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Friday, 7 April 2023

What It Means to Pray for Your Enemy

 

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

Prayer for your enemies is one of the deepest forms of love, because it means that you have to really want that something good happen to them.

You might do nice things for your enemies without any genuine desire that things go well with them. But prayer for them is in the presence of God who knows your heart, and prayer is interceding with God on their behalf.

It may be for their conversion. It may be for their repentance. It may be that they would be awakened to the enmity in their hearts. It may be that they will be stopped in their downward spiral of sin, even if it takes disease or calamity to do it. But the prayer Jesus has in mind here is always for their good.

This is what Jesus did as he hung on the cross:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34)

And it’s what Stephen did as he was being stoned:

Falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60)

Jesus is calling us not just to do good things for our enemy, like greeting them and helping supply their needs (Matthew 5:47); he is also calling us to desire their best, and to express those desires in prayers, even when the enemy is nowhere around.

Our hearts should desire their salvation and desire their presence in heaven with us and desire their eternal happiness. May God give us grace to pray like the apostle Paul for the Jewish people, many of whom made life very hard for Paul:

My heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. (Romans 10:1)

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“You have a guard of soldiers. Go, make it as secure as you can.” (Matthew 27:65) When Jesus was dead and buried, with a big stone rolled against the tomb, the Pharisees came to Pilate and asked for permission to seal the stone and guard the tomb. They gave it their best shot — in vain. It was hopeless then, it is hopeless today, and it will always be hopeless. Try as they may, people can’t keep Jesus down. They can’t keep him buried. It’s not hard to figure out: He can break out because he wasn’t forced in. He let himself be libeled and harassed and blackballed and scorned and shoved around and killed. I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. (John 10:17–18) No one can keep him down because no one ever knocked him down. He lay down when he was ready. When it looks like he is buried for good, Jesus is doing something awesome in the dark. “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how” (Mark 4:26–27). The world thinks Jesus is done for — out of the way — but Jesus is at work in the dark places. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). He let himself be buried — “no one takes [my life] from me” — and he will come out in power when and where he pleases — “I have authority to take it up again.” “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Jesus has his priesthood today “by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16). For twenty centuries, the world has given it their best shot — in vain. They can’t bury him. They can’t hold him in. They can’t silence him or limit him. Jesus is alive and utterly free to go and come wherever he pleases. Trust him and go with him, no matter what. You cannot lose in the end.

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