Here is a word from the Lord Jesus Christ to his people, to believers. Indeed, unbelievers cannot even begin adequately to respond to these words.
Those who are hostile to us: at the very least we mustn't despise them. We mustn't allow our minds to go roaming on as they sometimes do, nourishing and nurturing hatred and resentment and looking carefully for every new little feature that we can dislike or we can hate. That is a fallen human tendency. If you cannot retaliate verbally, if you cannot retaliate in some physical or some tangible way, then your mind conjures up all kinds of reasons to hate and dislike and criticize. That must not be allowed to happen. We mustn't rehearse the injuries.
We certainly mustn't assume all kinds of horrific motives to them, which we cannot see. That person has said such and such. Why? Because of this and because of that and because of something else. You've enlarged the crime into a hundred crimes by assigning all kinds of bad motives and jealousies, which you cannot prove. Who knows? You might be right, but it doesn't matter. We are not supposed to be doing that.
We are certainly not going to plan retaliation or dream of their downfall and derive pleasure from that. Some people fantasize the terrible gruesome downfall of the offender and enjoy watching it in their mind. What an extraordinary thing for us to get into! So love your enemies means we put a control and a watch on the mind.