Praying for Our Enemies

I pray that you have had a good week.  I pray that you are doing your best to stay warm in these extremely cold temps.  I wanted to take a minute and ask you to pray for some people.  This week, 21 Egyptian Christians were slaughtered simply because they follow Jesus.  I am heartbroken and overwhelmed at the amount of evil that is in our world today.

My first response was pure anger.  I was mad.  No doubt about it.  That quickly went away and I found myself praying for two groups of people.  First, the families of those that were killed.  May God bring comfort, peace, and strength to them.  Here are the names of each person that was killed:

Milad Makeen Zaky
Abanub Ayad Atiya
Maged Solaiman Shehata
Yusuf Shukry Yunan
Kirollos Shokry Fawzy
Bishoy Astafanus Kamel
Somaily Astafanus Kamel
Malak Ibrahim Sinweet
Girgis Milad Sinweet
Tawadros Yusuf Tawadros
Mina Fayez Aziz
Hany Abdelmesih Salib
Bishoy Adel Khalaf
Samuel Alham Wilson
Ezat Bishri Naseef
Loqa Nagaty
Gaber Munir Adly
Esam Badir Samir
Malak Farag Abram
Sameh Salah Faruq
An unnamed worker from Awr village

Take a few moments this morning and pray over their families. I read a blog this week and came across this statement:

"These 21 men are not victims—they are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11) and the world was not worthy of them (Hebrews 11:38)."  

The second group of people that I found myself praying for was the ISIS group that actually committed the murders. Matthew 5:44 says "But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you." NLT

Take a few moments this morning and as a church, get on our knees and pray for these people who are lost and need to know that Jesus loves them and died for them.  I believe in the power of prayer and ask you to join me today in praying for these two groups.  

Blessings,

Pastor Matt