Pastor Tim Dillmuth shares a stunning revelation received by the future Apostle Paul when he was still Saul the persecutor:
Anytime someone persecutes a Christian, they are persecuting Christ himself.
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I’ve hardly had any real enemies during my lifetime. I’ve certainly had people that I didn’t like and people that didn’t like me, but I’ve rarely had anyone that I could truly call an enemy. A few years ago that all changed, as one such man entered my life and literally turned everything upside down. I had to quickly make a decision on how I was going to do good to the man that hated me. Here are two practical ways that I did good to him while he was still my enemy.
Prayed for my enemy! We know that Jesus commanded it (Matthew 5:44), and yet taking this first step can be very difficult. In fact, when I was dealing with the enemy I described above, I hadn’t even thought of doing this basic thing. A dear friend of mine encouraged me to do this and modeled how to do this while praying for his own enemy. I know that the regular practice of praying for my enemy softened my own heart and helped to keep me from the bitterness that tried to take root.
I realized that when I prayed for him I was doing more than making myself feel good, I was acknowledging the fact that God had the power to change a life, even the life of my enemy. Essentially, I was asking God to extend his goodness, grace and mercy to the person that I would least like that goodness extended to. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God.” (The Cost of Discipleship).
Praying for our enemies is not only the first step in doing good to our enemies, but quite possibly the most important.
I didn’t say bad things about my enemy. This was one of the most difficult things that I practiced because my own pride tried to demand that I retaliate with every bad thing that was said about me. If I had responded with hate to the hate I received, I would have caused a lot of hurt and heartache for my enemy (and I believe for myself as well). By not responding, not only had I broken the cycle of anger, but I had actually participated in the “doing of good” to my enemy.
Gossip has always been a problem, but in an age of Facebook, instant messaging and Google searches, it’s much easier to curse your enemies and have your words do a lot more damage than you might have first imagined. Conversely, when you bless those who curse you, you are not only blessing your enemy, but you are also obtaining a blessing from God yourself (1 Peter 3:9-12).
To do these two practical things is not always as easy as it sounds. First, we must recognize that God is present in each and every encounter that we have with our enemies. Therefore, it isn’t necessary to respond or act (in our own power) with every accusation that we receive, but it is necessary to commit ourselves to our faithful Creator and continue to do good.
God orders the circumstances of our lives so that no amount of our own effort can successfully accomplish the deep longing and desire he has placed within our hearts.
Thus, when these impossible situations present themselves, we should not approach them with despair and become embittered against God as if he were cruel or evil. We should not view the circumstances as accidents or the result of poor planning. (This was often the sin of the Israelites in the wilderness, who greeted every impossible circumstance as proof that they should never have left the security of Egypt). Nor should we roll up our shirtsleeves and triple our work, as if the solution lay within a greater degree of our own effort.
Instead, we should recognize that God has intentionally ordered this impossible state of affairs in order to bring glory to his name in our own hearts and minds. Only in these circumstances can he show himself to be a father generous beyond imagination.
Prayer proceeds, then, from just this kind of recognition.
We should not pray for God to add to our efforts, as if he were a mere amplifier or imitator of human actions. God’s actions in every situation do not differ from ours in degree (“My ways are not your ways”), but in kind, or type (giving us an egg, not a stone; giving us the Holy Spirit, not the earthly result for which we pray).
We pray wrongly when we say, “God, I can manage a 6, but this task needs a 9. Please supply the missing 3.” It is God’s way that the task cannot be accomplished with a 9, but rather with an r or a q—that is, not by a difference in degree (i.e., of effort), but of kind (i.e., of action).
Our prayer should be the recognition that no amplification of our actions can produce a result that satisfies the longing than God has graciously lodged in our heart. Rather, what is needed is an action that only God can conceive.
It will by definition be beyond our understanding how he will act to accomplish this impossible thing. This is the realm of faith. But God does not leave us to be mere spectators. It is the essence of his glory that we become holy co-conspirators in his divine action. So when we pray, we must be prepared to become doers of an unusual word, because God will ask us to do something that, in and of itself, appears futile or desperate or irrelevant.
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