If necessary, allow persecution in their own lives so they can experience Your blessing. Use whatever means You need to soften stony hearts, open blind eyes, and to help them realize their ultimate neediness for You. Knowing how you sometimes use pain and difficulty to bring blessing to our lives, we pray the same for our enemies. Reveal to them any deep hurts or traumas in their own lives that may be contributing to their destructive actions. We pray You would show them the futility of what they are doing because in opposing God’s kingdom and in their darkness, they are often oblivious about the true reasons for their behavior and resulting consequences. Remove the façade of well-being tear down the lies that have deceived them and hedge their ways until they can see no way out but up. Lord, we pray that instead of lusting for pure evil, they would hunger and thirst for Your purity and righteousness, become advocates of Your justice and that their warring spirits would be changed into peacemaking. We pray You would show them mercy before it is too late-knowing we were all God’s enemies before You extended mercy to us-and that they would, in turn, be merciful to others. We pray they will discover Your comfort in times of mourning, and they would be humbled before You-in Your way and Your time. As You characterized blessing in the Beatitudes, we pray that You would give them a poverty of spirit that recognizes their deep need for You. We pray for you to bless our enemies and to orchestrate events in their lives that will leave their hearts exposed before you. 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. "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.
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