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7/02/20 Plan for a Wedding

“Storm clouds are gathering, and you are not ready. You go about your business as if things will remain comfortable for you forever. They will not! You will need to be stronger in Me than you are. I will need to call upon you in times when only My Word will make sense. Blind obedience to Me will be your only place of safety. Most of you are planning for a war in the flesh. I want you to plan for intimacy. I want you to plan for a wedding with My Son. Then the same heart that took Him to the cross will be in you. I will be able to trust you. I will be able to use you. You will be ready for anything, even a wedding.”

Gal.2:20 AMP

I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

Phil.2:12b-13 AMP

12b) …work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).

13) [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV

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

 

We are so short-sighted that we separate God’s way as if He had many agendas. He has one plan - that none should perish. If we follow that, we will pursue His heart. If we pursue His heart, we will gain the heart of Jesus. If we gain the heart of Jesus, He will be able to use us in His plans. We also will be ready for Jesus when He comes. We will be looking for Him and looking like Him.

The Holy Spirit is wooing the church of Jesus Christ to prepare as a bride would prepare for a coming wedding of hearts. Through trials, tribulations, and extreme challenges, He is posturing each of us to get our priorities straight.

By leading us to the end of ourselves and placing a new hope in those who will listen, He is calling us to set aside all of the ways of the world and embrace the ways of Jesus as our only reason for living. In doing so, we will be prepared for His coming and able to overcome the hazards that are soon to come our way.

Help me to remember Your priorities, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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Dare to Talk with God

Can we dare to talk with the living, almighty, all powerful, holy God as little children because of what Jesus has done on the cross? Absolutely! Everything about the life of Jesus and what was done on the cross invites us to an intimacy with our ABBA.

The question is then, is He willing to talk with us, to really have heart to heart communication as Father and child? Do we dare to not only talk with Him, but also dare to believe He willingly and lovingly will also talk to us?

Intimacy says that is true. What do you say we engage in the kind of interaction Jesus died for? I dare you! I double dare you!! I double dog dare you!!!

7/01/20 Why Are You Married?

Most of us would answer that question in some way that has hopefully grown past the "I really love her, man" kind of statement. Let's forgo the stupidity of the "I really can't keep my hands off of her" answer and get on with why our Father in heaven has given us permission to be married.

In a nutshell, God has had us men covenant with Him to marry the one He has chosen for us, for His honor and for her best interests. I know that kind of thought has rarely passed through our world-trained, pea-brain ability to understand His ways about marriage; but it is, none-the-less, true. We are to join together with one of His precious children so that she has fertile soil to become all that she can be in Him. That honors Him!

In Ephesians 5, we husbands are called to lay our lives down for our wives in the way that Jesus laid His life down for the church. He died so that we could live. That is how the Lord can use marriage as an example of the relationship of Christ and His church.

When two people are joined together, they are given the privilege of knowing the most intimate details of the other person. They get to see whatever is undone in the other. Most of the time, especially after many years together, those cute little habits or actions become a source of irritation, sometimes even separation, instead of looking at them with Christ's heart. Jesus would hold them before His Father so that we and our wives could be healed. So should we.

God sees our job in marriage as laying down our needs, our desires, and our comforts, and living for the best interests of our wife and our children. The best interests of our circle of influence violates every area of our fleshly comfort zone. It demands that we live in the spiritual zone where Jesus lived for us. That is why He has given us someone to go through our lives with. They are to be given an atmosphere to learn how to love Him with all of their hearts. We are to provide that atmosphere by the power of the Holy Spirit. How's that working for you?

Let's talk more!

Jim Corbett

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7/01/20 Functioning in Higher Ways

“Do you really understand that when I say that My ways are far above your ways, it is for your good? When you function in the ways that you understand as powerful, you are on your enemies’ turf and you can never win. That is why the world is losing. It thinks that it is powerful, but it has already been defeated just like its father has.

"I am your Father. Jesus is your Lord. My Holy Spirit moves in absolute truth. We function in eternal truth. Our ways win. Why do you continue to function in lower ways than Ours? Move from the carnal into the spiritual. That is where you are being trained to function. That is where you will win forever from now on, if you submit to My ways. They are high above your ways.”

Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

8) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.

9) “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

John 8:42-47 NIV

42) Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own: but he sent me.

43) Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.

44) You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

45) Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!

46) Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?

47) He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

 

Satan loves to keep us functioning on his terms and in his ways. Our loving Father, on the other hand, has rescued us from that hopeless fate through Jesus. Jesus has overcome the world and has provided a way for us to rise above all that is untrue because of what he has done.

Why, then, are we so block-headed? What is it that we don’t understand about the truth that says we no longer need to function where we always lose and have no hope of ever winning? God has provided a better way. You would think we would get it! Duh!

Help me to really get it, Lord,

Jim Corbett

6/30/20 Comfort Zone Gifts

After broadcasting a person's need for a couch over the air at our radio station, we found ourselves staring at something that once resembled furniture in the living room of someone who answered the request. When we refused the explosion of stuffing that was home for her cat, the woman said, "Well, what am I supposed to do with it now?" Her "gift" to someone in need may be the extreme example of wrong motives, but her attitude resembles the attitude of the church throughout history. Although heartfelt generosity propels the gospel of Jesus, there is an underlying plague of corrupt thinking originally confronted by Jesus. As gifts were being given, He asked a question that rings through the centuries right up to each of us. "Who gives more, those guys over there who give out of their abundance, or the widow who gives a small amount, but it is all that she has?" As a covering for our families, we as men are to teach those in our midst about the heart of Jesus by our actions. When referring to gifts and giving, we are stewards, not owners of everything we have. We are to teach others about the cross of Jesus by sacrifice, not by giving away our surplus. If a person has untold wealth and gives a seemingly large amount away, God looks upon the gift as far less than one who gives very little, but it is all they have. Be assured that people who don't know Christ - and for that matter our children, - are watching us as fathers, and how we function. Without knowing it, how we act in every area of our lives is speaking much louder than our words. The freedom in which we give to others, especially sacrificial giving, broadcasts volumes to those who may not understand the cross and its work. People see Jesus in every cup of cold water given by us, especially if the water given means that we go thirsty. Are you ready to be uncomfortable? Let's talk more! Jim Corbett

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