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That Love Your Enemy Thing Again

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

“Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles” (Proverbs 24:17).

I don’t like it when people post about Donald Trump and how they wish the assassination attempt had been successful. I’m equally not a fan of people making fun of Joe Biden for his apparent dementia. Neither one suits a child of God or a disciple of Jesus.

The current political climate has created an us versus them mentality. We can be tolerant toward the views of our people, but not theirs. We will try to be civil and humane with our people, but when it comes to their people, all bets are off and all sorts of name-calling of them and their families are fair game.

We’ve even decided that the whole made in the image of God thing doesn’t apply to them. They’re evil and not human because they are them, not us. Typically, the view we have of them is the most distorted and exaggerated caricature of the person and not the actual person.

When Jesus said to love your enemies, He didn’t stutter. He said to love them whether you like them or not, whether you agree with them or not, whether they deserve love or not. As I’ve said repeatedly, Jesus chose to love and forgive those who were in the very act of murdering Him.

I don’t think it’s good to celebrate when a political opponent suffers. In fact, if your theology allows you to hate “them,” then it’s not of God and not of the Bible. And disagreeing with choices or lifestyle doesn’t equal hate. In fact, the more you love people, the more concerned you will be when they make unwise choices or behaviors and the more you will want the best, i.e. God’s best, for them.

Perhaps the best way to learn to love your enemy is to pray for them. And not in pray for their destruction or comeuppance. But pray for them as you would for yourself or a loved one. Pray that God can change their heart and give them wisdom — not Democratic or Republican wisdom but Godly wisdom. You can pray for their salvation. You can pray that they will find the same joy and peace that you have found.

Praying for the Lost

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“Oh, our glorious Lord, you have taught us to pray for others, for the grace which could have met with such undeserving sinners as we are must be able to meet with the vilest of the vile. Our Father in heaven, we offer prayer for those who never think of you; who, though created by you, are strangers to you; who are fed by your bounty, and yet never lift their voices to you, but live for self, for the world, for Satan, for sin. Father, these cannot pray for themselves for they are dead; your quickened children pray for them. These will not come to you, for, like sheep, they are lost; but seek them, Father, and bring them back.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

Sometimes, I think we get so caught up bashing our enemies that we forget that we’re commanded to pray for them. Note that Jesus did not make a suggestion or a friendly reminder, but instead gave us a command. We don”t get to choose whether we want to obey or not.

But when we see lost people acting lost, why are we surprised? Maybe we should be more amazed that we’re not lost because when we were dead in our sins, God made us alive. If not for the grace of God, we’d all be just as lost and hopeless as anyone out there in the world.

So we can pray for those apart from Jesus just as others prayed for us when we were just as far from God and just as dead in sin. We can pray that God will do what no one else but God can do — save people.

It’s good to have a list of people that you’re praying for their salvation. You could pray daily or weekly or however you feel led. Even now, I’m thinking of someone who’s far off from God at the moment and praying he’ll come to a true saving faith in Jesus. Not because I’m extra special super spiritual, but because I know how much I needed Jesus when I was lost (and how much I still need Jesus now).

The Bible teaches us that no one is past saving or beyond the grace of God or ever too lost for God to find. Who knows but that our persistent praying might lead some of them in the the kingdom of God. Wouldn’t it be amazing to run into one of them and say, “You know, I prayed for you to be here, and here you are. Isn’t God good?”

Seek God First

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“We know God too little. In our prayers, we are concerned less with His Presence, than the thing on which our heart is set.  We think mostly of ourselves, our need, and our weakness, our desire and prayer. But we forget that in every prayer God must be First, must be ALL” (Andrew Murray).

I forget that sometimes. My prayer life can easily become a laundry list of wants or a kind of cosmic letter to Santa about what I want for Christmas. I can get so wrapped up in my requests that I forget that God is so much more than what He can give me.

I forget that God can’t give me anything apart from Himself (with much thanks to C. S. Lewis for that one). Besides, what I really desire can’t be found outside of God anyway. What I really in my deepest heart of hearts need is God.

If I in my prayer life seek God first, strive after God’s Kingdom (which is no more or less than God’s active rule and reign more than a location), then God said He would give me the rest. In pursuing God whole-heartedly and solely, I end up finding everything I need without even looking for it.

I read something that shook me a bit. If I got everything I ever prayed for, would the whole world be better off or would just my little world be better? Am I praying for my own wants and need or am I seeking God’s blessings for those around the world who have yet to hear the gospel? Am I praying for those in my sphere of influence who don’t yet know Jesus?

I think if I seek God that way, I won’t care about a lot of what I pray for now. I also believe that my own needs will be met and God will give me what I would have asked for had I known what He knows and seen what He sees.

Those Convicting Memes

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Is it possible that God can speak through an aptly-timed social media meme? If I had to answer that question right now, I’d lean toward yes. I seem to get memes like this one that remind me that gratitude is always appropriate even in seasons of anxiety.

There’s always something to be thankful for. I am most definitely living inside of multiple answered prayers (both from me and from others) while I am waiting on other prayers to be answered. One obvious example that practically stares at me every day is Clifford the Big Red Jeep, the car I prayed for.

So basically while I pray for God’s provision for a job, I am literally driving the answer to a previous prayer. After that, you’d think I’d be all done with questioning God’s timing or wondering if He will really provide this time, but I still do. I identify with those Israelites wandering in the desert who seem to have short-term memories when it comes to the blessings of God and long-term memories when it comes to every hardship.

Even the basic gifts like waking up every morning and having reasonably good health are answered prayers. So is having good eyesight and hearing. So is being able to walk anywhere I want. I am living in all these answered prayers that I routinely take for granted.

God, forgive my doubt and my entitlement. Thank you that you are way more patient with me than I am with you. Even as I pray for You to grant my petitions, grant me to see with Your eyes so that I can trust Your heart and Your timing and not lose heart. Amen.

The Soliloquy of Prayer

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They tell me, Lord, that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since but one voice is heard, it’s all a dream,
One talker aping two.

Sometimes it is, yet not as they
Conceive it. Rather, I
Seek in myself the things I hoped to say,
But lo!, my wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The listener’s role and through
My dumb lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talkers, though are One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream” (Unknown, quoted in Letters to Malcolm by C. S. Lewis).

That’s how prayer works for me. Sometimes, I feel like I’m talking to the ceiling. My words can’t possibly be reaching God’s ears, and if they are, He doesn’t seem to hear. But then I remember that God is not just in some faraway heaven beyond all time and space. He’s in the room with me.

Other times, my prayers seem to come from somewhere else. I find myself praying words the same way an actor speaks lines written by another. It’s as if God Himself is giving me the very words to speak to Him the desires of my heart.

Often, I will rattle off a list of my own requests and desires and then give God no time to reply. Even then, I think He hears the heart cry behind the list. He is way more patient with me than I am with Him most of the time.

On occasion, I won’t even be able to speak. Either through grief or fear, I can’t find the words. In those moments, the Holy Spirit and Jesus intercede for me in those groanings too deep for words.

Whatever the case, I am never alone. If there is but one voice speaking, it’s not mine, but God praying through me to God who hears and honors the request. Not God in the sense of me and all things are a part of God, but God as holy and totally other who still dwells in me and makes Himself known to me. That God.