December 29, 2023: Pray For Your Persecutors

"But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44, ESV)
 
When Jesus said, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, He was making a radical statement. He really meant enemies, not people who irritate us or offend us. The standard teaching was to love your neighbors and hate your enemies. But Jesus was after the heart and what the heart contained. It was not acceptable for a person of the Kingdom of God to carry hatred in their heart.

The way you drive out such hate is by learning to love your enemies and to pray for your persecutors. How do you do that? One, you pray for their salvation. Though enemies, they are still people Jesus died for. As you pray for them, you will find your heart softening toward them because you see them as individuals loved by God. Two, pray that the evil in their hearts would be restrained and that the mercy of God would come upon their hearts. Mercy is what none of us deserve but all of us need. Third, pray for justice, but make sure your heart is in the right place. Justice is not your enemy's destruction but the destruction of the evil he holds in his heart and the destruction of the manifestation of that evil.

It is a radical thing that Jesus asks of us. But if the Kingdom operates in love, we have to do it.