Matthew 5:44
“But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I’m not a big fan of confrontation. I don’t like fights. I don’t even like it when people don’t like me. Last night was the third night in a row that I’ve had a hard time sleeping. Not for any reason really. Just a lot spinning in my brain and keeping my mind going. All good things, just a lot. Well I realized last night laying awake again, people aren’t going to like me. The Bible doesn’t say “If an enemy shows up love them, and if someone ever doesn’t like you make sure to pray for them.” The Bible says “Love Your Enemies”. Meaning, you are going to have enemies. ”Pray for those who persecute you”. Meaning, people will persecute you.
After a realization like that in the middle of the night, it’s not like your brain is going to allow you to ‘shut off’ and go to sleep, and I started asking questions. Now, I Twittered this question this morning and got some pretty amazing responses, but I wanted to further the discussion here. Are you ready? The main question that popped in my head last night was this.
What words am I supposed to pray when I am ‘praying for those that persecute me’?
Tough one huh? I mean, those words sound simple. But when it’s crunch time and you have made the decision to pray for those that are persecuting you, what words come out? You’d better have something prepared because if you don’t resentment can creep in, or you’ll end up laying there in silence, slowly falling fast asleep.
for me, comes down to truth. that they would see the truth about who they are in relation to God, the truth about the situation, the truth about God. i try to make it less about me…which is a struggle, given the human tendency to make everything more about ourselves than it actually is.
(and no this answer won’t fit in 140 characters with 80+ to spare
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I don’t think it is realistic to separate that from the context.
And by context it doesn’t just mean the immediate verses before and after, though those are important too.
You also can’t isolate the Bible, and even the individual books from their cultural context. If you look the immediate context, Jesus is talking to people who have heard all their lives “Love your neighbor, hate those who hate you.” This is an amazing contrast! Don’t hate those that hate you. Thank God, God doesn’t do that!
Compare this to the parable of the Good Samaritan:
the Jews, quite literally, hated the Samaritans, and yet, the Samaritan didn’t hate the Jew back. Amazingly, he didn’t limit himself to praying for the person who hated him. Imagine if the story had ended there: “There was a man beaten by robbers. And a Samaritan came by and said, ‘the Jews persecute me, so I will do what is right, and pray for this poor man’”. Not very powerful. Not a good example of being the man’s neighbor.
To return to the passage at hand, it isn’t about specific words to use in praying for people who hate or persecute (the active form of hate) us. In 5:48, the conclusion of the principle, which actually starts in verse 43, Jesus commands us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (NIV). Wow! God loved us so much, that when we were hating him, he reached out to us in an incredibly powerful way — the only way! — to demonstrate His love for us. Just as the Samaritan went out of his way to care for the injured man, even putting himself at considerable risk and expense in the process.
It isn’t (really) about prayer, or the specific words we use (Jesus tells us elsewhere that it isn’t so much about the specific words we use (you only have to read a few more verses to get to Matt 6:7) It’s about our attitude towards those that persecute us. Do we demonstrate God’s Love for them?
another few cents worth. Of course, the expression “two bits”, from which we get our “2 cents worth”… a “bit” is really $0.25, so it really should be $0.50 worth. maybe plus a bit for inflation
. Not sure what the going rate for those who pay by the bit for internet it, but this is probably close 
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You took my verse! Thought I was all prepared. But, it’s like I said in my 2 140 character replies. Finding the positive in the situation is the challenge I think God is giving us. Whether we like it or not. It’s like Mike said. It is all about attitude-our attitude. I think the next verse is important, too. Matt 5:44 says “in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on ‘the evil’ and ‘the good’, and send rain on ‘the righteous’ and ‘the unrighteous’”. (NAS) We are all equal in the eyes of God and as long as we keep the eye on the prize and not let our self-centered behavior take over we will be fine. If we let our own self-will dictate our actions, we usually have a mess to clean up. We all have character defects, but we also have character assets-use them!
Check out Psalm 69 and 109 (the “Imprecatory Psalms”) . They are not referenced alot but they are an interesting take on praying for enemies. Not saying thats how we should pray but interesting to look at the least.
I don’t have any verses for ya, but I have definitely been there. My prayers look something like:
Lord, thank You for who you have made me to be. I love being who you created me to be and pray that You will continue to mold me into a Jesus-like being. Lord, I am misunderstood or I have done something that has caused “sdfak;l;e” not to love me. Lord, help me love them. Lord, bring peace to their heart. Lord, I pray that they would know my heart and know I live for you. I pray they bring their struggles to you and I pray for their safety. Please shed light in all of the dark places where hate lives between us.
Amen
a very needed reminder – especially right now at this very moment. thanks, brody.
Praying for our enemies is more then just an idea, more then just a few words, its an attitude that says my enemies are also loved by God. It matters not that for some reason we are on different sides of an issue, an argument, a fight, or even a war. We are each created in the image of God for the same purpose and Christ died for each of us-even our enemies. Is it hard for us to admit that we don’t deserve that gift any more then our enemies do? Of course. When it comes to our enemies what we want to say its “God thank you for saving me so I’m not like them!” In reality our words should be something more similar to “Thank you for coming to save all of us, even me, though we didn’t deserve it!”
Praying for our enemies isn’t going to be a reality until we realize that they are loved by God as equally as we. When we realize that then praying for them as Gods creation becomes easier, even if we are not on the same side of whatever has made us enemies. We can simply pray that in their life they trust Christ, they realize His will for their life, and that they walk closely with Him. All the same things we would pray for any person we realize is loved by God. We may not love them in a human sense, but God does, and that is how we can love them–through our relationship with God.
I simply pray that God will soften their hearts & give me strength to move on.
Brody – I love this post. A great one here for sure.
I keep an index card w/ Matt 5:11, 12 on it – “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great…” At the bottom I wrote to myself “Keep your perspective ETERNAL, Melody.”
In praying for those who’ve persecuted me, I ask the Lord to lead ______(insert name) into His will for them in all things. To protect/direct me, that I may follow His Spirit’s leading in my life and to open my eyes for me to see others as Jesus sees them.
I am a sinner, a seeker, a mistake-maker… far from perfect. But, I love Jesus so! And He has continued to honor my prayers and purge my heart of bitterness, even from the deepest of wounds, the “closest” of enemies. What a mighty God is He!!!
Pray for our enemies that they would submit themselves to, Jesus receiving his grace and His will for their lives. It doesn’t say, that we should pray for ourselves in this situation, but we may need to in order to love them the way God wants us to.
Great post, Brody!
The thought that crosses my mind regarding this is, “What should I be saying that’s gonna get me persecuted?” I’m sure that plenty of times we get persecuted for our own stupidity, but that’s not really what we’re after here… What *ought* we to be getting persecuted for? Also, if we’re not being persecuted, is it something we should actively seek out? Maybe we should simply be aware that it’s gonna happen sometime to all of us, and be ready for it when it does come.
The Bible says both “beware when all men think well of you” and that we should be “all things to all people.” That’s quite a balancing act!