The Art of Being Accused

I think that we have all been falsely accused at one time or another. There is just no way to avoid it! Check out this verse in Corinthians ...

2 Corinthians 6: 3, "Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed ..."

The thing is Paul's ministry was blamed and discredited by the Corinthian Christians! What Paul means is that our lives or our ministry may not be rightly be blamed. Paul, like the rest of us, could not do anything about false accusations; except live in such a way that any fair-minded person would see such accusations as false. So what are we supposed to do when falsely accused? Psalm 109:21 gives a good example echoed elsewhere in scripture.

But thou, O God my Lord, deal on my behalf for thy name's sake; because thy steadfast love is good, deliver me!

Well, what David does here is beautiful. He commits the whole matter to the Lord in prayer. But so often how we as people naturally want to respond is in kind. I remember back in the day of seeing two children fighting, one of whom happened to be my own! I broke up the fuss and asked of them, "Who started this?" The boy (my son) said, "She did! She hit me back!" How true that is to our nature. We love to blame the other. We accuse others of the very things for which we are guilty!

Let me close with this quote:

"We make a mistake in trying always to clear ourselves. We should be wiser to go straight on, humbly doing the next thing, and leaving God to vindicate us. "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon day." There may come hours in our lives when we shall be misunderstood, slandered, falsely accused. At such times it is very difficult not to act on the policy of the men around us in the world. They at once appeal to law and force and public opinion. But the believer takes his case into a higher court and lays it before his God." ~F. B. Meyer

For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save him from those who condemn him to death. {Psalm 109:31)

It is God who stands at the right hand of the needy, God who makes their cause his own, God who knows a thousand ways to work it all out without violence, without the perpetuation of hatred, without the destruction of lives; to bring truth to light and to establish the facts in such a way that even the accusers will be ashamed of themselves that they ever attempted such a thing. How much better it is to commit our cause to God in times like this!

Some thoughts on a Tuesday ...Tim