“Big league prayers.” (A Sunday meditation).

Not all prayers are the same. When I pray for my obedient child it’s not as intense as my prayer for my disobedient child even though one may Need more of my prayer than the other. It is true that sick people need a doctor while the healthy do not need the doctor as much or at all. “But I tell you, love your enemies. Pray for those who treat you badly.” Matthew 5:44

There has to be a difference between the attention of God which is given to the righteous child and to the unrighteous one. To the elect and to the rejected one. Just as the rainfall is over both of them but not both of them will have the same harvest of righteousness as a result of the exchange of God’s grace on man.

The biblical command from the Lord Jesus is to pray for the enemies and to pray for those who cause you evil. This does not mean that I have to pray to the point that I ignore the enmity with one and sacrifice my priorities and friendship with others.

The order to pray for your enemies is spoken by the Lord Jesus in a purposeful command as if God is challenging man to obedience rather than results.

It is a challenge to step up to the pulpit and sit next to the right hand of the one sitting at the right hand of God and that’s Jesus.

 

This prayer is a judgmental prayer “For the spiritual man judges all things but he is not judged by anyone.” One definition of prayer is to breathe out what God has breathed in me. In that sense, true prayer is and must be effective. Therefore, to make out of prayer the only effectual power on behalf of my enemies would be done away with hell that is the destiny of the enemies of God by their own choice.

 

Prayer for those who are yet sinners and happy in their sins is more of a judgmental prayer because it is a pronouncement of a sentence for eternal damnation or eternal blessing. We pray like putting hot coals over the head of our enemies rather than playing an amateur providence as one “gooder” than God.

 

To pray we have been called and to pray we will do. What the Lord does with Prayer is none of my business. Mine is to be like Jesus who prayed for those who persecuted him… saying… ”Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” The effectiveness of that prayer is left up to the “Father in Heaven whose name is Holy.” As Jesus once said “It is not for you to know.”

 

Jesus prayed for those who betrayed him like Judas, for those who denyed him like Peter, for those soldiers who slaped him and spit at him and hurled insults at him. Who is the beneficiary of those prayers? That is the business of the Father not mine.

 

A friend of many years has been recently betrayed. I want her to remember that you’ll never be more like Jesus than when without reason you are betrayed, abandoned, treated with contempt by ungrateful people who did not appreciate your prayers that are your dispensation of love and grace in their lives. Leave it to the Lord and pray to the master  who had “breath-whispered” into your nostril the first day of your life.

If prayer is to be done without ceasing, then prayer is equivalent to breathing and breathing is what I need the most to keep alive, then I’ll pray for my own sake not for the sake of others. It is prayer that we are talking about as the freedom to speak to the Lord as you would speak to a father, a report of good or bad deeds from those around you.

 

Prayer is to be without ceasing and you must keep on breathing for if you don’t breathe you will die sooner than when you stop eating (Devotional) or stop resting (Fellowship) or doing exercises (Witnessing). Breathing out is what the Lord has called us to do when Jesus blew into our nostrils the breath of life making us living beings able to pray. Animals do not pray.

 

Praying for an enemy is like giving water to drink to a skeleton. We pray because it is not your responsibility that the skeleton retains the water or not. You are called to pray for the enemy not to drink and digest for the enemy. God is building a case against his enemies and your enemies. You are only responsible as a witness for your own obedience and not for the ideal and effectual result of your obedience.

 

Once we were the enemies of God in our sins and transgressions. It took the love of God and the work of Jesus and the help of the Holy Spirit to win the elect back to the fold.  How much more will it take for you to conquer with your human love those who are your enemy? The reason for this article is that a new form of bondage is sweeping the kingdom of the living where in a self-fulfilling prophecy they pursue success in whatever they do but at the high price of slavery for results. It is another way of raising false messiahs that do not redeem anyone, not even themselves. Beware, you have only one soul and do not trust your soul to anyone who does not preach the savior Jesus the Christ of God.

 

Gerry Gutierrez.

 

This letter has been written in fear and prayer in consultation with my beloved theologian and brother in the ministry under whose leadership I have chosen to hold myself accountable as you can see in his following short letter.)

Hey…!
I found this meditation quite profound, particularly the connection of “heaping burning coals on their head” and God building a covenantal-witness judgment against His enemies using our prayers.  Truly, His ways are higher than our ways.  Also, the idea of prayer being ”a breathing out of what the Spirit has breathed in” is likewise quite deep.  I will definitely meditate on that more.
Tangentially, my heresy-hunting alarm bells never rang.)  Yours. M.