How to Bless Your Enemies: A Step Beyond Forgiveness

It may happen only once in a lifetime, but sometimes you may receive the ultimate betrayal from a friend or family member that could cause you a tremendous amount of pain. Such was my case several years ago.

It is not necessary to go into details surrounding this event in order to write about my topic today: How to Bless Your Enemies: A Step Beyond Forgiveness.

When news of the betrayal was first made known to me, along with all of its false accusations, I knew immediately that I had to forgive her. How could I so easily pass on forgiveness? You see, many years ago, I experienced first-hand the torture of an unforgiving heart. But one day, while at the end of my rope, I cried out to the Lord, “I forgive them, Lord, and I ask you to forgive me of all the bitterness inside of me.” That day, I began walking in a freedom like I had not experienced in years.

I made a promise to myself at that time that I would never allow myself to be tormented in this way again. It stirred me to live my life according to: “What Christ has done for me, pass it on to others” (Colossians 3:13) I began to realize that no one could hurt me like my sins hurt Jesus when He paid the ultimate price for my salvation.

Not only that, I try to remind myself that I am not always “Miss Squeaky Clean;” there are times when I hurt others also. For these two reasons, I try to forgive others quickly no matter what comes into my life.

However, months went by and I kept thinking about this situation. “What is going on here,” I began to wonder. “If I have truly forgiven, why is her face always before me?” Yes, I knew that sometimes the pain of a hurt takes time, but this was different.

I began to sense that there was another step I needed to take beyond forgiveness. It soon became apparent to me what this step was when every time I opened my Bible to read, it seemed to fall on “Bless those who persecute you.” (Romans 12:14)

The question on my mind was “How do I bless the one who persecuted and betrayed me?” “What should I do to put this verse into practice?”

Then one day, I came across a prayer I had recited many times at the end of church services. In fact, the passage of scripture actually begins with the Lord saying to Moses:

Tell Aaron this is HOW I want my people blessed.

Numbers 6:23-27.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
May the Lord shine His face upon you and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.
And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.

Quite honestly, that prayer was just something I recited without taking into consideration what the words really meant. I had to find out since the passage started out with “this is HOW I want my children blessed.”

The following is a brief summary of points I learned from several commentaries on Numbers 6 about pronouncing the blessing.

(vs 24) The Lord Bless and Keep You

Bless means to speak well of, praise; call down God’s gracious power.
As a person, those who offend us are no different than you and I. They are God’s creation, and the Bible says that while we all were yet enemies, Christ died for all of us. (Romans 5:10) He shed His blood for us, not when we got better, not when our wrong had been set straight, but while we were yet enemies and separated from Him.
Keep in mind that we are not blessing the works or deeds of an enemy (offender) of ours; we are to speak well of and giving honor to God’s child whom He loves, despite their wrong doing. After all, when God told Aaron to bless the Israelites, these were the same people Moses referred to as stubborn stiff-neck people.
Keep you means, of course, to provide and care for; to guard and protect. One of the main things God desires to keep and protect His children from is sin and its bitter effects.

(vs 25) The Lord Make His Face Shine Upon You and Be Gracious Unto You

His face shine upon you alludes to the shining of the sun upon the earth, to enlighten and to renew the face of it. We cannot help but be happy if we realize we are loved by God and His face is shining upon us.
Gracious comes from the word grace and we know that by his grace He has washed away our sins and will continue to do so.

(vs 26) The Lord Lift up His Countenance Upon You and Give You Peace

Countenance means facial expression or approval. This seems to allude to the smiles of a father upon his child that he approves and accepts his child.
If God give us the assurances of His acceptance of us, this will certainly give us gladness in our hearts and peace within ourselves, God, and with our fellow man.

(vs 27) And I will put my name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them.

Here God gives Aaron permission to make use of His name in blessing the people, and to bless them as His people, called by His name.
For in every place where God records His name, He will meet His people. When we place God’s name on enemy territory, there can be no hostility, no ill feeling, only a desire to see them blessed.
It ends with a promise to bless. Though the blessing was pronounced by the lips of man, God made the promise and assurance that, “I the Lord will bless them”.

That passage of scripture began to take root way down deep inside of me for the one who had betrayed me. Had I forgiven her? Yes, but God’s desires for her future became my desires. I sincerely wanted her:

to be protected from all evil.
to experience the love of a her heavenly Father as He shines His face upon His children.
to feel love, accepted and approved by God.
to experience the comfort and peace with herself, others, and God.

I conclude that:

Forgiving others keeps our life free from being tormented with bitterness.
When we take a step beyond forgiveness, we become God’s mouthpiece in which the blessings flow to those who have persecuted us. That, in itself, is an honor to be His mouthpiece.

I have said it many times: God does have a sense of humor in getting us to the place He wants us to be. Though written many years ago, I have to believe He knew I would someday need this Old Testament scripture in Numbers 6 in order to go forward in my life after being betrayed with false accusations.

Join Hannah and me next week as we take a look at Forgiving Yourself.