Ask God to enlighten the eyes of your heart to see people from an eternal perspective. Ask him to give you the same compassion for the lost that Jesus felt when he looked upon the shepherdless crowds (Matthew 9:36). Ask him to help you see that Jesus suffered for sinners and desires for them to repent of their sin (John 3:16). These prayers renew passion to proclaim Christ to those who are perishing.

Smoke filled the air as the music’s bass reverberated in our ears. The lights were low but glow sticks and lines of cocaine had everyone high. It was a typical Friday night in my college apartment, until God intervened. A friend had talked to me about Jesus the week before, and I could not shake the truth he had shared.

I went down the hallway, shut my bedroom door, and picked up a previously hidden Bible. Through tears I said, “God, if you’re real, show me something.” I opened the New Living Translation my parents gave me before I went to college to the words of a prophet named Ezekiel, “Put all your rebellion behind you, and find yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O people of Israel? I don’t want you to die, says the Sovereign Lord. Turn back and live” (Ezekiel 18:31–32). As I read, God’s word shone light into my heart and began to transform my life.

The Greatest Evangelist

God loves to save sinners like me, like you, and like those around us. God is the great evangelist. He is the Father who runs to prodigal children (Luke 15:11–32). His Son left glory to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). The Spirit gives power to God’s people to be witnesses of Jesus’s saving work (Acts 1:8). God desires none to perish, but for all to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3–5). He sought me that night in my apartment, and he used my friend’s witness to do it.

Saving sinners is God’s delight, and it should be ours as well. But too often, we are fearful, shortsighted, and unmoved by the fact that billions of people are on their way to an eternal hell. We need God’s intervention to stir zeal in our hearts for evangelism. What follows are four simple prayers that ask God to help us join him in saving the lost.

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