 Training Your Child to Obey  Dealing with Rebellion  Training in Righteousness  Aiming for the Heart

 This word implies that someone has been on the receiving end of provocative or irritating behavior which, were love not present, would result in exasperation.  This exasperation then would be expressed either as irritation or anger.  “Love, Paul urges, does not become exasperated into [irritation or anger] partly because :  patience delays exasperation…  lack of self-interest diverts a sense of self-importance away from reacting on the grounds of wounded pride:  it is not embittered by injuries, whether real or supposed” (Thiselton, p.1052)

 How does this apply to our kids?  First of all, we have to model it for them and towards them.  We have to teach them that we can choose to not be irritated, irritation is not something that just automatically happens to us and is then beyond our control.  Teach them not to be surprised when people who are normally irritating do something irritating – but instead be ready to respond to them in a constructive way.  Teach them not to irritate others.

 The Greek word used here ( logidzomai ) is an accounting term which can refer to a reckoning up of money.  Here Paul tells us that we are not to “reckon up” evil, i.e. we are not to keep an ongoing account of the bad things that others have done to us.  “Having once forgiven it, he thinks of it no more; or he does not meditate revenge, or devise mischief, and contrive evil against a man that has done evil to him.” (John Gill)  “Love does not have ‘the habit still widespread even among Christians of keeping a reckoning of the faults of others’” (Thiselton quoting J. Hering, p. 1054)

 How does this apply to our kids?  You have to teach them and model for them how to truly forgive. Remind them of Jesus forgiving us.  Teach them to pray that they would forgive others as God has forgiven them (Mat 6:12)  This is not say that we should be naive or unaware of someone who has a habit of causing us harm.