This doesn't exactly align with how we usually live, does it? Our instincts towards our enemies don't often lean towards selfless love, and when others curse us, we're often not responding with blessings.
Jesus is trying to help reorient the ways we interact. We often default to defensiveness, and we're worried about trying to keep the scoreboard even (or tilted in our favor), which means that if we're slighted, we need to take revenge. We often interact based on how someone else is treating us.
That's not how God responds to us. We were enemies of God due to sin, and God reaches out in grace, seeking to heal the relationship, to build a bridge where we built barriers. God acts in grace even when we don't deserve it. If we can recall that, it can soften the ways we interact with one another. Not that we're being set up to be taken advantage of -- but leading in grace, as God led with grace towards us. When love is our default, which can happen when we contemplate the great love with which God loves us, then our interactions change. It's a different way of interacting, but that's what Jesus is calling us into -- a different kingdom, defined by God.
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