I was recently at a busi­ness func­tion at a local swim­ming pool; the same that I used to swim in as a child. While there I took notice of the div­ing boards that I remem­bered jump­ing off of. There are two div­ing boards, a low one and a high one. Back then the “high dive” absolutely ter­ri­fied me. I dis­tinctly remem­ber the fear I used to have jump­ing off of that div­ing board; so much so that I prayed to God each time I climbed that lad­der and walked to the edge of the board. “Please,” I asked, “see me through this.”

While I still have issues with heights I have to admit look­ing at that “high” div­ing board at present didn’t nec­es­sar­ily impress me all that much. Inside I shook my head in dis­be­lief at the child who thought it was so big a deal that his very sur­vival depended on pray­ing each time.

In our per­sonal lives some­times Jesus brings us to the cross road. The place where we need to change course and walk in faith. I’m going through that right now and I can admit that it can be scary. I have been pray­ing, “Please, see me through this.”

I’ve been think­ing about that div­ing board and feel­ing that, twenty-five years from now, I’ll look back and shake my head at the man I am now and say, “why were you so wor­ried over some­thing as lit­tle as that?”

It’s bound to hap­pen. Some­one, some­day is going to falsely accuse you of some­thing. No doubt it has already hap­pened; prob­a­bly more than once. One of the chal­lenges that Chris­tians face is how to react in such a cir­cum­stance; when we are being ver­bally attacked, accused, or just straight up put-down. The nat­ural reac­tion is to defend our­selves and make quick jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of our actions, nature, or char­ac­ter. Of course as we find in many instances the nat­ural reac­tion is not nec­es­sar­ily the Chris­t­ian reaction.

When I say the Chris­t­ian reac­tion, I mean the reac­tion of Jesus, because “Chris­t­ian” should mean “like Christ”. So then what would Jesus do? In his Ser­mon on the Mount Jesus taught, “But I tell you not to resist an evil per­son. But who­ever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Matthew 5:39) I think it is mis­take sim­ply to take this verse and apply it to a phys­i­cal assault and con­clude it has no rel­e­vance to a ver­bal attack. In the same dis­course, Jesus takes the Old Tes­ta­ment law of “do not mur­der” and extends it to include speak­ing abu­sively of another. (Matt 5:21–22) If this is true, that Jesus’ words do apply to all forms of con­flict, then when­ever we are spo­ken against we should not seize the oppor­tu­nity to mount a defense but rather to turn the other cheek. This was the exam­ple Jesus him­self set. Note what was writ­ten about Jesus in the face of accusation:

“And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He answered noth­ing. Then Pilate said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they tes­tify against You?” But He answered him not one word, so that the gov­er­nor mar­veled greatly.” — Matthew 27:12–14

The early Chris­tians, under the teach­ing of the Holy Spirit, saw this was the ful­fill­ment of what the prophet Isa­iah had writ­ten, “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaugh­ter, And as a sheep before its shear­ers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.” (Isa­iah 53:7)

This proved true beyond his trial unto his exe­cu­tion, where the Son of God, hung from the cross as a crim­i­nal was mocked, defamed, and insulted by his exe­cu­tion­ers, onlook­ers, and even the crim­i­nals that were hung next to him. Dur­ing this hor­rific trial he spoke nei­ther a word in his defense or against his accusers. Instead he sim­ply prayed for them to be for­given. (Luke 23:24)

In look­ing at this issue of how to respond in the face of unjust accu­sa­tion we have a whole entire book of the Bible that deals with this very thing, the book of Job. Though the basic story might be a famil­iar one with a knowl­edge of the Bible the over­all themes of the book might be over­looked. I know myself that I didn’t grasp some of these though I have known the Bible story from child­hood. For those unfa­mil­iar, the book of Job deals with a right­eous man that falls into hard­ship through no fault of his own. His friends arrive and pro­ceed to falsely accuse him, say­ing that his mis­for­tune was the result of his own unright­eous­ness. Unbe­knownst to Job, their accu­sa­tions against him are sim­ply the charges of his invis­i­ble, pri­mary accuser, Satan.

