible sources closest to him. Someone planted that seed and was praying for his soul.

I can personally attest to the power of intercessory prayer in my own life. It is hard to communicate in a language, but I could sense the prayers inwardly. Our prayers are precious to our Lord, so much so He collects and keeps them for answering.

A Christian prayer in the right standing in fellowship with the Lord is continually answered. The answer will be either yes, no, or wait for His perfect timing.

I have unsaved loved ones who concern me deeply. The only tools I possess to change someone’s life is; my testimony, how I conduct my life as a Christ-follower, and praying for their Salvation.

Acts 16:31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

[ayin jade]

I lean towards calvinisn but the Lord knows hearts and who will be saved. I do not know, so it is incumbent on me to view everyone as having the potential to be saved. 

That said, I will pray for someone's salvation and by asking that their hearts/eyes/ears be opened. Sometimes I ask that the Lord send someone to show them the gospel message.

My role is to spread the gospel and pray for people regardless of calvinism or armenianism. I should be better at it though.

 

 

The whole calvinism armenianism hamster wheel is one of those things I think shouldnt be debated. It should not make a difference in our witnessing.

[AdHoc]

7 hours ago, Riverwalker said:

I recently posted a prayer request and was reminded (shame on me) the prayer request site that worthy  has and going though and praying for some of all those prayer requests, (I will return) I was struck by how many people are asking for prayer lost love ones

How do you go about praying for someone's salvation

To my understanding,  Salvation is a issue that is strictly determined by the will of the person to be saved, and God will not violate that free will  to cause a person to believe (obviously I do not hold to Calvinistic thinking but lets please not turn this into THAT discussion)

To my mind we can pray for the person's environment

• To pray for the person to be surrounded by Godly conditions
• To pray for the person to have good and Godly people come into the their life
• For God to shape their course to bring them to the point of decision (predestination) Such as putting stumbling blocks down the wrong path, and making straight the path to the Lord

But in the end the person will choose to follow God or not....and there is nothing we can do, or God will do to change that moment of decision, for it it is the act of reaching out in faith our choice that brings the moment of salvation

I am interested in your take on this issue that effects SO many.  If you are of a Calvin mindset feel free to say so , lets just please not turn this into an Armenism Calvinism Hamster wheel argument (lots of action going no where)

I agree with you in the main. Gd does not violate the free will of man. But He is the Master of circumstances. I see the following as the road to salvation - for anyone. But fist we must deal with predestination. There is none. The nearest a scripture comes to predestination is Romans 8:29. But even a 10th grader will tell you that it is NOT salvation that is predestined but it tells that those saved are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. But let us start with another element that can be construed as predestination - God's foreknowledge.

Foreknowledge is NOT predestination. Perhaps the example is poor but life is full of choice according to foreknowledge. The Air Force of a country needs pilot trainees every year. Most Air Forces of the civilized world have got a selection process down to a fine art. they know, from years of experience, what is needed for a man or woman to be successful in the rigorous pilot's course. All candidates are welcome to the selection, but for every 100 applicants, two are judged as having the necessary attributes for successful training. The machinery of the Air Force costs hundreds of millions of dollars. They just don't give this expensive and dangerous  machinery into anybody's hands. They ACT on the FOREKNOWLEDGE given by the selection process. It prompts the Air Force to only equip those who they KNOW will handle the responsibility and only those they KNOW will be able to handle it.

God is the same. If a man is tested with a truth and discards it, God does not equip him with more truth. He withdraws even that little truth (see Romans Chapter 1). God KNOWS who will deal judiciously with the truth and entrusts him only with it. But this is only the beginning. For scripture tells us that we are all, while in unbelief, at enmity with God. Scripture tells us that we are like a snowball headed downhill - gathering momentum as we are headed for the fire underneath. There is Law in us which makes us do even that which we hate (Romans 7). So man needs a process to change his DISPOSITION. And the first step is the hardest. For a man to be helped he needs to RECOGNIZE his plight. The man caught in a flooding swirling river might be a good swimmer and will think that he can beat the waters. But the man on the shore sees that around the next bend is a waterfall. He needs to transmit this fatal danger to the over-confident swimmer.

