I have found over the years that when someone wants to accuse you, the Word is always missing. Now obviously, when someone in the world wants to accuse you they probably don’t have any Word or care about the Word, But if you watch carefully accusers who are even Christians (yes, sometimes Christians are your worse accusers) will not go near the Word. They will talk about Jesus, they will talk about love, they will talk about worldly sayings and proverbs, but they will not talk about the Word.
You might be accused of unloving but if you are truly loving, then there is no way your accuser will actually be able to show from the Word of God that you have done something unloving. You might be accused of being a cult, but there will be no Scripture explaining why you are a cult. It’s just ranting and raving dressed up. If you look carefully, there will be no Word!
Most accusations are made by people who don’t want to bend to the Word, they don’t want to feed on the Word, so when they accuse their accusations are exceptionally empty of the Word.
If we are people of the Word and love the Word, and love to talk about the Word and love to read the Word, and love to listen to sermons packed full of the Word, then when we hear an accusation from a Christian, and there is no Word at all in it, then it resonates with you: hey, why when you are trying to correct a brother in the Lord you are not using the Word? Oh, because you are not trying to correct, you are not trying to help, you are not trying to be loving and kind, you are accusing! You are in the employee of satan trying to pull people down and destroy their lives and reputation.
I have found this often when I have put someone under church discipline – when someone is not living the standards of the Word so they can no longer be a leader, I take the time to explain from the Word what the standards are and why. It’s awesome when someone sees the error of their ways and repents and lifts their life to a higher standard, but sometimes someone gets upset at being asked to step up and stand on the Word, and they then accuse. But watch carefully, those accusations will have no Word in them.
To me as a pastor, this is one of the easiest ways to spot accusations apart from godly correction or godly concern – the total lack of Word, and often the Word is replaced with silly proverbs that have nothing to do with the Bible, or vague appeals to love, without defining from the Word what love is.
Selah.
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