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5/09/22 Mind Wars

Does this sound familiar? You’re finally able to clear your busy schedule and find those few quiet moments you’ve been looking for to spend time with God, only you’re unable to focus on Him. The Bible study part comes relatively easy because you can focus on the words on the page; but to sit quietly and simply wait on Him for intimate communication is an incredible task. Your thoughts go to incidental stuff that needs to be done, old sins, the work load that’s waiting, etc., etc. Finally, you give up and walk away, feeling that your time was wasted or even that you’ve failed God one more time.

Most of us don’t realize the real war we face. The enemy has relatively little trouble with us going to church, attending men’s breakfast meetings, feeding the poor, or participating in any other spiritual in nature activity. However, if he can keep us from building an intimate relationship with our Lord, he wins. His deadly fear is that believers - especially men who are stewards of others - will develop an intimacy of love, power, and spiritual wealth with their Father in the throne room. The enemy is already defeated through the cross, but he loses all battles in every area of our lives if we get our strategies directly from God.

Therein lies the battle. We, as believers, need supernatural wisdom to overcome the world. The only place we can get this kind of wisdom is in quiet intimacy with our Father God. Since the enemy knows this, he will do anything to keep us from that kind of interaction. He will use extreme challenges, distractions, business, remembrances of past fishing trips, anything to keep us from developing that relationship.

Understanding the war and knowing the primary battle is the first step to winning. The battle plan is to keep going to God and pressing in through His power. Cast down the imaginations placed in your way. Give them over to the Lord. Seek God for His power to keep your mind focused. Press in, press in, and press in some more until the only desire you have in your heart is to be with your Father. Delight yourself in the Lord, and all the heart desires and needs you have will become part of the full, mature, loving relationship for which you’ve been born.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

5/07/22 Born for This Season

“Do you hear the swords rattling all across the nations? Can you not see the sides being drawn? Is it not becoming increasingly clear that your safe little world is about to change forever? What are you doing about it? How are you preparing yourself, so that I can use you during desperate times? Are you locking up with Me, so that you are bold when others are immobilized with fear? Are you prepared to show people Jesus, when they finally realize that they need to turn to Him? You realize that you have been born for this season to carry out My Word, don’t you? What are you doing to prepare for your task?

"You need to come to Me for My reasons, instead of your petty stubbed toes. You need to learn to love deeper and stronger than the hate of the world. Now is the time. Soon it will be too late. You won’t have what is needed to overcome if you don’t come to Me now. Instead of being My vessels of honor and power, walking in the fullness of My love, you will be part of the cowering masses. My, my, what you will be missing!”

Zechariah 7:13 NIV

“ ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen.’ says the Lord Almighty.”

2 Chr. 16:9a NIV

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

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 underfoot by men.

Acts 4:29-31 AMP

29) And now, Lord, observe their threats and grant to Your bond servants [full freedom] to declare Your message fearlessly,

30) While You stretch out Your hand to cure and to perform signs and wonders through the authority and by the power of the name of Your holy Child and Servant Jesus.

31) And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the Word of God with freedom and boldness and courage.

There are many stories and fables about preparedness. It generally ends up that the ones, who wouldn’t heed the warnings to be prepared for the predicted season of danger, are found seeking assistance from the ones who did heed the warnings as the season comes upon them. The prepared ones usually help the unprepared and some lessons are learned. Those are nice stories and worthy of attention. There is one situation, however, in which things won’t work so well for the unprepared.

When God calls His people to prepare, only those who respond to His call will prosper when whatever is ahead happens. Since God gives Himself when people come to Him, those who will not heed the call will have little of the nature of the Lord to call upon when peril hits. His nature is what is needed to overcome any situation. Because they responded to the call to intimacy, those who have His nature may desire to help; but they will not be able to give away what only God can give.

This can only end in tragedy for those who decide to respond only when peril is at the door. The nature of God is imparted over time and for reasons other than for selfish survival in panic situations. It is imparted so that His people can rise above any situation and accomplish His purposes in His way.

God has been calling His people to come to Him for some time now. There are very hard times coming in the near future. Those who are responding to His call have become aware of the dangers in our world and are receiving the nature of the Lord to understand them from His perspective. He imparts the part of Himself that sees future situations as opportunities to bring others to Jesus, rather than times to cower in fear. Others, those who are not responding to His call, are going about the business of fighting for their rights, and making unfruitful, personal petitions to pad their comfort areas. They will miss out on walking in concert with the Lord and overcoming the peril of the times ahead. What a tragedy!

I want to live in Your truth for Your reasons, Lord,

Jim Corbett

5/07/22 The Captivity of Activity

Each of us has seasons in our lives, which are designed by God to further our walk with Him or to challenge us to find His power to win the war against our drawing near to Him. One of my more recent seasons was spent on a porch in North Carolina, where I enjoyed the view of a wonderful mountain landscape. For five years, weather permitting, I was able to spend hours and hours with Him. I had been given no purpose but to sit and wait in His presence, find His direction, and then come back to His lap when any assignment was completed. Even though I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, this season was more marvelous than I can express in words.

My season has definitely changed. At present, the demands of my life cause me to fight for moments with the Lord. I know He’s always available, waiting for me to join Him; but now, obligations are pressing in on all sides. There is a continual war raging to keep me from those quiet moments I had learned to cherish. The freedom to be with Him at almost any time I wanted now has to be fought for in the midst of the business of my life. If I don’t recognize the war and engage in the battle to be with Him, I become captive to all the activities that demand my attention. It’s a conscious battle that must be fought moment by moment if I want my life to be really significant in Him.

As husbands and fathers, you have the most important battle of your lives facing you every moment of every day. The demands you face and the choices you make will determine how well you are able to carry out your offices. If you don’t recognize that your priority must be to develop an intimate relationship with Father God and fight desperately for it, your life and the lives of those in your care will be greatly affected. Instead of a vibrant, world-overcoming love relationship with your Lord, you will find yourself and those around you counted among the lukewarm masses, unable to lead others to a significant life, the one bought for you at the cross. You’ll be held captive by your activity, unable to break loose from your bondage or help others to overcome their war. Is that what you want?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

5/06/22 Press in Now

“Press in. Press in to Me for whatever part of the character of Jesus that’s needed in your life. You need to respond to My call during this season. You will need the wisdom I have for you. You will need the faith that you will gain by Our fellowship. I am about to test those who say that they have little need of Me. I am about to break the pride of those who will not serve Me now but are Mine. You press in now. Gain what I have for you. Carry what I give you to those who will be reeling from My hand upon them. My hand will bring them to their knees. My heart will hold them while you show them Jesus. Press in now!”

John 20:21 NIV

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Rom. 15:1-7 NIV

1) We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

2) Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

3) For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”

4) For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

5) May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,

6) so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7) Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

II Cor. 1:3-4 AMP

3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),

4) Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God.

II Cor. 5:20a NIV

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

So often we forget what our real purpose is. We become so involved with the matters of our own lives and the needs of our own hearts that we pass by so many opportunities given to us by the Lord. The world really does take care of its own in its own way. We are called to take care of our Father’s children in His way. His way is the way of Jesus. His way has eternal value, not temporal fixes.

Send me with Your heart, Lord,

Jim Corbett

5/06/22 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

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