You want to immediately feel a result from your prayers? Try
obeying Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount; specifically, those recorded
in Matthew 5: 43-45.
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. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (NIV)
And when Jesus tells us to pray for those who persecute us,
I’m pretty sure he’s not talking about how David prayed about his enemies in
the Psalms, asking God to inflict them with vengeance and grind their teeth
with gravel. No, the directive is for us to LOVE and pray FOR those people in
our lives who we find ourselves at cross purposes with.
And that immediate result I was talking about? Your prayer
may not bring a change in your enemy, but I guarantee it will change you and
your attitude toward them.
Truth is...oftentimes, prayer is more about changing us than about changing our circumstances.
Carl "Ogre" Olson shares the following pertinent C. S. Lewis quote..."The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
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