Monday, October 5, 2020

Pray For Your Persecutors (Matt. 5:44b)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/5/2020 10:55 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Pray For Your Persecutors”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 5:44b

 

            Message of the verses:  and pray for those who persecute you”

 

            We begin this section by talking about what is the problem with all people, and that is that from birth all people are under the curse of death at sometime, and this causes all people, if they are honest with their selves to fear death.  What we are saying here is that all people have guilt and with that guilt wonder what will happen to them after they die.  They want to get rid of the guilt so that they can feel good about themselves and thus not fear death.  The trouble is that there is only one way to take care of that guilt, and that is to trust the Lord Jesus Christ’s payment for their sins and become born-again.

 

            As we look back throughout history we can see that the worst persecutions have been religious.  These persecutions have been the strongest against God’s people, and the reason is because the divine standards He has given to them and which are seen in them are a judgment on the wickedness and corruption of false religion.  As we read God’s Word it unmasks people at their most sensitive and vulnerable point, the point of their self-justification—whether that justification is religious, philosophical, or even atheistic.

 

            Most persecution that happens is the response to God’s truth, as the Lord assures us that, just as He was persecuted, so will we be as seen in John 15:20.  Because Jesus knows this His command for us is to pray for our persecutors as it is a command that every faithful believer may in some way have opportunity to obey.  This is not just reserved for believers who happen to live in pagan or atheistic lands where Christianity is forbidden or may be severely restricted.

 

            I want to interject that God’s Law is very offensive to those who are not His children, and one of the ways that God uses to bring people to His salvation is showing them that they cannot keep His Law, but that Christ has kept it for them and if they confess their sin and believe that Jesus died for them they will be saved and then they will have a desire to keep His Law.

 

            So we are talking about praying for those who persecute believers in this section and that means that if we are persecuted that we will have a chance to tell our persecutors the good news of the Gospel.  We can pray for those who persecute us.  I pray for a lady, and not there are more than one who goes to an abortion clinic to witness to ladies of the good news of Christ and why they should not go along with their plans for an abortion as that is murder.  I have a pray card that has names of the ladies who go there on the top of the card, and in the middle there are names of those who head up the abortion clinic and then at the end of the card there are several places where ladies can go for counsel and find help with their individual situation whether to find someone to adopt their baby or other things they can do.  The ones in the middle are difficult for me to pray for but necessary to do so as they certainly fall under the category of persecution.  Charles Spurgeon said, “Prayer is the forerunner of mercy,” and MacArthur goes on to say “and that is perhaps the reason why Jesus mentions prayer here.  Loving enemies is not natural to men and is sometimes difficult even for those who belong to God and have His love within them.  The best way to have the right attitude, the agape love attitude, toward those who persecute us is to bring them before the Lord in prayer.  We may sense their wickedness, their unfairness, their ungodliness, and their hatred for us, and in light of those things we could not possibly love them for what they are.  We must love them because of who they are—sinners fallen from the image of God and in need of God’s forgiveness and grace, just as we were sinners in need of His forgiveness and grace before He saved us.  We are to pray for them that they will, as we have done, seek His forgiveness and grace.”

 

            Persecution can also, although it should not, be between genuine believers and although this should not happen when it does prayer is the first step toward healing those broken relationships.  Whoever persecutes us, in whatever way and in whatever degree, should be on our prayer list.  Talking to the Lord about others can begin to knit the petitioner’s heart with the very heart of God.  

 

            This last paragraph comes from the last portion of MacArthur’s comments on this subject:  “Chrysostom said that prayer is the very highest summit of self-control and that we have most brought our lives into conformity to God’s standards when we can pray for our persecutors.  Dietrich Bonheoffer, the pastor who suffered and eventually was killed in Nazi Germany, wrote of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5:44, ‘This is the supreme demand.  Through the medium of prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God’ (The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller [2nd rev. ed.’ New York: Macmillan, 1960], pg. 166).”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I believe that it will be easier to pray for those names in the middle of the prayer card that I have for those who are killing babies.  Only God can change their hearts, and if that does not happen then they face the horrors of eternity in hell.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Make an effort to pray for those who are persecutors of the Gospel, that God would save some as He did Saul of Tarsus. 

 

10/5/2020 11:43 AM

 

 

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