“Have you noticed that a spirit of intolerance and flagrant independence has been loosed upon your land? It is the prelude to the apostasy that has been predicted in My Word. Few will take responsibility for their wrong doings. Almost no one will stand up for what is right anymore. The concept of right and wrong has migrated into a gray area of muddled legalisms. Few can be trusted, even within the walls of My church.
“If everyone is now conditioned to blame the other for that which they themselves should be responsible, they will not be familiar with and understand the concept of repentance. Because their hardened hearts will see sin as the offense of the other, rather than of themselves, they will see no need of a Savior. Even My church will go to court rather than live up to their responsibility when they are wrong. I need to break them and bring them back to responsibility. I must remove their comfort zones. I must destroy their flagrant rebellion and make them realize who they are following.
“My breaking them will change your lives. You will lose your comfort zones as I deal with them if you rely on the world for your safety. Determine in your heart now that your power is not in your own resources. I am waiting to renew your source for everything in your life. That is why My training course for you has intensified. That is why My warnings have become more clear. It is so that you will not be caught unaware. I am causing you to prepare your heart and trust Me to be your provision, your only source. When you rely on Me, you will walk above everything that attempts to hinder you from your appointed tasks or rob you of your peace. You become strong in the power of My might. I love it when that happens!”
2 Samuel 14:14b NIV
“But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.”
2 Cor. 7:9-11a AMP
9) Yet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [that turned you to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel, so that in nothing you might suffer loss through us or harm for what we did.
10) For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death].
11) For [you can look back now and] observe what this same godly sorrow has done for you and has produced in you…
Do you realize how unique it is to hear the words, “Wow, I was wrong. It was my fault; please forgive me”? No doubt a majority of lawyers in this country would spend countless hours attempting to prove in court that those words were never said, so that someone could be declared only partially wrong or be completely vindicated from his or her responsibility. Almost everyone would go along with it, so that the impact of the transgression would be lessened. It would be the “wise” thing to do.
Because this attitude now permeates every layer of society, the concept of sin is no longer understood. Try something when people begin to talk about an offense that has happened, especially if their words make it apparent that they were at least partially in the wrong. Try it with both Christians and non-Christians.
After they have explained their side of the story, suggest that they apologize to the other party for their part in the offense. Suggest that their actions were sin. Watch their eyes as you do so. Usually there is some sort of silence and a shuffling of feet before a response comes. When it does come, be prepared to have a much-shortened conversation with them.
We, who are Christ’s, must realize more than ever that words alone, even the most eloquent and persuasive words, cannot convict someone of his sin. Unless our witness and our words are anointed by the Holy Spirit and permeated with His presence, they are wasted on the hardened heart. We simply speak a foreign language to someone if they are not.
In the days ahead, any success that we have in helping to bring someone to the Lord or change the hardened heart of someone who is already a Christian will only come from the power of the throne room. It is, more than ever, a spiritual thing in need of a spiritual answer.
Needing to walk everywhere only in the Spirit,
Jim Corbett
