Sometimes the hardest person to pray for is the one whose name makes your stomach tighten. Maybe it is an ex-spouse, a family member, a coworker, or even someone from church. You remember what was said, what was taken, how trust was broken. In moments like that, Jesus’ words can feel almost impossible. And yet a prayer for your enemies is not meant to crush you; it is meant to find freedom in Christ’s love. When you bring your hurt to God and ask Him to work where you cannot, He begins to loosen bitterness, steady your heart, and teach you how to love without pretending the wound did not happen.
Why Jesus Commands a Prayer for Your Enemies
A prayer for your enemies begins in the very place where your flesh wants to rehearse the offense. Jesus does not deny the reality of enemies; He names them plainly. Some people truly wound us. Some oppose us. Some have left deep scars. But our Lord tells us that the first response of a kingdom heart is not retaliation, gossip, or cold withdrawal. It is prayer for enemies with Jesus’ heart.
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,– Matthew 5:44 (ESV)
That command is hard because pain is real. Jesus is not speaking to people who have never been mistreated. He is teaching disciples how to live in a broken world without becoming shaped by the same hatred that hurt them. When we pray for an enemy, we are not saying, “What happened was fine.” We are saying, “Lord, I refuse to let sin tell me what kind of person I must become.”
But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.– Luke 6:27-28 (ESV)
Notice how practical Jesus is. Love is not left as a vague feeling. It becomes prayer, blessing, and doing good. This matters because prayer is often the first place obedience can begin when your emotions are still a mess. You may not be ready for a conversation. You may not know what reconciliation should look like. But you can begin by bringing that person before God. That is not weakness. That is worship.
Jesus is not asking you to call evil good
A biblical prayer for your enemies never requires you to relabel sin as acceptable. If someone lied, betrayed, manipulated, abandoned, or abused, you do not honor God by pretending otherwise. Real prayer starts with truth. You can name the wound honestly before the Lord, because He already sees it more clearly than you do.
Prayer is where love begins when feelings are absent
Very often, obedience comes before emotion. You may not feel tender. You may not feel ready. That does not mean you cannot pray. Love, in this case, starts as a decision to place the person in God’s hands instead of keeping them tied to your anger.
What Romans 12:20 Shows Us About Responding to Harm
Paul takes Jesus’ command and presses it into everyday life. A prayer for your enemies is not only about what happens in your thoughts; it changes how you respond when you have the chance to act. The apostle does not picture a passive heart simmering with resentment. He pictures a believer choosing surprising kindness.
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”– Romans 12:20 (ESV)
This verse does not mean you use kindness as a disguised weapon. The point is that God’s people do not return evil in the same currency they received it. We leave judgment with the Lord, and we choose what is fitting for followers of Christ. Sometimes God uses undeserved kindness to awaken a person’s conscience. Sometimes He uses it simply to keep our own hearts from hardening.
Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.– 1 Peter 3:9 (ESV)
That kind of blessing may be quiet and hidden. It may look like refusing to speak with contempt. It may look like praying for their repentance instead of fantasizing about their downfall. It may even look like providing help in a practical need when it is wise and safe to do so. This is one reason a prayer for your enemies is so powerful: it trains your heart to stop mirroring the harm that came toward you.
Blessing someone is different from trusting them
You can pray for someone’s good without handing them immediate access to your life. Blessing means seeking what is truly good in God’s sight: repentance, truth, mercy, and change. It does not mean you must pretend trust is already restored.
God handles justice better than we do
The verses around Romans 12:20 remind us to leave vengeance to God. That is hard, especially when consequences seem slow. But surrendering justice to the Lord is not giving up on justice; it is admitting that His judgment is cleaner, wiser, and freer from sinful revenge than ours will ever be.
What a Prayer for Your Enemies Looks Like in Real Life
Many believers wonder what they are actually supposed to say. The good news is that a prayer for your enemies does not need polished language. It simply needs honesty and surrender. In real life, this prayer usually has three movements: bring your pain to God, ask for the other person’s true good, and release the outcome into the Lord’s hands.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.– Psalm 34:18 (ESV)
That verse matters because some hurts are not small irritations. Some are crushing. God does not tell the wounded to get over it before they come near. He comes near to the wounded. So before you pray anything for the person who hurt you, remember that the Lord is also tending to you.
do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.– Philippians 4:6-7 (ESV)
As you pray, you are not trying to force a certain outcome. You are making your requests known to God and asking Him to guard your heart. That is often the first miracle in this process.
Tell God the truth before you try to sound spiritual
Start with honesty. “Lord, what they did still hurts.” “I am angry.” “I keep replaying it.” “I want them to feel what I felt.” God already knows. That kind of honesty is not irreverent — it is the doorway to real prayer. Skip it, and prayer turns hollow. Tell the truth, and grace has room to move.
Ask God for their real good
Praying for an enemy does not mean asking God to make their life easy while they remain unchanged. Ask for what is truly good: conviction of sin, repentance, salvation, healing, humility, wisdom, and protection from any harm they are still causing. If they are far from Christ, pray that the Lord would bring them to Himself. There is no greater good than that.
