A few weeks ago at church we were talking about how God wants us to deal with our “enemies”. We were talking about the Ten Commandments, specifically “Do not murder” and the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus commands us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”.
When we’re told to “Pray for your enemies” I don’t think this is what it means …
It is certainly tempting to pray that way for enemies and those who persecute us, but how does God want us to actually pray for our enemies?
The first thing that we need to do is learn how to love our enemies. God loved us before we loved Him and He wants us to love our enemies the same way He loves us. We didn’t deserve it, but He loved us before we changed, and we need to love our enemies before they change. But how do we learn to love our enemies?
5 Steps to change our attitude towards our enemies
- Acknowledge our feelings to God
- Ask God to change our feelings
- Choose to act differently than we “feel” like acting
- Pray for that person or group of people
- Watch for chances to show love to the person or group
Sounds pretty easy when it’s broken down like that right?
How to pray for our enemies?
Matthew 5:45 states that “For he (God) makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.”.
We should be praying for God’s blessings of the lives of all people; our family, friends and enemies. Everyone is created in God’s image, and no one on earth was a mistake or an accident.
In addition to God’s blessings we should also be praying that God’s will be done in that person’s life and that God would be revealed to them.
We should also pray, as Jesus prayed for us on the cross, for God to forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
Here they are again in list form:
- For God to bless them and for good to come into their lives
- For God’s will to be done in their lives
- That Jesus and the Gospel would be revealed to them
- Forgiveness
Why should be pray for our enemies?
I think that Luke 6 says it best:
Luke 6:32-36
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that… But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
The video doesn't come through on the link here on FB, only on your website. Can it be brought over?
Oh wait a minute…it worked on the status below.
Hi Bill
Just wondering if I could use this article for our ladies group at church?………….not because we are enemies, but because we are going to be chatting about prayer over the next few weeks and I think it is well written.
Can you take all the credit for it or is some of it notes from a church sermon, as you mentioned you were talking about this in church one week.
Bye……….Faye
I can’t take credit for many of the ideas in the article to be honest. The core of the article is from a sermon that our senior Pastor delivered on August 1st.
At one point in the service he mentioned that God does not mean for us to pray bad things upon our enemies. At that point he lost me for a few minutes as I was thinking about that song that is above.
Hi, Bill… I have family members (relatives) that are very hateful towards me. I don’t understand where all the hate comes from as for years I have done nothing but good towards these people… the hateful behavior displays itself through criticism, mean comments, cold and distant attitudes, and then when they need a favor, after they are brash, mean and abrupt, they call all nice asking for favors… every year during the holidays I have to constantly forbear them… and the worse part of it is that when my mother is with them, she behaves herself exactly the same… when she is not…she is “nice”… also when she wants “favors”… oh, take me here and drive me there, etc… I know God wants me to love them, forgive them 70 x 7, and continue to be there with them being nice to them… but I am only human and it is only a matter of time before I snap…which is exactly what they want me to do so that they can say, “see…she’s not so Christian, she’s not so good”… I feel tortured… and I am sad to say that I don’t understand why the Lord would do this to me… put me through this… Jesus suffering on the cross saved mankind, but me tolerating this from these people is not doing anything for the Kingdom but giving them the pleasure of making me suffer… any words of encouragment at this point would do… anything. 🙂
thanks…