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5/17/23 One Day

Harry Chapin wrote a song called “Cat’s in the Cradle.” It talks of a father who’s always too busy to spend time with his son, even though the son admires him and wants to be just like him when he grows up. At the end of the song, we learn the son turned out exactly like his father, prioritizing everything else above their relationship.

Each of our days is important enough to be numbered by God. He is looking to fulfill His purposes in the people He brings our way through us, especially our children. Our children should desire to be just like us because they experience us being just like Jesus toward them. That hope should be nurtured each and every day. It will not happen automatically one day in the future. It happens conversation by conversation, fulfilled promise after fulfilled promise, with a continual assurance and demonstration of their importance. They need to know you value your relationship with them, which will help them to understand God’s love for them.

God wants your children to grow up to be just like Jesus. The best example He has placed in their lives to show them the character of Jesus ought to be you. In what ways are you showing Him to them?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

 

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5/16/23 No Surprise

“You need to look past what is happening to what I am doing. More importantly, you need to pray past what is evident before you and fully comprehend what I am doing. Once you understand My motives and decide to belong to My plan, you will be able to rejoice, even through the hardest times. Fearlessness does not come from knowledge; it comes from understanding My purposes and embracing them.

"I have an overall plan. It has been in motion since the beginning of time. It is a plan to redeem mankind. The unfolding of that plan has been told to you in My Word. How it will end will be no surprise if you come close to Me and My Word. Everything will happen as I have ordained it. I have brought you into this plan for you to play your part in its execution. Your part has never changed. It is to tell as many as you can about the sacrifice that was accomplished for them on the cross, so they have the opportunity to embrace that gift. Everything else in your world is the working out of My desired end. Each action, every association, incident, event, and word that is said brings you closer to the culmination of all that must unfold. If you see and concentrate only on the individual piece, it may become big enough in your eyes to look like the whole for a short time. You will lose your focus and concern yourself with the immediate, instead of what is important.

"I want the last soul to have the opportunity to hear about Jesus so that he or she might not perish. I need you to maintain your focus. Remember the important, as I see it. It will always be my love for people and My desire for none to perish. If you understand My love for souls and share that desire with Me, your perspective will rise above the urgent that may be a distraction to you.”

Isaiah 48:3 NIV 

“I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.”

Matthew 5:13 AMP

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste (its strength, its quality) how can its saltness be restored? It is not good for anything any longer but to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.

John 4:34 NIV 

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent Me and to finish his work.”

 

Each of us must know what we are called to do. We all have a purpose in life that coincides with our Lord’s overall plan. Difficult (even catastrophic) circumstances should have no bearing on that purpose. In fact, the impossible situations we may face may make room for the miracle-working power of God.

The eternal plan of God is unfolding before our eyes. I am convinced that this generation will see the culmination of all that has been promised in the Word of God. What is taking place before us is the vehicle that our Lord is using to implement that plan. The heart and purpose behind that plan has always been, and always will be, the souls of men and women. Nothing should distract us from that purpose.

Our part in God’s plan is vital to Him. Our specific missions are planned well in advance of the daily circumstances we face. Nothing changes because we face hardships, have difficulties, or find ourselves in peril. They are part of the unfolding, but never important enough to cause us to deviate from our mission and calling. Rising above the immediate and seeing past the imminent, will allow us to freely take part in the wonder of the eternal. The view is beautiful from there because the Lord is the only focus.

Keep my eyes focused on You, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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5/16/23 Nothing More Important

We live in a throw-away society where products are geared toward planned obsolescence, newer is supposedly better; and why fix it when you can throw it away and get a new one.  Well, that’s certainly not the way God wants us to approach our marriages and families. He asks us to do everything we can to monitor, rescue, rebuild, and help repair the lives we steward as husbands and fathers. He calls us to do it mainly on our knees.

When the enemy attempts to harm those we steward, we must engage in spiritual warfare on behalf of those he’s attempting to destroy with everything we can muster by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re to minimize other priorities and fight on their behalf until the war is won. Other than our personal relationship with Christ, there should be nothing more important to us than maintaining Christ-like relationships within our families and engaging in the restoration of either our marriages or our children when they are in peril.