Though we may be accus­tomed to think of Satan as a name, really it is only a title, which in Hebrew means accuser, just as Devil car­ries a sim­i­lar mean­ing in Greek. This is the pri­mary role that this crea­ture plays. In Rev­e­la­tion he is depicted as a great dragon and is called “the accuser of our broth­ers” (Rev­e­la­tion 12:10) It comes as no sur­prise then to find Satan act­ing in such a func­tion within the open­ing chap­ter of Job, as he charges Job with self­ish­ness and impro­pri­ety in his ser­vice and wor­ship of God.

What is inter­est­ing to me though is not Satan’s charges but what God him­self says about Job. In the very first verse of the book it con­tains this spec­tac­u­lar sum­mary of the him, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name [was] Job; and that man was per­fect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil” (Job 1:1) When Satan enters before the throne of Heaven to chal­lenge Job, the Sov­er­eign LORD him­self reit­er­ates that Job is “per­fect and upright” (Job 1:8) It is amaz­ing to con­sider that endorse­ment; because I can­not think of a big­ger praise of char­ac­ter than to declare some­one perfect.

So was it true that Job, a mere human, was with­out defect? I have to think that as a fallen man Job made mis­takes; but what this shows is how we see each other or our­selves is not nearly as impor­tant as to how our Heav­enly Father views us. At Romans 4:17 it says that He “calls those things which be not as though they were.” It is com­fort­ing to see how the Father can exer­cise such faith with us and see us not as we are but as we are to be when we are raised in the immutable glory of Jesus.

In the book of Job, Satan is allowed to test Job’s char­ac­ter by bring­ing him into suf­fer­ing. Why does God allow this? Is it sim­ply to prove a point? I don’t believe that. One of my favorite chap­ters in Scrip­ture is Romans chap­ter 8 as I have found it incred­i­bly encour­ag­ing in times of trial, suf­fer­ing, and accu­sa­tion. In verse 28, Paul makes an insight­ful dec­la­ra­tion, writ­ing, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.” In say­ing “all things” he makes a very broad state­ment. This shows that any­thing we face, be it good or bad, can con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of “those who are the called accord­ing to His pur­pose.” Just as this is true of us it was also true of the author of our faith, Christ Jesus. The book of Hebrews tells how Jesus was “made per­fect” by the things he suf­fered and by the tests he faced. (Hebrews 5:9)

The major­ity of the book of Job is a dia­log between Job and three so-called friends. These men seek to attribute the suf­fer­ing and mis­for­tune that has befallen Job as indi­ca­tor of unright­eous­ness and inad­e­quacy on his part. Job responds, the nat­ural way, by defend­ing him­self against these alle­ga­tions. After the end of the long ver­bal con­flict between the four, a younger man named Elihu finally begins speak­ing with the wis­dom of God. In doing he chas­tises Job for his self-righteousness, self defense, and his claim­ing “I am pure, with­out trans­gres­sion; I am inno­cent, and there is no iniq­uity in me.” (Job 33:9)

This begs the ques­tion, what was so wrong with Job’s state­ment? Wasn’t he sim­ply telling the truth and speak­ing the very thing that God him­self said about him? Yes; how­ever, the truth is that in times of accu­sa­tion it is not up to us to defend our nature but rather it is God who jus­ti­fies us. Con­sider that in the very first verse of the book, before there was ever a charge, Almighty God declared Job right­eous. What could any mere human add to that or what could any other crea­ture take away from that? Noth­ing. To me that is why the rest of the book of Job con­sists of both Elihu and God him­self extolling his Sov­er­eignty and His merit in way that made Job rec­og­nize that he was in con­trast very, very small.

