Open post

2/14/23 Repentance and Cleansing

“When you are in Christ, you have been made new and you are continually being made new. There are always new beginnings in Me. Old things are continually passing away and all things are being conformed into His image. Your part of this wonderful process is a life of repentance and subsequent cleansing. I know that you are in the process of change. I know that you will fail to act like Jesus every moment until His completed work on the cross is done in you.

"While you are being conformed to be more like Him to others, I want your fellowship. I desire that you come to Me to be refreshed and cleansed from any attachments to the world. Repent of who you are not and I will bring you closer to Who He is. Submit yourself to the completed work of the cross. Remain under the Lordship of Jesus. If you remain humble and insignificant in your own eyes, I will make your life significant. I will form you to be able to function properly within My eternal plans. I love you!”

2 Cor. 5-17 AMP

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ, (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

James 4: 8-10 AMP

8) Come close to God and He will come close to you. [Recognize that you are] sinners, get your soiled hands clean; [realize that you have been disloyal] wavering individuals with divided interests, and purify your hearts [of your spiritual adultery].

9) [As you draw near to God] be deeply penitent and grieve, even weep [over your disloyalty]. Let your laughter be turned to grief and your mirth to dejection and heartfelt shame [for your sins].

10) Humble yourselves [feeling very insignificant] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up and make your lives significant].

 

What an astounding privilege it is to be given the opportunity by God Himself to have a significant life. The whole world scurries to and fro to find some sort of significance to their existence. Everyone craves to be known and embraced for who they are. Most of the time this is the driving force for all their worldly deeds and accomplishments.

If we have submitted ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus, we are known and appreciated by God for who we are. We also live in the promise whereby He will form us into the image of the most wonderful, most significant life ever lived. How wonderful it is to know and be known by the One Who created us in the first place. How wonderful it is to be able to live daily with the peace of knowing that we are significant and that our lives really matter.

I submit to Your hand, Lord,

Jim Corbett

Open post

2/14/23 Do You Really Need God?

OK. Your job is going quite well. Your marriage is as good as any of your friends’ marriages. Your children may not be serving the Lord with all their hearts; but they’re basically honorable, and anyway there’s plenty of time for that to change. In fact, things could be classified as satisfactory. You really don’t need to seek the Lord with all your heart, do you?

Whether you know it or not, you’ve become a blind guide for those around you. You’ve forgotten what your relationship with Jesus is all about. You’ve bought the lie that it’s all about you and how well things are going in your puny world. You have become the center of your relationship with the Lord and are teaching others to do the same by your actions.

Being a child of God and a steward of other people carries with it grave responsibilities - life and death responsibilities. Christianity 101 is being so sold out to Jesus that others see Him in you. Never in the Word is there any hint that your relationship has anything to do with your comfort or complacency other than when God calls those areas sin. You and I are called to be the light of Christ to the world.

I don’t know about you, but I desperately need God and His mercy and power to be anything like Jesus. I believe that’s the bottom line for every one of us. The things that happen in our lives have little to do with whether or not we are to pursue a first love relationship with the Lord every moment of every day, and urge others to do the same with our every action and breath. If we persist in pursuing the Lord, our lives will be significant assets for His use.

When people see who we are when we act like Jesus, they will see who they are supposed to be. What happens after that is of little consequence to our mission of knowing God and being where He desires us to be. As we walk as Christ walked because we have been with Him, everything else will fall in place. We really need God every moment of our lives to get to that place and stay there, no matter what others do.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

Open post

2/13/23 Not in Your Own Strength

“I know who you are not, and I love you. I see your desire to be like My Son and your struggle to attain that goal. You fret, strive, and worry when I goad you to become more like Him. I see you grieve when you can’t live up to the standards that I have set for you in My Word. When did I ever say that you could accomplish that task in your own strength? When did I ever require you to accomplish what even My law could not do in the most ardent follower? Why would you carry that burden?

"Listen carefully. You must hear this. Stop striving to become better. You must change your ways of achieving My goals or you will soon be overwhelmed if you continue misunderstanding Our relationship. Your job is to submit; My job is to change you. I am raising the standard. I am about to require bride-like devotion from anyone who will be used by Me in the near future. I need a representative people to show the world My Son. Only submissive power will rise above the turmoil. Only Christ-like obedience will bring souls to Me during the soon-approaching great deception.

