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Love your enemies kjv12/11/2022 ![]() ![]() #LOVE YOUR ENEMIES KJV HOW TO#Then give us wisdom as we seek how to bless, to love, and to pray for our enemies. We release any unforgiveness, thoughts of revenge, or hateful emotions that can quench Your Spirit in our hearts. Send Your love flowing through us, and forgive us for holding on to anything that could hinder our prayers. We ask first that You would saturate our lives with the Holy Spirit’s power and might. Lord Jesus, following Your example and command, we pray for our enemies today. But regarding our earthly enemies, when we don’t know how or what to pray for them, we can trust the Holy Spirit to pray through us. He encouraged us to recognize that the true enemy behind all wrongs is Satan-and how to resist him. Jesus taught a new way to live life: with love, not hate. He added that those who were not for Him were against Him. And that we were blessed if we experienced those things. While not defining who our enemies were, in the Beatitudes Jesus described enemies as those who mock us, persecute us, lie about us, or despitefully use us. But Jesus turned life upside down with His command to bless, to love, and to pray for our enemies. Proverbs and other passages talk about how to treat our enemies in positive ways. ![]() Their prayers were not prayers of blessing. In the Old Testament, even righteous people prayed for God to destroy their enemies in cruel ways. Here’s one way you might pray: What Does the Bible Say about 'Pray for Those Who Persecute You' Through Jesus, we can pray for our enemies. But through the power of God’s Spirit working through us, all things are possible. But how can you pray for someone who wants to harm you? In ourselves, we can’t. “Will not God grant justice for his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?” (Luke 18:7)."Pray for those who persecute you." Perhaps one of the hardest commands Jesus gives to us as His disciples is to bless, love, and pray for our enemies. But Jesus indicates that God is the unseen actor. The widow’s persistence alone leads the judge to act justly. In the parable of the persistent widow, God does not intervene. Suddenly, the Berlin wall opens, the apartheid regime crumbles, peace breaks out. God can bring miraculous justice in a corrupt world, just as God can bring miraculous healing in a sick world. That is why we must pray and not give up in our work. The second point is that only God can bring about justice in a corrupt world. But they must continually look for opportunities to bring bills to a vote that do even less harm and even more good. Usually the best they can do is to vote for bills that do more good than bad. Legislators, for example, seldom have a choice of voting for a good bill versus a bad bill. But we must never give up hope, and never stop working for the greater good in the midst of the imperfect systems where our work occurs. We cannot right every wrong in the world in our lifetimes. A Christian leader’s job is to work toward that hope at all times. So there is hope that even in the midst of systemic injustice, justice may be done. Elsewhere, the Bible teaches that the civil authorities serve by God’s authorization, whether they acknowledge it or not (John 19:11 Romans 13:1 1 Peter 2:13). The judge’s job is to do justice, and by God, he will do justice by the time the widow is finished with him. First, the juxtaposition of a corrupt judge with a just God implies that God’s will is at work even in a corrupt world. But it also has two applications for those who work in positions of leadership. The purpose of the parable is to encourage Christians to persevere in their faith against all odds. ![]() Assuming that Jesus doesn’t mean that God is corrupt, the point must be that if persistence pays off with a corrupt human of limited power, how much more will it pay off with a just God of infinite power. He identifies the hearers - us - with the woman, and the prayed-to person - God - with the corrupt judge, a strange combination. But Jesus focuses the parable on a different point, that we are “to pray always and to not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). The parable assumes John the Baptist’s teaching that holding a position of power and leadership obligates you to work justly, especially on behalf of the poor and weak. In the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8), a poor, powerless person (the widow) persists in nagging a corrupt, powerful person (the judge) to do justice for her. Learning From the Psalms How to Pray Through Your Work.Beyond Rank and Power: What Philemon Tells Us About Leadership.Evangelism - Sharing the Gospel at Work.10 Key Points About Work in the Bible That Every Christian Should Know. ![]()
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