As Rev­e­la­tion 12:10 brings out Satan did not leave off his job of accus­ing the peo­ple of God — he con­tin­ues to make accu­sa­tion and some­times this comes through the mouths of humans, even those near to us. Even the dear apos­tle Peter fell into speak­ing the words of Satan to the Lord Jesus. (Matthew 16:23) This is all part of our own being made per­fect in the image of Jesus. This is where the power of Romans chap­ter 8 is par­tic­u­larly felt. I would like to con­sider just a few of the verses.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (v. 31)

This verse in itself can sud­denly make any adver­sary seem very, very insignif­i­cant com­pared to the Cre­ator of the Universe.

He who did not spare His own Son, but deliv­ered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (v. 32)

What then can any­one accuser take away from us if God gives us all things includ­ing his most pre­cious pos­ses­sion, his son Jesus.

Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who jus­ti­fies. (v. 33)

Again we con­sider that is not we who jus­tify our­selves but rather it is God who jus­ti­fies us.

Who is he who con­demns? It is Christ who died, and fur­ther­more is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes inter­ces­sion for us. (v. 34)

The small­ness of any who con­demn and bring a charge against the elect of God is self-evident com­pared to the almighty power of the Most High.

In our con­sid­er­a­tion of Job 1:1 and in Romans 8:31 we saw how God acts as advo­cate on our behalf. Here Paul points out that we have yet another one mak­ing inter­ces­sion for us, Jesus. Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a High Priest who can­not sym­pa­thize with our weak­nesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet with­out sin.” Jesus, our High Priest, actively defends us in face of our critics.

Ear­lier in Romans 8:26, Paul brings out yet a third-party in our defense, the Holy-Spirit which inter­cedes on our behalf. In his part­ing words to his faith­ful dis­ci­ples recorded in John chap­ters 14 through 16, Jesus promised this pow­er­ful advo­cate would come to be us for­ever. (John 14:16)

We do well to keep in mind that when­ever we face the accuser we then have three pow­er­ful advo­cates on our behalf, our Heav­enly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Imag­ine if you will, Satan stand­ing before the throne of the Almighty as pic­tured in the book of Job speak­ing some­thing against you. No mat­ter what charge he raises you have the Father, Jesus, and the Holy-Spirit speak­ing in your defense! To me that is such a won­der­ful and thrilling thought!

So what hap­pens now when one of his earthly mouth­pieces brings a charge against us? Again, it does us well to try and imag­ine what we could pos­si­bly speak on our behalf to add to the what is already being voiced in heaven by the Father, Jesus, and the Holy-Spirit. In cases like this it good not to fall into the sin of Job, self-justification, but rather to remain silent and let these three pow­er­ful advo­cates act on our behalf. In doing so we leave it to God to rec­on­cile mat­ters rather than to take mat­ters into our own hands.

So then when we are being spo­ken against even cursed, are we sim­ply to do noth­ing? Well it is true that we should fol­low the exam­ple of Jesus and say noth­ing at all in our per­sonal defense; but, as the oppor­tu­nity presents itself we can take a more con­struc­tive course. How so? Jesus tells us that we should, “bless those that curse you”. (Luke 6:28) In view of this Paul encour­ages Chris­tians to, “Do not be over­come by evil, but over­come evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) Ulti­mately, this serves in the best inter­est of our­selves and those who would accuse us.

“Throw money out the win­dow; watch the happy peo­ple catch it.” — Juliana Hat­field, Let’s Blow it All

Upon com­ing to Jesus I rec­og­nized that I had an oblig­a­tion to be char­i­ta­ble toward the poor and to give toward any­one ask­ing me. This was a topic that I wrote about in the August 3, 2006 entry, “Remem­ber the Poor”. My pre­vi­ous way of doing things was to never give any­thing to any­one. So I enjoyed the new expe­ri­ence of being able to help those in need or some­times just ran­dom strangers as the spirit lead me.

