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11/22/23 A Vessel of Blessing

“When was the last time you blessed your wife or husband? What about your children? How about your friends or even your enemies? I don’t mean blessing someone by buying them something or doing them a favor; I want you to call down My blessing upon them. Do you know that in doing so, you become an instrument of My power to turn them to Me? You can wake up the deadened and dying heart, encourage a discouraged spirit, and destroy lying spirits by being My vessel of blessing. The world may consider it foolishness when you bless; I consider it an impartation of My courage and an inroad to My kind of healing. Begin to bless from your heart. Watch how people change as you do.”

Ephesians 3:14-19 NLB

14) When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,

15) the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.

16) I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.

17) And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.

18) And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is.

19) May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Most of us understand the biblical principle of blessing our enemies and those who use us, but few of us fully understand the incredible power of invoking those blessings on others. Fathers, when was the last time that you took your children aside and imparted a fatherly blessing on them? Husbands, how often do you place your hands on your wives and bless them and thank them for who they are and how much they add to your life? What about your friends? Have you ever invoked blessing upon those who have been given to you as alliances by the Lord? Take the time with the Lord and have Him show you how He feels about the impartation of blessing and its effects upon others.

I remember a specific instance when the Lord intervened in the middle of a season of dealing with rebellion in my then young daughter. Something was different from the norm. The rebellion seemed to take on a spiritual state, rather than simple, childlike misbehavior. I was about to impart consequences for actions taken when He said to my heart, “Father, bless your daughter.” Being the “spiritual giant” that I am, I was too out of patience to do it at the time.

The next day, He wouldn’t leave me alone. Given His strength, I took her aside and invoked a loving, confirming, fatherly blessing upon her. I could see her melt as I did. With every word, she brightened and the rebellion actually disappeared from our household. I believe that far more was accomplished than I will ever know.

Show me Your ways, Lord,

Jim Corbett

11/22/23 Study Your Children

The Amplified Bible says that we are to “train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent]…”. If we treat our children accordingly, we can help guide them into the life God has designed for them. We are to study them and discover their natural abilities, interests, and the things they prosper in, so that we can build the proper atmosphere for learning around them. In doing so, they can follow the patterns that are most comfortable for them, which will hold their interest and lead them toward success.

That is only one part of the perfect plan God has for your children. You, as a father, must help build taste buds in them for the deep things of God through the power of the Holy Spirit. I don’t mean that you should in any way force religious jargon down their throats until they choke; absolutely not. You are to become intimately in love with the Lord, longing to have Him live His life through you.

As you become all that you can be in Christ, your children will want the incredible life you enjoy. They will long to have the freedom, the wonder, the wisdom, and the power that they see in your life because of Him. The opportunity is there so that they too can become all they can be in Christ. Because they have the freedom to function in the bent God’s given them, and they flourish through the intimate communion they gain from loving Jesus, there is nothing in the world that can minimize the significance of their lives.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

11/21/23 The Coming Exposure

“Woe to some of you who claim to be teachers of My Word. You will be held accountable for every interpretation of what you claim that I have said. You will face My wrath for every child that you have caused to stumble or have led in a direction that does not bring them to the cross that I have provided for them. If you were in the military, I would hold some of you in no higher esteem than a tyrannical dictator, because of your dealings with those whom you are supposed to serve.

"You create laws that justify your hedonism and say that I have given you the right to live as kings in the midst of the hungry and oppressed. You take from the poor to pad your nests, promising them wealth of their own if they give to your cause. You use My provision for your own gain while My troops never have enough for tools and equipment to wage the proper warfare needed to make a difference. You have distorted My promises, misused My Words to you, and misdirected My little children, all for your own gain. Your focus is on yourselves. Your teachings are nothing more than misguided principles that cause those who follow you to stumble and fall into the same traps you find yourselves in. You appear prosperous because of the principles that you teach, but you are poor and awaiting My judgment.

"Soon you will be exposed for who you really are. Your manufactured formulas will not work. Your false securities will fail you. You will stand alone, cowering, without answers when things fall apart. Those who have looked to you will be weak because you have taught them your weaknesses. They will perish because you have not taught them to find real nourishment. I am against your folly. I am not with you. I hate how you have distorted My Word. Woe to you!”

Hosea 4:6 AMP

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

2 Peter 2:3 NIV

In their greed, these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

James 3:1 NIV

Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

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 we call ourselves Christians and truly followed after Him, we would walk and conduct ourselves in the same manner in which Jesus, the Christ, walked and conducted Himself. We would have only the Father’s desires in mind. We would hold nothing as our own, have nothing for ourselves, and care only for the needs of others. We would show others that the crucified life is the life that eliminates all flesh, and gladly live that life so that others might prosper as the Father sees prosperity. Our only goal in life would be to glorify our Father in heaven and teach others to do the same. The souls of those who are perishing would be our major concern, and anything that distracted us from that mission would be in our way. Our goal would be to lay our lives down so that others could live. Hmmm!!!

Needing to follow only Jesus,

Jim Corbett

11/21/23 ABC Christianity

Philippians 3:10-11 AMP

¹⁰⁾[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

¹¹⁾That if possible I may attain to the [spiritual and moral] resurrection [that lifts me] out from among the dead [even while in the body].

Paul saw the need to overcome the world he lived in. As a husband and father, you need to have the tools to overcome your world just as he did. The verses above give the formula for doing so.

A - Know Jesus. You need to prioritize your time to really get to know the only One Who spent His life so that you can have real life. To understand the wonders of His person is the most astounding privilege available. Knowing Him, and learning to walk as He walked, will also give you answers for how you are to function in your offices and the hope you need to be able to do what it takes so that you and your family can stand before God having lived lives that brought Him honor and glory.

B - Understand what Jesus did, and how it affects your life. Without a working comprehension of what happened at the cross - how it gave you access to your Father in heaven, established a covenant of love for you, provided a new spiritual life for eternity and a new spiritual world on this earth - you have no hope of navigating the challenges that will come your way. With this understanding, those around you will be able to see hope for their lives, too.

C - Become like Him. Becoming like Jesus is not only a hope; it’s a covenant promise for everyone who has surrendered fully to His Lordship. His life, lived through you, gives you the power to see as He saw and act as He acted. In the midst of a dying world, people don’t need another religious person. They need to see the life of Jesus lived out before them. You can be that life if you choose to do so. It’s a gift for you because you are His. It’s a command to you because you are His.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

11/20/23 Have You Forgotten?

“When was the last time you expressed the joy of your salvation? For that matter, when was the last time you were even thankful that you have been saved from eternal separation from Me? How hardened has your heart become? Are you using your salvation as a license to not care for the well-being of others? Why are you not shouting the joy you’ve been given from the rooftops to others? Why are you not filled with delight every day so that others can see your joy? Have you forgotten the incredible value of the free gift you’ve been given? Sometimes it seems that way to Me!”

Ps. 13:5-6 AMP

5) But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation.

6) I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Ps. 40:16 NIV

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “The LORD be exalted!

Ps. 149:4-5 NIV

4) For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.

5) Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.

Rom. 15:13 AMP

May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing [through the experience of your faith] that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over) with hope.

Phil. 4:12-13 AMP

12) I know how to be abased and live humbly in straitened circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want.

13) I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].

I have experienced some people who call themselves followers of Jesus who are real prune faces with dead hearts. I believe that if the Lord would choose to give them a million dollars, they would complain about some other area that makes them a teeny bit uncomfortable.

How foolish have we become? How far have we fallen? When are we going to remember what this wonder-filled relationship is all about and bubble over to others in our joy?

Teach me to bubble rather than blubber, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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