As you appraise your marriage and the lives of your children, ask the Lord to show you His perspective. Ask Him to allow you to see them as He sees them. Do they have need of your spiritual intervention? Is it time for you to say, as Paul did, that you are as if in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in others? In your case, that would be your relationship with your wife and the welfare of your children. Is your approach as intense as Paul’s was? It should be!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

 

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5/15/23 Choose New Life

“I know that you only have the maturity to come to Me when you are in need. You even praise Me at present because it makes you feel good and gives you feelings of satisfaction. Your requests for forgiveness are presented so that you might savor the feelings of being forgiven, not because your offense has caused Me anguish. I understand. With My former creation, the angels as you know them, I only required obedience. Even then that requirement was too much for some of them. Some chose to depart from what I had created them to be and were separated from those I could trust. I now have those remaining trustworthy ones by My side.

"You, however, will be used for different purposes. You will be My priests and kings. I desire fellowship and intimate interaction. Disobedience once again is an indicator of those who are trustworthy and those who are not. Sin shows you the difference between separation and communion, so that you can show Me your preference. My work in your heart, your new birth, has made you capable of making free, unhindered choices and joining Me in true spiritual fellowship, if you desire to do so.

"As you continually choose My new life in you over your old life, you will eventually have the heart to come to Me for My desires and My purposes rather than yours. You will be a true companion, one that I can trust to implement My wishes. You will be trustworthy, because you will have My best interests at heart in all you do. Your pining for comfort will be replaced by the desire to do what is best for Me. It is My formula for the eternal future. My heart has always been for your best interests. When My salvation process is completed collectively in your hearts and My redeemed church is functioning in this kind of completion, We will flow in unity through the eternities of the eternities. Our unity will be the mainstay of an unbeatable formula. I will have another creation I can trust. I will then go on.”

Eph. 3:10 AMP

[The purpose is] that through the church the complicated, many-sided wisdom of God in all its infinite variety and innumerable aspects might now be made known to the angelic rulers and authorities (principalities and powers) in the heavenly sphere.

Rev. 5:10 AMP 

And you have made them a kingdom (royal race) and priests to our God, and they shall reign [as kings] over the earth!

Rev. 22:4-5 AMP

4) They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.

5) And there shall be no more night; they have no need for lamplight or sunlight, for the Lord God will illuminate them and be their light, and they shall reign [as kings] forever and ever (through the eternities of the eternities).

 

Most of us still foolishly believe that this salvation process is all about us. Prevalent teachings give us a picture of God straining to deliver us from ourselves only for our good, focusing on the salvation process as our only concern. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the Word, we have been shown that God is a creative, eternal God, no beginning and no end. He is known to have created at least one other form of being to implement His purposes. We are, as far as has been revealed to us, the second; and we will work with the first, reigning as priests and kings for eternities and for whatever He chooses to do next.

I am convinced that the zeal with which we pursue His will at present and how trustworthy we are with his gifts will have impact on our place in His eternal plan. Our stewardship shows our heart. Our focus shows our nature.

For us to limit the nature of God by thinking that we are all that He has on His agenda is nonsense and limits our ability to understand the wonder of His nature. Such small thinking causes us to become prideful and self-serving.

Does He love us? Of course! Does He care about us? Of course! Does He want to have intimacy with us? Of course! Is there more that He is concerned about than our portion in His life? I believe that there is. It would behoove us to understand our privilege in being part of His plan, rather than being so hopelessly selfish as to think that we are everything and the only ones in His plan.

Wanting to understand more clearly,

Jim Corbett

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5/15/23 Pursuing a Higher Standard

As a husband and father, would you do anything to change your ways if you realized the lives of your wife and children are gifts that will be presented to God one day? Who they become will be laid at the feet of our Lord. Because you hold these offices, you’re a steward of those lives. You’re responsible to provide an atmosphere for them to become all they can be in Christ and you’ll answer to God for the result.

You see, as Christian men, you and I are called to a higher standard than those who live in the world. We’re to love more, serve more, and have God’s higher purposes in mind for everything we do. We are God’s representatives on this earth. He owns our lives, which makes us stewards of them for His honor and glory.

In the world, husbands and fathers are considered a success if their marriage is outwardly OK and their children are accepted by society’s standards. You have a higher call. God asks that your marriage be an example of the relationship of Christ and His church. He asks that your children come to know Him personally through their submission to Jesus as their Savior and Lord and serve Him with all their hearts. He asks you to pave the way for that to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit. Success in His eyes is far different than the supposed success of the world. Which will you choose?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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