“Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you” (Luke 6:28).

QUESTION: Do you have any suggestions about how to maintain a godly attitude toward people who falsely accuse you and constantly cause problems?

ANSWER: You have to walk in love with everyone, no matter what. With practice, you can eventually get to the point where the person doesn’t even know you’re uncomfortable around him. But, you can’t allow their problem to become your

problem.

Listen to what they have to say about you and examine yourself to make sure you aren’t doing what they say you’re doing. If you are – change. If you aren’t, then just keep going on. If they still have a problem with you, they just have a problem.

That’s the way I handle it. I have someone whom I trust in the ministry that I can go to. That person helps me examine myself objectively. I try to make sure I’m not doing or saying anything that would cause other people problems. But once I’ve examined myself, I just go on.

You just have to continue to love and pray for those people. Keep the door open so that you can witness to them and bring them up to a spiritual level they need to be on. I’ve found that those who criticize and talk about you the most are usually the ones who’ll come to you when they’re in trouble – that is, if you don’t mishandle their criticism or tell them off in the meantime.

QUESTION: How does submission come into play in relationships?

ANSWER: In husband and wife relationships, submission is big. You have to submit all the time. For example, in 1 Peter 3:4, the Bible talks about the wife’s possessing a meek and quiet spirit (“meek” meaning teachable and “quiet,” apt to listen).

You have to be teachable and able to listen to God. But you have to have a meek and quiet spirit in order to submit to anyone. In any relationship where you are teachable and you can hear from God, you are actually in the process of developing a meek and quiet spirit.

Ephesians 5:21 is the key to submission. It says that we need to submit to one another. It is not just the wife who has to submit to her husband. The husband also has to submit to his wife. It is a two-way street.

Scripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 11:28; 1 John 4:7-8; Ephesians 5:21