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10/18/23 Your Weaknesses

“Do you know that I will use your weaknesses to bring many into My kingdom? That’s right. The offenses that we’ve worked through and completed will be a testimony of My love and keeping power. They will also show the world of My patience, mercy, and grace. You need to never give up. You need to understand that when you have sinned, you need Me the most. When you have need of forgiveness is when I am waiting for you to come to Me to be forgiven. The enemy of your soul will lie to you and tell you that I have closed the door to My presence when you fall. He will say that you have sinned the same sin once too often to be able to come to Me.

"Do not listen to Him. I knew how many times you would sin after you gave your life to Jesus, and I still invited you into My family. I also know the day you will be released completely from that sin that keeps you from being whole. I want to be with you all the time. Come to Me especially when you have sinned. My love will bring you to repentance, so that you can be free. Let’s overcome those things that harm you one by one. I love you.”

Romans 2:4 NIV

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?

I Thess. 5:24 AMP

Faithful is He Who is calling you [to Himself] and utterly trustworthy, and He will also do it [fulfill His call by hallowing and keeping you].

I Pe. 4:8 AMP 

Above all things have intense and unfailing love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins [forgives and disregards the offenses of others].

 

Most of us forget that our understanding of our need for God’s mercy is what separates us from the world. It is our understanding that we have need of a Savior that allows us to open our hearts to Father God’s provision of salvation. That understanding is what brings us to repentance and draws us to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

At the cross, the tabernacle veil was torn in two, signifying that we have full access to a Holy God because of Jesus. Before this incredible gift, only a high priest was allowed into the presence of God. Now, since Jesus died for our sins, we - even when we are filthy from sin - are looked upon through the shed blood, and fully accepted as His loved child. We can go to God because of our need, not after our need is gone.

When I first came to the Lord, I avoided going to God after I sinned. I felt that He would hold my sin against me. I would go to Him only when I could no longer bear to be apart from Him and only after a reasonable time that He might “cool off.”  I didn’t know that He felt the loss of my presence and was waiting to forgive me so that our fellowship could be restored. What an astounding God!

Thank You, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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10/18/23 The Turning Point

In all of our lives, there are decisions, milestones, intersections, and crossroads that determine direction for us and our families. They have either a positive or negative impact on those around us, depending on our spiritual maturity. As men, we are to guide the ones we steward with the wisdom we gain in fellowship with our Father and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The closer we are to the Lord and the more we listen to His counsel, the better our loved ones will fare.

In every life, there are at least two turning points, specific times when our life direction and our priorities change. The first is the decision to make Jesus the Lord over everything in our lives. That decision brings the most important relationship possible to our lives and sets us on a new and wonderful direction with God as our Father, Jesus as our Lord, and the Holy Spirit as our guide.

The second most important turning point is the one in which we determine in our hearts to walk in the kingdom of heaven with God in Christ while on this earth. That decision sets us on a course to overcome all the hazards and challenges the world has to offer. Although we have been made spiritual beings through submission to the Lordship of Christ, most of us walk with one foot in the world, listening and functioning in the atmosphere of flesh and blood, and one foot attempting to follow God. We are spiritual beings in a physical world, attempting to listen to both sides of every issue that arises.

This second turning point - the decision to follow only God, walk as Jesus walked on this earth, and listen only to His Father’s heart - sets us free.  Although we remain in the world, when we choose to function in the kingdom of heaven’s spiritual atmosphere with its limitless power, eternal focus, and perfect direction for this life, nothing can touch us. We become immune to the hazards of this world, and embraced by everything God is and has done through the cross of Christ. We become spiritual beings who are focused on the spiritual world we belong in through the work of Jesus. Which kingdom do you choose?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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10/17/23 More Than You Have

“As you submit to Me, you will understand why I take you to places that require more than you have in your own strength. I take you there so that you will need Me. The one thing that separates you from those who will be separated from Me for eternity is that you understand your need of a Savior and they do not. That understanding allows you to call upon My power. Each time you call, you are confirming your need and your understanding of Lordship. You are humbling yourself. That is wisdom. That is truth.”

