Tag: Faith

“Have you ever carried the weight of other people’s sins? Have you ever labored for them so intensely that you thought you would break under pressure? Have you ever longed that they get right with Me for their good, for My reasons? Did the loss of their fellowship make you mourn and desire to do something, anything, to restore it? Was the feeling of emptiness so intense that you were consumed with finding ways to bring yourself together with them once again?

 "If you see broken relationships with Me and with each other - which are caused by sin - as the horror that they really are, you are beginning to understand relationships as I see them and the reasons for which I have established them. When someone sins against you, your heart should break, not necessarily for the offense, but for the broken relationships - the relationship with Me and with you. You must intercede that the relationships be restored, that he or she makes things right, for his or her good and for My glory.

"If you have sinned against another brother or sister, you must drop everything and run to repentance. I will not allow you to rest until that is done. If you have hardened your heart and do not crave restoration, I will begin My process of breaking your rebellion until you do. You will eventually wonder why your praise is empty, your eyes are dry, your prayers are cold, and your life is out of order. Nothing you do will satisfy you until you move in the direction of healing. It is because your inner being knows that something is out of order. It is My doing so that you desire restoration.

"Don’t think that I do not notice violated relationships; they are key to My will going forth on your land. They are important to Me. I would not allow the broken relationship with My creation to remain; why would I not require the same from you? If you see that things are out of order in someone’s life, pray for that person. If you have been offended, take the steps necessary to reestablish communion. If you have offended, don’t rest until the offense is gone. I will wait.”

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.”

Matthew 5:23-24 NIV 

23) “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,

24) leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

Galatians 4:19 NIV   My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.

 

Christ being formed in someone is far more than the initial salvation process. It is a continual working out of forsaking our old nature and walking in His new nature, which we received upon establishing a relationship with Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18 AMP) Paul labored hard for that. Christ died for that.

Our interaction with fellow believers is a command of God. He said that we should not forsake the fellowshipping with others. We take that lightly, but God sees the pressure of refinement through those relationships as very important for our growth.

True fellowship requires something from everyone - tolerance, compassion, time, forgiveness, and continual monitoring. It is not easy; so many interactions fall by the wayside. What is usually never noticed is the broken heart of God when they perish.

Relationships and friendships are no accident. God brings people together for His reasons. He requires us to maintain them for His good and for our growth.

It is easy to throw someone away because of an offense. Children who do not know any better do that all the time. It requires maturity to pursue through offenses and go the distance to restoration. Most people are not willing to pay the price and therefore never really grow to God’s kind of maturity.

I firmly believe that most of us in the church are not trusted to function in many of the gifts of the Spirit because we cannot be trusted with the relationships that God brings our way. Few of us are willing to humble ourselves enough to do what it takes to love others as Jesus loved us. Most of us get off the cross when the going gets tough. We are grateful for the persistence of Jesus, but not humble enough to honor His heart.

Change my heart, Lord,

Jim Corbett

“Some of My people have tired of the way that I do things. They have become hardened to the crucified life and have decided to live most of their lives for themselves rather than for others. That means that they have stopped living only for Me. They have redefined My true Gospel. In their folly, they no longer take correction from their peers. They have become thin-skinned one to another.

"Everyone feels that they hear from Me. Few are really hearing what I am saying. They make up their own gospel that allows them to remain deceived about their cold love for Me. Soon they will harden their hearts to even the strongest Word when I call to them. They will tire of all correction and seek only comforting words, words that make them useless to My desire that none should perish. That is a very great falling away.

"I weep as I see even some of My most loyal children succumbing to weariness and dullness of hearing, rather than turning and running into My presence. Soon they will feel that they have need of nothing and deserve everything. They will feel that they are fine in their form of religion. All passion for My ways will be gone. It is a very dangerous place to be.

"This day I ask you to check your heart. How far are you living from the way that Jesus lived? Any path that leads away from that standard is a path away from Me. Turn from it now before you become poor, blind, and naked!”

Jeremiah 2:13 NIV

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Jeremiah 9:6-7 AMP

6) Your habitation is in the midst of deceit [oppression upon oppression and deceit upon deceit]; through deceit they refuse to know and understand Me, says the Lord.

7) Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will melt them [by the process of affliction to remove the dross] and test them, for how else should I deal with the daughter of My people?

Jeremiah 15:19 AMP

Therefore thus says the Lord [to Jeremiah]: If you return [and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair], then I will give you again a settled place of quiet and safety, and you will be My minister; and if you separate the precious from the vile [cleansing your own heart from unworthy and unwarranted suspicions concerning God’s faithfulness], you shall be My mouthpiece...

Rev. 3:15-18 NIV 

15) “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!

16) So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

17) You say, ’I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.

18)  I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”

 

If we are on a path to destruction, we tire of hearing correction. It is a matter of heart. A full hardening of our hearts does not mean that we visibly turn from God; it means we stop heeding His warnings. We even feel little need to repent of the differences between our lives and the life of Jesus.

Take this day’s message. If you do not go to God with fear and trembling to have Him search your heart, if you feel that you could never succumb to a falling away, if you feel that the message is for others and not for you, you are on dangerous ground.

Soft hearts toward God heed every opportunity to check themselves for any hint of offense against God. They check their lives against the plumb line of God’s Word and Jesus’ heart. To not do so continually, at every opportunity, is the path to needing nothing - first from others who care and eventually even from God. That’s a really big oops!

Soften my heart, Lord,

Jim Corbett

“The holy life of Jesus that has been designed for you in My presence and bought for you at Calvary is not for the faint of heart. It is not for the self-serving, the materialistic, or the controlling. If you truly want to live out the life that has been planned for you, it will cost you everything. It cost Jesus everything to win it for you; now it’s your turn.

"I want all of you. I will take all of you, if you will respond to Me with all of your heart. Submit to My Word. Submit to My ways. Submit to My heart. Submit to My hand of training. I will reproduce the character of Christ in you, so that I can touch others through you.

"You must come to Me completely willing to do My will, whatever the cost to you, just as Jesus did. I will then take who you are and who you are not and eliminate them, replacing them with who you are designed to be. The death of your old ways will bring forth His ways, which are My ways, by the power of My Holy Spirit.”

Ezekiel 36:26-27 NIV 

26) “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

27) And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

John 1:10-14 NIV 

10) He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

11) He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

12) Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God -

13) children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14) The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 3:30 AMP 

He must increase, but I must decrease. [He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.]

John 6:57 AMP 

Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV 

…because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

 

The pursuit of Jesus usually begins for our good and pleasure. He meets our needs, brings us to salvation, and makes us feel good every time we go to Him. That’s good for us. There comes a time, however, that we understand the Father’s plan more clearly.

He shows us that this relationship is not only about us and our needs. He brings us to an increasing level of maturity. As we begin to understand His character better, we understand and move with His heart more often. As this action, response, action, response relationship continues, we gain more of His heart, and love more and more as He loves. We also begin to identify with His heart so closely that it becomes our heart.

The closer we get, we actually fall in love with His ways and move from admiration of Him to a love for Him. Getting to know Him and His ways leads to increasing love for Him, because we are changed more and more from being in His presence. Once we know Him, we act in a way that pleases Him because of the love for Him that has been placed in our hearts.

Destroy everything that is of me, Lord,

Jim Corbett