“Do you know that every time I call you to account for who you are not, it is an act of deep, deep love on My part? Do you also know that My bringing you to this awareness means that I am holding you very close at the time and want only the best for you? It’s true. I have promised in My covenant with you that I would form you into the image of My Son, Jesus. One of the reasons that I must do so is so that you and I can have an optimum relationship. I desire that and it is most worthwhile for you.
"However, you need to remember this. Do not take on the changes that I require of you in your own strength. If you do, we would be back to the time of the law, back into the old covenant. It would again be impossible for you to fulfill My call to holiness and it would cause you to cry out in your failure. When I show you something that is in need of correction, I never mean for you to do the correcting. All I desire for you to do is acknowledge that the correction is needed. I then cover every need with what was done on the cross for you and My Word in you.
"I do the correcting deep within your inner being. Jesus really made it that simple and that wonderful for you. You acknowledge your need to change, and I will gladly take on the process of changing you until you are complete. If you ever pass the point of conviction for your sins and head toward condemnation, you have really missed the power of the work He did for you on the cross. You have slipped back into a system of works and religious activity. In that place there is only bondage. Satan then has free reign to keep you powerless to overcome anything.
"If you finally realize, however, that I must continue to show you the way to holiness, and then also realize that I promise to accomplish it in you when you repent; you will gleefully embrace My correction for what it is - an act of love. Throw down your own strength now. I am not asking you to become stronger. I am asking you to acknowledge your weakness and your inability to change. That allows Me to be your strength. When you do this, it allows Me to be your Father God, your Friend, and your Protector.”
Prov. 3:12 AMP
For whom the Lord loves He corrects, even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.
Rom. 8:1-2 NIV
1) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
2) because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
Phil. 2:12-13 AMP
12) Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out (cultivate, carry out to the goal, and fully complete) your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling (self-distrust, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ).
13) [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.
Have you ever seen a prize fighter who has already lost the fight and simply staggers around the ring on rubber legs, accepting blow after blow until the referee has to stop the fight? It would have been wise of him to have fallen down thirty punches ago in order to save some of the few brain cells he had left. Actually, wisdom would be to have never gotten into the ring in the first place. That is the whole point in God’s giving His Son for us.
I have encountered so many people in the church who never attempt to go deep with the Lord because of the seemingly impossible task of achieving death to their flesh. Whenever they hear the Lord telling them to go deeper, that request, along with all the other challenges that they are facing, is more than they can bear, so they become discouraged or give up completely.
Few understand that all the combined challenges and trials are being used to bring each of us to the end of ourselves. The Lord wants us to finally admit our inability to accomplish anything spiritual in our own strength. Like the punch-drunk fighter in the paragraph above, we take blow after blow while attempting to remain strong enough to take the next hit. Why is it that we can’t understand that the Lord is asking us to stop fighting, and rest in His ability to fight the fight?
Needing to take my gloves off one more time,
Jim Corbett
