When someone wrongs us, we’d like to pray that disaster falls on them! We may be tempted to pray the imprecatory psalms and hope to sit back and watch God exact vengeance on the evildoers, much like Jonah did outside of Nineveh. Our first response to that question is probably not the right one. In Matthew 5:43–45, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” It is clear that Jesus expects us to pray for our enemies, but how do we do that? Most familiar to us is the passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Love your enemies.Several places in the Bible command us to pray for our enemies (Luke 6:27, 35 Romans 12:20). So next time you have “stones” thrown at you, don’t get mad. But Jesus Christ has already forgiven us our sins, and now He has invited us to do the same. We are not always the one that is having stones thrown at us sometimes we are the stone-throwers. Even though we weren’t there at the crucifixion, He was offering us forgiveness as well. Jesus Christ showed us what it means to forgive our enemies when He asked His Father to forgive those who nailed Him to the cross. Rather than running away from him or hurting him, we can embrace him. Or we can take those stones, those same stones that hurt us, and we can use them to build a bridge to reach our enemy. We can throw the stones back, trying to hurt them like they’ve hurt us. Just like in the video, when someone tries to hurt us, we have a few options. We have the chance to touch their hearts, and hopefully to soften them. These moments, where we can either fight our offender or forgive them, are opportunities to teach people about Jesus Christ. We don’t want to pray for those who hurt us. Our first reaction is rarely to forgive someone who hurts us, but to be angry with them or, worse, to get back at them. When someone is cruel towards us, our first reaction is often to cross our arms over our chest, pout our lips, and claim that we’re never going to speak to the offender again. When someone argues with us, we want to yell too.

When someone pushes us on the playground, more often than not, we want to push them back. We have to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us. But loving those who love us is not enough, according to Jesus. As He points out to those listening, it’s easy to love those who love us it’s not difficult to be nice to those who are nice to us. Jesus reminded His listeners that the Hebrew Scriptures command that the Jews should love their neighbors, but Jesus issues a challenge that takes this command one step forward: He instructs His followers to love their enemies. During one of His many stops along the way, He preached about the importance of love.

In the days before Jesus was crucified, He preached throughout Galilee and Judea on His way to Jerusalem. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” -Matthew 5:43-45

Love your enemies scripture