How to Handle Accusations 06: What Are They Thinking?

Recently, someone emailed a pastor friend of mine accusing me of doing things I had never done, the email had at least half a dozen lies in it, and it was penned to insult me and rip me apart. When things like that happen, the first thing I think is glory to God I am worthy of persecution, but my thoughts then wander to: what is going on in someone’s mind that they would do that, I mean, what is wrong with them? It’s often vain to speculate about specific reasons, but there are some general things we can learn and understand to help us deal with accusations.

I have been looking at Luke 6 on our Wednesday Night Lives, and it is there we find an interesting truth about those who accuse:

⁷ The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath…¹¹ At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him.

Notice the same people who went to accuse Jesus were filled with rage. Wild with rage! The King James says “filled with madness”, the Amplified says “senseless rage” and many other translations say furious. The Greek word is “anoia”. When you put “a-” in front of a Greek word, it is the same as putting “un-” in front of an English word, it means the opposite. Noia is the way we think. The Greek word for repent is “metanoia”, which means to change the way you think. So, when you ask what is an accuser thinking, you cannot get an answer to that question, because Luke tells us they are un-thinking. The Greek used the word to mean someone so absolutely furious they are beyond thinking or someone who was mentally ill.

They were sitting there in the room listening to Christ for one reason – to find something to accuse him, and within four verses they were filled with madness. Someone recently told me they only listened to my sermons to find things to accuse me on, and within a few verses of them telling me that, they were acting like a mindman!

This is why you must keep your heart free from joining satan’s accusing team. You must keep fear, hatred and accusing far from your heart. You must guard your heart, because when you start accusing, you are a short step away from going crazy. People full of accusations cannot use their mind. Keep accusations away from you!

One thing I find when people are accusing me over and over is that they actually start to believe their lies. They start to believe things that are not real and did not even happen. That is medically a form of madness, though medical doctors in the 21st century use words like schizophrenia and paranoia. When someone is medically diagnosed with paranoia, they are convinced that things that are lies actually happened or are happening, and the root of it is fear.

You think that attitudes cannot affect your mental health, you are wrong. We have to have an attitude of love, peace, joy, kindness and patience! Accusations in your heart, meditated on, fed, expressed will drive you to poor mental health. A rage that means you are not thinking. You will end up believing things that never happened. You will give your account of a meeting that you were in, and anyone else in the meeting will not have a clue what you are talking about because it did not even happen!

The Pharisees after watching Jesus to accuse Him, in four verses were filled with lunacy. In a few short months, they were nailing Him to a cross and believed they were serving God to do so! That’s insane! That’s not mentally healthy! They actually paid Judas their money to betray Jesus. They went crazy and murdered the kindest man who ever lived.

So when you ask what is your accuser thinking? The answer is they are not thinking. A few years ago, someone stabbed me in the back, and the thing that hurt the most was actually my ego! I was shocked that someone I thought was a friend had betrayed me in a way that was very calculating and very spiteful. I went to see a mentor of mine, and he said to me that when we are in our right mind and love God, we cannot see certain behaviours or understand them because we cannot imagine

My mentor explained to me that the Bible talks about the mystery of iniquity. In other words, people whose heart is not involved in iniquity will always be surprised when those who are show their true colours. That is the truth.

I am writing all this to help you with three things:

1. Don’t join the accusing club. You will end up going crazy if you let offense grow in your heart, and it will happen quicker than you think.
2. Don’t try and work out why someone is accusing you, they are not thinking. You will have to go to some dark places in your mind to work it out. So don’t. Just love, forgive, bless and get on with kingdom work.
3. Don’t try and have a rational discussion with someone who has lost their mind. It won’t produce fruit.