Prayer: For Enemies

For a few weeks we have been featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by John Porter, the lead evangelist for the South Florida Church in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. . . .” (Matthew 5:44).

Opposition to us as disciples may take the form of critical brothers, angry family members, deceptive journalists, or even, as Jesus himself could attest to, murderers.  But whoever the enemies may be, the words of Jesus are still the same:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be glaringly different from those around us.  Living in a “religious” part of the world where people are apparently “good” can make this challenging at times. Ironically, it is our enemies who afford us the opportunity to glorify God by shining like stars in the universe (Philippians 2:15).  Perhaps in no other area can a Christian so obviously distinguish himself from the religious “do-gooders.”  To forgive, love and pray for our enemies is behavior described in the Bible as “perfect” (Matthew 5:48) that is, like God.  To be “like God” is to go completely “against the grain” of our sinful human nature.  Only someone who loves God earnestly and has an eternal perspective on life is able to surrender himself to this depth of love.

Prayer: For Others

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Lavonia Drabot who is a women’s ministry leader in Charlotte NC.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to each another and pray for each another so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:15-16).

In the dark.  On their knees.  Silently and aloud.  People have prayed for each of us-both before and after we became Christians.  God worked in those prayers to soften our hearts and expose our sin, to lead us to repentance.  Once we were forgiven and healed, we began to pray for others.  The cycle of intercessory prayer.  The multiplying principle.  Each one passes on the blessing he has received.  To intercede or pray on someone else’s behalf is a privilege.  We approach the God of the universe and he hears us.  Our prayers are sacrifices which are pleasing to him (Hebrews 13:15).

Prayer: In our Weakness

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by my good friend and fellow teacher, Steve Brown. His comments were written one year after he had a sudden onset of paralysis on one side of his body.

After six weeks in the hospital, the doctors decided that my paralysis was due to multiple sclerosis (MS).  It was a shocking introduction to weakness, and the beginning of a struggle to understand what God was doing and what he wanted me to learn. I had become weak.  And I thought of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12: “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”