3 Practical Ways to Pray for the Persecuted and the Lost
Last Updated on August 21, 2024 by Alicia Michelle
This guest post is written by Bonnie Rose of WriteBonnieRose.com.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:20-23 NIV).
John 17 is one of my favorite parts of the Easter story. The privilege of listening to Jesus pray overwhelms me. And to think He prayed for me! But it also makes me think about the world, both for “those who will believe…that all of them may be one” and the world that our unity is to be a witness to.
How can we remember to pray for believers in faraway places, and how can we remember to pray for those who have yet to believe? There are a number of ways. One way is through email. How many of us check our email at least once (or twice or a dozen times) a day?
- You can sign up with the U.S. Center for World Missions to receive daily prayer reminders. Each one focuses on a different group of people in the world who need to hear of Jesus’ love, many for the first time.
- You can also adopt a Bibleless people group through prayer by signing up at Wycliffe.org. They will assign you a people group to pray regularly for who do not yet have the Scriptures in their heart language, the language they understand and relate to best.
- The Joshua Project will send you an email every day (or only on days you select) that gives you a glimpse into the world of just one of the more than 4,000 unreached people groups around the world. According to their website, more than two billion people are living and dying right now without ever having heard of Jesus or having the chance to believe in Him. That’s almost a third of the world’s population. Every one of them needs our prayers.
You can print prayer cards from Joshua Project that include photos and statistics of thousands of unreached people. You can select by country, by religion, by people cluster, and more. You can also print prayer calendars to help you and your family remember to pray.
Or, if you and your children would enjoy personalizing some prayer cards, you can print the black and white prayer cards below. Each card has a prayer based on John 17 as well as room for you to write the name of a nation you wish to remember to pray for.
My prayer as we approach this Easter is that God will help me pray more often and more earnestly for those who need Him. Will you join me?