One day I was dri­ving and I had some cash in my car and I was pray­ing and con­sid­er­ing that I might look for an oppor­tu­nity to bless some­one with it. As I was pray­ing God spoke to me and told me to throw it out the win­dow. This con­fused me quite a bit. “After all,” I thought, “wouldn’t it be bet­ter for me to give it a poor per­son than to waste it.” But again he spoke to me and told me to throw it out the win­dow. Even though it wasn’t a large sum of money I will admit that it was tough to be obe­di­ent to throw money away like that.

God never really told me why he wanted me to do that. I had some thoughts, such as per­haps it was sup­posed to be a prophetic sign of some­thing. Or I con­sid­ered if it wasn’t that some­one in need would later run across that money. Or I thought that it might just be to test me and refine my char­ac­ter in some way. But, in think­ing about it I think I did learn some­thing impor­tant. As I drove I was think­ing about a per­son in need that I could’ve given the money to and then it occurred to me that it still wasn’t beyond God’s love or power to pro­vide for them. He really didn’t need my money to do it.

Here is the rad­i­cal, hum­bling truth of the mat­ter — God doesn’t need us to give money to the poor and he can pro­vide for their needs with­out us.

It may seem shock­ing but, like Jesus, I invite you to con­sider the birds. We start by pic­tur­ing the famil­iar scene of an old man sit­ting on a park bench feed­ing pigeons. If the old man stopped com­ing would the pigeons starve? Jesus says, “Look at the birds of the air, for they nei­ther sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heav­enly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:26)

Although some birds do enjoy their daily bread by the gen­eros­ity of lit­tle old men sit­ting on benches at a park throw­ing seed; for the most part the birds of heaven are pro­vided for with­out any kind of human inter­ven­tion. Jesus uses this exam­ple to show that in like man­ner God can pro­vide for us.

But why do the scrip­tures repeat­edly call for us to give gen­er­ously to the poor and afflicted? Let’s go back to that old man in the park. What does he get out of it? Which of the pigeons ever turned around and said, “thank you”? Which of them ever returned the favor and took him out for a meal? Obvi­ously, none. How­ever, in feed­ing them man receives the per­sonal hap­pi­ness of tak­ing care of God’s cre­ation. As Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

Because God loves us he graces us with the oppor­tu­nity to be just like him and to expe­ri­ence his joy. Notice how Jesus encour­ages us to be like our Father in these ways:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neigh­bor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who per­se­cute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the right­eous and the unright­eous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Even the tax col­lec­tors do the same, don’t they? And if you only greet your broth­ers, what more do you do? Even the Gen­tiles do the same, don’t they? So then, be per­fect, as your heav­enly Father is per­fect.” — Matthew 5:43–48

God doesn’t need us to give money to the poor and he can pro­vide for their needs with­out us — yet he gra­ciously allows us to pro­vide for their needs in imi­ta­tion of him so that we can know his joy and happiness.

I shared this thought with a friend one morn­ing and later that day she had an expe­ri­ence that con­firmed this truth. It is her habit to stop by a local gas sta­tion on her way to work for a drink. When moved to she will seek out a home­less indi­vid­ual or some­one oth­er­wise in need to give a lit­tle money to. On this day she had a ten dol­lar bill in her purse that she thought she might look for some­one to give to. She spot­ted a home­less man com­ing up to the counter and thought that he might be in need. But, before she could give him the money he went up to the counter and handed a lot­tery ticket to the cashier. He said that he had found it on the ground and could she check and see if it was worth any­thing. In doing so he found out that it was a win­ning ticket; but, the prize was more than the store was allowed to give out of the reg­is­ter as the max­i­mum pay­out was $600.

So while I do not con­done the lot­tery, I do rec­og­nize that God can pro­vide in mirac­u­lous ways like this and he doesn’t always choose to use our unright­eous riches. I believe real­iz­ing this can help keep our atti­tude in check when giv­ing so that we do not think too highly of our­selves. It also rein­forces what a true bless­ing it is that God will allow us to pro­vide for the needs of oth­ers and to share in his joy!