What Correction Reveals About the Heart

Correction is one of those subjects that can become unbalanced very quickly in the Body of Christ. We can become so resistant to being challenged that anyone who questions us is immediately considered judgmental, religious, controlling, or offended. Yet correction can also be misused by people who insert themselves into places Yahweh never gave them authority and then accuse someone of pride when their words are not accepted.

Neither response gives us a biblical understanding of correction.

In the last article, When Strength Forgets Its Source, we looked closely at Uzziah and what happened after a man who had been “marvellously helped” became strong and his heart was lifted up. If you have not read that article, I encourage you to go back and read it because there is something important about the progression of his story that I do not want to repeat here.

Instead, I want to pick up at the moment Uzziah was confronted.

The priests had followed him into the temple after he crossed a boundary Yahweh had established. They told him plainly:

“It appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the LORD, but to the priests the sons of Aaron…” — 2 Chronicles  26:18 KJV

The correction was true.

Uzziah became angry.

As I continued studying his response, I began thinking about what correction can reveal. The priests did not create the pride in Uzziah’s heart by confronting him. Their words brought something that was already there to the surface.

That is uncomfortable to consider because most of us probably believe we are teachable until someone tells us something we do not want to hear.

Receiving correction is fairly easy when we already agree with it. If someone points out something we have recognized in ourselves, we may even appreciate their honesty. The difficulty comes when we are convinced we are right and someone tells us we are not.

But I could not stop there because another question immediately arose.

What if the person correcting us is wrong?

That question matters because Scripture does not teach us to accept every accusation simply because someone calls it correction. If that were true, Job would have needed to accept nearly everything his friends said about him.

Job’s friends looked at his suffering and believed they understood what it meant. Their reasoning seemed straightforward. They knew Yahweh was just. They believed wickedness brought judgment, and they were looking at a man whose life had suddenly been devastated.

From what they could see, Job’s suffering had to mean something was wrong in Job.

As their conversations continued, what began as an attempt to make sense of his suffering became increasingly accusatory.

Eliphaz eventually asked:

“Is not thy wickedness great? and thine iniquities infinite?” — Job 22:5 KJV

He then began naming sins as though he knew Job had committed them.

The problem was that he did not know.

When Yahweh finally addressed the matter, He told Eliphaz:

“My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.” — Job 42:7 KJV

That completely changes how we have to approach correction.

Uzziah was confronted, and the priests were right.

Job was accused, and his friends were wrong.

Those two accounts protect us from opposite errors. Uzziah does not allow us to become so defensive that every correction is treated as an attack, while Job does not allow us to assume that humility requires accepting another person’s judgment simply because they are confident they are right.

So the question cannot merely be whether someone corrected me.

I need to know whether what they said is true.

That requires discernment.

I have noticed how quickly our attention can move away from the substance of correction and toward the person giving it. We begin thinking about their qualifications to speak to us, their own failures, their tone, their motives, or whether they know enough about the situation to have an opinion.

Some of those questions can be legitimate. People do manipulate. They falsely accuse.

Scripture is sometimes used irresponsibly, and there are people who call something “correction” when what they actually want is control.

Still, before I become consumed with examining the person who spoke, there is a much simpler question I need to be willing to bring before Yahweh:

Was there truth in what they said?

Someone can communicate poorly and still identify something I need to address. Their own imperfections do not automatically make their observation false. At the same time, confidence, position, age, experience, or a ministry title cannot make an accusation true.

That is why correction has to come back to Yahweh and His Word.

David gives us another picture of this in 2 Samuel 12.

After David sinned with Bathsheba and arranged circumstances that resulted in Uriah’s death, Yahweh sent Nathan to him. Nathan told David about a rich man with many flocks and a poor man who possessed only one little ewe lamb. When a traveler came to the rich man, he refused to take from his own abundance and instead took the poor man’s lamb.

David became furious when he heard the story.

Then Nathan said:

“Thou art the man.” — 2 Samuel 12:7 KJV

David was king.

Nathan was confronting a man with enormous earthly authority, much like the priests who stood before Uzziah. Yet David’s eventual response was very different:

“I have sinned against the LORD.” — 2 Samuel 12:13 KJV

David’s repentance did not remove the consequences of what he had done. Scripture makes that very clear. But when the truth reached him, he stopped defending himself.

That is the posture I want to have toward correction.

Not because everyone who confronts me is Nathan.

Job’s friends make sure I remember that.

What I want is the ability to hear something I do not like without deciding whether it is true based on how it makes me feel.

There is a difference between saying, “That hurt me,” and saying, “That was false.” Truth can hurt. False accusations can hurt too.

The presence of pain does not tell us which one we are dealing with.

That has made Psalm 139:23–24 much more serious to me:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

That prayer requires a willingness to discover something about ourselves that we may not already see.

