That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
This verse is from the Sermon on the Mount — a lengthy, pivotal teaching Jesus gave to a large crowd early in his public ministry, widely considered one of his most important. The surrounding verses command listeners to love their enemies, which was a shocking departure from ordinary wisdom and cultural expectation. This verse gives the reason: God himself does not reserve his goodness for the deserving. In an agricultural society, sunshine and rain were not luxuries — they were survival. Jesus points out that God sends both to everyone without discrimination. To live as God's children, then, means extending care far beyond the circle of people who have earned it.
Father, thank you for the rain you have sent on my undeserving fields more times than I can count. Teach me to love without keeping score — not because people have earned it, but because that is who you are, and who you are making me. Amen.
Rain falls on everybody's field. That is either the most comforting thing you have heard all week or the most unsettling, depending on which field you were hoping God might leave dry. There is a version of faith that quietly assumes God's favor tracks with deserving — that the good guys get the sunshine and the people who have made your life miserable get the drought. Jesus does not just complicate that picture. He dismantles it entirely. The sun rises on people actively doing harm. The rain falls on fields belonging to people who want nothing to do with God at all. This feels profoundly unfair until you realize you are on that list too — the inconsistent, the quietly selfish, the person who has been unrighteous in categories you would prefer not to inventory. The astonishing thing about God's indiscriminate generosity is not that the undeserving get away with something. It is that all of us are receiving gifts we did not earn, every single unremarkable day. The question this verse presses on you is not 'do wrong people deserve the rain?' It is something harder and closer to home: can you love the way your Father loves — not because someone earned it, but simply because that is who you have decided to be?
Jesus describes God sending sun and rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous. What does this tell you about God's character — and does it comfort you, unsettle you, or both?
When have you been the undeserving recipient of someone's grace or unexpected generosity? How did that experience shape you or change how you saw that person?
This verse sits inside a command to love enemies. What is the hardest part of that command for you personally — is it the feeling, the action, or something else entirely?
Are there relationships where you have been rationing kindness based on whether the other person deserves it? What would shift if you took this verse seriously in those relationships?
What would one act of unearned, uncalculated generosity look like this week — toward someone you would not naturally choose to bless?
But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.
Proverbs 4:18
The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
Psalms 145:9
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Luke 6:35
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
Luke 6:27
The poor and the deceitful man meet together: the LORD lighteneth both their eyes.
Proverbs 29:13
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:48
Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children;
Ephesians 5:1
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Philippians 2:15
so that you may [show yourselves to] be the children of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on those who are evil and on those who are good, and makes the rain fall on the righteous [those who are morally upright] and the unrighteous [the unrepentant, those who oppose Him].
AMP
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
ESV
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.
NASB
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
NIV
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
NKJV
In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
NLT
for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.
MSG