How to forgive and pray for your enemies isn’t a course offered in grade school curriculum. If we’re lucky enough to have wise parents to teach us both why and how to forgive are we able to react without hesitating.
Forgiving and praying about my enemies wasn’t something I ever thought about prior to being reborn. I got the forget part down though. I would choose not to think about those who’ve betrayed me, those who’ve caused so much damage to my life and those who have tried to kill me. I just emptied their existence from my thoughts until they ceased to be. I was good at blocking things out. That’s how I coped with the never ending cycle of psychological warfare that was afflicted upon me every single day of my life . The fact that I wasn’t allowed to ever feel any thing about any event, traumatic or wonderful, let alone process the situation, made it easy for me to act like it was no big deal and that nothing could hurt me no matter how bullied I was. Forgiving them wasn’t even on my mind. I didn’t know about the power of forgiving and praying for enemies. I didn’t know just how important both are to the victim and the criminal.
It wasn’t until I receive the Holy Spirit did I learn what prayer and forgiveness can achieve. This is just one aspect of truth that He makes known to you that helps raise us out from the lies of the human world. In mans world their idea of rehabilitation hasn’t yet advanced out from the dark ages. You can put criminals in jail for punishment and forget about them but evil abounds where evil exists. What difference is it when an evil person serves decades in jail only to be released as he was or worse? That punishment serves no purpose. It allows the crimes to be repeated upon others. What justice is there if the criminal repeats the crimes? Over 40% of convicts released are jailed again for the same crime or worse. A spouse that cheats will cheat again or they will live in denial. The verbally abusive boyfriend doesn’t stop with the next person. The lazy worker, the mean boss the delusional selfish politician believe only in their cause and can see nothing wrong with it. Killers and sex criminals claim to have no control over their urges and no amount of punishment will cure them.
Until the day when Americans finally realize violence begets violence and humans when treated like animals will act like such, prayer and forgiveness is a power we all possess and the best weapon against evil .
God works in people and one way I believe He decides to impart the Holy Spirit within people is by the prayers of others requesting it. Philippians 4:6 says to make your requests known to God and James 5:16 says to pray for one another that you may be healed. Anything is possible through prayer. God takes the impossible and makes it possible. He sees promise where we see hopelessness. The Holy Spirit has given me answers and insight to areas where my mind was closed too before.
I understand what blindness does to unbelievers and those who are fake Christians, I know because I used to be one. But when they’re reborn some of the worst kinds of souls make the best hero’s in history. And when there is tremendous change there is such strength and dedication and passion that even a lot of average life long Christians haven’t yet matured into. Look at Paul of tarsus. An evil and most hateful man. What a transformation to the apostle responsible for most of the new testament writings and along with the other apostles, for changing the world and bringing hope, life and salvation to us through the words of Jesus Christ.
C.S Lewis became one of the most influential contemporary Christian apologetics after rejecting God for over half of his life. “”Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won’t last forever. We must take it or leave it.”
Charles Colson who during the Nixon administration was labeled by Slate magazine writer David Plotz as “the evil genius of an evil administration” and Nixons hard man. He did a lot of bad/dirty stuff in politics. But after reading Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis his whole life changed and in 1973 became a Christian and then become a leading evangelical Christian leader dedicating his life to the Lord. In 1974 he went to jail and in 1976 after prison he created Prison Fellowship , which today is “the nation’s largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families.” He received 15 honorary doctorates, wrote 30 books and was the recipient of some of the Salvation Armies top civic award and the worlds largest cash prize award the Templeton.
Colson was famously quoted in contemporary Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapmans song Heaven in the real world as saying;
“Where is the hope? I meet millions of people who feel demoralized by the decay around us. The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws we pass, or what great things we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people. And that’s where our hope is in this country. And that’s where our hope is in life.”
These men whose hearts were once black came to know Christ and went on to make the world a better place in the name of God.I want all enemies to have a radical transformation and go on to better our world. I want to be a part of praying for that chance. Do I forgive my enemies? Do I pray for them and that God will work in them? Absolutely! I don’t forget about them and act like nothing happened anymore. I do the best thing I can for them and the best most powerful thing that I can do for all of us , I hope and pray for their salvation not for their downfall. It is that simple.
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