Prayer for Enemies

This page contains

Prayer for Enemies

and

it contains

insights and encouragement

to help you with your thoughts and emotions

about your enemies.

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Welcome to all of you who are interested

in learning more about this subject!

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Take note that we have a page that is 

a supplement to this page:

More Prayer for Enemies

And

here is a link to all our pages

that help you to forgive:

Forgiveness Links

We encourage you to do a quick scan

through this page to quickly find

the information

which will be most helpful to you.

Note:

This page is a hard page

to write

because each person who views this page

will come with a different set of circumstances.
-
It is also hard to write

because we realize

that most people who come here will be in emotional pain.
-
Please understand that we are seeking to help

and encourage you.
-
As you scan down,

you may find that this page

is not what you need at this time.

If that is you,
we invite you to go to our page called
Prayers for All Occasions
and look
for other prayers
that will be more helpful for you at this time.   

What Kind of Prayer
do you pray for Enemies?

Prayer for your enemies does NOT have to be about

God blessing them with material things.

We submit to you that your prayers need to mainly focus on
asking God
to draw them into a deep relationship with him. 

If your enemies

truly and deeply loved God,

you would probably not be in this situation with them.

Why Pray for our Enemies?

Answer :

God tells us to pray for our enemies.

When you deeply love God, you want to obey him.

You want to be right with him in every area.

-

You are not right with God in every area of your life,
if you want
something bad to happen to someone.

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"Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,

And do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles."

Proverbs 24:17

I am not saying....

that you move heaven and earth
to keep that person from God's discipline.

People need the discipline of God.
Those who are your enemies probably
need
some guidance and discipline from the Lord.

They also probably need to develop
a deep love for God and his Word.

I am saying....

 that God has told us to pray for our enemies.

I personally believe that God wants us to be willing to grow
to a place where
we have received

so much of the love of Christ

for all people  - even our enemies -

that we have
a sad tear in our eyes
when we see our enemies suffering.

-

That takes a lot of spiritual growth.

-

When you get to that place,
you will
experience the heart of Jesus. 

On the cross, during his suffering,

Jesus lovingly said,

"Father, forgive them

for they know not what they do."

For those who have
Unforgiveness issues...

Many people struggle with Unforgiveness

It is not easy to forgive those who have hurt us or hurt those we love.

Many people who will read this page need help with unforgiveness issues.

If that includes you,

this website has a lot of help and information

for you.

We understand that

what was done to you was

terribly, terribly wrong.

We want to help you deal with your emotions.

We have pages on

Learning to Forgive and on  How to Forgive.  

Even if you haven't forgiven all your enemies,

 - with God's help - 

you take the beginning steps of praying for them.

In time, prayer will come easier.

In Matthew 5:44, Jesus teaches us,

"But I say to you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you.
do good to those who hate you
and pray for those who spitefully
use you and persecute you."

Jesus wasn't telling us to do something that is impossible. You CAN force prayer out of your mouth for your enemies.

In fact, over time as you continue to pray, it becomes easier - and the more you pray for your enemies - the easier it will become.

And as you pray for your enemies:

Seek the Lord, and seek godly wisdom if needed,

and you will find your emotions and thoughts

becoming more loving - and Christ-like.

Getting My Heart Right

Dear Lord,

I pray that you would soften my heart concerning prayer for my enemies. I pray that you would help me to realize that my enemies desperately need to know you, respect you, and obey you.

Help me to remember that their lack of love comes from their lack of knowing you - the God of Love.

Amen

Copyright © 2012 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

Prayer for Enemies

Lord,

Be with my enemies today as they make decisions.

I ask that you would bring them your thoughts so that they can see and evaluate their life situations through your wisdom.

I ask that you would help them to clearly hear your thoughts on what they should do today and every day.

Guide them to recognize the right decision every time. Help them to recognize the blessings that come from making good choices and from developing a deep relationship with you.

I pray that they will realize the lightness of heart that they can have if they will do the right thing. I pray that they will realize the relief that they can have when they do the right thing.

Bring your lovingkindness to rescue them from being unkind today. Urge them not to sin against me or anyone else this day. I ask that you would heal the wounds inside of them that pressure them to hurt others. Let them begin to realize the joy of treating others in a godly way.

Bring them thoughts that would help to soften their heart toward you and your will for them.

In Jesus' name, I pray,

Amen

Copyright © 2012 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

A Story of Great Forgiveness

A man was left for dead,

but he prayed for those who had tried to kill him.

Are you ready in your journey

toward forgiveness

to hear a testimony?

If not - continue down the page.

Dealing with enemies

Every person will deal with enemies
at some time.

Many of us want harmony and unity in our life.

We hate the thought of an "enemy."

But notice in Matthew 5:44,

Jesus seems to indicate that we will all have enemies.

Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies.

He did NOT say,

"If you have an enemy, pray for him." 

Jesus seems to assume

that it will be normal to have enemies.

Even if we don't want to have "enemies," there will be times when people will position themselves as our enemies.

No one is liked and treated kindly by everyone. So not everyone will like us and treat us kindly.

We all know people who just don't seem to like us or people who don't have enough love inside themselves to treat us kindly.

Rejection

Jesus felt rejection. Even his own brothers rejected him and acted like enemies to him.

We invite you to our Dealing with Rejection page.

Unfortunately, we cannot make a

Great Relationship

with everyone.

The Bible does encourages us to do the best we can

with getting along with people.

Romans 12:18 AMP says:

"If possible, as far as it depends on you,

live at peace with everyone.

Why do we have enemies?

Answer :

There is sin in this world.

People are capable of doing horribly hurtful things to us.

