Category: MASH United

Few of us really understand how much circumstances rule our lives. Most of us men react to circumstances in the same way we did before we came to the Lord. We analyze the situation, check on the options, and then make the decision that seems best based on the known criteria. Few of us really understand how far that is from the way the Lord desires us to act.

Our Lord functions in the supernatural. His purposes are far from our way of thinking. As we are making decisions which seem best based on what we know, what if the Lord is using the circumstances to train us or those around us? What if He is not looking for the logical decision because He knows more about the ultimate result than we do? What if He wants you to do the illogical, even foolish, so your faith in Him can grow?

Often I have made a decision that seemed like a step of faith, thinking I was obedient to the Lord’s wishes, only to find myself in a boxed canyon with no way out. I had prayed, sought counsel and then moved, thinking that things would work out perfectly. When they didn’t, I thought I had missed God. God, on the other hand, had me just where He wanted me. I needed Him because I found myself with no answers. The circumstance had nothing to do with success or failure, but it had to do with my training. It had to do with the need for me to be out of answers and surrendering myself to Him - a much deeper work than I thought was being done.

Men, we are in training to hear God and move only where and when He desires to move. Our bottom line is answers. His bottom line is to make us more like Jesus, doing nothing of ourselves and trusting Him in all things. Will you trust Him wherever He leads?

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Jim Corbett

As part of His covenant with us, God has promised to give us every opportunity to become like Jesus. He allows us to go through challenges and devises means for us to come to the end of ourselves.  He guides and directs our responses to those challenges as barometers of our progress toward holiness.

Let’s talk facts. Although this life is not about us, this life we live has great importance in God’s eyes. His whole plan is the perfecting of those who will be spending eternity with Him. As we focus on Jesus, God is focusing on us to make us into His image. He is orchestrating opportunities for us to make decisions. Those decisions become more and more like the decisions that Jesus, in His holiness, would make as we submit to God’s hand. Without opportunities to come to the end of ourselves and turn to God for help, we would never experience our Father’s keeping power over us. Our need imparts God’s wealth to us as we surrender.

As men after the Savior’s heart, we understand that challenges are only spiritual opportunities to grow in Christ. As those who do want to become like Jesus, we have learned to embrace any and all challenges that come our way as acts of love, not as reprimands. In doing so, we release the power of the Holy Spirit to move in concert with God’s plan for our lives as we grow closer to Him from challenge to challenge. Will you pay the price?

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Jim Corbett

Jesus is the image of His Father. Even though He walked on this earth as a man, He was the perfect spiritual imprint of Who His Father is. His Spirit is alive with the wealth of all that His Father is by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As spiritual men, men with the same Holy Spirit dwelling in us that lives in Jesus, you and I are to pattern our lives after His. We are to walk and conduct ourselves in the same way that He walked and conducted Himself. His pattern of doing nothing of Himself and relying totally on the Father should be our course in life. His desire to commune with His Father as the priority of His days should be a craving of our hearts. As we go to God in prayer, a primary petition should be to ask Him to make us like Jesus.

Because your offices of husband and father are spiritual in nature and ordained by God, the spiritual patterns you set are very important. As you imitate the patterns of Jesus’ life, you give impressions about His life to those who are watching you. They see who He is when you represent His life properly.

Jesus showed us the Father. Now we are to show others who Jesus and His Father are through our lives. What do They look like to those who are watching you?

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Jim Corbett

The offices of husband and father carry with them a spiritual, protective covering for your wife and family. That covering is like an impenetrable dome over them, which keeps them sheltered from the onslaught meant to nullify their worth. Functioning under it, they have freedom to make their own spiritual choices, but are protected from the enemy’s tactics that are not their fights to engage in.

When you blatantly sin or deviate from God’s Word and choose the ways of the world rather than God’s sold-out ways, that covering is compromised.  Because it is not intact, those under your covering are faced with challenges and battles they are not well suited for.  You can’t help them because you are ill-equipped to do so. Your decision to focus on the world rather than on the deep things of God violates the safety they need to truly prosper in Christ. That is one of the reasons most young people today are reeling in confusion and spiritual weakness. There is an onslaught against them, and they have no safe place to grow in Christ because you are not providing it.

If your family is not an example of a Christian family as God sees it, you might look to the Lord to show you where you are compromising His plan for you. Where have you violated your office of husband and father? You may have cleaned up the visible sins, but what about the sin of disloyalty to God in all things? What about your life of neglected time with the Lord? What about choosing to handle the urgent matters you face in your own strength rather than surrendering them fully?

It’s time to really take account of your life, men.  Are you on your face for your wife to become all she can be in Christ? Is the spiritual wealth of your children the priority of your life? Do you care if the covering you are supposed to be is fractured? It can be repaired if you choose to eliminate any spiritual adultery in your life.  Allow the Lord to show you anything that is not in order. Your family will greatly appreciate it! Are you willing to change?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

As far as the enemy was concerned, he thought he’d won by killing the heir of God. Attempting to thwart the plans of God, he used those who listened to him to put to death the only danger he could see. In doing so, however, he played right into the hands of God and His plans to break death’s hold on mankind.

The same plans of the enemy have been in effect from the beginning of time. If he can kill, steal from, or destroy the heirs of any family, he can prevent that family unit from completing its ordained task. Minimizing the heir can destroy the lineage, and it’s a weapon used in an attempt to thwart God’s plans for future generations.

Look around, men! First look at your own life. Did the enemy destroy your father’s heir? Are you an ineffective witness for Jesus? Do you know what plans have been thwarted because of your disobedience to God?  Do you even care?

Now look at your family!  Are your children a strong witness for Jesus? Does your family represent Jesus to the world by the way they act? Are other families being changed because they have come in contact with yours?  If not, the enemy is well on his way to successfully killing your heirs spiritually. He is completing his task of minimizing the effectiveness of touching future generations for Christ through them.

As a husband and father, there is still time. You can turn your family around by determining to pray your children back into line with their calling. This moment could also change the lineage for untold generations if your witness to your peers becomes anointed. You can help them realize how the enemy has nullified their heirs. God is restoring the offices of husband and father. He is rescuing the heirs of those fathers who turn fully to Him. Are you going to respond?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett