Choosing your battles!

Note: This month I’m posting a series of devotional thoughts from Acts. Many of these are reposts, some are new. I’m “working out the kinks” for submission to a compilation of short, pastoral writings in Acts to be published later this year. If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please let me know!

“If I’ve committed a crime and deserve death, name the day. I can face it. But if there’s nothing to their accusations—and you know there isn’t—nobody can force me to go along with their nonsense. We’ve fooled around here long enough. I appeal to Caesar.” Acts 25:11

Some Christians seem to have a confidence problem: They get internally discouraged when they face opposition, but externally they don’t feel it is right to push back.

I understand the call to humility; Jesus not only told us to turn the other cheek, but he modeled this when He was on trial for his life. When being accused, Jesus didn’t say a word—and that led to His unjust execution.

Paul clearly didn’t take that route. Repeatedly he seemed to say, “I’m not going to let anybody push me around” and he fully used the legal system to ensure that his old peers, those twisted religious leaders, didn’t have a leg to stand on when they tried to go after him. I love the Message translation: “Nobody can force me to go along with their nonsense”.

So the question is, when is it OK to push back, and when is it proper to stay silent and non-resistant?

I’m not so sure there is an easy answer, but I do have some thoughts:

1. If you are externally compliant but internally seething at your treatment, and you are bitter and unforgiving towards those who are hostile to you, not being vocally honest is only going to hurt you. Passive-aggressive attitudes or actions are never Kingdom-compliant.

2. If you have done something to deserve the treatment you are getting, step up and own it. Paul says, “If I’ve done something deserving death, then punish me properly”. Most of us have not done anything deserving death, but if we have made mistakes and are facing opposition because of those mistakes, we shouldn’t over-spiritualize it and claim persecution by the enemy. Admit your failure, take your lumps, and move on (hopefully having learned something in the process).

3. If someone is accusing you un-righteously, don’t just lie down and let them roll over you. There are appropriate times to defend ourselves, not because we are worried about us, but as agents of the Kingdom there is a “violent” aspect to pressing in with the good news. The enemy will use people to try to silence the truth or stop God’s progress through us; we owe it to our assignment to stand up for truth when a lie is being told.

4. Finally, there are some times—and we need to be spiritually sensitive to them—when we have done nothing wrong, but the proper response to persecution is not push-back, but silence. We may be called to this when the result of the opposition will actually further God’s purposes. Even though the accusation against Him was completely erroneous, Jesus “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.” As agents of His kingdom, there will be times when we are also called to “Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself”, and likewise receive unjust hostility for the larger purposes of God.