Earnest intercession will be sure to bring love with it. I do not believe you can hate a man for whom you habitually pray. If you dislike any brother Christian, pray for him doubly, not only for his sake, but for your own, that you may be cured of prejudice and saved from all unkind feeling.
Edward T. Welch said,
God may define some people as enemies, but He says that we are to treat them as friends. Our duty is to consider how to serve them in such a way that they would be pointed to Jesus and repent from their sins… How can we even begin this impossible process?… Do we realize that we were Christ’s enemies? If we do, then we have no choice but to treat enemies the way God has treated us. Our conscience would rebel if we felt smug in a self-righteous judgment of our enemies. (Edward T. Welch, When People are Big and God is Small, P&R Publishing, 1997, p. 188. Used by Permission).
John Gerstner wrote,
As the Lord says, He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the unjust and the wicked as well as on the godly. And His followers are required to act accordingly. Christ commands us to love our enemies, and uses as His model the fact that God from heaven showers His blessings on the wicked. We see that God actually hates and is infinitely angry with persons upon whom He pours great blessings. We are not allowed to hate persons, but are commanded to love them. We cannot, of course, be pleased with persons who hate God and hate us, but we can behave lovingly toward them and pray for them. In so doing, we follow the model of God. (John Gerstner, The Problem of Pleasure, Soli Deo Gloria, 2002, p. 17).
John Piper wrote,
Can we pray for justice, and yet love our enemy at the same time? The answer is yes…We will magnify the mercy of God by praying for our enemies to be saved and reconciled to God. At the personal level we will be willing to suffer for their everlasting good, and we will give them food and drink. We will put away malicious hatred and private vengeance. But at the public level we will also magnify the justice of God by praying and working for justice to be done on earth, if necessary through wise and measured force from God-ordained authority. (John Piper, World Magazine, September 22, 2001).
