When they lie about you

Is anybody lying about you, brother? Is there anyone out there maliciously or ignorantly spreading misinformation? To be lied about or mischaracterized is a galling thing, but there is much comfort in observing that God protects His own from lies. We don't have to worry like other people about false things said about us, because God has already "got that."

People doing God's work will always be lied about. Defamation of character is a stock weapon in Satan's arsenal. Look what the Apostle Paul's detractors said about him:

"… they say, 'His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account,'" (2 Corinthians 10:10).

This was a smear campaign, and there was much more to it than that. But here was Paul's attitude:

"… with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court …" (1 Corinthians 4:3).

And this:

"But we pray to God that you may not do wrong-not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what it right, though we may seem to have failed" (2 Corinthians 13:7).

This is the speech of a man who is totally free. Looking bad to people may be annoying but is not devastating. Paul does what he does out of fear of the Lord, knowing there will be slander and schadenfreude but trusting God to expose it in the end. God always does. Look at the lengths to which Haman went to destroy the Jews in the book of Esther, and look how God unraveled it.

Nehemiah's enemies were trying to rattle him with a blackmailing letter to the king of Persia-which they obligingly sent him a copy of. He read their report and replied:

"… 'No such things as you say have been done, for you are inventing them out of your own mind.' For they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, 'Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.' But now, O God, strengthen my hands'" (Nehemiah 6:8-9).

Then he just kept working.