A Day to Pray for Young People

Lamentations 2:19
one hour, one day, pray – august 12th

CRY’S BEGINNINGS
When in Chicago several years ago, I stared up at this immense structure known as Soldier Field Stadium and thought back to what it must have been like for Youth for Christ’s young founders to believe God to fill a mammoth stadium with lost souls. 70,000 folks passed through its entrance one evening in 1945 into what was to be “destiny” for many.

They had a big dream.

Time Magazine quotes young Torrey Johnson (first YFC President) in 1946 as saying, “Youth for Christ has a two-fold purpose. First, the spiritual revitalization of America, which will bring America back to God, the Bible and the Church.  Second, the complete evangelization of the world in our generation. . . We’re getting ready for the big push. Five or six of us plan to go to Europe in March. . . We hope to go to Scandinavia and Germany and maybe Russia. Next fall we’re going to Australia and New Zealand and in a year to China and Japan.”

A stadium, the world – co-existing in the minds of our young founders.  Not one without the other.

They had a big dream.

And now it is our turn to dream big.

CRY’S FOCUS
Where every young person come under the hearing of the Gospel; where the complete evangelization of the world’s youth be a reality in our generation.

CRY’S ONE HOUR, ONE DAY
On Sunday, August 12, every YFC person stops to pray at 9:00am local time for one hour (9:00am – 10:00am) for lost young people.
One hour, one day, pray – august.12

CRY’S 30 WAYS TO PRAY FOR THE LOST
The most important human factor in effective evangelism is prayer. R. A. Torrey

Praying for unsaved young people is the best way to begin reaching them for Christ. The following verses give us a biblical outline for these prayers.

Pray –

For God to seek to win them over
He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) and would have all men to be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

For God do the impossible
Then who can be saved?  Jesus glanced around at them and said, With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27).

What is impossible with men is possible with God (Matthew 19:26).

For God to draw them to Himself in true faith and repentance
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him… (John 6:44).

For God to destroy any false ideas about salvation through Jesus Christ
There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12).

For God to quicken unbelievers to their sins and trespasses
…you were dead in your transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1).

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

For God to dull unbelievers to the allurement to this world pleasures and the all-consuming worries of life so that the Word of God not be choked
Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants (Matthew 13:7).

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful (Matthew 13:22).

For God to grant genuine faith to believe
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:8-10).

For God to give them a new heart
And the Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with all your being, that you may live (Deuteronomy 30:6).

That God would undo the work of Satan and open the minds of the unbelievers to the truth of the Gospel
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Corinthians 4:4).

That God would deliver them from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves (Colossians 1:13).

That God would grant genuine repentance
But unless you repent, you too will all perish (Luke 13:1-3).

That God would apply His mercy
Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our   sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah (Ephesians 2:1-6, The Message).

That God would thrust out laborers
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? (Romans 10:14).

So pray to the Lord of the harvest to force out and thrust laborers into His harvest (Matthew 9:38).

That God’s Spirit and power rest on the laborers
And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive (enticing and plausible) words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the [Holy] Spirit and power [a proof by the Spirit and power of God, operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers the most holy emotions and thus persuading them], so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy), but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:4-5, AMP).

For our [preaching of the] glad tidings (the Gospel) came to you not only in word, but also in [its own inherent] power and in the Holy Spirit and with great conviction and absolute certainty [on our part] (1 Thessalonians 1:5).

That God’s Spirit reveal to them their sinful condition and quicken their conscience, plow up their heart, and ring conviction in their soul
He [the Spirit] will convict and convince the world and bring demonstration to it about sin and about righteousness (uprightness of heart and right standing with God) and about judgment… (John 16:8)

That God would stir them out of their complacency and indifference
I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).

CRY20XIV
That God would awaken them
Because they seeing, see not, and hearing, they hear not, neither do they understand. For this people’s heart is become gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed… (Matthew 13:13).

That God’s love would be understood and embraced
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

That God would open a door to proclaim the Gospel
And at the same time pray for us also, that God may open a door to us for the Word (the Gospel), to proclaim the mystery concerning Christ (the Messiah) on account of which I am in prison (Colossians 4:3).

That God would minister to their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted; He has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those who are bound…(Isaiah 61:1)

To grant [consolation and joy] to those who mourn in Zion—to give them an ornament (a garland or diadem) of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, the garment [expressive] of praise instead of a heavy, burdened, and failing spirit—that they may be called oak