Love Is Praying For Our Enemies
How praying opposite how we feel is like planting a garden in rocky soil.
How easy it is to fume about someone who’s actively against us!
I don’t know about you, but isn’t it all too easy to get riled up over criticism, or disagreement, or even persecution?
Someone has wronged us, by theft, or lies or gossip, and we toss and turn over and over what we want to do to get them back.
Sounds familiar, yes? It does to me, I was like this a lot in my younger days. Even if I never did anything to actually get back a someone, I sure thought about it.
Does it sound like Jesus?
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, Matthew 5:44
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches a number of things that go far beyond the keeping of the Law in a action sense and that it goes deeper - to the intent of the heart of the believer.
We are to do good to those who are actively opposed to us
There are those around us opposed to the teaching of the gospel of Christ and the preaching of the Truth. Here Jesus is reminding us of, and confirming several Old Testament passages, including Exodus 23:4-5 "If you come across your enemy's ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to take it back to him. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help him with it.” and Deuteronomy 22:4 “If you see your brother's donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him get it to its feet.”
The Old Testament Law commanded you shall love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18). Jesus teaches here that - in the sense God means it, all people are our neighbors, even our enemies. To truly fulfill this law we must love, bless, do good and pray for not only our friends but also our enemies.
Jesus understood we will have enemies, yet we are to respond to them in love, trusting that God will protect our cause and destroy our enemies in the best way possible, by transforming them into our friends. D. Guzik
Paul writes about this in Romans 12:20 - if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. And Peter, too wrote Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. (1 Peter 3:9)
So we are to do good, but Jesus adds -
We are to pray for them!
Praying for those opposed to us?
Yes. Luke 6:28 "bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” This runs contrary to our nature and our culture. Most often we want to get back at those who hate us. But how can we love them as Jesus commands unless we also pray for them?
It is hard to hate someone when you are actively praying for them
In this world we have most everyone around us who will despise us, oppose us, and even actively act against us. And this seems more and more true in these current days, for there is little tolerance toward those who stand on God’s Word that is contrary to the spirit of the age.
All the more reason to add those names to our prayer lists.
Perhaps we pray for their salvation? What if the Lord would open their ears to the Gospel and they repent and believe? Perhaps by our prayers, the Lord would bless them and fall on them by His Spirit and they be transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of His Son.
O there would be much rejoicing in heaven!
And we may not even know about it until that final day, but we are to pray anyway.
Or it may be that this person does not come to follow Christ, they may never be changed. But we will be, from the praying. The Lord will use our prayers for an enemy to change our own hardened, selfish, spiteful hearts to one of compassion and love for others.
Remember, the opposite of retaliation is prayer. The opposite of hate is love.
Praying is like planting a garden
Praying for our enemies is like planting a garden in rocky soil.
It requires effort against our natural inclinations, patience through seasons of apparent barrenness, and faith that something beautiful will eventually grow. The seeds of prayer may transform the hardened ground of enmity, but even if the other person's heart remains unchanged, the act of tending this difficult garden transforms the gardener's own heart, replacing stones of bitterness with fertile soil of compassion.
Conclusion:
The journey from enemy to friend begins with a single prayer. When we follow Christ's example and instruction by praying for those who oppose us, we participate in His redemptive work in this broken world. Though we may never see the fruits of these prayers in this lifetime, the act itself aligns our hearts with God's and breaks the through hard hearts to humility, maybe leading to salvation. Our willingness to pray for our enemies stands as a radical testimony to the transformative power of Christ's love.
So, you who have faith in the Lord, may it be that we learn to love others as He loves us - for in spite of our once being opposed to Him and counted as an enemy of God, we are now a Friend of God.
What about you?
Is there someone in your life right now who has hurt or opposed you that you've been reluctant to pray for? What might happen if you committed to praying blessing over them daily for just one week?
