Tag Archives: prayer

Love Your Enemies

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(A five -minute read)

Alan says: Toward year’s end, I spend time reflecting on what’s gone by and look ahead to what’s coming up. It’s a time for assessment and planning. As I am now busy with another book, it’s time to dip into the archives. Here’s something worth a second look.

Love Your Enemies was originally published just after the 2020 US federal election. The original text has been modified.

It was a couple days after Joe Biden won the presidency. I had a spirited (but respectful) back-and-forth with a friend, a self-professed “Donald Trump hater”. He bristled at my idea that he pray for him.

He said, ‘I’ll join you in prayer for millions of traumatized Americans to help us all heal, but Trump is not on the list.’

I suggested that if I hate Donald Trump (or any other person for that matter), the hatred is of less consequence than the fact I am willing to allow myself to hate.

When I amass hatreds and resentments and harbor unforgiveness, I only hurt myself.

Here’s what I told my friend: One of Jesus’ main points during his ministry was that we must rid ourselves of unforgiveness and bitterness. These things block us off from receiving God’s grace and peace. Only by doing that can we fully receive God’s forgiveness for our own shortcomings.

Some Hard Truths

Has Donald Trump lied as my friend suggested? Of course he has! So have I! So have you! But there’s grace for that. When we catch ourselves doing it, we turn back to Jesus, say we are sorry (and mean it) and know that we’re forgiven. Then we move on and try again. We don’t prove ourselves through our own actions. We let the Lord guide and correct us. Over time we get better.

As to praying for those we may despise, God was very clear on this. In the Old Testament the rule was ‘If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.’ 1 In the New Testament Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” 2

The instruction is pretty clear. Pray for your enemies, don’t hate them. And that last bit, about the rain falling both on the righteous (those who love God) and the unrighteous (those who don’t) is a way of pointing out that God loves your enemies as much as He loves you. He wants Donald Trump to follow Him as much as he wants you or me. He plays no favorites.

Let’s not forget that to some out there, you and I may be seen as the enemy!

Some Good News

You’ll find a longer discussion of forgiveness between Jesus and the disciples in Matthew 18. Peter asks Jesus how many times he has to forgive someone – seven times? Jesus says ’70 times seven’ (or 77 times, depending on your translation). The point is that Jesus is exaggerating for effect, to say we should always be ready to forgive. Why is this? Three reasons:

1. Because it releases the person who harmed us from any curse laid upon them for their sin.

2. In a practical way, it releases us from bitterness and resentment. It gives us freedom.

3. It sets things right in the spiritual realm.

Think about the Lord’s Prayer, where it says ‘forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.’ 3 You can’t have one without the other.

That idea of setting things right spiritually may seem murky. Here’s a practical example. If someone robs me and takes my wallet, I’ll certainly file a police report. I want my wallet back and I want justice to be done. But I also pray for the thief and forgive him.

Here’s why: If the thief is caught and I get my wallet back that’s worldly justice and that’s good. But the thief, even if punished, is still a thief. His heart is not transformed. Only God can transform his heart and change him from being a thief. My prayer helps with that.

If I don’t forgive the thief, whoever I perceive him to be, then my lack of forgiveness works against God’s ability to transform the thief’s heart. Prayer has power. We are born into a spiritual battle and live in one all our lives. If we pretend otherwise we are deluding ourselves.

Only God knows all the facts and only he knows what is in our hearts: yours, mine and Donald Trump’s for that matter. I’m content to leave any and all judgments up to Him – He’s designed for it. I’m not.

Since this began on a political note, I’ll close on one: In politics, someone wins, someone loses and then life goes on. God remains in charge. ‘He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who know understanding.’ 4

And that’s a very reassuring piece of truth.

1. Exodus 23:5
2. Matthew 5:43-45
3. Matthew 6:9-13
4. Daniel 2:21

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More Random Thoughts

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(A two-minute read or a lifetime of pondering)

God can breathe on anything I offer and make it into worship – if my heart is right. This is one way I exhibit God’s glory.

Be Like A Child

Does Jesus hint that only the childlike have true discernment? Dozens of his disciples had just returned from miraculous ministry, recounted in Luke 10. He then said, “I thank You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.” 1

Consider this hand-in-hand with “Truly I say to you, whoever will not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will in no wise enter it.” 2

Don’t Pretend

Every question the Lord asks cuts to my essence, revealing where I fall short. Any explanation or justification means I’m busy reviewing my sin and unbelief. This does not exalt Him. It’s one reason I read scripture.

