Luke 17:3 “So watch yourselves. If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them.”

We do not like the word ‘rebuke’, ‘discipline’ or ‘correction’. Yet the New Testament is filled with Scripture teaching us to correct one another and to receive a rebuke.

More and more Christians find it hard to be corrected, or to speak the truth in love. Yet Jesus came full of grace and full of truth (see John 1). I believe we have lost the balance in this the last couple of decades. Because we have been beaten with truth without grace (religion and rejection) we have reverted back to grace without truth (relativism and distraction). Yet Jesus teaches us that we will know the truth and the truth will set us free (not: grace will set us free). In order for truth to liberate, it needs to penetrate. That means, it will hurt at first.

You and I need to be embraced in grace and confronted with truth daily. We need to die daily. That is how we grow into the image of Christ. I believe we are entering an era where we will once again disciple people in grace and truth. Are you ready to receive or give a rebuke? So that you may be liberated and grow into the image of Christ?

More on this in this Sunday’s preaching at C3 Rivers Church (28 November 2021), where I will share that a big part of this has to do with the fruit of the Spirit. When we operate in ‘love, joy, peace and patience…’ we can give a rebuke. And when we have ‘love, joy, peace and patience…’ we can take one also. In the very chapter on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) Paul says that ‘these agitators should be castrated’. Did you ever say such a thing? Jesus called Peter satan himself. We need the fruit of the Spirit now more than ever. We need to grow up.