1. For this, God has given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has multiple duties on this earth, but His first is to convince men of "sin and judgment"!

8 And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 Of sin, because they believe not on me;  (Jn 16:8–9)

The sentence that a man is a sinner and needs a Savior is foreign to his psyche. He either sears his conscience or he clothes himself with fig leaves as Adam does. But he will never admit that he is a depraved sinner. He does not know his peril. So the Holy Spirit must show him this. We can tell him but he will discard it. The Holy Spirit is the first step in salvation. The man must be made aware of what he faces from One capable of convicting him.

2. Once the terror of judgment sets in, and the man sees his need, it is then that we come in. To us is not given to convict of sin and judgment. We can say it, but it does not carry the sense of loss like when the Holy Spirit proves it inwardly. But God has ordained that MEN will preach the solution. A man in peril must BOTH see his danger AND be given the way out. And that is our job - TO TESTIFY of a Savior. It must not be elegant or eloquent. It can be brutally honest or gently and comfortingly transmitted, but he must know by HEARING (Rom.10:17, Gal.3:2).

3. Then, with the knowledge of his predicament and the hearing of the way out, it needs one more profound step. The Lord Jesus must be REVEALED fro the Father in heaven. Our Lord Jesus, when He had inquired of Peter Who Peter thought He was, our Lord said that Peter's understanding was "shown from the Father in heaven" (Matt.16:17)

4. And finally, as to praying for the lost, shall we not learn the lesson of Abraham and Lot. Of all the men on earth, not one knew of what was about to happen to Sodom. But God had a FRIEND - Abraham. And, as our Lord Jesus said, He will not tell the servant of His plans, but His FRIEND will He tell. And so, Abraham's prayer was based on what God revealed to His FRIEND. And Abraham was a FRIEND because of FAITH. That is, if you want to be effective in prayer, you must first be man of FAITH and then you must KNOW what God wants. God revealed to Abraham what He would do - and then Abraham prayed for that. It is; "if my Words ABIDE IN YOU" that your prayer will be effective.

• God acts in FOREKNOWLEDGE not predestination
• The Christian, in close and intimate connection with God, prays for what God shows him
• God, through the Holy Spirit, convicts of sin and judgment
• The Christian is given to teach the way out of judgment - the gospel
• God gives a heavenly vision of Who Christ is - at His discretion

[AnOrangeCat]

I largely agree with you. There's really nothing I feel I could add to the OP except that I feel that God isn't going to get too hung up over wording. He knows how it works even when we don't and acts accordingly.

[Omegaman 3.0]

Regarding free will or not, praying for salvation or not, evangelizing or not, I see no need to complicate the simple. God does what He wants, and apparently He delights also in the prayer of His people. We do not need to know if it is God's will to save someone or not to, but we do know that it is His will to tell people the gospel. Will all of them respond? I think we know otherwise, yet we are to tell them, so, that much we do.

Should we pray for salvation? I see no reason not to. We are to ask our Father, if it is not His will that a particular person would not be saved, that is His sovereign decision, and we do not need to know His will, we just accept it. Cover your bases in prayer just as Jesus did, pray for God's will!

24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

I bolded the above to illustrate that there is uncertainty on our part, but there is also hope.

Some say that God does not violate free will. That is not the question. The question changes a lot depending upon what you thin free will is. I would say this though, that whatever free will is for people, God also has free will.

Jonah is my classic example. Jonah used his free will to disobey God. God used His free will, to have Jonah transported to where God wanted him to go NOT where Jonah wanted to go. Jonah did end up doing Gods' will, he had some time to think about the consequences of disobedience.

God may not make anyone go against their will,
but He can make them willing to go!

Sure, of course pray for the lost. We are to love everyone, even our enemies. Which is more loving:

Praying for their salvation, or failing to do so?

I suggest praying in accordance with how you answer that question!

[Omegaman 3.0]

18 hours ago, Riverwalker said:

I am reminded of the old adage " You can bring a horse to water ,but you cannot make him drink"

So true, but that does not mean you cannot feed him a little salt!