Open Rebuke is Better than Hidden love

Proverbs 27:5 (NIV) Open rebuke is better than hidden love.

Reflection:

There are two scenarios here. The first one corrects you to bring you back to what's right because he loves you. The second one doesn't correct you because he thinks he might hurt you but the effect is you won't learn what's right. If you look at it long term, I'd choose the first one but you know what that's easier said than done.

Have you been corrected lately? Have you been rebuked before? Maybe because of something you did or maybe because of something you failed to do. As mature as we think we are, we always say it's better to receive feedback now than continue in doing what's wrong but again it's easier said than done.
When somebody rebukes us, it hurts us! We'd start to struggle. We'd love to just easily accept the feedback and try to change our lives for the better. Sadly, most of the time our automatic response is to reason out and defend ourselves (in our minds). We'd even start to fight back by looking for defects from the other person reasoning to ourselves that before he even judges, he should look at himself first.

Rebukes are good. Rebukes from your brothers and sisters in Christ are for the better. They are your keepers, remember? No one's righteous. No not one. (Romans 3:9) There will always be rough edges to clean and wrong attitudes to correct. Even the person who's giving the rebuke, he too is imperfect. But that's not the issue. The main issue is YOU. How do you respond to these feedback and rebuke? They may be done with right motives (to build you up) or with wrong intentions (to just discriminate and discourage you), it doesn't matter. What matters is your response. Respond to learn from these rebukes. Respond for the better. Respond not to retaliate but respond to succumb. It hurts but fight it. If you don't have anything good to say, just zip it. At the end of the day, all these feedback are for the better only if you learn how to take and accept them.

Indeed, I'd say open rebuke is better because that way you'll learn what needs to be changed in your life. Without it, we'd think we're already doing good but actually not yet. Most of the time these are really done because of love especially if it has been given by a Family member in Christ. For you, this is also a great way of showing love to your friends. Just make sure to do it in a loving and caring way.

Recommended Readings:

Nothing Can Separate us From God's love

Be A good Example | Be humble as He is humble