Train to Live on Mission – Week 16
Battle Drill #16:
Accept the Commander’s Correction!
Proverbs 9:7-10 (NAS95)
Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn the next battle drill – “Accept the Commander’s Correction!”
Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.
The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 9:7-10:
He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself, and he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser, teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
This is what the Field Manual says, let’s now take the second action step to learn how to apply today’s battle drill to our everyday lives as good soldiers of Jesus Christ.
Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.
Wisdom is crying out for you to walk in a habitual lifestyle of covenant faithfulness with God. The Hebrew word translated, “Come,” in verse 5, is הלך (hālakh), used in an imperative form, meaning it is a command. God’s people must “walk” in a habitual lifestyle of covenant faithfulness to God and His commandments, as explicitly used in Deuteronomy 10:12-13:
Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? [italics added]
The key to walking in covenant faithfulness is to obey the greatest commandment, as given to us by Jesus Christ in Matthew 22:37, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Because the essential ingredient to a life that submits to the Commander’s correction is love! Jesus Christ made this connection very clearly in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
Jesus commands people to a lifestyle of covenant faithfulness when He invites them, “follow Me,” as in Mark 1:17, or to “Come to Me,” as in Matthew 11:28-30. The Hebrew word of hālakh, and all of it implications of walking in the habitual lifestyle of covenant faithfulness, is the foundation of Jesus’ invitations. Check out the connection between the use of this word in wisdom’s calling in Proverbs 9:4-6 and the prophet’s calling in Isaiah 55:1-3:
Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David.
It is not just the wisdom of God and the prophet of God who is calling, Jesus is calling! There is a further connection between these Old Testament passages and Jesus’ words in John 7:37, “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” Furthermore, listen to Jesus’ words from the throne of Heaven in Revelation 21:6-7, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”
We are to accept the Commander’s correction in the same way, and for the same purpose, that a child heed’s his parent’s discipline. Listen to Hebrews 12:7-11:
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Did you hear those final words, “those who have been trained by it”? What are we to be trained by? You’ve got it – the Commander’s corrections (i.e., discipline). We must train into our minds and hearts the importance of accepting the Commander’s correction, as a posture of our hearts and minds, because He loves us and we love Him. That takes us to the third action step.
Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.
Apart from the respect, reverence, and awe of God as the Sovereign King, the Ruler of all creation, the Supreme Commander of Heaven’s armies, then there can be no training of wisdom, or instruction in righteousness, for us as the good soldiers of Christ Jesus. We must know who it is we are seeking to please with our lives; therefore, we must train into our minds and hearts a complete submission to the one who saved us, called us to be His, and chose us to be a part of His plans – His search and rescue mission to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10).
This is what Paul teaches his protégé in 2 Timothy 2:3-4, “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” Your salvation is your enlistment as a soldier of Jesus Christ. If you are going to live on mission as an active-duty soldier, then you must learn to accept the Commander’s correction because He is trying to help you stay focused on the mission at hand and be effective and fruitful in the mission.
Action Step #4) Live on mission.
We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.
Our mission is to love as God first loved us. When we don’t do this well, we should expect to be corrected by the Commander. I don’t know about you, but I don’t love as well as God. Unlike God, my love is impacted by selfishness, defensiveness, insecurity, and fear. Therefore, if I am ever going to live on mission for God in a way that is fruitful and effective for the Kingdom of God, I better expect His discipline and accept His corrections whenever I fall short. How I respond to Him is really the point of this whole battle drill. Listen again to Proverbs 9:7-9:
He who corrects a scoffer gets dishonor for himself, and he who reproves a wicked man gets insults for himself. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you, reprove a wise man and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser, teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.
How do you respond to correction? Are you quick to get defensive and rationalize your actions, protect your ego, and blame others? If so, then welcome to the party of fools and scoffers. Today is the day to humble ourselves before God to become wise and righteous through the way we listen to feedback and accept correction. Are you already good at listening and learning from the correction, knowing that you can get better because of it? If so, you are wise and righteous. Continue to yoke with Jesus and become like Him – gentle and humble in heart.