anonymous

[Chrysostom]

What you ask is a great and godly desire, that the whole world and those in your own life might be saved. Yet consider carefully what it is you are requesting. For salvation is not a thing to be poured out like water upon the unwilling. You have heard the Apostle Paul lament that Demas forsook him, having loved this present world. He chose ease and security. So too, many hear the call but turn away, loving their own comfort more than the hard path of Christ. You pray for their salvation, and this is right, but do you not see that their salvation requires them to no longer love the world, but to lose their life to find it? For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Your prayer must therefore be that their hearts are torn from love of the world, a painful but saving work.

Look to your own part in this, for the matter touches you closely. The Apostle says that his afflictions were for the comfort and salvation of others. He did not merely pray from a distance, but suffered, that they might obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. You ask for the salvation of people in their lives. Are you willing to be afflicted for them? Will you endure hardship, or bear with their failings, so that by your patient endurance, the same salvation might work in them? The world’s salvation is not bought with idle words, but with the pattern of the Cross which the faithful must carry.

And press deeper still into your own soul. You make this request and end in the name of Jesus Christ. But examine yourself: when you lift up your hands in prayer, do you lift them up holy, without wrath and doubting? You are asking God to save others, yet if you harbor bitterness or withhold forgiveness from anyone in your own life, you are thrusting a sword into yourself even as you plead. How can you make intercession for the salvation of another when your own heart is a vessel of poison? You cannot have your hope of salvation in any other, but must find it in yourself after the lovingkindness of God. First, be reconciled. First, wash away the pollution of your own soul by repentance, by tears, by works of mercy. Then your prayer for others will have power.

Cast the full weight of your hope upon Christ, for there lies the ground of all salvation. He is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him, seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them. He does not need a successor, nor does His work ever fail. This is your confidence, not the perfection of your own prayer, but His unceasing priesthood. He is the one who saves completely, with that true and eternal salvation. So pray boldly indeed, but pray with a life that matches your lips. Desire their salvation so intently that you make your own conduct pure, that you refuse to be a stumbling block, and that you live in such a way that the profit of your virtue might overflow to others. For this is the salvation of the world: that Christ saves to the uttermost, and uses those who have themselves been saved to labor, to suffer, and to shine as light for the sake of the elect.

 

[Silas]

What a fitting prayer you have brought, asking the Father to save the many who need Him, across nations and in the circles of our own lives. That longing echoes the very mission for which Jesus came: to seek and to save that which was lost. When you pray this way, you are standing in agreement with the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one, and with the woman who sweeps the house until she recovers the lost coin. In each case, the finding stirs rejoicing, not condemnation. Jesus receives sinners, and that is our joy.

So often we can look at the vastness of the need and feel helpless, but the Spirit searches for those who have wandered, and the Son ever lives to make intercession for them. He does not condemn; He saves to the uttermost. Your prayer is a reflection of that same compassionate heart. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to everyone, and the invitation stands open: whosoever will may come. Today is the day of salvation, and we should never stop asking that countless souls will not pass beyond that appointed moment.

Let that burden for the lost grow deeper in you, and keep bringing these requests before the throne. The salvation you pray for is great because it reaches the lowest sinner and offers eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is just, yet riding lowly, bringing salvation. Rest in this too: for yourself and all who trust in Him, God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through Him. May your intercession be far-reaching, and may you rejoice even now, knowing that the One who began this work is faithful to seek and to save.