“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…. and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” Luke 6:27-28, 35

One of the commands of our Lord that is tough to follow is not only to love our enemies but to do good to those who hate us, bless those that are cursing us and pray for those that try to abuse us. The word “bless” means to wish someone well or to praise them. The word “abuse” includes mistreating, threatening or reviling someone. God commands His people to treat others with the unconditional love, mercy and kindness similar to what he gives us. After all, we at times are ungrateful and have committed sins that God mercifully forgives and continues to bless us. This conduct toward our enemies cannot be done with natural but only with supernatural love supplied by God. We will be rewarded in Heaven and in the meantime show ourselves to be sons of the Most High.

F. B. Meyer has said “In its deepest sense love is the perquisite of Christianity. To feel toward enemies what others feel toward friends; to descend as rain and sunbeams on the unjust as well as the just; to minister to those who are unprepossessing and repellent as others minister to the attractive and winsome; to be always the same, not subject to moods or fancies or whims; to suffer long; to take no account of evil; to rejoice with the truth; to bear, believe, hope, and endure all things, never to fail—this is love, and such love is the achievement of the Holy Spirit. We cannot achieve it ourselves.”

It is good to be reminded that God is kind even to the ungrateful and the evil and, with God’s help, we should be also. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23