Dear Brethren and Friends, We are rapidly coming up on the Day of Pentecost. It is my hope that all of you have experienced a positive Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread observance. Now, as we prepare for Pentecost and the fall Holy Days, I want to share with you something we all need to work on all year long. It is a character trait that many people do not like to face up to. But, to enter God’s Kingdom, we MUST understand and build this seldom thought of character trait into the very fabric of our lives. It must become an important part of what we are—part of the way we think, feel and act.
This character trait is the willingness to take correction.
Is it simple? Is it easy?
No! To humble the self and genuinely receive correction is one of the hardest things for most human beings to do. For it gets right at our pride, our sense of self-importance and our basic self. Oh, my! How hard it is to admit that we are really, truly, totally WRONG! That hurts.
Yet, as each year of our Christian conversion goes by, we must become even more willing than ever to let God fashion and mold us—clean us up and scrub us out. For genuine Christian maturity will come no other way.
Each of us has to be willing to ask God—fervently and sincerely— “Father, please clean me up. Please help me to see myself as YOU see me! Please cleanse me even from secret sins. Knock me down, if need be. Rebuke and chasten me as You do every son You love. But HELP me! Fashion and mold me that I may reflect Jesus Christ. Make me in Your image so that I may be in Your Kingdom, in Your Family and bear Your name forever!”
God’s Word tells us: “And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’ If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?” (Hebrews 12:5–7). WHY does God “chasten us” and put us through these trials and tests that come upon us so often in this life? “That we may be partakers of His HOLINESS” (v. 10).
Brethren, if we deeply want to be in God’s Kingdom so much that we can “taste it,” then we should be willing to go through every trial, surmount every obstacle, suffer every indignity and even suffer physical DEATH in Christ’s service if that is what it takes. But all too often we have various “idols” that can come between God and us. We have pride and vanity. We get our “feelings” hurt very easily because God is really NOT the very center of our lives. Yet God says, “Great peace have those who love Thy law; and NOTHING shall offend them” (Psalm 119:165, KJV).
However, when we are corrected, some of us DO get offended, don’t we? We only want correction if it is easy to take and preferably is “sugar-coated”! But much of the book of Proverbs is telling us that the way to wisdom—the way to God’s Kingdom—is to be willing to take instruction, to take correction and to take rebuke.
God says, “Do not correct a scoffer, lest he hate you; rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning” (Proverbs 9:8–9).
Again, we are told: “The wise in heart will receive commands, but a prating fool will fall” (Proverbs 10:8). And again, “He who keeps instruction is in the way of life, but he who refuses CORRECTION goes astray” (v. 17).
Often the “idol” of our own vanity is the thing that prevents us from humbly listening and heeding when we are corrected. All of us have some kind of idol or idols in our lives. Anything that comes between us and total SURRENDER to God must be SMASHED.
Herbert W. Armstrong found—on a number of occasions—that he was making a virtual idol out of his business and/or his desire for importance and esteem in the eyes of successful men.
In his autobiography Mr. Armstrong tells us:
So let me say right here something about conversion I find most people do not understand.
The REPENTANCE required as a condition to being truly converted by receiving God’s Holy Spirit is something far different than most people suppose. It is infinitely more than merely “seeing” God’s TRUTH, or some of it, and being good enough to embrace and accept it. It is something altogether different from merely agreeing with certain doctrines.
Whoever you are, you have, or you have had, an IDOL. You have had another “god” before the true living Almighty God. It might be your hobby or your habitual pastime. It might be your husband, or wife, or child or children. It might be your job. It might be your own VANITY, or the lipstick you paint on, or your business or profession. Very often it is the opinion of your friends, your family, your group or social or business contacts.
But whatever it is, that idol must first be CRUSHED, SMASHED—it must be literally torn out of your mind, even though it hurts more than having all your teeth pulled out and perhaps a jawbone, too! I don’t believe that many people experience this painlessly. I don’t know of any anesthetic that will render it pleasurable. Usually it seems like something more excruciating than the agony of death by the cruelest torture. [Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong, Vol. 1, 1986, p. 593].
God tells us: “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11). Personally, I have learned that even when the correction is not given in a “nice” way and even when the motivation of the one giving the correction is questionable, it is FAR BETTER to truly “listen” to the correction, think about it and act on it than it is to get my feelings hurt or refuse to listen. Through the trials and tests of over 50 years in the Church of God I have learned that it is wise to consider carefully even what my enemies are saying. For sometimes, strange as it may seem, they may point out problems in my life or in my approach that even my friends have not told me about!
So if you truly LONG to be in God’s Kingdom and Family forever, it should not make any difference where the correction originates, or even if it seems to be given in a wrong spirit. Rather, you will want to think about it, perhaps learn from it and certainly ACT upon it if you find that even part of the correction is true.
Try to NEVER get your “feelings” hurt when you are corrected. And especially never allow yourself to become BITTER when you are corrected by God, by God’s ministers or by anyone! For that bitterness may not hurt them at all. But, if allowed to continue and to grow, it will DESTROY you!
As the inspired writer of Hebrews warns us: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of BITTERNESS springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled” (Hebrews 12:14–15).
Even if it “hurts,” even if you have to literally CRY OUT to God for help, be absolutely sure that you never fall into a spirit of BITTERNESS! For once you become bitter, you usually cannot be reached by logical reasoning. Often, even God’s Spirit cannot reach you! For your own carnal pride and bitterness will simply block out the influence of God’s Holy Spirit.
Brethren, that is extremely SERIOUS! For in all sincerity I have to tell you from the bottom of my heart that my entire experience in God’s Church has shown me that if you allow yourself to become totally bitter, you may have, in that very moment, chosen DEATH rather than eternal life in the glorious Kingdom of God!
So learn to genuinely humble the self. Learn to take correction and rebuke. Meditate deeply on these inspired words of the Apostle Peter: “Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:5–7).
Truly, God does care for you. He has made you in His image. He wants you to become His full son in the resurrection. He wants you to become like He is forever. But, in order for that to occur, He has to work with you over a period of years. He may need to knock the “carnal crust” off of you. He needs to fashion you, correct you when you are wrong and chasten you when necessary. Then, God will “know” that you will really fit into His eternal Family which is based upon giving—NOT “getting”—upon genuine humility and service, on LOVE and out-flowing concern and on the inexpressible JOY of being in total union with God Himself.
There is no other way.
So let us all be willing to let God work with us, correct us and fashion in us the perfect character He wants us to have. Then, as Peter tells us, “AFTER you have suffered awhile,” God will, “perfect, establish, strengthen and settle you. To him be the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (1 Peter 5:10–11).
