Faith | TFRC | The Faith Resource Community

7/03/23 Wanted: Valiant, Honorable Men

In a world of marginal integrity, there’s a great need for valiant, honorable men. As representatives of Jesus Christ, we and our families are supposed to be the example of God’s promise for life, so others can see what is available to them. Our marriages should sparkle with the love of God. Our children should be the guiding light for their peers, who flounder around in the darkness.

The only way we, as husbands and fathers, can create an atmosphere that stimulates that kind of life is if we make time with God our priority. Nothing we have in our own strength or wisdom is capable of living the kind of life our Father desires for us. It can only be instilled in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was a valiant, honorable man. He asks us to be the same and promises to equip us to become like Him if we only ask. Doing so, however, will require us to give up every portion of the world we hold dear. All our personal idols have to be submitted to the cross for their death. We need to be in full submission to His life of obedience to Father God.

Are you ready to give up a mediocre life and exchange it for the adventurous life available in Christ? Do you long to see those you steward glow with the life of Jesus? Do you desire that others look at your marriage and sense that the Lord has placed His presence upon it? Then go for it now! It all starts on your knees.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

7/01/23 Living in Urgent Times

07/01/2023
by Jim Corbett

“I desire that you relate My Word with an urgency in your heart. Become aware of this. I am calling you to move from religious activity and maintain a walk of integrity as you present Jesus to others. Align your life and your words with My Word. Before you will be able to do that, you must align your heart with My heart. That is a logical decision, not an emotional, religious concept. Shake off foolish teachings and traditional habits and open your life to My desires.

"Draw close to Me and realize what I am doing in your midst. You will see that I am calling your generation to pattern yourselves after the life of Jesus, as I have done with every generation before. You, however, can look back through the corridors of time and see that little is to be done before all things are completed. Grasp the importance of that knowledge. Now move as if you were living in urgent times. You are.”

John 5:19 AMP

So Jesus answered them by saying, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, the Son is able to do nothing of Himself (of His own accord); but He is able to do only what He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does is what the Son does in the same way [in His turn].

John 15:5 AMP

I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.

I Cor. 11:1 NIV

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Eph. 5:1 AMP

THEREFORE BE imitators of God [copy Him and follow His example], as well-beloved children [imitate their father].

Being a true Christian is not really very complicated. We are to simply embrace the life of Jesus and go to our Father in heaven and trust Him to make our lives like His.

As simple as that may sound, at first, few of us ever really learn how to do it. We love to read about Jesus and understand the importance of being like Him. Then we make a big mistake. Somewhere down deep within our carnal self, we say, “I can do that,” or at least, “I can look like I’m doing that.” Once that is in our hearts, we cast aside the humility needed to really become like Jesus. We become a religious façade, rather than a humble, teachable tool in the hands of our Father.

Each of us needs to go back to basics with our Father and humble ourselves. We need to admit to the truth and say, “I can’t do that. Only You can do that in me.”

Think of the arrogance of the “I can do that” statement and compare it with the “I do nothing of myself” words of Jesus. He relied completely on His Father for everything, doing nothing of Himself. How can we have the audacity to think that there is something in our flesh that is capable of helping God?

Armed with a working understanding of our desperate need for the Lord to accomplish any good thing in us, we can approach this life of being a Christian with a clear head and an honest heart with God. Having allowed the Lord to demolish the arrogant wall of self sufficiency, we can begin the journey of allowing Him to work other truths in us - by His power, not ours. Along the way we will begin to really know Him, His heart, and the urgency of the times that He wants to impart to us.

Please do it in me, Lord,

Jim Corbett

7/01/23 Deception

From The Father Factor by Jim and Merry Corbett

For many years, I was so dull in my thinking that I gave little consideration to what really pleases God. What did He consider a significant life? Would He consider my life significant when I stood before Him to give an account? These were questions I never thought to ask myself and no one else asked me, as best I can remember.

Sure, there were teachings about Jesus and His desires to only please the Father. I heard many stories about people who lived their lives in complete obedience and stories of the great saints of the past who lived exemplary lives; but the thought that my Father in heaven considered my life and the things I did while living it of great significance and would judge them never crossed my mind. I was saved, I dealt with the sin the Holy Spirit showed me, I desired to please Jesus most of the time; but generally, that’s as far as it went.

