Faith | TFRC | The Faith Resource Community

6/17/23 Stewardship

Stewardship begins with submission. Full submission does irreparable damage to the lower kingdoms and advances the kingdom of God immeasurably. As stewards of the Gospel and our families, there’s no better way to live properly than to get out of the way and allow Jesus to live His life through you. Your repentance of your old ways allows the ways of Christ to come forth in your life. The more you submit to His ways, the more trustworthy you become and the more you resemble Him.

Start wherever you can right now. Find out what the Lord is asking you to set aside in your life. Submit to His power to remove it from you. Watch with a spiritual excitement as His power overtakes the strangle hold that sin has had over you. Continue to submit to Him until every residue is gone, no matter how long it takes. Then, when the entanglement is removed, rejoice in the freedom you have through your participation in one more miracle that glorifies the work of Jesus. Rest there until He chooses to focus on your next limitation. Then move with Him against it until you’re free from it. Continue on in this manner until you delight only in His ways and are free from yours.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

6/16/23 Generations

Because our fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers and many past generations of men have not understood their roles in life, we now live in a society of compromised husbands and fathers, who are also ignorant of the impact they have in everyday life. Most men are blissfully unaware that the unrest they see all around them is the direct result of the spiritually weak husbands and fathers in previous generations, as well as those in the present generation.

Marriages are cast aside when the going gets rough, because the value and purpose of marriage has never been taught to both husband and wife. Fatherless men roam the streets, fuming with anger, because they have little knowledge of who they are and who they’re supposed to be. Women reel in confusion because fathers have never taught them their value, nor loved them in the love of Christ. They cannot understand how a man is supposed to function, because their fathers were never taught how to function as a proper husband and father.

Men, it’s time to repent. It’s time to find out what the Lord’s idea of a man is all about. God is calling His men to study the character of Jesus, and then walk in the love and integrity of His life. Society is crying out for men to assume their true position. Marriages are in need of men who will fulfill their God-appointed roles. Sons and daughters need to live in an atmosphere of Christ’s kind of love, so they can see who Father God really is. This will help to break the curse of past family generations, which has produced confused men and women, who are incapable of thriving in a strong, godly, loving family. When we, as men, understand and walk in our roles in the power of the Holy Spirit, our wives and children will be free and encouraged to become all they can be in Christ and show Him to the rest of the world in their everyday lives. Isn’t that what we all want for them?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

6/15/23 Renewed Joy

“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

6/15/23 Not Your War

From the book, Manna Moments, by Jim and Merry Corbett

If you were going to go into battle and your enemy - numbered in the hundreds of thousands - stood before you in full battle array, what would you do? What if, for some unknown reason, you had always thought that on the day of battle you would have to face such overpowering forces all alone? In your mind, from as far back as you could remember, you pictured yourself standing on this vast battlefield with nothing but whatever puny weapons you had in hand. Because the scene was played over and over for so many years, you had long ago given up any hope of victory. You knew that when the time would come, you were as good as defeated. It was simply a matter of going through the formality of losing big-time.

What if, however, when the actual day approached and you’re standing there with the raging enemy before you just as you had pictured it, someone from outside of your frame of reference approached you with a big smile and a hearty handshake. Delighted that he had arrived in time, he told you to turn around and see what they had brought to help you. As you did, you saw a much larger, immensely better-equipped army, ready and poised for battle in your stead. What would you do? Would you turn down the assistance? Would you fight with them, knowing that you personally would probably get hurt or killed? Or would you graciously step aside and let them fight for you?

As obvious as the answer is, most of us have not made the right choice since we have met our Lord. We still take on the adversary, asking for whatever help that might be available, when we’re not even supposed to be in the battle. We have really missed what Jesus has done for us.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

6/14/23 Safe Places

“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

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