Not Provoked

Series: How's Your Love Life?

Leslie Basham: We all react to circumstances in different ways. What events make you really angry? This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, September 27.

When things are running smoothly, it's easy to show people love. But the true test of love comes when circumstances are difficult. Let's join Nancy as she continues a series called How's Your Love Life?

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: How do you respond when you get to the grocery story and you go to the check-out line, where you're supposed to have a maximum of ten items, and there's a woman in front of you who has 23 items in her cart? Or when you get to the counter and you find that the slowest checkout counter in the world is the one where you are in line? How do you find yourself responding in that kind of circumstance?

Or you find yourself in traffic or surrounded by bad drivers who don't know where they are going? How do you respond?

How do you respond when your husband forgets something that you asked him to do for the third time or forgets that you have a doctor's appointment and leaves you stranded at home without a vehicle? How do you respond when your child asks the 432nd question of the morning? And it's the same question.

How do you respond when your teenagers somehow cannot seem to learn, after they put their dishes in the sink (you've got them trained that far), their dirty dishes, but they can't learn to run water on their dirty dishes. And you've told them and told them again and again and they just don't get it.

How do you respond when somebody who works for you or one of your children doesn't follow instructions that you left and that you thought were so clear? Or at work when your boss gets on your case for something that you know you didn't do?

We're taking a love test over these weeks and looking in the Word of God to find the description for the kind of love that God wants us to have--the way that God loves us and the way that He wants us to love others. Today we come to the eighth characteristic of love: "Love is not provoked."

As I gave that list of circumstances, did you find yourself thinking that in some of those circumstances you would be provoked? Scripture says that "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not jealous. Love does not brag. It is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own." Now we come to the one for today. "Love is not provoked."

Paul goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 13, "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. Love never fails."

If you're using the King James Version, you'll notice that this little phrase says, "Love is not easily provoked." Actually, that word "easily" is not in the original language. Some commentators say that the person who wrote that translation must have been an easily provoked person. But the actual reading of the text is "Love is not provoked at all, "not just that it is not easily provoked.

To be "provoked" means "to be aroused to anger." The original word in the Greek is a word from which we get our word "paroxysm." That's a convulsion, a sudden outburst of emotion or action.

This is a person who is easily offended. He is thin-skinned, touchy, easily "flies off the handle," easily exasperated.

I called a friend last night who is a mother with three children, two of them teenagers and then a younger one. A dear friend. I said to her, "Can you tell me in your home how do you sometimes find yourself being provoked?" She didn't have to think very hard. This is a woman who loves her children. This is a woman who loves her husband. But she was quick to admit that "There are times when I am not loving toward my husband and my children, when I do get provoked."

Here's what she said. She said, "You know, as a mom, your life isn't your own. Your time isn't your own. You find yourself constantly being tested and tempted to be provoked. I'll be on the phone and children are trying to talk. Why is it that when I get on the phone, they come and they have to talk? Or they're writing a note, asking if they can have a snack while I'm trying to carry on a serious conversation on the phone. Or can I play Monopoly or can I do something? They want to know, 'Can I take a break from our schoolwork?' when they've only been working on it for thirty minutes." She said she finds herself feeling provoked.

She said, "Or you come home after you've been running errands. You're out buying school clothes. You're going to the grocery store. You're trying to be frugal and meet the needs of your family. You've been serving them. You walk in the door of the house and there is a trail from one room to the next. The whole house is upside down. You find that the dog has made a mess, that your son has spilled chemicals on a brand-new carpet. He has been doing a science experiment. Then he tried to clean it up and made a bigger mess on the carpet. It would have been better if he had just left it alone."

She said, "Here I've been trying to serve my family and I come home to this kind of situation. I find myself provoked." She said, "It has to do with unplanned things in your day. I started on my day. I have my agenda. Then it all goes topsy-turvy and I find I can be easily provoked."

Well, those are some of the things that can provoke my friend. Let me ask you: What does it take to provoke you? What irritates you? Maybe it's a particular habit that your husband has that you find annoying. It provokes you. Maybe it's someone who forgets to relay a message that you communicated.

Love guards against being irritated. It guards against getting upset or angered by things that are said or done against it. Now there is a righteous anger that God has and there is a righteous anger that we have against things that anger God. But do you find, as I do, that so many times the things that anger us and provoke us are not the things that are really wickedness--the things that anger God? They're the things that disturb my peace. They're the things that don't go my way--the things that annoy me and upset my agenda and my plans.

