Prayer For Enemies

PRAYER FOR ENEMIES

Among the most challenging of Jesus’ words are these:

To you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

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. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 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 children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Luke 6:27-36, NIV

To pray for our enemies—to love them, bless them, and do good to them is—for most of us, the most difficult calling we can imagine. In fact, we are skilled at coming up with ways to avoid doing precisely what Jesus instructed. We commit to not seeking revenge or to tolerating our enemies, but doing actual good to them and praying that God would bless them? No way. He couldn’t have meant that we should bless and do good to “those people” or “that person.” But there is no hesitation, no hedging in Jesus’ words. Though everything in us resists, this is the call of Christ—to pray for, love, bless, and do good to our enemies.

• Spend a few minutes now praying for your enemies. Bring to mind first a global enemy. What feelings arise as you bring that person or those people to mind? Speak those feelings to God as honestly as you know how. Ask him to fill you with his Spirit, to give you his eyes and heart, and then pray for that enemy.
• Now bring to mind a personal enemy. What feelings surface as you bring that person to mind? Speak those feelings to God as honestly as you can. Ask him to fill you with his Spirit, to give you his eyes and heart, and then pray for that enemy.
• What would God need to transform in the heart of each person you identified to turn him or her toward his love? What wounds would need to be healed?

May your Kingdom come, may your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.