Luke 6:28 :

bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you.

Sometimes we forget that when we were deserving of punishment, we were given a blessing by God when we became Christians. Jesus went against what we deserved in order to give us God’s mercy. When someone mistreats us, it shows that they are just like we were and need a blessing from God so that they can even have the ability to change.

You could fight a sinner for years and never convince their heart to change. What is required is God’s blessing not our vengeance. In order to really care about others, we have to start caring for sinners instead of trying to crush them. Again, I find this humanly impossible. We need the Holy Spirit to be our strength in order to go against what is natural to us and actually bless and pray for those who mistreat us.

I don’t agree with President Obama. I fell like I’ve been personally attacked by his actions in that what I love the most he goes directly against in both word and action. He has made fun of Christians in front of crowds and it has been very offensive to me. Jesus tells me here that it is only appropriate for me to bless president Obama. He didn’t tell me to agree with him; only that I should pray and bless him. If president Obama doesn’t come to Jesus, his soul will be lost no matter what happens to us as believers. He is in much worse condition than we are and needs prayer and a blessing.

In no way to do I believe we should pray for what Obama wants, such as an increasing ability to get an abortion. In fact we should pray directly against what Obama has planned, but as far as Obama is concerned, we ought to be praying for his soul so that he can be saved just like we are.

This goes for anyone who mistreats us. Isn’t it amazing that God wants us to turn our enemies into friends by asking for His intervention? President Abraham Lincoln said:

“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
– Abraham Lincoln

That is real power. When you are able to change the mind of your enemy by the power of God Himself, you have been given a great capability. Jesus made it very clear that we get to ask, that means we can expect an answer! We should all be praying very earnestly for all of our leaders in our countries, and states that God would change hearts and bring many people to repentance.

Here’s an example. The first Christian martyr was Stephen. Listen to what he said right before He died:

Acts 7:60 :

He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen said this as he was being stoned to death with real rocks and standing there, giving approval to the act was a guy named Saul who was later named Paul. Listen to what Paul said later:

1 Corinthians 15:9-10 :

For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was bestowed on me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

It is very realistic to believe that if we pray for president Obama that he, too will be changed by the grace of God and could end up being a powerful voice in favor of God and His people. So, let’s not stop praying for Obama even though we disagree with Him. Let’s pray that his plans fail, but that he is saved.