God put all things in subjection to those of us who believe in Him. And yet, we can’t see them all. That is why Jesus came, so that instead of striving to see what we’re unable to see, we simply see Jesus, and He is enough. That’s because He sees all, has known all, knows all to come and exists in perfect harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Undeserved grace

I was sired by circumstance, raised by happenstance and saved by sovereign grace. My life was like a worn-down tire, which can only be patched and recapped so many times before it needs to be discarded and replaced.

Jesus can take a re-tread and build a new wheel from the inside out.

My life was an old stele covered with moss, which needed to be scraped and cleaned to reveal the words chiseled into it years before, and still could only be read by producing a rubbing of the surface.

Jesus cleanses down to bare rock so everything is readable.

Truisms

Take heart: Even if you walk in the wrong direction, you’ll eventually come back to where you started and can turn around.

You can be swept away in the River of Life but cannot drown in it. When you let go and have the current sweep you along, you always reach your destination.

If you tell the Lord it’s deeply satisfying to know Him the way you do today, He will tell you it is deeply satisfying to Him to be known by you this way.

Your life is currency. Decide what you can afford and spend wisely.

Even when you know who you are, it is still most profitable to ask God to show you who you are not.

1. Luke 10:21
2. Luke 18:17

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Myth Information

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We don’t suffer from an epidemic of misinformation, but a burden of myth-information. Modern censorship prevents us from getting an edge in word-wise.

The self-appointed powers-than-be, those who control liberal governments, education systems, mass media and online behemoths believe they are the repository of all knowledge. Anything that doesn’t match their preferences is de-listed, de-platformed, de-monetized, de-humanized and denied an audience.

Fortunately, they can only control worldly knowledge. Unfortunately (for them) worldly knowledge is, in the end, worthless. It’s the intellectual version of fiat currency, with value only to those who trust it. God does not and God’s people should not.

God’s kingdom is not about knowledge anyway, but about love. Love only exists because there is a God in heaven who cares more about us than He cares what He knows about us. Jesus was and is the living embodiment of that love. “He who has seen Me, has seen the Father,” 1 He said.

As an American, my national heritage is framed by documents proclaiming “God-given” rights. The founders recognized that all good things come from God; 2 any rights we have are ordained in heaven, not dreamed up in a government bureaucracy.

In fact, the US Bill of Rights was written not to endow rights, but to protect people from government taking them away. How much this is endangered now. And it’s not just traditional Christian thinkers in the US who are suffering death by innuendo. It’s spread here to the UK and in most of the English-speaking nations.

The false ‘rights-based’ culture we currently live in has produced a wrongs-based social environment. Rights come from God alone. When people try to create ‘rights’ we only compound wrongs.

The Absolute from which all rights derive is no longer the driving force in Western culture. The perfect absolute has been cast aside in favor of political advantage.

Too many church leaders play along with cultural fictions to win the hand, even as they’ve lost sight of the game. The apostle Paul tells his spiritual son Timothy to “guard that which is committed to your trust.” 3

Too many church leaders have forgotten this charge. They inhabit a Cowardly New World. It remains, as it always has been, for an overlooked remnant of faithful souls to intercede, rise up and be bold. Risk allows us to take good theology and put it into practice in a hurting world.

So let us be light. Light always attracts a crowd in the darkness.

I currently worship in the Church of England, but I admit to a certain level of Anglicanxiety. Not for me myself, but for many leaders. God doesn’t change and doesn’t change His standards; this is clear from one end of the Bible to the other. He even says this about himself: “I am the LORD, I do not change.” 4

Thus it isn’t “Our Father” who is “problematic”, to use Archbishop Stephen’s troublesome phrase. If there’s a breakdown in perception, it’s not on the other end of the line. Some serious self-reflection and repentance is needed in many quarters.

I pray that I’m always quick to repent when this type of self-satisfaction appears in me; such I find repugnant. Holy Spirit is free to point this out to me, and so are you. This is how we get to the fine point of a sanctified life.

All of us who profess to follow Christ must take heed. Whom do we follow, really? And from whom do we wish honor and approval: Christ? Or the world and its institutions full of self-proclaimed knowledge?

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I agree. A little worldly knowledge is a dangerous thing. Spirit-filled believers should stay away from it. It lies, misleads and corrupts, and it takes both leaders and the led along with it.

The advice from Paul to Timothy quoted above reads in full, “O Timothy, guard that which is committed to your trust. Avoid profane babblings and opposing views from so-called knowledge. By professing it, some have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with you. Amen.” 5

Yes. Grace be with you. And mercy as well.

1. John 14:9 – Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. So how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
2. James 1:17 – “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning.”
3. 1 Timothy 6:20
4. Malachi 3:6a – The full verse (with context) is “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver….Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness…against those who…do not fear Me, says the LORD of Hosts. For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” [Malachi 3:2-3a. 5a, 5c, 6]
5. 1 Timothy 6:20-21

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