July 2022 | TFRC | The Faith Resource Community

7/28/22 The Husband Bride

When I first came to the Lord, I couldn’t comprehend how a man could also be part of the bride of Christ. “Macho Me” had great difficulty surrendering my masculinity to some bridal story in which I was to play a part.

Over the years, I have learned of the wonder and privilege I have as a member of God’s family, and how I was to prepare for my role as a man, a husband, a father, and a waiting bride. I learned that the epitome of being a man is to prepare myself for Jesus as a waiting bride would prepare for her wedding day. I’m to be sincere about my intentions, focused on my preparations, and meticulous about my appearance before Him. I am to prepare to honor Him and join myself with Him, having gained His kind of heart through my preparation - all for His joy and glory. I want to do that!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

7/27/22 The Path to Needing Nothing

“Some of My people have tired of the way that I do things. They have become hardened to the crucified life and have decided to live most of their lives for themselves rather than for others. That means that they have stopped living only for Me. They have redefined My true Gospel. In their folly, they no longer take correction from their peers. They have become thin-skinned one to another.

"Everyone feels that they hear from Me. Few are really hearing what I am saying. They make up their own gospel that allows them to remain deceived about their cold love for Me. Soon they will harden their hearts to even the strongest Word when I call to them. They will tire of all correction and seek only comforting words, words that make them useless to My desire that none should perish. That is a very great falling away.

"I weep as I see even some of My most loyal children succumbing to weariness and dullness of hearing, rather than turning and running into My presence. Soon they will feel that they have need of nothing and deserve everything. They will feel that they are fine in their form of religion. All passion for My ways will be gone. It is a very dangerous place to be.

"This day I ask you to check your heart. How far are you living from the way that Jesus lived? Any path that leads away from that standard is a path away from Me. Turn from it now before you become poor, blind, and naked!”

Jeremiah 2:13 NIV

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Jeremiah 9:6-7 AMP

6) Your habitation is in the midst of deceit [oppression upon oppression and deceit upon deceit]; through deceit they refuse to know and understand Me, says the Lord.

7) Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will melt them [by the process of affliction to remove the dross] and test them, for how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?

Jeremiah 15:19 AMP

Therefore thus says the Lord [to Jeremiah]: If you return [and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair], then I will give you again a settled place of quiet and safety, and you will be My minister; and if you separate the precious from the vile [cleansing your own heart from unworthy and unwarranted suspicions concerning God’s faithfulness], you shall be My mouthpiece...

Rev. 3:15-18 NIV

15) “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!

16) So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

17) You say, ’I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

18) I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”

If we are on a path to destruction, we tire of hearing correction. It is a matter of heart. A full hardening of our hearts does not mean that we visibly turn from God; it means we stop heeding His warnings. We even feel little need to repent of the differences between our lives and the life of Jesus.

Take this day’s message. If you do not go to God with fear and trembling to have Him search your heart, if you feel that you could never succumb to a falling away, if you feel that the message is for others and not for you, you are on dangerous ground.

Soft hearts toward God heed every opportunity to check themselves for any hint of offense against God. They check their lives against the plumb line of God’s Word and Jesus’ heart. To not do so continually, at every opportunity, is the path to needing nothing - first from others who care and eventually even from God. That’s a really big oops!

Soften my heart, Lord,

Jim Corbett

7/27/22 Player or Prayer?

Are you primarily a player or a prayer in your relationship with your wife and children? A player adheres to the world’s direction for solving his family situations. He acts out the role of husband and father in a way he’s been taught by society. What is society’s definition of being a man? What does society see as the role of father? Where does society say we, as husbands and fathers, should go when problems and challenges arise?

A prayer, on the other hand, is deeply rooted in Christ. He understands society has no answers for him and his calling. His role as a husband or father is ordained and defined by God. His approach to every situation is modeled after the heart of Jesus. When challenges occur in any family situation, the prayer does just that; he prays. He is firmly convinced that every challenge has a Christ-like solution that’s found in the Word of God.

In this very challenging world, our Father is looking for men who are prayers, not players. He’s raising up mighty men who win every battle on their knees. He’s calling forth strong, loving, formidable men to win the war the world has waged against their marriages and families. He’s calling forth families to rise above the stranglehold the world has had over them for too long. He’s calling His men to implement the instructions He gives them during their time in His throne room.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

7/26/22 All of You

“The holy life of Jesus that has been designed for you in My presence and bought for you at Calvary is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the self-serving, the materialistic, or the controlling. If you truly want to live out the life that has been planned for you, it will cost you everything. It cost Jesus everything to win it for you; now it’s your turn.

"I want all of you. I will take all of you, if you will respond to Me with all of your heart. Submit to My Word. Submit to My ways. Submit to My heart. Submit to My hand of training. I will reproduce the character of Christ in you, so that I can touch others through you.

"You must come to Me completely willing to do My will, whatever the cost to you, just as Jesus did. I will then take who you are and who you are not and eliminate them, replacing them with who you are designed to be. The death of your old ways will bring forth His ways, which are My ways, by the power of My Holy Spirit.”

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV

26) “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

27) And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

John 1:10-14 NIV

10) He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

11) He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

12) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -

13) children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14) The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 3:30 AMP

He must increase, but I must decrease. [He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.]

John 6:57 AMP

Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV

…because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The pursuit of Jesus usually begins for our good and pleasure. He meets our needs, brings us to salvation, and makes us feel good every time we go to Him. That’s good for us. There comes a time, however, that we understand the Father’s plan more clearly.

He shows us that this relationship is not only about us and our needs. He brings us to an increasing level of maturity. As we begin to understand His character better, we understand and move with His heart more often. As this action, response, action, response relationship continues, we gain more of His heart, and love more and more as He loves. We also begin to identify with His heart so closely that it becomes our heart.

The closer we get, we actually fall in love with His ways and move from admiration of Him to a love for Him. Getting to know Him and His ways leads to increasing love for Him, because we are changed more and more from being in His presence. Once we know Him, we act in a way that pleases Him because of the love for Him that has been placed in our hearts.

Destroy everything that is of me, Lord,

Jim Corbett

7/26/22 Support Her

One of the most important functions in fulfilling your offices of husband and father is to love your wife as Christ loved the church. He laid down His life for the church. You are to do the same for your wife, placing her best interests above your own.

Part of loving your wife is supporting her. You are to support not only her offices of wife and mother, but also her personal anointing. In the structure of the family designed by God, the man is the covering or structural beam, and the woman is the structural support post. One is not capable of functioning well without the other. A wise man understands his wife’s very important role and gladly does all he can to properly acknowledge it.

As children of God, we have all been given an individual anointing. As a husband, it’s important to find out and enthusiastically support the anointing or calling of your wife. As part of loving her, you’re to consider her mission as one of your priorities. In understanding that her mission in life is as important as yours, you can function in unison under the anointing of God, and receive His blessing. This is an atmosphere in which your marriage can prosper, and your children can become all they can be in Christ.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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