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8/09/22 Nothing More Important

We live in a throw-away society where products are geared toward planned obsolescence, newer is supposedly better; and why fix it when you can throw it away and get a new one.  Well, that’s certainly not the way God wants us to approach our marriages and families. He asks us to do everything we can to monitor, rescue, rebuild, and help repair the lives we steward as husbands and fathers. He calls us to do it mainly on our knees.

When the enemy attempts to harm those we steward, we must engage in spiritual warfare on behalf of those he’s attempting to destroy with everything we can muster by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re to minimize other priorities and fight on their behalf until the war is won. Other than our personal relationship with Christ, there should be nothing more important to us than maintaining Christ-like relationships within our families and engaging in the restoration of either our marriages or our children when they are in peril.

As you appraise your marriage and the lives of your children, ask the Lord to show you His perspective. Ask Him to allow you to see them as He sees them. Do they have need of your spiritual intervention? Is it time for you to say, as Paul did, that you are as if in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in others? In your case, that would be your relationship with your wife and the welfare of your children. Is your approach as intense as Paul’s was? It should be!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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8/08/22 Pursuing a Higher Standard

As a husband and father, would you do anything to change your ways if you realized the lives of your wife and children are gifts that will be presented to God one day? Who they become will be laid at the feet of our Lord. Because you hold these offices, you’re a steward of those lives. You’re responsible to provide an atmosphere for them to become all they can be in Christ and you’ll answer to God for the result.

You see, as Christian men, you and I are called to a higher standard than those who live in the world. We’re to love more, serve more, and have God’s higher purposes in mind for everything we do. We are God’s representatives on this earth. He owns our lives, which makes us stewards of them for His honor and glory.

In the world, husbands and fathers are considered a success if their marriage is outwardly OK and their children are accepted by society’s standards. You have a higher call. God asks that your marriage be an example of the relationship of Christ and His church. He asks that your children come to know Him personally through their submission to Jesus as their Savior and Lord and serve Him with all their hearts. He asks you to pave the way for that to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. Success in His eyes is far different than the supposed success of the world. Which will you choose?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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8/08/22 Walking in the Spirit

“You, My people, have missed some steps in your walk with Me. You have avoided the cross, fled the grave, and attempted to live a resurrection life without My life-giving hand upon you. When Jesus returned from My presence, He was flesh and bone. There was no blood or humanness in Him. That blood was shed so that you don’t have to shed yours to be like Him. Your inner being has been renewed into the likeness of Jesus. It has been born alive to the Spirit and responds only to the Spirit.

"Pray that your inner man is endued with power and might by the power of My Holy Spirit to be free to respond to My ways. Pray for the determination to no longer walk in the futile life of your flesh. Pray for the power to become dead to all that resembles the world and its ways, so that you will be aligned with My ways and in My perfect will. It is the way of the cross. It is the way of Jesus.”

Luke 24:39 NIV

“Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.”

John 20:17 NIV

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father.”

1 Cor. 15:50 NIV

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Ephesians 3:16 AMP

May He grant you out of the rich treasury of His glory to be strengthened and reinforced with mighty power in the inner man by the [Holy] Spirit [Himself indwelling your innermost being and personality].

 

Many of us attempt to approach the things of God by using our own reasoning and strength. That is one of the main reasons that our attempts to approach God and affect our world fail. The things of God are spiritual, not religious - and certainly not of the flesh.

The removal of our flesh and the entering into the power of our covenant with God, in any equation with God for that matter, always follows the pattern established by Jesus. It is first the cross - an initial submission of our entire being to the Lord with subsequent submissions each time our flesh intrudes upon our new life. Then comes the tomb - the waiting on God as if dead, so that Lordship is completed in us. Finally, there is the resurrection - the empowering of our spiritual being by the Holy Spirit, that new inner man receiving spiritual power and might, responding in spiritual ways. The result is the ability to flow in the compassions of Jesus through the perfection of God’s established ways.

Do it Your way, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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8/06/22 The Antidote

“I have the antidote for anything and everything that is wrong. His Name is Jesus. He has overcome the world and its ways. He has overcome all of the frailties of mankind. He has overcome all future perils. You can trust Him! Stop looking at the challenges that face you. Look to Jesus. Stop looking at who you are not. Look to Jesus. He will make you whoever He wants you to be. Jesus is everything! Forever.”

Romans 8:33-34 NIV

33) Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

34) Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

2 Cor. 5:18-20a AMP 

18) But all things are from God, Who through Jesus Christ reconciled us to Himself [received us into favor, brought us into harmony with Himself] and gave to us the ministry of reconciliation [that by word and deed we might aim to bring others into harmony with Him].

19) It was God [personally present] in Christ, reconciling and restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them], and committing to us the message of reconciliation (of the restoration to favor).

20a) So we are Christ’s ambassadors, God making His appeal as it were through us.

I Cor. 3:11  AMP

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is [already] laid, which is Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

Hebrews 1:3 AMP 

He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God’s] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power.  When He had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt, He sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high…

 

I love the idea that a perfect Person made the perfect sacrifice, so that anyone who chooses to believe can be perfected in God’s eyes. To me, that thought carries over into the day to day working out of life’s situations and challenges. In fact, I believe that they are there to be used as tools to help perfect us. If that is true, what is there to worry about? We have a perfect Savior Who knows how to work things out perfectly – especially in us!

Teach me to trust only You, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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8/06/22 Just Say Yes

Make sure you respond to the call God has for your life. Make sure you don’t choose to take the easier road by living a life that’s different than God intended.

If you follow hard after God, you’ll probably feel like you’re on the outside looking in within the church. I'm not talking about doing weird things that discredit the integrity of the Gospel. I mean that if you follow the example of the life of Jesus and move only when and where God tells you, people will not understand. You may find yourself giving away your possessions, taking a lesser job so you can reach people, or - heaven forbid - trusting God completely for your provision while you go into full time service.

One of the most heart-wrenching sights you'll ever see is the  emptiness in the eyes of those who have not responded to the call of God, usually because of fear or their lust for worldly goods. Those desires may be simple things, like security, new clothes, or a new car. They understand deep down that they have heard the call of their Creator and have said "no" when asked to fulfill His desires for their lives. Nothing,  absolutely nothing, will satisfy the emptiness of soul that follows.

After saying “no” to the Lord, most of them eventually find themselves working feverishly at some other ministry or filling a myriad  of church positions to cover up the emptiness. The end result is almost always an involvement with other weary, often critical people who are also doing good works, attempting to make a difference of some sort to cover their pain, rather than following after God's original plan for their lives. How sad! How grievous to God. Just say yes!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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