< STRONG We pray for God to bless our enemies.
"Consider Jeremiah 29:7: "Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." God gives this message to the exiles in Babylon. He tells them to pray for Babylon's prosperity - after they were captured and forced to stay there! How counterintuitive for them to pray for their enemies, especially ones who destroyed their city, raped and killed their people, and abducted and mistreated them. Yet God told them to pray for the Babylonians, that He would bless them and in turn they too would be blessed.
"The Jewish exiles weren't going anywhere anytime soon. They were to be captive in Babylon for decades and so they were instructed to make the best of it. If they didn't pray for their enemies, then who would? How would the Babylonians change? And how would the exiles get over their bitterness? They could have chosen to hate their enemies and act wrongly toward them (what the world tells us to do), or they could have chosen to obey God- to love, bless, and pray for their enemies. AND if they blessed their enemies, they too would be blessed because of it (Jer 29:7). Things would go better for them and their enemies. Obeying God and therefore blessing our enemies would be the right thing to do. If we do that, then we are children of God (Matt 5:44,45).
"Note that by blessing our enemies we do not condone their sins nor do they escape any judgment from God (See Psalm 137 for judgment in this example). It's not about us choosing between loving them and hoping for them to be punished one day, for God is the great judge and will judge everyone when the time comes. Yet in the meantime we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt 5:44).
-http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/2008-3-2-Why-You-Need-Your-Enemies-part-one/
< OK So that they repent.
God wants "everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pt 3:9), and "commands all men everywhere to repent" (Acts 17:30). Therefore we should pray for not just our enemies, but for everyone to repent. If we prayed for our enemies to just be blessed by God, then that really does nothing significant for them in terms of their soul/being. If the prayer was granted, and our enemy was miraculously healed or given financial prosperity, that doesn't automatically change his heart or cause him to be saved. A wicked person with cancer is still a wicked person without cancer. To repent means to change one's mind- for the better. If we pray for him to repent of his sin and be led to Christ, then we can have confidence that it will change his mind/heart and lead him in the right direction. A wicked person, after repenting, is no longer wicked. That's much better than a temporal blessing.
-JM
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