Love, Bless, and Pray for our enemies
Matthew 5:44-45 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh HIs sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
A good example of this is Job:
Job 42:10 “And the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”
Now this says “friends” here…..and they, before his trouble, were his friends.
Glad to be named as a friend of Job, who they thought to be righteous, and prosperous.
But when his troubles came….his oxen, cattle, sheep, and his sons and daughters were all either stolen or killed.
Job 1:20 “Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,”
Then Job himself got boils all over his body…and in the ashes, he sat to scrape them so they could drain. Boils are painful sores….and scraping the skin off to let them drain would have been exceedingly painful. Yet he says…
Job 2:10 “….shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.”
“Receive” here means to take, to choose. When we, like Job take from the hand of God, that which He sends….no matter how it comes…..we truly “receive” it.
In actuality, we are receiving God….we are choosing God, as Job did.
But then his “friends” show up…..and I have put friends in quotes, because they have not come to comfort or even to strengthen in faith….but to point out his failures, because of the calamities that have come upon him.
At first they mourn with him for seven days….but then…”If we assay to commune with thee, wilt thou be grieved? But who can withhold himself from speaking?” Job 4:2
Basically, they say: “We are sure sorry that you are like this….but you must have done something wrong to bring these things on you!”
And then they begin to try and tell him how he might have sinned.
They talk…and talk….(and let me just say, that if Job had sinned,….what they said, would have been correct…but they spoke without listening, either to God or Job)
And Job, angered by the lack of comfort they are giving….and the fact that they assume he is wrong….also talks and talks.
Finally, as we know, God speaks….but only with Job….and that settles the matter. Job bows to God’s hand upon him….no matter what ridicule and slander it brings…..and worships again.
Then Job prays for his friends.
Behold, Job seeking the blessing of God on them and their lives…
…..and when he prays…and only when he prays for them….God turns the captivity of Job….and gives him twice as much as he had before.
(I find “captivity” an interesting term. It means that he was a poor prisoner….who had been prosperous before. But God turns the captivity of Job….into a double blessing)
Matthew 5:44 “But I say unto you, Love your enemies…”
( They may still be your enemies…..yet you “love them”…
…..and I want to stress that love in scripture is a willed action of our lives. It is not just emotion, or affections….but a will response to God’s Word for another.)
…”…bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,…”
(This is done in the power of the Holy Spirit….through us. We can bless, because God blesses us….and we deserved cursing at His hands…yet received mercy, and forgiveness.)
…”and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you:…”
(We are to pray that the Lord’s Will will be done in their lives…..whether they are to repent or not…what we leave in God’s hands always works to His good.
But, for us,…we are to forgive them.
Not for their sakes, but because we are to be like our Heavenly Father, who forgives us…
……we are to be like our Lord Jesus, who forgave the very ones who crucified HIm….
……and we are to be like our blessed Holy Spirit, who continues to guide and help us…even though we quench Him, often.)
Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
God is perfect or complete in HIs attributes. He has no lack.
Therefore…..
…we are to work with Him to attain to the completeness of His character in us. In other words we are to be perfect or complete in the attributes that He manifests:
And the one attribute that He is speaking of here….is forgiveness.
And that it is to be given and shown to our enemies! Even as He has done!
To be complete in this is to come to the place in dealing with our enemies….or our “friends” who come to us like they did Job….that we forgive…and keep forgiving, till God sees to the matter…in us.
They can no longer hurt us, for we are whole in Christ. We are praying for them in the Lord’s Will….and we are free from their influence.
He heals us, and that is truly what He is after!
(In some instances this is very hard….but one thing I have found to be helpful…is to seek that the Lord would really speak to me….as He did Job.
For resentment and bitterness go hand in hand with backsliding. Get as close to the Lord in this as possible….and keep asking for that Word from Him. He will not leave us desolate, or forgotten…but will come to us in Word and deed.)
Our God is our Father….and He can take us by the hand and give us what we need….for He loves to do so.
Preaching, Teaching, and Notes 