 2 Samuel 14:14b NIV 

“But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him.”

Ps. 25:9 AMP

He leads the humble in what is right, and the humble He teaches His way.

James 4:7-10 AMP  

7) So be subject to God. Resist the devil [stand firm against him], and he will flee from you.

8) Come close to God and He will come close to you. [Recognize that you are] sinners, get your soiled hands clean; [realize that you have been disloyal] wavering individuals with divided interests, and purify your hearts [of your spiritual adultery].

9) [As you draw near to God] be deeply penitent and grieve, even weep [over your disloyalty]. Let your laughter be turned to grief and your mirth to dejection and heartfelt shame [for your sins].

10) Humble yourselves [feeling very insignificant] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up and make your lives significant].

 

As the world defies the wisdom of God by inventing ways to never need Him, we are privileged to have expressed our need of His mercy. Personally, I didn’t have enough brains to do it in a logical way. I had to be broken and desperate before I surrendered and admitted my inner bankruptcy. It was the mercy of God that took me there.

Everyone has the same opportunity to respond to God, for it is the same God who is devising ways to bring people to Him. He does not hold one person higher than another. The next time you meet someone who really needs God, it would be good to remember that it is only through God’s power, mercy, and grace that you and I had enough stuff to even respond to His call to us. You are to pray for that person, not come against or consider yourself better than that person.

I need to always remember, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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10/17/23 Are You Doing or Becoming?

Most men are doers! We take pride in our accomplishments because society has trained us to do so. Our dads were taught to do, and passed that mentality on to us just as their dads did.

In Christ, however, the Holy Spirit is teaching us to become like Jesus. Anybody can do. Few can completely change who they are and become something else. That can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit, Who changes our very nature.  He will only do it if we submit to His hand upon us.

Doing for the Lord is easy. All we have to do is serve someone or some cause in our spare time. Most of the church delights in doing for the Lord, thinking that’s where His heart is. Sometimes with great zeal they take on what they feel may be a passion of God’s heart. Their activity may have some merit; but if their zeal gets in the way of their becoming like Jesus, they’re wrong.

Becoming like Jesus takes many quiet times of waiting on God. It takes many times of denying the urge to do something, even something good, to sit in His presence. To find His heart changes you. That’s why the enemy delights in keeping us so busy that we have little time to wait on God and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to our inner being, changing it to look more and more like Jesus. Only the laying down of our urges, the putting to death our flesh, transforms us into His likeness. Waiting quietly before the Lord makes us becomers.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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10/16/23 In It Together

“You need not be afraid of any assignment I give to you. I will equip you; then I will call you. You need to understand, however, that you will need Me to accomplish your task. I plan it that way. As important as anything is that I call you to do, it is more important that We do it together. Any time you attempt to function independently of Me, you will miss the eternal value of what you are to do. Things may look successful, but much has been lost by your pride. Submit to Me for what is needed as My ambassador. Do only what I ask you to do. Seek My heart to find out how to do it. Need Me. I will be there for you. Eternal values will be the result of Our working together.”

Matt.16:19 AMP 

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be whatever is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven.

John 4:34 NIV 

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

John 5:19-20 NIV

19) Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.

20) For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.”

John 14:12 NIV   “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”

 

Jesus and His Father functioned as One. Because they were One in the Spirit, they could flow in unity. That may sound trite, but it is very important.

An eternal job needed to be accomplished. Directed power from heaven was used to accomplish that task through Jesus. There was no separation, no individuality, no hidden agenda of any kind in Jesus. His heart was the same as His Father’s. His motives were the same. The eternal work was accomplished.

Now we are asked to do the same. We are to seek our Father to find His will and then find His way to accomplish anything we are called upon to do. So many of us attempt to do our will our way and then wonder why nothing works.

Teach me Your ways, Lord,

Jim Corbett

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