Correction:
Why Do We Hate It?

Beloved, all these qualities and many more, too many to list or conceive, I’m sure, may describe our earthly parents but not our Heavenly Father. You see, God by nature, is perfect and just, loving and gentle, full of
power, authority and righteousness. Yet most of all, He has our absolute best interest in mind.

You see, despite today’s politics and social trends, which change with every new day, God remains the same. If you are a true child of God, then God has every right to discipline, chastise and correct you! I might add He exercises this right as frequently as He sees fit.

“My son, despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” Proverbs 3:11-12

But today, correction is shunned, avoided, frowned upon. Many feel that the people God has called to bring in reproof are “Heaping condemnation” on everyone. But beloved, this is not so. If we truly were walking in the Spirit (and not in the flesh) in perfect right–standing with God, (without blemish or sin). Then we would be unscathed by reproof. We would feel no condemnation. Against the fruit and works of the Spirit there is no law. In other words, no reproof or chastisement or correction is necessary. God delights in us as a son or a daughter. But perchance doubt, rebellion, murmuring, complaining or disobedience begins to take hold in our lives. God is swift to bring in correction to straighten out His children.

In our Godless society today, a child can call the “authorities” such as Child Protection Services and have their parents arrested and jailed for taking measures to chastise their child. Please understand I’m aware of abuse to children and I’m not invalidating the efforts of C. P. S. to stop abuse of the worst kind against children. But the growing trend in our society is that discipline is wrong or hurtful to our children. The result: violent, depressed, confused children who have sought to “find their own way” through right and wrong in this world. Only to come out feeling that nobody cares, nothing matters and nothing is real. They’ve followed the course of nature. A nature of sin. A nature inherently prone to earn the wage of its lust:

DEATH

“… we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath… “ Ephesians 2:3

Every good and loving parent knows that they do not have to teach their child to be bad. No one ever had to sit a baby down and laboriously teach them how to be selfish or demanding. It comes natural to them. A child unattended and uncorrected will eventually be a mess. Even at the youngest sentient age the heart of a child is
demanding, rebelling, seeking and procuring it’s own good. A child will manifest a desire for something sweet to the taste, for instance, and from only weeks old begins demanding and crying just to have what it wants. A caring, loving parent though, will take steps to ensure that a child gets what it needs rather than what it wants only. Father knows best. Likewise when a child desires that which is good for them, this behavior is encouraged, nurtured and strengthened. While the other is reproved and discouraged from their life.

“If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” Matthew 7:11

God speaks a lot in His Word about raising children. He advises discipline, reproof, correction, counsel and nurture all to be best for our children. Dearly beloved of God, the things God tells us to do in rearing our children, He also puts them into practice when raising His children: US! Would God instruct us to correct our children with a rod but then He Himself never apply it? Would God counsel us to reprove without sparing and then cave in to murmuring and complaining just because we don’t like it?

God forbid!

“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him". Proverbs 22:15

Jesus told us that all the things which defile us proceed from within, from our hearts. An evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, lust… all these are bound in our heart, defiling our way. But God promises a new heart and the loving reproof of God drives wickedness from us. Hallelujah!

“thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4

David, God testifies, a man after God’s own heart, declares to us that the reproof and provision of God was his source of all comfort.

“… thou art with me…” Psalm 23:4

The comfort of God does not come in our lives when a flattering support group comes and tells us we’re doing just fine. But when reproof comes, the wise son or daughter rejoices that God cares enough not to leave them in the same old rotten way He found us. SOMEBODY CARES! Somebody loves us. What great comfort!

“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” John 14:18

This great promise of Jesus our Lord means more than may immediately meet the eye. He is saying specifically “I will not leave you orphaned. Abandoned without a father. I will come to you.”

“If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” John 14:15-17

The Holy Ghost! The Comforter. The Spirit of our Father. It is inconceivable that God in all of His perfection, holiness and righteousness, and us in all of our perverseness, hardness and rebellion, can mix without something giving. That something is us. The overwhelming message of God throughout all generations from Adam to you and I to whoever comes next, is summed up in a single word. REPENT! Without Jesus Christ’s death on the cross as the once and for all sin offering to God, we could never be purged from our sin. But many proceed no further. We have simply replaced the animal sacrifices with Jesus. Begging God’s forgiveness and offer Jesus again and again and again and again. In our own little penance and daily, weekly, monthly or yearly pilgrimage to God. We’ve fashioned a new religion out of Jesus. How sad! Let me tell you this is no relationship
with God. God wants so much more for us. Something so important that Jesus tells us:“It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto
you.” John 16:7

Jesus deemed it more important for us to have the Holy Ghost (Comforter) come, than for Him to continue with us perpetually in the flesh. He had to go away! Many try to receive Jesus as savior again and again and again in the flesh. But never enter into the new life God purposed for us by His indwelling Spirit. We need to be born again. Much of the church is not born again. Much of the church is ignorant of the new life God has for them because nobody told them. So they stay in their sin. They stay in their flesh, in condemnation and guilt. Never knowing the true liberty Jesus died to give us.

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

II Corinthians 3:17

Jesus died, by His own words, to give us the Spirit. That, my dear brothers and sisters, is important. What many people do not understand is the ministry of the Spirit to us. “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment…” John 16:8

Further we read:

“… Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth:” John 16:13

The Spirit of God has come to us to reprove, lead into truth, correct, guide and most of all to father us. “I will not leave you orphaned”. God first and foremost is the Father.

“… For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”Romans 8:15

We are adopted by God! Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God! God is our father. We were bastards, alienated and orphaned. But now God has taken us in and loved us and raises us as if we were always His own. That’s love. That’s why we hate correction. We don’t know that it comes from God’s genuine love for us- His children.

“… For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure hastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but
he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Hebrews 12:6-11

God promises that if we submit to His chastening in our lives, we will be profited by it. He’ll deal with us as sons!

“… A fool despiseth his fathers instruction…” Proverbs 15:5

Don’t be a fool! God loves us and cares for us and only wants what’s best for us; and He, unlike our earthly parents, always knows what’s really best for us.

“Turn you at my reproof : behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you , I will make known my words unto you .” Proverbs 1:23

Many have written opposing the seeming hard message God has given us to share. I do not apologize. And I rejoice that God has chosen to manifest such love through us to His people that He loves more than anything
else in this world. Dear brothers and sisters, God loves us. More than ever we need to know Him. Not gifts, not healing, not revival, not knowledge, but God our Father, the Gift– Giver, the Healer, the Resurrection and the Life, the One who knows all things. God promises if we turn, repent at His reproof, He will make Himself real to us. Isn't that after all what we really need?

“ He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him… If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him John 14:21,23

AMEN