How to Use the Reproofs of Friends and Enemies

There are times when a friend or an enemy will issue a reproof or rebuke against you. Even if these reproofs or rebukes are not true or warranted and even if you honestly feel you did not deserve them, can they be of any benefit? The answer is yes! These friendly or not so friendly reproofs and rebukes can be used of God in order to:

• ·         Make you more aware of and affronted by sin 

• ·         Make you more jealous over your relationship and walk with God 

• ·         Enhance your fellowship with God 

• ·         Be driven to keep both your heart and life unblameable before God 

• ·         Force you to reflect and mediate on your lack of spirituality 

• ·         Abhor the sin that continues to reside in your unredeemed flesh 

• ·         Look humbly upon yourself as unworthy of grace, yet as an abundant recipient 

• ·         Know that apart from Christ you are vile, little, mean, and less than nothing 

• ·         Pray properly for the use of grace to be rightly appropriated in your life.

(Based upon a prayer entitled “Reproofs” in The Valley of Vision, p. 82)

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