My Daily Pause

When King Saul was pursuing David to kill him, David prayed only to be delivered – He did not seek the death of Saul, God’s anointed king. Psalm 59:5-15.

How do we handle our enemies?

• We shouldn’t seek vengeance
• We shouldn’t curse God
• We can’t ignore their error, else we’ll no longer blush (Jeremiah 6:15)

We can take the opportunity to be like Christ and love our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48)

Enemies seem powerful because they have no fear of God. Rebuke or warnings do no good because they have no belief. We just trust that God will take care of it. (Romans 12:17-21)

David reacted by singing. No matter how much talent you have, singing to God from the heart is an excellent strength building exercise. (Psalm 59:16-17) Peter and Silas made it famous while in jail one night. (Acts 16:25) Worship God and wait for Him.

In our New Testament world we take the “loving” approach to sinners and our enemies. (Matthew 5:43-48) This worldview makes David’s request for God’s swift judgment in Psalm 58 sound a little harsh.

In Psalm 58:6-7 the request from the psalmist is to make the enemy powerless. Let’s think about Jesus in the wilderness countering the temptations of Satan. (Matthew 4:1-11) He turned every attack into harmless chatter with no substance. To follow this example is to teach the scriptures, discredit false interpretation of the Bible and try to make sinners see the way.

In the end, when we pray for others (especially those we care about) that are sinners, we cannot pray for God’s to make an unrighteous judgment. We need to pray for their conversion because God is a righteous judge.