Course Corrections by Randy Rowley 1/29/25 ©

FCS self-guided duck hunts on Central Texas lakes Belton, Granger, Somerville, and Stillhouse Hollow have been poor overall for a decade.  Over 13 seasons we bagged 100 ducks during 69 hunts with 229 hunters – an average of 1.45 ducks per hunt and 0.44 ducks per hunter.

Due to the poor results trend, Burl Fulenwider and I made a course correction and bought hunting permits at Fort Hood during the 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 seasons.  We hunted ponds there and once hunted Lake Belton’s banks.  Although we usually bagged ducks, we didn’t do much better than we did on our lake hunts (our best was three ducks).  Plus we grew tired of Fort Hood’s inconsistent HuntTrac computer area reservation system and field training schedule, so we stopped hunting there.

In late August 2024 six FCS hunters and I made another course correction and entered our names into a Brazos River Authority drawing for a blind spot on Lake Limestone, 133 miles from my house.  Lake Limestone is considerably farther than our usual lakes, so hunting there on Saturday mornings wasn’t doable as we’d have to leave around 1:00 AM.  But we had a workable plan, as Craig Vinson, one of our hunters, had a house on its banks that we could sleep in.  Clayton Carrier’s name was the second one drawn, securing a spot for the group.  We had read and heard good hunting reports for that lake, so we were excited about our prospects.

But the season’s results mirrored our usual lakes, if not worse.  For the 2024/2025 season we bagged two ducks during five hunts at our spot with 18 hunters – an average of 0.40 ducks/hunt and 0.11 ducks per hunter.  It was our worst season since the 2020/2021 season – we bagged one duck during five hunts with 20 hunters for an average of .20 ducks/hunt and 0.05 ducks per hunter.

I recently read a powerful testimony by a Satanist who found Christ in a Christian Facebook group.  I sometimes read some of the comments to such posts and saw a reply from a man who insisted that this new brother still wouldn’t escape God’s punishment.

2 Timothy 4:2-4 says, “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”  The difference between ‘correct’ and ‘rebuke’ is correcting shows someone their error(s), while rebuking stands up against someone ignoring correction.  With a desire to help him make a course correction, I responded:

“Then, according to you, Jesus was wrong about the repentant thief on the cross when he said, “‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Luke 23:43 NLT

And John Newton, who was a slave ship captain before he found Christ and repented, was wrong when he wrote the hymn ‘Amazing Grace,’ with its first verse proclaiming:

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind, but now I see

God poured out his wrath (the punishment for our sins) upon Jesus.  All our sins – past, present, and future – were nailed to the cross with Jesus.  Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God sees only Jesus’ righteousness when he looks at us.

Your stand contradicts salvation by God’s grace alone.  Here is what God’s word says about it:

• “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17 NLT
• “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.” Romans 5:1-2 NLT
• “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1 NKJV
• “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9
• “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

I realize that the doctrines of God’s grace and mercy are difficult for some people to accept.  But to insist that God will still punish Christians for their sins is a rejection of God’s grace and mercy.”

He didn’t respond.

Unfortunately, in today’s world, many people think that loving others means flattering them and never criticizing them.  Many Christians have been deceived by the world and its definition of love.  Some out of fear don’t speak the truth at all; others speak the truth without love and either consciously or unconsciously cut others with their words; but Godly love gives people what they need, not what they want, points non-believers to Jesus and helps Christians to become more like him.  Godly correction is an act of love.

We all need to be corrected, either self-corrected or corrected by others, and to correct others because we all sin.  1 John 1:8 says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”  And sin deceives us.  Hebrews 3:12-13 says, “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”  Many are those that sin has deceived.

Unrepented sin can stop Christians from growing and make us backslide into former attitudes and behaviors.  It can destroy our and other people’s lives.  The Bible is filled with recounts of the effects of sin, including:

• Achan pillaged treasure during the battle of Jericho, after having been told that all of it was devoted to God, causing his family to be stoned with him.
• David, who committed adultery with Bathsheba and arranged for her husband to be killed, was promised by God through Samuel that the sword would never depart from his house – the prophecy was fulfilled when David’s son Absalom tried to overthrow his father, leading to an Israeli civil war.
• Sapphira dropped dead shortly after her husband, Ananias, because of their hypocrisy and they lied to God.

Because sin is so devastating, we should encourage one another daily.  And sometimes we need to correct someone’s course or rebuke them.  But it must be done with love.  Ephesians 4:15a NLT says, “Instead, we will speak the truth in love” and Galatians 6:1a says, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.”  We must correct and rebuke others honestly, firmly, and gently.

The goal of good correction or rebuke is restoration.  Correction and rebuke are the means to the end.  After Paul left the church that he founded at Corinth, false teachers came into the church and stirred up dissension.  Paul rebuked the Corinthians firmly, but restoration was his goal.  He wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:9b, “our prayer is that you may be fully restored.”  Paul wanted the Corinthians back as brothers and for the fellowship of the church and relationships to be restored.

But while Paul longed for offenders’ restoration and wanted to build people up, he wasn’t afraid to be severe.  He wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:10 NLT, “I am writing this to you before I come, hoping that I won’t need to deal severely with you when I do come.  For I want to use the authority the Lord has given me to strengthen you, not to tear you down.”  Sometimes we must be severe in our rebukes to strengthen others, but in any body of believers, stern rebukes should be as infrequently used as clash cymbals in the powerful Encouragement Orchestra.

Before we can effectively correct or rebuke someone else, we must first confess our sin and repent.  Jesus said in Matthew 7: 5 “‘first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.’”  As mentioned above, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 13:9b, “our prayer is that you may be fully restored.”  A correction or rebuke without prayer is a powerless one.  If God does not act, the best words ever spoken will fall on deaf ears, and the way for God to act is through petitioning him.  We must pray before and after we rebuke someone that God will open the offenders’ hearts and deliver them.

Just as we choose to change our course due to poor duck hunts, we must help others make course corrections when they’re heading down the wrong trail.

Randy, Ryan Rowley, and Binh Chu on Lake Stillhouse Hollow