Christian Living

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Does it come naturally to pray for a person who has wronged you? Is it a common act for people to do a good thing for someone they know hates them?

No, it doesn’t come naturally, nor is it common to rise above a hurt and sincerely, from your heart, pray and do good in a painful situation.

But God asks us to be that kind of person. Why? Because it is a reflection of His nature, and Jesus said to do those things, “So that you may be called the children of your Father, which is in heaven.”

Jesus said that if we don’t forgive “from our hearts,” then our Father won’t forgive us.

Simply put, these are conditions of our very salvation. Jesus said, there is no point praying if you haven’t forgiven. See Mark 11. We can holler in the air all day long, but if our hearts are harboring anger, bitterness, desire for revenge or any other evil against anyone, we are wasting our breath.

Can you stop long enough to imagine what it would be like if God answered those same angry prayers made against you? For example, a husband forsakes his bride, and she begins to tell God how to deal with him. (Not realizing that God makes His sun to shine on the just and the unjust.) She has made herself a judge over him. According to Scripture, we must not judge, lest we be judged twice as much for their crime. We neglect to see that only God reserves the right to judge, but in our hurt angry state, we want to curse the culprit. We want God to exact His revenge and we want to see them suffer for what they did to us.

Can you see what it would be like if you both prayed that way and God answered?

Be careful. The demons of hell hear you, and in your own rebellion against God's word, they now have legal access to your soul. Quickly repent and seek the Lord for healing from the pain.

After these angry prayers, we then stand expecting the love of God to pour upon us, because we feel justified and righteous. “After all,” you might say, “I am the one who was wronged.”

Remember, “There is none good,” said Jesus Christ, “no, not one.”

We are all spinning on this planet together.

God sees every injustice. He hears every truly repentant heart. He hears every true prayer of blessing on those that hurt us.

When He hears your prayer in the midst of wrongs done to you, then He sees a reflection of His love on the earth. He sees a true son or daughter in the midst of a crooked world. Then he can begin a miraculous work in your heart, and the heart of the offender.

Trust God with every word He spoke. Don’t say, “God couldn’t have meant that for me in this situation.”

Jesus did not give a situation where you would be exempt. In fact, He showed us while bleeding out, exhausted from violent beatings against His Royal Body, saying, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

Maybe it is time to pray for the blindness of those who hurt us. It may be they cannot see, and your sincere prayer will help them come to repentance.

It could be the act of love that brings souls into God’s kingdom, through the ripple effect of you doing good and praying.

2 Timothy 2:25-26 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

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