Question:

Would Jesus have done to you
what your enemies have done to you?

Answer:

No

Question:

Would you have been able

to avoid this place of upset

if

your "enemy" had acted like Jesus?

Answer:

Yes!

I submit to you that in almost all cases,

the answer is

yes!

Therefore, I  submit to you that

your prayer for your enemies

should be basically aimed at

praying that God would guide them toward himself

and that they would

become more like Christ -

and praying that they would

develop a hunger

to become right with Father God and with people.

Hurt people hurt people.

Until a person has developed a good relationship with

Father God

and until

a person has learned to receive his love,

that person is a prime candidate to hurt people.

Would you agree...

that if one of your enemies was acting like Jesus and

showing God's love -

that you would probably not feel that this person was

your enemy?

In most cases,

 this person

is your enemy

because

he or she isn't following God

and his Word.

Therefore,

this person needs to think and act like God.

To do that,
this person needs a right relationship with God.

God will not violate a person's will.
But
there are things that God does do...

God can send

circumstances, situations, and people

into a person's life

to point him or her

toward His direction.

Prayer for your Enemies
can be
centered around this theme.

I submit to you

that if that person

truly had a right heart,

that person would not be your enemy.

_

In the process of us

praying prayer for enemies

(praying that they would develop a right heart)

it is important that

we

keep a right heart.

I don't want to be a hypocrite.

Many of you don't want to pray for your enemies

because you don't want to be a hypocrite.

If you don't really want your enemies to be blessed, you may feel like a hypocrite praying for them to be blessed. 

Take note that the enemy of your soul will want you to feel like a hypocrite when you pray for the good of your enemies. He will try to stop you.

God's commands to us to obey him don't change just because of what you or I think or feel. Remember that Jesus didn't say that we had to feel like it in order to pray for our enemies. He just told us to "Do it."

God does not want us to be ruled by our feelings. We are to be obedient to God  - even if it goes against our feelings.  God wants us to lift up to him our prayer for enemies, anyway.

For example:

Do you always want to go to work?

You get up and go to work every day even though

you may not always "feel" like it.

Don't let the enemy of your soul

trick you

into being disobedient to God.

To lift up

"Prayer for our Enemies"

is to obey God. 

I want to pray for my enemies,
but I can't
get my
emotions and thoughts under control.

There is an answer to that!

God can and will help you

if you sincerely ask him to.

God can and will move

our emotions and our thoughts

if we submit to allowing him to renew our mind.

We also have help for this on our Power Words Page.

If you could not pray the prayer

we gave for your enemies,

ask the Lord to help you

receive more of his love. 

One prayer I pray is:

Father,

Pour your love on me for such and such.

Help me to receive your loving thoughts about such and such.

Work with me so that I allow you to give me loving thoughts about them.

Counsel me in the day and even at night as I sleep, so that I can begin to accept and think loving thoughts about this person. 

Amen

Copyright © 2012 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

Below is another Prayer that is great to pray

for our enemies.

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Note that the following prayer

is an example of a prayer for

more than one enemy.

So it is written in the plural.

Father,

I ask that you would pour your love all over such and such and such and such.

Help them to be healed in all their wounded places.
Help them to receive your love and become loving individuals.
Help them to become lovable individuals. 

Lord, I ask that today you would continually pour your love on them. May your everlasting love minister to them today.

Amen  

Copyright © 2012 Beth McLendon of Inspirational-Prayers.com

A Powerful Proclamation
to say
regularly is:

I WILL learn to love my enemies

through the power of God. 

God will teach me to love my enemies!

We do not Wrestle
against Flesh and Blood

What does the following mean?

We do not Wrestle against Flesh and Blood.

In Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12,

the Bible tells us

that we wrestle not with flesh and blood,

but with demonic spiritual entities. 

So actually "people" are not our real enemy. 

The conflict

is not actually with people but with demonic forces.

Ephesians chapter 6
also teaches us
about the armor
that we can wear to
strengthen ourselves
and defeat our spiritual enemies.

I encourage you to visit our Spiritual Warfare Prayers page.

Also our Bible devotions page has more information on other pages that will help you in this area.

We realize that you have greatly suffered.

We want you to know that
as our team
wrote this page,
we were not
trying to
minimize the suffering that has been caused
by those who have hurt you. 

There is a time to mourn.
And there is also a time to seek healing from the Lord.

This page is written for those
who are seeking healing from the Lord.

Seek Wisdom

Some reading this page will seek to stay away from those who are considered enemies. In many cases this is wise.

Others of you will feel compelled to try to build a relationship with those enemies. That may or may not be wise. We are not advocating that. 

In many cases, the wise choice is to plan to be kind to them if you run into them but not actually seek them out.

Be Prayerful

Be prayerful about your decisions in this area.

God does tell us to forgive.
God does tell us to lift up prayer for enemies.
God does tell us to have a mindset to bless our enemies.

However, we must ask the Lord and also seek his Biblical counsel in order to know how to wisely handle situations with our enemies.

Sometimes 

- many times -

God wants us to keep a distance

from those who seek to hurt us or harm us.

Be sure and seek to have a heart to be wise.

Forgiveness, prayer,  and a mindset of kindness doesn't mean you need to intentionally seek to be around this person. And it certainly doesn't mean that you try to act like this person is a close friend.

Only through reading the Bible and seeking wisdom can we know all the specifics we need to know about dealing with those who have made us their enemies. 

In Conclusion:

Prayer for Enemies is God's idea
and
God's command.

Jump to the top of Prayer for Enemies

Prayer for Enemies Scripture

Matthew 5 44 and Romans 12 18 and Ephesians 6 12 are highlighted on this prayer for enemies page.