“I cheerfully make my defense.”

Acts 24:10-17, And when the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied: “Knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense.”

Paul had been brought to the brink of death by false accusations and charges against him by his own brothers, and rescued by the Roman tribune; he now hears charges against him by and largely false. His attitude is not of hostility, but by the power of the Spirit guiding and leading he is able to cheerfully make his defense! And the one charge which he does not deny is that “according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” He uses every opportunity to share this good news, cheerfully. Have we asked to be filled with this same spirit of cheerfulness even under false accusation, that we may be salt and light in our own generation?

Give us this same spirit of cheerfulness for your good news, even when we are in a trial, that we also may “take pains to have a clear conscience before God and man.”

ESV Lectionary