Pray For Your Enemies

Courtesy Morguefile

Like most churches throughout the US, my church Sierra Norwood Calvary Baptist Church in Miami said special prayers in observance of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. In calling on the congregation to pray, our pastor said that we should also pray for our enemies that God may turn their hearts to Him. Little did I know that before the week was out, I would have cause to pray for my enemies in a way I never expected.

Like the attack on the WTC, the attack on me was well planned and executed, and I never saw it coming. Most attacks of the enemy are like that - sneaky and underhanded. However, unlike the WTC, I was not completely destroyed. Devastated, yes, but still hopeful, "hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair" (2 Corinthians 4 : 8).  At ground zero, but still functioning and, like Ground Zero, less vulnerable to attack.

Why did Jesus say " love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5: 44) ? 

It's because 1) when others try to destroy us, they only end up destroying themselves. 

Psalm 9: 6 says, "Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies, you have uprooted their cities; even the memory of them has perished."

2) God rewards you when you bless your enemies. 

"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" (Luke 6: 35).

King David was a great king, but he was besieged by enemies. How did he react? He wrote psalms and set them to music to praise his God. 

In Psalm 56 he writes, "In God, whose word I praise, in the LORD, whose word I praise,

in God I trust and am not afraid. What can man do to me" (v 10 - 11)?

 

Are you under attack? Cry out to God, sing praises to Him, and pray for your enemies. 

 

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