There’s someone on your mind right now. The one who hurt you, who talked behind your back, who broke your trust and never said sorry. Jesus doesn’t ask you to simply put up with that person. He asks you to love them, bless them, and pray for them — and that only starts to make sense once you remember where you started.

Not by accident. By nature. Scripture doesn’t soften it — you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. And still, God didn’t wait for you to clean yourself up first. He loved you first. Through the cross, he reconciled you to himself while you didn’t deserve it — while you were still his enemy.

That changes the question. It’s no longer “why should I love my enemy,” but “how could I not, when God already did this for me?” Loving the person who wronged you isn’t what makes you a child of God — that already happened at the cross. But it is evidence that you are one.

Anyone can love the people who love them back. Even the tax collectors did that, Jesus said. Anyone can be kind to family and close friends — even people who don’t know God do the same. What actually sets you apart is loving the one who has done nothing to earn it. That’s not natural. That’s supernatural.

You won’t wake up feeling like blessing the person who hurt you. The psalmist didn’t either — he had to ask for it: “teach me to do your will… may your good Spirit lead me”. Ask God to teach you to see them the way he sees them: someone who may not yet know the truth, someone walking where you once walked before you knew Christ.

That’s also why revenge was never yours to take. God knows that person’s heart better than you ever will. God acts in justice. We act on emotion. That’s why he asks us to pray, not to get even.

Picture their name — the one who came to mind while you read this. Today, instead of rehearsing what you’d say to them, pray for them instead. Not because they deserve it, but because you didn’t either. Ask God for the strength to mean it, then look for one practical way to bless them this week: a text, a kind word, a moment of patience you wouldn’t have offered before.