Surrender the outcome to the Lord
You cannot control whether they apologize, whether they change, or whether the relationship is restored. But you can place the whole situation in God’s care. A faithful prayer for your enemies sounds like this: “Lord, I give up the role of judge. Do what is right. Protect what needs protecting. Change what needs changing. Keep me from sinning in response.”
How a Prayer for Your Enemies Frees Your Heart
Bitterness does not stay locked onto the person who caused it. It wraps around the one carrying it. It colors your thoughts, shortens your patience, drains your joy, and can quietly shape your whole inner life. This is why the Lord’s command is so merciful. He is not only asking something from you; He is protecting something in you.
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.– Ephesians 4:31-32 (ESV)
Prayer begins to loosen what bitterness tightens. It does not happen all at once. Some names need to be brought before God again and again. But over time, the Lord can move you from obsession to surrender, from silent vengeance to honest grief, from spiritual numbness to fresh tenderness. That is real freedom.
Jesus also ties forgiveness to our own life before the Father in Matthew 6:14–15 — not because we earn mercy by forgiving, but because people who have truly received grace begin to live like it. And Colossians 3:13 tells us to forgive “as the Lord has forgiven you.” The gospel does not make sin small; Bible verses for forgiving enemies show how it makes grace astonishingly large.
Freedom is not the same as forgetting
You may still remember what happened. You may still need wisdom about future contact. Some wounds leave long shadows. But freedom means the memory no longer rules you in the same way. It means the pain is being brought under the healing authority of Christ instead of becoming the voice that guides your reactions.
Peace grows where revenge used to live
Every time you choose prayer over inward retaliation, you are making room for the peace of God. You may be surprised to find that the person changing first is not your enemy but you. The Lord steadies your mind, softens your speech, and teaches your heart to rest in Him.
When Praying for Your Enemies Does Not Mean Pretending Everything Is Fine
For many readers, this is the most important clarification. Praying for enemies does not mean returning to unsafe situations, denying abuse, ignoring wise counsel, or acting as if reconciliation must happen immediately. Scripture calls us to love, but biblical love is never the same thing as foolishness or denial.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.– Romans 12:18 (ESV)
Those first two words matter: if possible. Sometimes peace is not possible in the same room, on the same phone call, or in the same level of access as before. If a person is deceptive, manipulative, violent, or unrepentant, you may need distance, boundaries, help from wise church leaders, counseling, or even legal protection. Prayer and boundaries can exist together without contradiction.
In some relationships, God graciously brings reconciliation. In others, obedience looks like entrusting the person to Him from a distance while you walk in truth and safety. Either way, the call remains the same: do not curse, do not repay evil for evil, and do not let another person’s sin become permission for your own.
Boundaries can be an act of wisdom
Setting a boundary is not the opposite of forgiveness. Sometimes it is the very thing that keeps you from enabling ongoing harm. You can pray sincerely for someone and still say no to access, no to manipulation, and no to repeated patterns of destruction.
You can pray even if your emotions are still raw
Do not wait until you feel serene to begin. If your voice shakes, pray anyway. If all you can say is, “Lord, help me want to obey You here,” that is still a real beginning. God is patient with growing hearts.
A Guided Prayer for Someone Who Has Hurt You
If you do not know where to start, you can pray slowly through these words. Speak them as they are, or use them as a guide and make them your own.
Father, You know what happened, and You know how deeply it hurt me. I do not have to hide the truth from You. You see my anger, my grief, my confusion, and my desire to hold on to this pain.
Lord Jesus, You commanded me to love my enemies and pray for those who persecute me. I cannot do that in my own strength. Please help me obey You here. Keep me from sinful revenge, bitter words, and a hard heart.
I bring before You the person who hurt me. Please work in their life in whatever way is truly good. Bring them to repentance where they are wrong. Restrain any evil. Lead them into truth. If they do not know You, draw them to Yourself and show them mercy in Christ.
And Father, please work in me too. Heal what has been wounded. Guard my mind from replaying the hurt in ways that pull me away from You. Teach me to forgive as I have been forgiven. Show me what boundaries are wise, what steps are safe, and what obedience looks like today.
I release the outcome to You. I cannot change this person, but You are able to do what I cannot. So I place them, and I place my pain, into Your hands. Fill me with Your peace, and lead me in the way of Christ. In Jesus’ name, amen.
You may need to pray something like this more than once. In fact, many believers find it helpful to pray for the same person by name for several days in a row, even if only for a minute or two. A repeated prayer for your enemies is often how the Lord slowly retrains the heart.
Who is the person whose name makes your heart tighten right now? Write that name down, open Matthew 5:44, and pray this simple prayer for your enemies once today. If the wound is deep, ask a trusted pastor or mature Christian friend to pray with you, and let the Lord begin doing His freeing work in your heart.
Related: Bible Verses About the Word of God: Why Scripture Matters for Your Life · Bible Verses About Laziness: What Scripture Teaches About Hard Work and Diligence · Bible Verses About Prayer and Faith: Trusting God When You Pray
If this blessed your heart, it might bless someone else too. Share it with someone who needs encouragement today.
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Joel Sutton
