“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” Luke 6:27-28 (ESV)
This is our last week focusing on loving our enemies.
Now that we have acknowledged our enemies, and repented and asked God to empower us to let go of what we hold against them, where do we go from here?
How can we actually pray for these people in our lives?
After Jesus finishes washing each of His disciples feet, He instructs them to follow in His footsteps:
“When he washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” John 13:12-15 (ESV)
Remember last week we talked about Jesus taking off His outer garments and humbling Himself.
And then, what did He do?
“He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” John 13:1-5 (ESV)
Jesus took a towel and tied it around his waist. He took on the position of washing their feet.
This is where we cross the line of difference between “I know I should forgive and love them..” And “I’m going to become the person Christ has asked me to be.” .
But, how do we actually go about this? How do I pray for my enemies?
As I considered this, God gave me a picture of my son, Ace.
When he comes home from preschool, I so badly want to know all that he did during his day! And he does convey some, but being speech delayed, he doesn’t communicate many details.
However, there are a whole lot of other clues that give me a glimpse into what his day was like.
As I buckle him into his car seat to leave school, he usually has some remnants of whatever snack he had still around his mouth.
When he takes his shoes off once we get home and tiny stones spill out, I know that he went outside and played on the playground that day.
As I help him wash his hands after lunch, I can see some blue and green marker marks on his hands, telling me that he did some kind of craft with coloring today.
All these clues I don’t have to hear him tell me about what he did while he was in school that day, I can see it with my own eyes.
BUT I do need to have eyes to see these things to take notice.
As we go in to figuratively wash the feet of our enemies, lifting them up in prayer for their care, consider all that comes off into the water from a dirty foot.
It gives insight into where they’ve been.
Probably not specifics, but it allows us to consider what these people have walked through.
What they are walking through.
Perhaps even the lack of Christ in their lives and desperate need for God to intervene so that they may see Him.
When you use the towel around your own waist to wash someone’s feet, there’s going to be dirt and grime from their feet left on the towel.
We can choose to see this dirt and let it give us insight in how to pray for and lift up these people to the One who can heal and change their hearts.
Or we can choose to ignore it, not bothering to consider what they’re going through or where they’ve been.
Thankfully, Jesus took all of our filth and rendered it powerless at the Cross.
As we pray for our enemies, we can ask for insight into their lives, that He would give us eyes to see how to pray for them.
My first prayer for a particular acknowledged enemy in my own life sounded something like this:
“God, how can I pray for her? Give me eyes to see. Help me to understand her choices, her pain. It doesn’t excuse what she’s done. Judas is forever known in history as the one who betrayed You. Yet, You still died for him. You died loving those who treated You as an enemy. Help me to see her in the light of this same love.”
And something changed in my heart towards this person.
Slowly, I began wanting to look deeper into her life so that I could specifically pray for her.
Just as with Ace coming home from school, I wouldn’t see any of the clues that help me know the details of his day if I didn’t look for them. I haven’t bothered lifting this person up to God in prayer because I didn’t bother looking at her in love or see that I needed to.
But now I WANT to know how I can pray for her.
And God has honored my heart to walk with Him the way He’s asked me to.
We have to be careful not to read His command in Luke 6 to love our enemies and pray for them and quickly decide we don’t know how to do that and so give up.
If God asks us to live out our lives in a certain way, He will also lead us in how to do that as we seek Him.
And in order to start praying for our enemies, we will need to have eyes that want to see how we can pray for them.
My prayer is that now that we’ve taken time with God acknowledging who our enemies are, all that we have held against them, and repenting of our own sinful actions or thoughts or feelings towards them, that now we will be able to look at our enemies who we are trying to learn to love with new eyes.
Eyes that are freed from all that clouded our view of these people, keeping us from seeing how we can pray for them.
Week Eight Challenge: Take time in prayer asking God to open your eyes to how you can pray for those you’ve acknowledged as your enemies. Take every day of this week to get on your knees truly praying over those who’ve pained you in your life.
Father, as we seek you to teach us how to pray for these individuals, will you open our eyes to insight in how to lift them up to You? Change our hearts to be able to genuinely love our enemies and pray for them as You tell us to in Your Word. We trust You that this is what is best not only for them, but for our own hearts and our relationships with You. Help us see for ourselves how You see them. Break our hearts for them as Your heart broke for Judas.
From one of His children to another,
Christi