When it comes to leading our friends and loved ones to Jesus, so often we end up frustrated. Because it’s not easy. They just don’t seem to get it. How can I find a different way of explaining this – it’s so obvious to me. But, if only we truly comprehended the power of praying for the lost.

Most of us would have had the experience of having to put together everything from a bike to some complex board game for our kids on Christmas morning. And if you're anything like me you kind of race ahead and you fit this with that and you get annoyed and frustrated because it's not working and you ignore the advice as I do from my wife.

And finally when everything’s failed, when you're right at the end of your tether, finally you read the instruction book, right? I wonder sometimes if it isn't the same when it comes to us sharing Jesus with other people.

Somehow we think that it's Gods plan for us to go it alone. And we try this, and we try that and we ignore the advice and nothing works and we tell them this, we buy them that book and people give us the brush off and we give up in frustration or embarrassment or whatever it is. Then and only then we figure out, "Well everything else has failed maybe I had better pray."

Prayer ends up being our last resort when all the way along we failed to grasp the enormous power of praying for the lost.

I'd like to share a story with you. It's my story and maybe you've heard me share it before but it's so important as we talk about praying for the lost. This Berni Dymet character used to be a very tough, ruthless, incredibly materialistic business man.

I had a consulting firm in the IT industry. I grew that firm with my business partners and we did consulting all over the world. I used to prance around talking on stages all over the world at large conferences. I was going to make it. I was climbing the ladder.

Because for me it was about profile and success and money. I had a huge house with gold plated taps. I had the most flashy expensive car I could afford. And if anybody had looked at me, as some people did because I had some friends who were Christians back then. If anyone had looked at me at that time and thought, "I wonder if Berni will ever become a Christian?" The answer would have had to have been absolutely no way.

If someone has said, "Berni, you're going to end up in full time ministry", the answer would have been, "you buddy are smoking dope because that is just not going to happen". Now, as I said, I knew some Christians back then and they really, they made me feel uncomfortable. The whole 'goody two shoes' thing they went on with. It didn't fit with my world view. It didn't fit with what I wanted to do.

And the reason it made me uncomfortable because deep down I knew they were probably right. And it just niggled away at me and so I reacted badly against those people. I'm a confident person. I'm articulate. I can use words. I would carve them apart with my words and my arguments and my arrogance.

And those Christians who were friends of mine, goodness knows why they stayed being friends of mine. And as they looked at me through the physical reality there is no way that I would ever have become a Christian.

Maybe you know some people in your life. Maybe they're not like me but you look at them and think, "there's no way that that person would ever become a Christian.' And a decade and a half ago through a powerful series of events and upheavals in the circumstances of my life, I gave my life over to Jesus Christ. It was and is and will always remain the most awesome day of my life.

Even I couldn't believe it. I went and sat under a tree and I said, "Lord, everything I am, everything I have, everything I earn, every hope, every dream that I have for the future, I give them to you." It was such a complete surrender to Jesus Christ as my Lord. And my life from that day onwards has never been the same.

But the Christians I knew, they were gob smacked. They still, many of them, can't not get tears in their eyes when they hear me speak or pray because they know the enormity of what God did in my life. And here, a decade and a half on, this voice that you hear is the one that's heard on almost 1,000 radio stations in 120 countries around the world sharing Jesus with others.

Now how do you account for something like that? I mean where's the power for that sort of turn around come from? Because it certainly didn't come from me and it didn't come from them. Later on I discovered that two of those Christian friends who I'd really never treated very nicely at all and never really made them feel welcome in my home. Those two, husband and wife, had been praying faithfully for me for 18 years.

Against all hope in who I was, they put their hope in the one person who could make a difference. Jesus. When we look at an obstacle from our perspective, in the physical dimension, sometimes that obstacle looks so much bigger than us. And so we come to the conclusion, "well, I can never change that."

But when we look at it from a different perspective, when we look at it from Jesus' perspective, when we look at it from God’s perspective, God can deal with anything. God is big enough to deal with Berni Dymet and his pride and his objections to the Christian faith. And his materialism and his brutal business practices.

Now I'm an ex military man. I spent ten years in the army and so often, in a battle, before the main force goes into fight the battle we'd send ahead the Special Forces. We send in reconnaissance or engineers or artillery.

Now the job of reconnaissance is finding out what's going on out there before we send the main battle force in. The job of the engineers is to build bridges or to breach obstacles or to clear mine fields or pull the wire down. And the job of the artillery, well the job of the artillery is to soften up the enemy.

You know when we pray in faith and persist despite outward appearances, it's like sending Holy Spirit reconnaissance in. It's like sending Holy Spirit engineers in. It's like sending Holy Spirit artillery in to soften up the enemy.

When we pray boldly with quiet assurance as those two Christian friends of mine did for 18 years. Just let that reality set you free. When we do that there are some things that only God can do. And when we pray with a quiet confidence for the lost, we're inviting Him into that space to do that stuff.

When we pray, "Lord, I don't know what's going on in there but if I need to know something, show me." The Holy Spirit does the reconnaissance. When we pray, "Lord, there's an obstacle there. I can't pull it down with my bare hands. Lord, you pull it down." The Holy Spirit does that engineering work.

When we say, "Lord, I think the enemy's blocking this person, pull him out of there." The Holy Spirit artillery comes in there and does that. When we pray for the lost we are joining hands with God. There is such power in praying for the lost.

Can I encourage you? Can I lift you up? If your hands and feet are tied. If you're absolutely immobilised. If you could do nothing else for a person whom you would love to see come to faith in Jesus Christ. If you could do nothing else except pray, then that is the most powerful thing that you can ever do for them.

What is it about us? Why do we think that we have to go out on our own? What is it about us that we think we can argue or bludgeon someone into the Kingdom of God when what they really need is the gentle touch of the Holy Spirit? What is it about us that we make prayer our last resort?

D L Moody, the famous 19th century American evangelist prayed for 100 people. 100 of his friends and acquaintances to come to faith in Jesus throughout his lifetime. He had a list of them, 100 of them. By the time he died 96 had come to faith, the remaining 4 gave their lives to Jesus Christ at Moody's funeral service.

That's how God answers prayer. God will answer our prayer as we ask Him. When it comes to sharing Jesus with others let this fact set you free. The most powerful thing that you can do for them is to join hands with God in prayer.