"How will you ever make it? You will not possess My presence by striving to change what you have not been able to change so far. Stop striving. Stop struggling. Submit to My hand and surrender to My working in you what I need to do. There is no other way. What I require is impossible for you to do. I promise, however, to do it in you and for you. You can be free. Why would you insist on having it your way and continue to fail?”

2 Cor. 3:17 AMP

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord  is, there is liberty (emancipation from bondage, freedom).

Gal. 3:3 AMP

Are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly? Having begun [your new life spiritually] with the [Holy] Spirit, are you now reaching perfection [by dependence] on the flesh?

 

Our publication, A White Stone, is - among other things - a clarion call to holiness. The main characters set an example of how each of us can prosper during perilous times. After reading it, many people come to me with a renewed enthusiasm to be like one or several of those characters; in essence, to be the kind of representation of Jesus that the character is.

They often tell me of several ways in which they intend to change. If I can’t talk them out of their formula and must let them attempt to change themselves, it is normally just a matter of time before they come back to me - broken, overwhelmed, and very confused - wondering why the Lord did not honor their hearts.

Most of the time, I just take them to the above verses and they get the picture. The Holy Spirit started all of this. He is the one who must be in every equation during the changing process; and He must be allowed a free hand to fully accomplish His will in making you like Jesus. Anything else is simply frustrating, burdensome religion. It is a yoke that is too heavy for any of us to carry.

Understand this. When you break under the weight of attempting to become holy in your own strength, crumple at the feet of Jesus. Repent of your foolishness of attempting to accomplish by yourself what only the Holy Spirit can do. You are needed in the upcoming times. Don’t allow your stubbornness to cause you to be left on the sidelines.

Needing to remember that the Lord authored my faith, and that it’s His job to finish it,

Jim Corbett

Open post

2/13/23 Distractions

Nations rising and falling, threats of economies crashing, terrorist threats world-wide, reprobate thinking abounding, Christian persecution being given a more prominent platform, and many more disruptions fend for their place in our minds on a daily basis. Any thinking believer can see that the world is changing at a rapid pace. Formulas that used to flourish during normal, much easier times no longer work. Procedures and plans that brought relative safety only a few years ago will not help our families survive if things progress in the direction they seem to be heading.

As prominent as all these disruptions are in our world, they’re really nothing more than distractions from the real war at hand. In the Word, it says that we are to look past those things that are temporal and on to the eternal. We are to look past what we see and on to what God is doing. All these issues that invade our lives distract us from keeping God’s plan and our real purpose in life from being in the forefront of our thinking. They take up our time by having us worry about them and plan on how to remain safe from them.

The plans of God, the falling away of the church, nations reeling in terror, wars, and rumors of wars are all foretold in the Bible. They will not be avoided. We, as believers, are to prepare spiritually when we see these times and seasons on the radar. We, as husbands and fathers, are to become all that we can be in Christ not only for His glory, but for those we steward. We are to show others the path to safety in Christ by looking past the distractions all around us and on to the real life we have been given because of the cross. We are called to overcome this dying world in the same way Jesus did.  What are you looking at and how are you responding to it?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

Open post

2/11/23 Direction in Quiet Times

“Direction for your life comes from quiet times with Me. You cannot hear Me in the din of your activity. You will not find My will while doing other things. I want all of your attention. It shows Me that you consider Our time together important. Jesus certainly considered it important. He died so that We could spend time together.”

Luke 23:44-45 NIV

44) It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour,

45) for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

 

Most of us forget that one of the most important reasons Jesus died was so that we could have access to His Father. Think of it. He considered that access so important that He gave His life for it.

Father God knows how important time with Him is. He allowed the death of His Son so that we can come and spend time with Him.

How important is time with our Father to us? How many minutes out of our important schedule do we allot for time with the Creator of all things? How far is our life out of line with the heart of God because we consider other things more important than being with our Father in heaven?

Make time with You my priority, Lord,

Jim Corbett

Posts navigation

1 2 3 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 648 649 650
Scroll to top