How to Pray for the Unsaved at Christmas

Have you ever wondered how to pray for the unsaved at Christmas?

I’m sending out more Christmas cards than usual this year because, well, 2020. However, there is one Christmas card I’m not sending. It’s the one I send every year to my Uncle Dennis.

Years ago, I started sending out faith-based Christmas cards. I had a whole list of people I sent them to each year, always trying to write something special to each person. And I always received a handful of cards in return.

But that wasn’t why I sent them.

Is there a good reason to send out Christmas cards? @_HeatherHart says 'yes.' Click To Tweet

Bringing a Lit Bit of Jesus to the Christmas Chaos

I sent them because I wanted to add a little bit of Jesus to their chaotic Christmas season.

As the years rolled by, I sent out fewer and fewer cards, until I decided to only send out cards to those who sent them to me. Well, them and my uncle, Dennis.

What made him so special?

One year before Christmas I had a conversation with my mom that almost brought me to tears and totally changed the way I looked at sending his Christmas card.

You have to understand that my uncle was not sentimental and he was not a Christian.

My mom told me she had went to visit him and was surprised to see he had hung the card I had sent him above his telephone. If I remember correctly, it was the only one.

How to Pray for the Unsaved at Christmas

Knowing that, I became even more intentional about which cards I was sending him each year, and prayed over them that they might make a difference in his life.

So why am I not sending it this year?

It’s because he died of leukemia.

I might never know if those Christmas cards made a difference or not, but I do know that he got them and that gives me hope that I might see him in Heaven some day.

Every year at this time I think of him and feel the grief of losing him all over again. But I also realize that while I hoped I was making a difference in his life by sending those cards, the experience made a difference in my life as well. Because when I remember all the cards I sent over the years, I also remember that prayer is powerful. And what better time to pray for those who don’t know Jesus than when we celebrate His birth?

If you have ever wondered how to pray for the unsaved at Christmas, I’d love to share some of the ways I prayed for my uncle throughout the years.

Related Post: How to Pray for Your Unsaved Friends

1.) Pray For God’s Word to Be Planted & Nurtured

When I prayed for my uncle, I prayed he would see not only my love for him, but also that the cards would plant a seed in his life. Not just be planted, I knew a Christmas card could only do so much, so I prayed for God to send someone else into his life to help it grow; someone who loved Jesus and my uncle.

If you are praying over a card you are sending to someone who doesn’t know Jesus, it’s important to pray strategically. I encourage you to not just pray for the person you are sending the card to, but for the people who are part of their everyday lives.

My uncle lived in Missouri and I live in Texas. I couldn’t be there to nurture the seed I was hoping my Christ-centered Christmas cards and prayer planted, so I remember praying God would soften the heart of his girlfriend. I knew if she became a Christian, her love for Jesus had a better chance of impacting my uncle than I ever would. I prayed for the other members of the volunteer fire department my uncle was a part of. I prayed for his employees. I prayed God would send someone – anyone – who loved Jesus to pour into my uncle’s life.

Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 

John 4:36-37

2.) Pray God’s Word Would Not Return Empty

Isaiah 55 says that God’s Word shall not return to Him empty; that it would accomplish His purpose. So I prayed that over the cards I sent out. Each one had a Bible verse – either printed or one that I wrote in by hand. I prayed those verses were not just read, but that they would make a difference. I prayed they would plant a seed for someone else to nurture, and eventually bear fruit.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Isaiah 55:10-11

3.) Pray For Them to Know the Love of Jesus

In the Gospel of John, he wrote, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (3:16). I wanted my uncle to know that love – to experience it. I wanted him to know that he wasn’t just loved by me, but that God loved him, too.

From My Life to Yours

Whether you are sending out cards or thinking about a loved one, I encourage you to pray for those who don’t know Jesus this Christmas.

If you already send out Christmas cards, you can take a moment to pray over the cards you are sending out. Having a card to pray over is a tangible way to remember them each holiday season. But it isn’t the only way to pray. You can pray for anyone at any time.

Christmas is when we celebrate the birth of Christ, but when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple was torn in two (Matthew 27:51). Just as Jesus died to save us, He also made a way for us to come to God at any time with any thing that is on our mind. We can pray for the unsaved because of Jesus.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 2:5

I don’t know where life finds you this Christmas, but I do know that there is always hope. If your heart is hurting for someone who doesn’t know the love of Christ, it is all around us at this time of year. You can pray for the true meaning of Christmas to plant a seed in the life of the ones you love, and have hope that God will take it from there.

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Join the Conversation

Who are you praying for this year? Is there another way you pray for the unsaved at Christmas or something you use as a reminder? We would love to hear from you in the comments below!