“If you seek Me with all your heart, you will receive everything you need to walk in the love of Jesus. I will hold nothing back. I love you and that is My promise. I also love others. They need to see Who Jesus is. If you begin to live like Him in their midst, they will be able to savor His presence. That changes things. It makes darkness light. You come to Me. I will build His life in you. Then I will give who you have become to others.”

Romans 12:1-2 NIV

1) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.

2) Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

1 Cor. 11:1 NIV

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Colossians 1:9-12 NIV

9) For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

10) And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

11) being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully

12) giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

As important as it is to suffer for Christ through the laying down of your own will so that the will of your Father can be accomplished, it is equally important that there are times when you are called upon to suffer with Christ. Few people in the church are willing to take on the burdens that Christ feels toward those who are not saved, or toward those who made a commitment, but are living far from Jesus. To care about what Jesus deems important, to hurt as He hurts for the lost, to be burdened with the things for which He is interceding is more than most of us delight in doing.

Not everyone accepts a suffering spirit when it is given. Some reject it because it is too difficult to carry. You simply do not fit in. It is for those of you who have felt the burden of God and carry it with Him on behalf of another.

Until you understand that some of what you feel is God working with you for the sake of others, you will believe that there is something wrong with you. You need to know that the Lord is asking you to suffer with Him in that specific area, to carry the weight that He is feeling for a specific situation. It will be an intense time and you may need to be alone with Him. There will be a myriad of people in the church who will be delighted to give their opinion, confirming that you have gone nuts. Don’t listen to them. They cannot see and they do not understand intercession.

Teach me to live Your way, Lord,

Jim Corbett