What does it mean to pray for those who spitefully use you (Matthew 5:44)?

The repetition of the precept adds greatly to its divine energy and importance. We must look at it fairly, however difficult to obey in its true sense. It is the peculiar privilege of the Christian to pray for all men; friends and enemies. God has given him this place of honour here — to bless others by means of his prayers. He should be like a vessel from which flow the precious blessings of Christ to the enriching of many around him. So far from wishing or praying that evil may overtake our persecutors, we must sincerely pray to the Lord to pardon and bless them. Nature would return evil for evil, and cherish vindictive feelings; but grace says, following the example of the blessed Lord and His martyr Stephen, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The world may at times persecute God's people and seek to vent upon them all the hatred of their hearts towards God. Unless we walk in self-judgment, such treatment would arouse the flesh in resentment and retaliation. Here we learn that it is “good and acceptable in the sight of God” to act and feel towards all men, as God Himself does, in love and grace. Thus we are to pray for “all men”, not simply for those who govern well, but also for those who use God's people despitefully (Luke 6:28). We are to pray, not for retributive judgment to overtake the persecutors of God's people, but that in sovereign grace they may be saved.

But, besides these unfoldings of truth, there are the affections that are proper to the Christian. "Bless those that curse you and pray for those that use you despitefully." The Lord looks for the activity of good, and the looking to God on behalf of those who might treat themselves despitefully. Thus it is not only kindness and pity, but there is the earnest and sincere pleading with God for their blessing.

Many are spiritually deaf and do not hear such things. They have intentionally closed their ears to the things of Christ. But the Lord then spoke to those who would hear. He told them, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." Love is not merely having a kind feeling, but being genuinely concerned for the true, proper welfare of another If that person returns hatred, it is all the more reason to be concerned for him, for he needs special help. Doing good in return for evil is both rightly representing God and providing an example that should touch the hearts and consciences of others. This, and returning blessing for cursing, requires the lowly dignity of true faith, as do those things that follow, such as praying for one who acts despitefully (v.28). Our natural resentment is greatly modified by the power of the Holy Spirit when we allow Him to work in us ungrieved and unquenched (Eph.4:30; 1Thes.5:19).

But the Jews deliberately overlooked that God had also commanded them in the law to love their enemies (see Ex. 23:4-5; Lev. 19:33-34). By continuing, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," the Lord Jesus does not give new commandments to His disciples but judges the fleshly restriction of the old commandment and the human addition. According to God's thoughts every fellow human being with whom we have to do is our neighbour, even if he or she turns out to be our personal enemy. The Lord Jesus demands, not an emotional love, nor a friendly affection for enemies, but rather the much higher divine love (Greek: agapao).

The Lord Jesus was the revelation of this love of God: "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:8-10). While He hung on the cross He prayed for His tormentors: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Our Lord therefore is also the perfect example for His commandment, "Love your enemies... and pray for them which. persecute you."

To love our enemies, to pray for those that persecute, is wholly above the law or the duty of a people in the flesh. An Edomite or an Egyptian was not to be abhorred, and their children might enter into the congregation of Jehovah in the third generation; an Ammonite or a Moabite only in the tenth generation, like a bastard. But Christ brought in grace and truth. In the light of the Son of man all were lost, even the sheep of Israel. As He was come to seek and to save that which was lost, those that were His were to love their enemies and to pray for their persecutors. It was the mind of heaven for His saints on earth, applicable to them and to none but them. They receive life, His life, in receiving Him, and are called to show it thus. It is as incumbent now as when the Lord thus spoke; and His resurrection made it clearer and stronger, as the Holy Spirit when given made it of power. Thus were the disciples to be sons of their Father in the heavens.

But the Lord goes farther in His next utterance. Whatever was said of loving one's neighbour and hating one's enemy, His word to His disciples was and is, Love your enemies, and pray for those that persecute you. So too the Epistles insist on those that bear His name. In the Gospel of Luke rightly stand the clauses, Bless those that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray also for those that use you despitefully. These enlarge the grace which disciples are exhorted to show to hostile man of the world; and from thence they were imported into the copies of Matthew by scribes who were prone to assimilate. The inspiring Spirit was pleased through John to urge loving our enemies, and praying for our persecutors, which last pertained to Jews pre-eminently, because of their hot and proud religious prejudice in the flesh.

We are told in Scripture to offer to God prayers for ALL men. — 1 Tim. 2:1. Think how much this injunction means, and who are included — those who love you and whom you love, your friends, acquaintances, strangers, enemies, and even the enemies of your Lord. Do you ask, "Am I to pray for the enemies of my Lord?" Yes, since God's word says so. Remember the prayer of Divine love at the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

“ALL MEN” excludes none, whether they act as enemies or friends; indeed, it would seem right on the Christian's part to be the most in earnest in his prayers for those who are against him, for has not the Lord commanded His disciples so to act, and did He not Himself leave us an example in this when He cried from the anguish of the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”? We pray for the salvation of the souls of British soldiers and sailors on land and sea—young, careless, perhaps, standing face to face with death—and much they need our prayers; but the souls of those by whose guns they are menaced are of equal value in the sight of God, and He who has no favourites among the nations of the earth commands us to pray for these as well; and for the silent, sorrowing multitudes, mostly, women, in the background. How much these need to know a Saviour-God, and His great compassions. It is true that our responsibility begins at home, in the circle nearest to us, but God's heart goes out to the whole world, and ours should embrace the same wide circle.

When we suffer and pray. "Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Stephen prayed for his persecutors, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Austin says, the Church of God was beholden to Stephen's prayer for all that benefit which was reaped by Paul's ministry.