Constance, I am writing this post to you all, in hopes that someone would read and understand that the unsolicited correction of another’s point of view or conviction is almost never ever proper or appropriate…especially if they are someone you are not in daily relationship with!

I have a friend…I would say she is my very closest friend save my darling and our children.  Other than them, my friend is my heart…her words are like life and death to me, her silences agony and her noises symphonies…and her hurts are my badges, her wounds my vendettas…I am not proud of the latter, I am keeping it real.  That is how I feel.

Well, this friend received an unsolicited rebuke from a reader, a stranger that my friend had previously never been aware of, a person who is one of her readers.  This reader took it upon herself to tell my friend that she was likely going to hell, was sorely mistaken regarding a significant spiritual experience, and then proceeded to lay out her views of what the Bible teaches regarding salvation and faith.

This person acknowledged openly that her opinion had not been sought out or asked for, but then justified forcing it on my friend by saying that since she (the reader) knew “the truth”, she (the reader) would have her (my friend) blood on her head (the readers) if she remained silent and did not bring about this correction…no, she did not literally use those words, it was a variation on that common theme, and that was certainly the assumption.  It arises from the verse in Proverbs that says if you see someone being dragged away for destruction and you don’t intervene, then their blood is on your head…a stretch at minimum and outright misinterpretation at maximum!  Far better to follow New Testament exhortations of self-policing before saying anything corrective to anyone else!!

The final, ignominious nail pounded into my friend’s heart was a sop about how this whole thing was “done in love” and sincerely hoped that my friend wouldn’t take offense!!

Are you freaking kidding me?

This is wrong on so many levels…but let me just touch on something very basic, and that is the wisdom of giving correction.

Correction should only be given to people you have relationship with, directly and intimately.  Period.  No, you are not the only chance some stranger to you online has to go to heaven, and God is going to send them to Hell and beat the crap outta you if you do not speak!  You are deluded, and projecting your own evil heart onto God…He isn’t like you are.

God has servants everywhere.  God used a donkey to speak to Balaam, so he doesn’t need you to make an ass out of yourself!

Next…if you do have relationship with someone, and they do need correction, but you do not have a bank account of edification opened in them?  Then shut your face.  Period.  You should have at least 10 fold positive words spoken into someone’s heart for every one corrective word considered!  Let alone actually spoken.

Oh I can hear you…I have heard you, your cousins and aunts and uncles and other fellow heresy-hunter correctors…you just LOVE us sooo much, that you just have to speak to save us.

No.  You don’t.  The God who made Orion can get thru to me, or to my friend!  After all, He got thru to you didn’t he?

Note this:  what you did?  What you do?  That isn’t love.  Review 1 Cor. 13 for proof.

Here is a novel idea…just pray.  Pray that God will bless this person with Their Presence, that God will do for them what They did for you.  I mean, remember?  When you came to Them?  You were an enemy of God, actively opposing Them, and dead in your sins.  No, don’t lie…you were.  Scripture says so.  So if you being dead can somehow manage to end up saved, can’t the one whom you have judged condemned?  Last time I checked, dead things couldn’t save themselves…except zombies, and that is what you become when you do this unwanted correcting!  A spiritual zombie, biting the living and infecting them with your own poison.

Follow Philippians 2:  consider others above yourself…and then Phil 4: focusing on the good and dwelling on that.

God got thru to Jonah, to Balaam, to Cornelius, to the Ethiopian eunuch, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Matthew, …and God got thru to you.

I promise you…They can get thru to anyone.  So look at yourself, not others, not her…first tell God with utmost certainty that you know your heart and that you know your motives (if you do, then you are better than King David, by the way)…then and only then can you even think about praying about possibly correcting another.

Oh, and for the record?  My friend?  She is God’s property.  He is dazzled by her in His love for her…and He is pledged to perfect that work that He began in her in Christ Jesus until it is through!

I love you, Friend…Heart.  ❤

Love, Me