Praying for bad leaders
Lately I’ve been praying a whole lot more for our leaders. I’ve found this has come with new challenges.
When we see leaders misusing their stewardship of authority and resources it’s easy to be annoyed at such behaviour. These leaders may be in government, in our work situation, in the church, or any other area of endeavour where people are making decisions that affect the lives of others.
Righteous anger is fine – that motivates us to pray and to get involved in a solution. Righteous anger was shown by Jesus when he overturned the tables in the temple, and also by David when he stood up to Goliath’s challenge.
But don’t mistake righteous anger at the sin for fleshly anger at the person. Moses had an issue with anger and in the end it disqualified him from entering the promised land.
If we’re angry at the person then Jesus said our heart is guilty of murder (Mat 5:22). That’s why He said to His disciples “You don’t know what spirit you’re of” when they didn’t get a good reception from the Samaritans and wanted to call down fire from heaven. (Luk 9:55 – not all versions contain this portion). As James points out: the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. (Jam1:20).
When our flesh rises up in anger, or even annoyance, and something in our hearts wants to see the fire of God’s judgment fall on someone acting incorrectly then we are acting in a spirit of murder. In this way we are in agreement with the enemy and are partnering with him in his agenda of stealing, killing, destroying.
How effective do you think your prayers are when you are operating from a spirit that is in agreement with the kingdom of darkness and in direct opposition to the kingdom of heaven? We are supposed to be binding the demons and loosing the angels – but a prayer prayed from fleshly anger does exactly the opposite – empowering the demons and restricting the angels.
Further, we can rejoice at God’s justice, the display of His character, and His deliverance of us but we should not rejoice at the downfall of the wicked. Rejoicing in God’s justice is birthed in worship because our focus is on God. But rejoicing at the downfall of the wicked is rooted in:
- arrogance – “I’m righteous and they are wicked”
- and hatred, as our focus is on the fate of the wicked person.
Our hearts are tempted to say of Pharaoh “He got what was coming to him”, but instead we should say “Praise you Lord for your justice and deliverance.”
Proverbs 24:17 and 18 says: Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.
It’s interesting that God so hates enmity in our hearts that He will even turn His anger away from the wicked because of the wrong attitudes of our heart. This shows God’s heart for the defenceless – when we rejoice at the downfall of our enemies we are provoking God to rise up and defend them from the anger in our hearts. Even Job figured this out before Solomon wrote that proverb above: Have I rejoiced at the extinction of my enemy, or exulted when evil befell him? No, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for his life in a curse. Job 31:29,30
It’s so important to see people as God sees them, however nasty, wicked, deluded, stubborn, or self-centred they are. God saw a world-changing apostle in Saul (Paul) the murderous, self-righteous, religious zealot. God saw good in the unrighteous and arrogant King Nebuchadnezzar, who in a fit of self-absorbed rage, threw three young righteous Hebrew men into a furnace because they wouldn’t worship his idol. But God humbled him by driving him crazy for seven years so he could finally look up and honour God.
We are instructed to pray for those in authority (1 Tim 2:1,2). And Jesus says it plainly: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:44,45
To paraphrase those words of Jesus – God does good to all so you must be like Him. Note: the rain Jesus refers to is good rain that causes your crops to grow whether you’re nice or nasty.
But how do we pray? Peter gives us an example of how to pray for those whom we might deem as “enemies”. He addressed the crowd in Jerusalem saying “God raised up Jesus to bless you by turning you from your wicked ways.” (Acts 3:26). So we can always pray blessing on everyone – maybe God will use your prayer of blessing to turn someone from their wicked ways.
When you pray blessing and grace upon a wicked leader, one of two things will happen.
- They will respond to God’s grace – either knowingly or unknowingly – by making right decisions, and maybe even turning from their wicked ways. God gives wisdom and guidance to leaders whether they realise it or not, that’s why we must pray for our leaders.
Or:
- They will willingly and knowingly reject God’s grace and wisdom and stubbornly pursue their wicked agenda. In this way, God will be justified in bringing His judgments against them. He will condemn the wicked by bringing his way on his own head (1Kings 8:32). Wicked Haman – the enemy of Esther and the Jews – was hung on his own gallows. Goliath’s head was cut off by his own sword.
Bill Johnson from Bethel Church says “We don’t have the right to ACCUSE anyone before the Lord, we REPRESENT them before God. We pray FOR them not AGAINST them.”
When we pray from a heart that is free from wrong attitudes then we can effectively pray for God to move, to bless, to change hearts, to expose evil motives, and to confuse evil plans. Sometimes God will rise up and bring justice against His and our enemies – let that be His judgment and not ours.