What Do You Do When Rebuke Comes?

“Let a righteous man strike me – it is a kindness; let him rebuke me – it is oil for my head; let my head not refuse it.” (Psalm 141:5)

Many of us don’t react this way when rebuke comes.

And it doesn’t matter whether someone hits you over the head with a spiritual 2×4 or comes in the back door and points out sin as softly as they can, no one likes their sin to be exposed.

It’s uncommon to say something like this: “Wow, what a gracious gift that you have given me to care enough to point out my sins. It is a blessing I do not want to refuse.”

David says, “May those who are truly committed to the LORD show their loyalty by pointing out to me the error of my ways and by redirecting my steps.”

What do we usually say when rebuke comes? “Are you kidding?”

Or we say, “I think you are misguided or misinformed.”

Or we say, “Yah, but …”

Or we just walk away out of anger or frustration. We like to pretend we have no idea what someone is talking about or come up with a lot of well-reasoned excuses or downplay its significance or just vent someone for getting too personal.

This is not the conduct of a holy man. A godly man invites examination and rebuke. He wants it, because he knows there are blind spots and there is stubbornness and he cannot afford to be caught up in any entanglement that will keep him from living in a pleasing way to God.

We need to be the kind of people that invite and pursue examination. We cannot always trust ourselves to know what we look like. Our view of ourselves is often no different than us looking into a mirror at the Fun House at the fair and seeing that distorted image and accepting that as our appearance.

If you don’t have people in your life who love you enough to rebuke you and show you sin, then maybe you need to make new friends or rebuke your friends for not loving you as they should. David wanted examination.