Tag: Christian

“I would like you to once again pursue your first love. Do you remember how wonderful Our times together were? I remember when I would reveal something to you and you would dig into My Word with an enthusiasm that I haven’t seen for a long time. You were in awe of everything I showed you. Remember how some of you used to be thrilled to show anyone the road to salvation and reconciliation with Me? There was no drudgery about Our relationship. There was no concern about hurting someone’s feeling or robbing them of their time. You had found the greatest thing you had ever known and bubbled with excitement over everyone you met. If you couldn’t reach them, you prayed for them. We really had fun together. What happened? Why have I become commonplace with some of you?

"I realize that for many of you, Our relationship has progressed into one of intimacy. I also realize that you are focusing on maturity, becoming holy for Me. I am very pleased with that and do consider it very important. I would ask you, however, to remember Our first love together. Holy people are not prune-faced. Someone intimately in love exudes joy and wonder. I understand your times of labor. I understand those times of death to your flesh. It is impossible to remain exuberant all the time. I understand. But what about those other times, times when We are just walking together?

"Allow Me to renew your joy. Let’s rejoice. Let’s enjoy each other. I love who you’re becoming, but I also love who you are at this very moment. As you prepare for what lies ahead, remember what is important now. Most important to Me is being with you. Let’s renew the wonder of Our relationship. Not only will it be fun for Us, but everyone will wonder what you are up to. Then you can tell them about Me, and smile while you are doing it. You can tell them about the incredible part!”

1 Corinthians 1:2-9 NIV

2) To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and ours:

3) Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

4) I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

5) For in him you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and in all your knowledge –

6) because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.

7) Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

8) He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

9) God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.

Rev. 2:3-5 NIV 

3) “You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

4) Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.

5) Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first…”

 

Have you ever seen the glow of someone who is first in love with Jesus? They are electric with heavenly light, especially those who come from some kind of deep darkness. I remember sometimes avoiding some of them because they were so overwhelming in their love. Being with them, one had to set aside any feelings of embarrassment. They cared little about what anyone thought. They were in love, and they wanted the world to know about it.

Have you ever wondered where they went? What happened to them? What happened to the enthusiasm, the wonder, the belief in the Word and its power? What happened to the life of Jesus that was so evident in everything they did? Where did it go?

Before you think that I am pointing at anyone else, you need to know that I am looking in a mirror first. The Lord is convicting me about my life.

When I first got saved, I used to hang around with some fanatics because I was crazy in love with Jesus. Some other saved reprobates and I dared to believe what we read in the Bible and expected it to come true in our lives. Funny thing was that it often did!

We saw more incredible stuff - from miracles to healings to salvations to… you name it and it happened. We’d lay hands on anything that moved or stood still. Skin would grow over exposed bones, hearing would come back, and lives would be changed. Prayers were expected to be answered, and they were.

I remember when someone called me to pray over his used car business. He hadn’t sold a car in months. (They were really “tired iron.”) Foolishly, I spent about two hours “anointing” every one of them with oil. I really believed in my heart that they would sell, even though the sales people made fun of me from the showroom. The next day, I got a call from the man who initially called me to pray. He told me that he had sold the whole lot full of cars and his whole business that very morning. Right out of the blue, someone walked in off the street and made him an offer for all of it. We giggled at the wonder of God.

Gotta get back to that kind of wonder,

Jim Corbett

 

“Guard your heart! There is an onslaught of deception that has been loosed in this world, and you need to be able to discern truth. Your ability to overcome the deception that is prevalent, and that which is to come, will be directly related to how much you devote yourself to Me and how much My Word reigns in your heart. You will have little power to see if I am not allowed to see for you. You will be deceived by what is spoken if My Word and My Holy Spirit do not filter truth from error for you.

"Beginning now, you must find all the areas in your life that do not belong to Me, those areas that have not been put under My Lordship. These are areas that you have been functioning in with your own wisdom, strength, and power. They are the most vulnerable to the enemy. These areas are susceptible to deception, confusion, and folly. Great harm will soon come to you through these breaches in your spiritual hedge if they have not been given to Me. Find where you are functioning in your own gifts and abilities. Find where you are so comfortable that you do not need Me.

"Surrender your most minute sins, your smallest indiscretions, your bits of judgment, your wandering thoughts. Repent of them. Give them to Me. Let My Holy Spirit show you what they are and submit them to My Word so that you will be safe. Holding on to them is not wise. In fact, if you choose to harbor them in your heart, they will soon take you places that are not safe for you to be. I am not in those places. You really do not want to go there.”

Isaiah 30:21-22 NIV

21) Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

22) Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”

Mark 4:24 AMP

And He said to them, Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you – and more [besides] will be given to you who hear.

 

If we disobey any of the physical laws, we naturally pay the consequences. If you stick your hand into a fire, you will get burned. If you jump off a building, gravity will do its job. You will land hard, possibly hard enough to kill you.

There are consequences to us if we violate the laws of society. If we break them, we pay the penalty.

Why is it that we pay so little attention to the directions that have been provided for us in God’s Word? Following the Lord would seem to be the wisest course of action we could ever take. In fact, throughout the Word it says that if we do not follow Him, our lives will be out of order. Almost on a regular basis, we deviate from those cautions, hedge on our commitment, discard His warnings; and then wonder why our lives are out of order. It really makes little sense.

When I remember how out-of-line my life was when I didn’t follow the Word and its directions, even after I came to the Lord, I realize how much more difficult it will be to do so as times get more deceptive. I won’t have a chance unless I determine in my heart to take His cautions very seriously and then follow through to the point of complete submission to Him in every area of my life.

Needing His power to even start,

Jim Corbett

 

“Do you know that there will be times when you will look like a fool if you choose to serve Me with all your heart? Do you know that you might appear to have missed My will for you, yet be exactly where I want you to be, so that you can learn directly from My hand? The gospels of man cannot understand walking in My Spirit. In their hearts, I am held to perform according to their interpretation of My Word, a very self-serving interpretation. I will never do that. Their doctrines appear to work because they appeal to the carnal nature of undiscerning believers.

"My Gospel calls for absolute obedience to what I tell you to do, no matter what the consequence to you. You may never be vindicated if I should use you to expose the hardened hearts of the hosts of the controlling spirits that you encounter. You may never be a success in the eyes of the world and most of the carnal church. Your reputation may be non-existent as I focus on your character. Remember this. I am the One keeping score. I observe truth from folly. Nothing is hidden from My sight. I see those of you who desire to serve Me without considering the cost, when others have a death grip on what I have given them. You are very pleasing to Me. You bless My heart. I love you very much.”

I Cor. 4:9-14 NIV

9) For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.

10) We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored!

11) To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless.

12) We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted we endure it;

13) When we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.

14) I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children.

1 John 2:6 AMP 

Whoever says he abides in Him ought [as a personal debt] to walk and conduct himself in the same way in which He walked and conducted Himself.

 

If Jesus is our example of living, then having nowhere to lay your head would be the norm as followers of Christ. Money to pay taxes would have to come from some form of a fish’s mouth. Being cursed, laughed at, scorned, and even hated enough to be crucified should be part of our job description; even while we are being used to heal the sick or raise the dead. The possibility of being struck dead because we lie to the Holy Spirit about how much we hold back and consider our own, or imprisoned so that we can bless people there or write God’s important correspondence from our cell, is not entirely out of the picture. Let’s not even begin to discuss those incredible examples of God’s love who died in the arenas. But then, that might mean that this walk with the Lord is not about us and our comfort. Maybe we are not our own? Hmmm!

Teach me truth, Lord,

Jim Corbett