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4/17/23 Higher Fences

Fathers, if you continually find yourself putting more restrictions on your children and applying stronger consequences to help them comply with what you feel is best, you’re doing something wrong. You can build higher and higher fences all you want as they continue to grow, but one day they’ll find a way over the fence into total rebellion.

Somehow, your children have been taught compliance under your stewardship. They get in line to avoid the consequences you set in place, but their hearts are wandering or maybe empty. Perhaps it’s time for you to get on your face before God and repent of your ways. Are you also walking in compliance before God, doing things to avoid consequences, rather than doing them because you love Him and want to please Him with your obedience? Is this somehow being communicated to your children and they’re just following your lead?

Fear not. As you spend time with God and your love for Him grows deeper, you will learn to walk in Christ-like obedience. Then you will be able to love and nurture your children into walking in genuine obedience through the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God will accomplish in them what the laws you’ve established can never do.

If it seems too late and your children are walking in full-fledged rebellion against you and God, your only recourse is to pray and intercede until they find freedom in Christ. They’re in rebellion in part because your priorities and/or methods have been out of order. Do you care enough to do what is necessary to help them? They need you!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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4/15/23 Let Go

“Your life is vitally important and very significant in My eyes. However, it is too important in your own eyes. You need to let go of things. You need to give away more than you keep. You need to care more for others than you do for yourself. Decrease and allow Jesus to increase in you. Become less and allow Me to make you more significant.”

Matthew 10:29-31 NIV 

29) “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.

30) And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

31) So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

Matthew 19:21 NIV 

Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”

Luke 12:48b AMP

For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required; and of him to whom men entrust much, they will require and demand all the more.

Luke 9:23-25 AMP

23) And He said to all, If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also].

24) For whoever would preserve his life and save it will lose and destroy it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he will preserve and save it [from the penalty of eternal death].

25) For what does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and ruins or forfeits (loses) himself?

 

Recognizing their acceptance with God, their heritage, their rights, and their privileges (which come via the work on the cross,) but esteeming others more significantly than themselves or their own needs, people walking with the heart of an advocate are wonderfully free. Jealousy, loss of reputation, perceptions of others, fear, and pride have no hold on them.

They are the leaders who serve, the advocates of their accusers, the servants of those who wrong them; and the comforters of those who are against them. Because they are confident and comfortable in their position with God, there is no negative response when falsely accused, no need to be right when wronged; and no desire to be lifted up in any way.

As John the Baptist desired to decrease so that Jesus could increase, those living for the good of others ardently choose that others increase in their walk with the Lord. They are motivated to do something, anything, so that it might happen.

Any desire to see “more of Jesus” in someone else is the spirit of advocacy in action as it thrives and pours itself out to address the need. It is the catalyst to any form of outreach – the desire that the lost or hurting be brought back into fellowship with the Father, for His sake as well as for the sake of the individual. The rally cry, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” transcends the corridors of time, and exists as if fresh from the lips of Jesus in the hearts of those who are poor in spirit, thriving in the spirit of advocacy.

Teach me to become less, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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4/15/23 True Obedience

Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered, meaning the times that He won over His flesh.  Complete obedience means that He willingly and joyfully submitted to His Father in all things, no matter what. The heart of someone who is truly obedient thrives in doing another's will, forsaking his own will in the process.

Please notice that there’s a difference between obedience and compliance. Compliance is doing something because we fear the consequences if we don’t. Our joy will never be complete as compliant individuals. We will always want more for ourselves in our relationship with God. Obedience is doing something we’re told to do out of love. When we cease from doing the right things only because they’re right, and do them only because we want to bless our Lord, we enter into that little known realm of true obedience. When our greatest joy is to do our Father's will, we will walk in true obedience.

As husbands and fathers, it’s impossible to represent Jesus properly to the world and our families unless we take on His heart. He was always obedient.  In obedience to His Father's will, He lived, loved and moved as His Father desired. God can’t trust merely compliant men to raise His children and properly care for their wives as He desires. He can only trust Christ-like, obedient servants who understand His heart. Which one are you?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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4/14/23 Motivated by Love

“As I raise you up in the truth, you must learn to love those who have not heard what you have heard. Arrogance on your part stifles any work that I might have you do. I will not reside where pride is at work. I will not be able to work through you in full measure if love is not the motive in all that you do. Observe the life of Jesus and pattern your life after His reasons for doing everything He did. He walked in love. His great love for My wishes and for your well-being motivated His every move. I desire you to do the same. Turn your cold hearts around. Begin to love others and move in My love for their best interests. I will then be with you in power.”

John 15:12-13 NIV 

12) “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

13) Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

 

Until we understand that everything that Father God has done in both the Old and New Testaments was motivated by His great love, we will never see the might of His hand in our work for Him. To do even the very best of things and have no love as their driving force produces empty works at best and foolish religion at its very worst.

The modern presentation of the Gospel for the most part is absent of the wonder of the heart of God. We have the facts. We know the words. We may even have zeal; but without love in our hearts, everything falls far short of the purpose that God intended for our actions.

Help me to love, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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4/14/23 A Witness to Many

I once heard a character in a movie state that people marry so they have someone to witness their lives. The more I thought about it, the more I saw it to be the world’s way of feeling valued and needed. People without the Lord continually attempt to find acknowledgment and purpose for their lives. They marry for their own good to satisfy an inner need of some sort.

One of God’s purposes for marriage is for the husband and wife to witness each other’s life so they can help each other become all they can be in Christ. They’re to observe each other’s spiritual needs so they can pray and encourage each other in the things of God. It’s the opposite of the way the world thinks.

We, as believers, are to marry for the good of the other. The world marries for their own good to fulfill their own needs.  As Christian men, we are to lay down our lives for the good of our wives. Our obligation before the Lord is to love our wives as Christ loved the church. He died for the church. We are to die to our own desires daily for the good of our wives.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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