We have all experienced our teachers correcting spelling mistakes and grammar on writing assignments as students. These mistakes would often be circled or underlined in red to point them out to us.  Over time as we got better at correcting those mistakes the number of corrections on our writing assignments would decrease. The main reason for this is due to the fact that our teachers kept pointing out our mistakes in red until we stopped making them eventually.

This is the same way in our spiritual life. When we first start out as Christians we all make mistakes that need correction. Correction comes from the Lord in multiple ways. He can use other people to point out your mistakes or He might even put a thought into your mind to correct mistakes in your life. More often than not God uses the bible to point out areas in your life that need correction. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”. The entire Bible is God’s tool for pointing out things in our life that need to be corrected or rectified. If God is our teacher then he uses the verses in the bible to circle what needs to be corrected in our lives in red.

The problem with correction in our spiritual life is that none of us want to listen to correction. We think we know what is best for us and we tend to ignore correction that is brought to us by God, either through the bible or from other people in our lives. Proverbs 15:32 says “Those who disregard discipline despise themselves, but the one who heeds correction gains understanding.” There is always going to be a need to correct things in our life as Christians. Just because you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life does not mean you are perfect. Jesus Christ is perfect. You are not! Jesus takes away our sins but that doesn’t mean we must keep on sinning.

Jesus said in Luke 5:32 “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Whether we like it or not we are all sinners and accepting Jesus Christ just means that we all understood the fact that we are sinners and we need to repent of our sins every day. Unfortunately, there are a lot of us going around with unrepented sins and areas in our life that haven’t been corrected in many years.  Proverbs 15:31 says “Whoever heeds life-giving correction will be at home among the wise.” This verse clearly says that listening to life-giving correction makes us wise. Most of us tend to shy away from correction thinking it makes us weak or foolish but the bible says very clearly that correcting what is wrong in our lives is what makes us wise. The only way to be open to correction is to read the bible and pray every day asking for the holy spirit to change us from the inside.