Jeremiah 17:9 tells us:
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

If my heart is capable of deceiving me, then my certainty about myself cannot be the final evidence that I am right. There may be motives operating underneath a decision that I have not recognized. There may be pride where I believe there is conviction, fear where I believe there is wisdom, or offense influencing what I am calling discernment.

I need Yahweh to search those places.

But Jeremiah 17:9 does not apply only to the person being corrected. The person giving the correction has a human heart too.

That is where Job’s friends have become such an important part of this study for me. They remind me to be careful not only when I receive correction, but also when I give it.

People can sincerely believe they understand what Yahweh is doing in someone else’s life and still be wrong.

Job’s friends were looking at real circumstances. Job had lost his children, his possessions, his health, and the life he had known.

They tried to interpret those circumstances through what they believed about Yahweh, but their conclusions about Job were false.

Job’s friends were trying to interpret his suffering without knowing what Scripture allows us to know as readers: the events unfolding in Job’s life had a spiritual context completely hidden from them. They could see the devastation in front of them, but they did not know about the conversation between Yahweh and Satan that preceded it. Their conclusions were based on what they could observe, and what they could observe was not enough to explain what was actually happening.

That connects back to what we examined in Article 2, When What We See Begins to Compete With What Yahweh Said. What we see may be real without giving us the whole story.

That applies when we are looking at someone else’s life too.

We need to be extremely careful about taking what we observe and turning it into a declaration about what Yahweh is doing behind the scenes.

This becomes even more serious when His name is attached to our conclusion.

Phrases such as “Yahweh told me,” “the Lord showed me,” or “God said you need to…” carry weight because they claim an authority greater than our own opinion.

If Yahweh truly spoke, His Word should be treated with reverence.

But saying He spoke does not make our words His.

That is why I believe correction must remain testable.

The Bereans in Acts 17 received the word with readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to determine whether those things were so. They did not reject teaching simply because it came through another person, but they also did not surrender their responsibility to examine what they heard.

We need that same willingness with correction.

I can receive what someone says seriously enough to examine it without automatically agreeing with it. I can pray about it, search Scripture in context, ask Yahweh to expose any defensiveness in me, and remain willing to repent if what was said is true.

If it is false, I can reject the accusation without rejecting the person or allowing bitterness to grow in me.

That balance is important because there is another side of Uzziah’s story we cannot overlook.

The priests were willing to correct someone more powerful than themselves.

They knew Uzziah’s position. They knew his accomplishments. They knew he had been prospered and strengthened. Yet none of those things changed the boundary Yahweh had already established.

They could have remained silent because he was king. Instead, they stood on what Yahweh had said.

Their actions remind me that honoring authority does not require remaining silent when authority crosses Yahweh’s boundaries.

Biblical leadership never places a human being beyond correction.

We see that again in Galatians 2 when Paul confronted Peter because Peter was not walking uprightly according to the truth of the gospel.

Peter was an apostle.

He could still be wrong.

That matters in the Body of Christ because we can become so impressed by titles, gifting, experience, or visible fruit that we begin treating certain people as though questioning them is equivalent to questioning Yahweh.

Scripture does not give any human being that position.

A person can be genuinely called and still make a wrong decision. Someone can teach truth for years and later misunderstand a passage. Yahweh can use someone powerfully without giving His approval to everything that person says or does.

That is one reason correction is necessary in the first place.

But correction itself can become corrupted when the person giving it forgets that they are also accountable to Yahweh.

Before confronting someone else, I need to examine whether I actually have biblical grounds for what I am saying. I need to distinguish what Scripture clearly establishes from what I personally prefer, and I need to be careful about assigning motives that Yahweh has not revealed to me.

There is a seriousness in telling another believer they are in sin.

There should be.

We are dealing with people Yahweh loves, and our goal should never be to win an argument, establish superiority, or force another person to acknowledge that we were right.

Correction is not ownership.

Once truth has been spoken appropriately, there may come a point where the response belongs between that person and Yahweh. I cannot force someone into repentance, and I cannot manufacture humility in another person.

What I can do is remain accountable for my own heart.

When correction comes to me, I want to resist the instinct to immediately build a defense. I want to take what was said seriously enough to bring it before Yahweh and His Word.

When I am the one doing the correcting, I want to remember Job’s friends before I become too certain that my perception is Yahweh’s verdict.

And when truth shows me that I am wrong, I want the humility to say what David said: “I have sinned against the LORD.” Uzziah teaches me not to become uncorrectable. Job teaches me that not every accusation is truth, and David shows me what can happen when correction is allowed to reach the heart.

Together, their stories have changed the way I understand what it means to remain teachable.

I do not want to become someone who accepts everything people say about me. That is not discernment.

But I also never want to become so certain of myself that no one can tell me I am wrong.

Somewhere between those two extremes is a heart willing to be searched by Yahweh, corrected by truth, and humble enough to admit when what it believed about itself was not true after all.

God’s Princess Warriors Ministries
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