How should I pray for my enemies?

Somewhere between the person who cut you off in traffic and the person who genuinely betrayed, abused, or wounded you, there are people it feels impossible to pray for with any sincerity. Jesus' command to pray for enemies is one of the most radical, countercultural instructions in all of Scripture, and it is worth being honest about how difficult it actually is before rushing to explain how to do it.

Jesus was not naive about how hard this would be, nor did he mean something soft or sentimental by it. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:43-45). He grounds this command in nothing less than reflecting God's own character.

Jesus roots this teaching in how God himself treats his enemies: he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). God's common grace does not wait for people to deserve it. Praying for enemies is, at its heart, an act of imitating the Father, extending toward difficult people some measure of the patient kindness God has already extended toward us while we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10).

Luke's version adds specific detail: "bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you" (Luke 6:28). Jesus is not asking for polite neutrality toward those who have wronged us; he is asking for active blessing, prayed sincerely, directed at people who have caused real harm.

Praying for an enemy does not mean asking God to simply make everything easier for them regardless of their choices. It can rightly include asking God to open their eyes to their sin and bring them to genuine repentance, Paul's own testimony is proof that God delights in transforming persecutors into servants; Saul, who approved of Stephen's murder (Acts 8:1) and hunted Christians, became the apostle Paul after a direct encounter with the risen Christ (Acts 9:1-19). Praying for your enemy's salvation is one of the most Christlike prayers you can pray, since it mirrors exactly what God did for Paul, and arguably for every believer.

It can also include asking God to restrain them from further harm, to bring justice where it is due, and to protect others from what they have done to you (Psalm 82:3-4; Romans 13:4). Praying for an enemy is not the same as pretending their actions were harmless or asking God to remove all consequences.

No. The Psalms give believers permission to bring raw, honest pain to God about enemies, including the desire for justice, without pretending everything is fine. The imprecatory psalms, prayers asking God to judge the wicked, show that honest lament and calls for justice belong in prayer too (Psalm 109; Psalm 137). The difference between these psalms and personal revenge is where the anger is directed: toward God, who alone judges rightly, rather than acted out by our own hands (Romans 12:19).

So praying for enemies does not mean stuffing down real hurt or claiming you feel nothing. It means bringing that hurt honestly to God, asking him to handle justice, and asking him to work in your enemy's heart, rather than letting bitterness fester unaddressed in yours (Hebrews 12:15).

If sincere blessing feels impossible right now, start smaller: ask God to help you want to pray for them, even before you actually can. Ask God to bless what is genuinely good for their soul, repentance, humility, conviction of sin, even while you are honest about the wrong they have done and the consequences that may rightly follow.

Stephen, being stoned to death, prayed, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (Acts 7:60), one of the most staggering examples of enemy-love in Scripture, offered in the same breath as his own dying words. You are not expected to reach that instantly. But keep bringing your enemy before God, even imperfectly, and trust that this obedience is shaping you into the likeness of a Father who loved his enemies enough to send his Son to die for them (Romans 5:8).