Accepting Being Wronged

 DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

ACCEPTING BEING WRONGED

1 Cor 6:7-8

7 The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? 8 Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers.

NIV

This is just a little bit of what Paul said about this lawsuit situation, as what is next is a grand list of many offenses against God. But for now, let us consider this idea about being offended or being wronged. We are simply supposed to turn the other cheek. There is no such thing in the kingdom of God as revenge or seeking retribution or in the case of the Corinthians taking a fellow believer to court. We know that as unfortunate as it is, divorce happens within the body of Christ and requires a civil court to settle the agreement. But that is not the case Paul is speaking about. What is a brother in the Lord swingled us out of some money through some scheme. We cannot imagine that happening, but if it did, the correct response would be simply to accept the fact we were wronged and move on, which includes forgiveness. That seems to be a hard pill to swallow, but that is what the word of God as spoken through Paul tells us to do. However, there are much smaller offenses that we believers commit against each other which we also need to forgive and move on. When we harbor ill feelings because we think we have been offended we are in the wrong and are not acting in a manner that is pleasing to God.  It is sad, but we have seen believers leave a church because they think they were offended and go to another church without dealing with their feelings. How can we believers worship God when we are harboring unforgiveness in our hearts? Even if we do not take a brother to court because of being wronged if we do not forgive we are already defeated. If we are living a life of love, then first we would not offend our fellow believers and if for some reason we feel someone did wrong against us, then according to the act of love, we could not feel we were wronged. This feeling of being wronged stems from thinking too highly of ourselves or being far too self-centered. We should always remember that Jesus said that if we what to be one of the greatest in the kingdom we should become a servant to others, and if we are servants then it would be impossible to be offended. But even if we cannot accept being a servant, we should accept being wronged.