I eventually discovered that somehow, sometime, someplace in the past, I was rendered incapable of having – or even desiring to have - taste buds for only those things that Jesus embraced. I was spiritually walking across a busy highway to pet the cute little doggy on the other side, unaware of the impact of the spiritual traffic that had been hidden from me. I was deceived and the “beauty” of my deception, as with any masterfully contrived lie, was the fact that I truly believed that I was walking in truth. That’s what makes it so insidious (having a gradual and cumulative effect.)

As a Christian husband and father I am obligated to shake off any worldly habits and beliefs that hinder me from being all that I can be in Christ. My responsibility to know truth and function in it is paramount if I am going to live a significant life before the Lord and have my family do the same. It’s time to get real!!!

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

6/30/23 Death that Brings Life

“I call all of you, My children, to embrace the cross of Jesus Christ. Then I ask you to take up your cross and follow Me. Most of you misunderstand what I mean. I plant some crosses for those of you in the desert. Others I plant when you are on a high fertile hill. Some crosses are in humble surroundings. Others are in mansions. The cross that you are supposed to embrace is in your place of full surrender over a specific area of your life. It is where the death of your ownership of that area takes place. It is one step on the way to the place of full surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your entire existence.

"No two crosses are the same. All, however, produce a death that brings forth abundant life in you. All produce rich fruit that is fragrant to Me and nourishment to everyone you touch. Find where your particular cross is planted for every specific work I desire to accomplish in you. Most likely it is somewhere near where you are right now. Pick it up and walk the path that Jesus did. Others will need who you will become.”

Proverbs 20:24 AMP

Man’s steps are ordered by the Lord….

Matthew 11:12 NIV

“From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.”

Matthew 16:24-25 AMP

24) Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also].

25) For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for My sake shall find it [life everlasting].

Rev. 3:19 AMP

Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I tell their faults and convict and convince and reprove and chasten [I discipline and instruct them]. So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].

The cross of Jesus Christ is the central point of all eternity. Eternities past looked forward to the cross. All of eternities future will look back to the cross. It will have produced the reigning priests and kings. Without the cross, there is no salvation. Because of the cross of Jesus Christ, eternity continues.

Throughout our lives, the Lord uses the completed work of Calvary, but also provides individual crosses for each of us to carry. Each of them is tailor-made to put to death specific areas of our nature that are not like the nature of Jesus. All of them bring forth His fragrant life after the required death that they produce. Some of them produce the spiritual richness needed for our specific calling in life.

The wise follower of Jesus embraces each work that the Lord desires to accomplish through His initial work on the cross and upon the death sentence to his carnal nature. He takes up his cross. The foolish person fights each work being done in him, resists the cross, and remains a spiritual infant - uninterested and unable to flow in the plans that the Lord has for his life.

Make me willing to embrace what You are doing in me, Lord,

Jim Corbett

6/30/23 Missing Something?

From The Father Factor by Jim and Merry Corbett

Could it be that we, as men, are impotent to even desire the heart of God, much less function in it? Let’s revisit the idea that Satan has a plan to spiritually make all of mankind impotent, so that they have no natural desires to fulfill the plan of God and honor His wishes for their lives. Let’s consider the possibility that he has so completely succeeded at his plan, that society and even the church in general no longer really see their distance from God’s desires as something even remotely out of line.

Does Father God really expect us as believers to make our daily priority the salvation of those who don’t know Jesus? Is He really asking us to care about the welfare of others in the same way that He does, the same way that Jesus does? Has God really entrusted us with His financial prosperity along with the accompanying mindset that it’s not about how much we give back to Him, but how much we are allowed to keep for ourselves? If we study the Word thoroughly, if we find that the Lord really does want us to function in the same way that Jesus functioned, if we call ourselves His followers, then many of the teachings we have been under are laced with deceit and have rendered us impotent to even desire to do things God’s way.

Isn’t it time we as husbands and fathers decide to really do things God’s way, so our marriages are an example of the relationship of Christ and His church? Shouldn’t our children be prepared in a way so they can stand before the Lord one day with a significant life to give Him? What do you say we get on with it as our priority in life?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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