By the time you read this, the ordeal surrounding Brett Kavanaugh will be more or less resolved, one way or the other. The accusations—whether you believe them or not—will have either taken their toll or will be sloughed-off by history. Either way, we need to be mindful of the power of accusations and accusers.

We all know injustices. Certainly every one of us has been wrongfully victimized in one way or another by something. We may have raised complaint to parents, teachers, administrators, or even judges—yet been left with no further recourse than to absorb the evil done to us. There are true victims in this fallen world and for every one of them there remains a constant awareness and expectation for further injustices. As a nation and as Christians, we should stand by these people and publicly advocate for them.

There are also professional victims—people who use injury as a personal crutch to manipulate others—these are those who seem incapable of taking personal responsibility for their own lives and the pursuit of their own happiness.

Wherever legitimate victims stand up for justice, we can expect to see a long line of professional victims forming behind them. Discovering and knowing the difference determines whether we act in justice or simply cave-in to a form of mob rule.

The American idea of justice is that our courts are empowered to execute cases of private vengeance. The old cowboy movies got it all wrong:  we don’t string up horse thieves even when we catch them red-handed and feel outraged over our losses. Instead, we turn them over to our courts where rational, dispassionate justice is arrived at through due process.

In this #MeToo era we may find ourselves caught between justice and the accusations for not knowing the full details of a particular case, which means we are thrown back onto our own feelings and experiences of justices/injustices past. If I’ve been hurt or abused, I’m likely to invest emotionally in the accusations; If I’ve been wrongly-accused in the past, I emotionally invest against the accusations. Either way, I’m working with too few facts and details to reasonably invest my emotions at all. Better to stay cool and find out more.

The very name Satan can rightly be translated The Accuser. Satan can be thought of as the prosecuting attorney in the heavenly courts, whose role it is to bring to the Judge’s remembrance the sins of the accused. The Accuser abhors the idea of mercy or forgiveness. The Accuser is eternally outraged by the idea of grace—undeserved favor and mercy—and he abhors the way love can change a rightful prisoner into one who is redeemed as a child of God.

You and I carry an Accuser within us. In each of our hearts and minds, there is a voice that says, “You’re not good enough,” “You’re a fake!” “Why would God love someone like you!” “You don’t deserve Heaven!” For most, that voice leads to darkness and potential despair. You and I do very well to reject that voice as the very voice of Satan, for it is the voice of the Accuser.

Instead, we have the voice of The Comforter, The Holy Spirit. Yes, we sometimes think or do what is wrong, but the Spirit does not accuse us; the Spirit reminds us that we belong to Christ and have been forgiven. “You are his child!” says the Spirit, “so walk into your inheritance, beloved of God!” 

That means we are not to beat up ourselves for our sins (Christ absorbed all of that for us), but we live out of grace, loving and serving truth. The good news of Jesus means that we live our lives beyond the Accusers’ reach—voices inside and out—and we need never fear this world’s injustices because the price for them all has already been totally absorbed on the cross.

If you’ve been wronged, it is right and good to pursue worldly justice, but if this world doesn’t satisfy (here’s a clue: it will not), then turn your injuries over to The Lord, who has promised to bear them for you. The Lord will judge, and unlike the courts or frenzied passions of this world, the Lord will judge perfectly. †