The person who is intent on having his own way is going to be easily provoked, easily angered. When we're filled with the love of Christ, we will not get angry at others when they say or do something that displeases us or when they keep us from getting our own way.

The real issue in this matter of being provoked and angered has to do with rights, doesn't it? I have my rights, my time, my property, my way, my schedule and I don't want anyone interfering with my rights. I find that when I get angry, perturbed internally, sometimes it comes out and sometimes it's just a seething inside. It almost invariably is a result of the fact that someone violated rights that I felt that I had. I have a right to a good night's sleep. So why do one of my family members call me at 11:30 at night when I've just fallen off to sleep? If I get annoyed, if I get perturbed, if I'm provoked, it's because I was claiming a right that I really didn't have.

John MacArthur says, "If you get angry, upset and irritated and then blame it on your circumstances, you're deceiving yourself." You say, "I'm so angry because" or "I just got provoked because" or "If this person hadn't been this way; if my child hadn't filled the dryer with water or written with butter on the living room furniture or whatever, I wouldn't be so irritated."

But Dr. MacArthur says the problem isn't your circumstances. The problem is the preoccupation of your mind that you're important, that your rights matter, that your territory is invincible. When somebody steps into your territory or violates your rights, they trigger that anger because you've already predetermined that you have those rights. You see, love overlooks a multitude of sins, the Scripture says.

Do you have the kind of love that overlooks offenses or do you get easily irritated when your rights are violated? Do you fly off the handle and blow up easily or do you have the kind of love that is unperturbed by circumstances?

Paul goes on to say that not only is love not easily angered--love is not provoked--but then next that "Love keeps no record of wrongs." Love keeps no account of evil. One translations say, "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered."

Love doesn't keep score. The concept here is a bookkeeping term. It has to do with putting something in a ledger so that it can be a permanent record and you can go back and dredge it up when you feel the need. You're keeping a ledger of offenses. The Scripture says that love does not do that.

The word here used is the same word that is used to speak of God pardoning sinners. 2 Corinthians tells us that God was "in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." You see, if we are in Christ, if we have come to Him through repentance and faith, then our sin--all of it-has been placed under the blood of Jesus Christ. The penalty has been paid for that sin. It has been blotted out. It has been wiped away. There is no more record of it. In fact, that ledger has been cast into the depths of the deepest sea from whence it can never be retrieved.

How much damage has been done to marriages where one or both mates keep dragging that ledger out of the sea and pointing out something that was done, perhaps years ago, an offense! They've kept a record of wrongs. You see, resentment keeps the books. It's always looking for a way to get even and will frequently bring up the offense against the offender. But love forgives. Love clears the record.

So when others wrong you, when others fail you--as they do and as they will--how do you handle the ledger? Do you keep record? Do you keep score? Do you keep count? Do you bring it back up at a later point? Do you remember it and hold it against your mate or child, that friend? Do you keep track of those offenses?

Or do you do with those offenses what God has done with your offenses? You let it go. You send it away. You cover it. Love covers a multitude of sins.

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy DeMoss giving us biblical advice on how to respond when others wrong us. She'll be right back.

It's likely that you'll face a situation today in which it's difficult to love. Aren't you glad for Nancy's teaching, that has encouraged you to respond in a biblical way? If the teaching you hear on Revive Our Hearts is beneficial to you, we invite you to partner with us in keeping the program on the air. We rely on the support of our listeners and hope you can help with a financial gift.

When you make a donation of any size, we'd like to thank you by sending a booklet called, How's Your Love Life? It'll remind you of what you've learned during this series, and help get the principles deep in your heart. Ask for it when you send your gift to Revive Our Hearts.  Or donate by phone 1-800-569-5959.

Now, there are comedians on television who make a living from pointing out the mistakes of others. It's easy for us to get into a habit of doing the same, but is it loving to do so? We'll hear about that tomorrow. Now, to close our time in prayer, here's Nancy.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Father, we have been loved by You in an incredible way. Thank You that You are not provoked with us as You have such a right to be but that day after day You are merciful and forgiving.

Oh, Lord, we sin against You constantly, but You don't keep a record of our sins against us. We are in Christ. Our sins are forgiven and You have thrown that ledger away.

Oh, Lord, fill us with Your Spirit that we might love in the way that we have been loved. Would You so transform us by Your love that it would be just as if the Lord Jesus had moved into our homes and would be loving others through us.

I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

"Many of the insights Nancy shares in this series have been drawn from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: 1 Corinthians (Moody), and from the Insight for Living Bible study guide Koinonia: Authentic Fellowship (copyright 1972, 1985 Charles R. Swindoll)."

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