Open post

1/13/24 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

Open post

1/12/24 Before It’s Too Late

“If I were to call you home this moment, would your life have been worthwhile? Would it have been of value to My kingdom on earth? Will it bring crowns for Jesus because you have been a player in My harvest? Will those around you have seen Jesus so beautifully in you that they couldn’t resist giving their lives to His Lordship? If not, what are you living for? More importantly, who are you living for? If these questions bring answers that do not please you, how do you think I feel about them?

"Stop repenting of things. Repent of your life. Come to Me now. Need and accept My power to change who you are and what you do with My days. Find My perspective for your days. Do something about them before it’s too late. I am waiting with mercy and forgiveness. I love you, but I also love others who need you. Stop wasting your time on foolish endeavors. Change your ways, so that I can trust you and send the needy to you.”

Esther 4:13-14 AMP 

13) Then Mordecai told them to return this answer to Esther. Do not flatter yourself that you shall escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews.

14) For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance shall arise for the Jews from elsewhere, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this and for this very occasion?

Psalm 25:12-14 NIV 

12) Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.

13) He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land.

14) The Lord confides in those who fear Him; He makes His covenant known to them.

Isaiah 30:21 NIV

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying “This is the way; walk in it.”

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?

 

We have been given one life to live and we have been born to live it for God’s purposes. If we are not ready to do that, He will make us ready if we go to Him. Most of us get in the habit of going to God with all our little sins that distract us and forget about our lives that are far from serving Him. It is good to repent of those things that are wrong, unless they get in the way of us understanding that our whole life has taken on a wrong perspective and is out of order.

When we begin to seek God for His purposes to be fulfilled in our lives, we begin to see things more clearly. He begins to bring forth a much bigger picture than our small, self-focused perspective. His mercy goads us to live for Him and gives us the ability to do so as much as we can. All the while He keeps changing us to be more like Jesus.

Almost two thousand years after His resurrection, Jesus is still joyously reproducing every fiber of His being in anyone who embraces Him as Lord and chooses to sell out to His kind of life. That is the Father’s chosen way of bringing lost people to Himself.

The life of Jesus is imparted to us through the Holy Spirit and we are supposed to simply carry Him to others by allowing Jesus to live His life through us. It is a wonderfully ordained concept of one living God’s way in front of another, who does the same in the midst of others, and so on.

How can it be then that we, as exact reproductions of the Lord because of His Holy Spirit living within each of us, can live daily among the inhabitants of this land and go unnoticed as resembling Him?

Today, most of us tell the story about a man named Jesus and expect people to embrace it unto salvation. Because of our lackluster Christianity, we talk of miracles of the past to show the power of God, name the heroes of the faith as the only testimony of God’s kind of life being lived through people; and rely on “preachers” to evangelize those to whom we should be showing Jesus. It never dawns on us that we are the message as well as the messenger. That’s too big a price to pay for most “Christians.”

Thank You for Your mercy in allowing me time to change, Lord,

Jim Corbett

Open post

1/12/24 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

Open post

1/11/24 Preparing for What’s Ahead

“I am very concerned about where you are getting what you are learning. You need to guard your heart. Make sure that the people you are listening to understand the times and seasons in which you live. Do not listen to those who have decided not to grow in Me and are working on an old anointing. They will confuse you. They have little to offer you. I am calling for repentant hearts. I am calling for intimacy. I am calling you to prepare for difficult times. Other gospels will not prepare you for what will be needed soon.

"You draw close to Me. You partake of the overcoming life that is yours. You come to receive My heart and My desires. I will give you manna hidden from those who refuse to lay their lives down for the sake of others. You come where I am, not where I have been. Seek out those of like mind and receive fresh food for this day. I love you.”

Isaiah 30:21 NIV

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Mark 4:24 AMP  

And He said to them, Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you – and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.

John 6:57-58 AMP 

57) Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me.

58) This is the Bread that came down from heaven. It is not like the manna which our forefathers ate, and yet died; he who takes this Bread for his food shall live forever.

II Peter 3:16b-17 AMP

16b) There are some things in those [epistles of Paul] that are difficult to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist and misconstrue to their own utter destruction, just as [they distort and misinterpret] the rest of the Scriptures.

17) Let me warn you therefore, beloved, that knowing these things beforehand, you should be on your guard, lest you be carried away by the error of lawless and wicked [persons and] fall from your own [present] firm condition [your own steadfastness of mind].

 

I love how our Father loves us and takes care of us. Since I have had the privilege of writing these “Father’s Heart” messages, I have seen the Father give us many glimpses of His wonderful character.

Today’s message is not new. He is once again focusing on something that has been said before but is important enough to share again to make sure we learn the lesson.  It assures me once more of His concern for our proper growth and His monitoring of that growth. He has once again given us guidelines for our safety now and in the future. What an incredible privilege it is to know how much He cares!

Thank You for being my Father,

Jim Corbett

Open post

1/11/24 More Than You Know

As men, the training God is putting you through and the challenges you’re facing are doing more than simply making you strong and capable of holding your marriage together and raising your family. They have a much greater and more extensive purpose.

Other men need to learn the wisdom you’re gaining as God puts you through His school. Unsaved men will soon be reeling as all their handles of safety disappear, and they can find no stable footing or belief to see them through life. If those men give their lives to Christ, they will need guidance and direction from someone who can point them to God and His Word to fulfill their real needs.

As a man of God, you have a wonderful opportunity to help others. You’re being taught life lessons - not only for the good of your family, but for the benefit of other men around you. You have the privilege of sharing solid, foundational truth in a slippery world of changing values. You have trustworthy answers to desperate questions in changing times. You are needed!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

 

Posts navigation

1 2 3 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 647 648 649
Scroll to top