Tag: Christian

“Be awfully careful of losing your first love for Jesus. Make sure you guard your heart, so that the things that He desires remain the desires of your heart. If you allow the busyness of your world to intrude on the important issues of your heart, you will soon lose the perspective that Jesus has. You will become self-focused. You will become uncaring for those who are perishing. You will become weary in well-doing.

"You will become cold to the issues that are important to Me. You will go days at a time and never weep for one soul.

"It is a dangerous place to be. Make sure you never go there, OK? If you are already there, turn around before it is too late. Turn before you become so cold to the ways of Jesus that you care little if He is glorified in your life or not.”

Psalm 106:12-15 AMP

12) Then [Israel] believed His words [trusting in, relying on them]; they sang His praise.

13) But they hastily forgot His works; they did not [earnestly] wait for His plans [to develop] regarding them,

14) But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted and tried to restrain God [with their insistent desires] in the desert.

15) And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls and [thinned their numbers by] disease and death.

Haggai 1:7-10 AMP

7) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared.

8) Go up to the hill country, and bring lumber and rebuild [My] house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord [by accepting it as done for My glory and by displaying My glory in it].

9) You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little; and even when you brought that home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house, which lies waste while you yourselves run each man to his own house [eager to build and adorn it].

10) Therefore the heavens above you [for your sake] withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its produce.

 

We live in a society that hates to lose or settle for second best in anything. We also despise paying too much for anything. We will search the globe for the best deal on whatever we choose to purchase, squeezing pennies from a retailer so that we can have the satisfaction in our hearts that we did not get taken.

What amazes me is that we don’t even seem to care that we are being ripped off each and every day when it comes to the things of God. We settle for scraps from His table because we won’t spend enough time with Him to participate in the things that He considers important. We live a mediocre life in Jesus, when the intimacy He has with His Father is available to us. We dabble in the things of the world, when we are called to live in the heavenlies. We fret and worry about fleeting issues and set aside eternal wealth without giving a thought to what we have squandered. We are daily being ripped off by the enemy of our souls and seemingly never give it a thought. How foolish!

Teach me to value what is truly valuable, Lord,

Jim Corbett

“The life you live brings credit or discredit to the work of Jesus and the cross. Most people think that when they achieve much or gain much that they are being blessed abundantly. That is not necessarily so. That is not how I judge your credentials. You bring credit or discredit to the work of Jesus by how much you truly look like Jesus.

"Do you love as He loves? Do you care about My plans as He did? Are you laying down your life for others as He did? In how many ways are you like Him?

"Even though you may appear to be a successful Christian to others, even though you fellowship regularly, even though you do and say the right things, you will eventually bring discredit to the cross if you are not continually submitting to the power of the cross to change your life. If you do not have My interests as your priority, if your heart is not on its way to becoming like the heart of Jesus, you have missed one of the main reasons He died. That is not good!”

I Sam. 16:7 AMP 

But the Lord said to Samuel, Look not on his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as a man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

2 Chr. 16:9 NIV

“For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him...”

Hosea 4:6 AMP

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you [the priestly nation] have rejected knowledge…

Matthew 26: 53-54 NIV

53) “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

54) But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

 

At a very crucial time for Jesus, He cared more that the Scriptures were fulfilled than He cared for His own life. How close to that kind of heart are we? Do we even give thought to the Word of God being fulfilled in our lives?

Have we ever really understood that those in the world knowingly and unknowingly scrutinize our lives and determine in their hearts how powerful the work of the cross really is? If we don’t exhibit continual change as we grow in Christ, they walk away and attach little importance to what Jesus did for all of us.

Make my life a credit to You, Lord,

Jim Corbett

“Do you see how ready you are to shoot your wounded rather than stand with them? Do you see how you judge one another, malign the name of a fellow believer, and condemn him before the world without even a hint of regret? Do you see the jealousy, strife, gossip, and misuse of My Word that prevails within My house?

"I place an anointing on someone’s life and you grit your teeth against him. You have jealousy toward those who walk closely with Me and hate them for that relationship, rather than doing what it takes to come closer yourselves. When one of your brothers or sisters is accused in front of you, you run and hide behind your religious mask, instead of standing up for him and with him against the accuser. You are willing to believe the worst in your spiritual family rather than finding the truth, so that you stand as a united front against the sin of the world. Instead, you harbor the same sin, and greater sin because you know better; but choose to remain where you are.

"You lie to one another, hold grudges, and are willing to take each other to court rather than be wronged and bear it for the sake of My Word. I am about to spit you out of My mouth if you do not repent of your foul sin and start acting as Jesus would act towards one another. You are fools and are making a laughingstock of yourselves while the world watches and goads you on, watching you play one against another and harm each other. You carry the stench of the world on your garments. You hold the unholy in your heart. Instead of preparing for a marriage celebration with Jesus, pressing your garments and making sure that they are prepared for the day you will need them - that soon coming day - you gleefully soil them in My presence and think that I don’t notice.

"Understand this: if you are not prepared for marriage when it is time to be married, you will not be able to eat at the marriage table with those who have been making preparations all along. You will remain outside the chamber. No amount of pounding on the door will open it at that time. You have chosen to dwell with the vile and unholy. I will then use them to cleanse your garments. They will display the same mercy toward you that you are showing at this moment. Repent now and honor My Name and your family as you once said that you would.”

 Matt. 25:1-12 NIV

1) “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

2) Five of them were foolish and five were wise.

3) The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.

4) The wise, however, took oil in their jars along with their lamps.

5) The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

6) At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet Him!’

7) Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.

8) The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

9) ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

10) But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

11) Later the others also came. ‘Sir! Sir!’ they said. ‘Open the door for us!’

12) But he replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.’”

Eph. 4:29 AMP

Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it.

 

Before you put on your spiritual boxing gloves and pick up your “doctrinal defense” arsenal, listen to the heart of what is being said. Don’t miss the intent and heart of the message because you believe a certain way about the tribulation, or where the coming of the Lord fits into the timeline of the church. Granted, those are mighty important issues, which have had the attention and caused differences of opinion among scholars for thousands of years. Those differences of opinion, however, would almost not even be worth discussing if every heart was in constant readiness, waiting only for the return of Jesus, no matter when He comes back.

Father God is purifying His church. He is calling each of us to an account of our actions and our true heart motives for all that we do. How we act toward one another clearly indicates how pure our hearts are and who we are actually following.

In the study of the churches in the book of Revelation, there is a mixture of right and wrong in most of them. It shows a people doing some things right in the Lord’s eyes; and at the same time, they are out of line with His heart in other areas. Strong expressions and pretty harsh measures are indicated for those who did not choose to line up with what He considers important. Whether we agree as to who those people are and how those churches fit into the sequence of the life of the church is secondary to the concern each of us should have for the concerns that the Lord has about the purity and holiness of His people.

There is no question that we are living in times very much resembling the times described at the Lord’s return. How ready are we if these are those times? How close do we resemble a waiting bride? How much are our hearts in line with every aspect of the heart of Jesus? Why would we even think that we are close to Him, if we grow closer to the ways of the world each day? We, as a church, need to turn from the path we are on, and head back in the direction of the heart of our Lord.

Turn my heart around, Lord,

Jim Corbett