HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 30, 2025 – We’re not to respond to provocations like the world responds, we’re to respond like Jesus.

Again – we’re not to respond to provocations like the world responds, we’re to respond like Jesus.

Provocations are tests. When someone offends us, we’re being tested on our response. We shouldn’t respond with anger or with threats of retribution, because “vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.”  If we respond with anger or with threats of retribution, we’ll fail the test. If we fail the test, we’ll have to keep taking it until we get it right.

Our job is not to do God’s job. God has a job to do when people offend his children, and that job is vengeance, God-style. God is very good at his job (in fact, he’s perfect at it), so we don’t need to do his job for him. If we try to help, we’ll just get in the way and make things worse for ourselves.

Vengeance is not our job as children of God. What is our job is what Jesus taught us to do when people offend us – we’re to pray for them (as God gives us guidance) and bless them (as God gives us guidance). Nowhere does Jesus say that we’re to give an eye for an eye or sue the offenders in a court of law. That’s the world’s way, not our way.

How we respond to offences distinguishes us from the world. We can’t respond to offences like the world responds and then call ourselves followers of Jesus. If we respond to offences like the world responds, nothing distinguishes us from unbelievers, not in the spiritual realm, anyway, which is the only realm that matters. We can preach the Gospel until the cows come home, sing sweet sweet melodies to Jesus, and give everything we have to the poor, but if we respond to provocations like the world responds, we fail our test and drop in spiritual rank.

This is not what we want as followers of Jesus.

Provocations are not few and far between; they’re not once-in-a-lifetime or rare events: They’re daily occurrences, sometimes even hourly or minute by minute. At times, one provocation is barely finished before the next comes hard on its heels, giving you no time to regroup or catch your spiritual breath. The closer you grow to God—the closer you follow Jesus—the more and harder the tests, and the faster they come.

We will continue to be tested for the rest of our time here on Earth. We’re to respond to provocations like Jesus showed us, not like the world shows us. That means no lawsuits, no tit-for-tat, no bearing our grievance like a trophy, and no vows of revenge. Given that our every word, thought, and deed is being meticulously recorded in the spiritual realm, we must respond like Jesus responded, like he taught us to respond. For us, with our sights on Heaven, there can be no other way.