Faith | TFRC | The Faith Resource Community

5/07/22 The Captivity of Activity

Each of us has seasons in our lives, which are designed by God to further our walk with Him or to challenge us to find His power to win the war against our drawing near to Him. One of my more recent seasons was spent on a porch in North Carolina, where I enjoyed the view of a wonderful mountain landscape. For five years, weather permitting, I was able to spend hours and hours with Him. I had been given no purpose but to sit and wait in His presence, find His direction, and then come back to His lap when any assignment was completed. Even though I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, this season was more marvelous than I can express in words.

My season has definitely changed. At present, the demands of my life cause me to fight for moments with the Lord. I know He’s always available, waiting for me to join Him; but now, obligations are pressing in on all sides. There is a continual war raging to keep me from those quiet moments I had learned to cherish. The freedom to be with Him at almost any time I wanted now has to be fought for in the midst of the business of my life. If I don’t recognize the war and engage in the battle to be with Him, I become captive to all the activities that demand my attention. It’s a conscious battle that must be fought moment by moment if I want my life to be really significant in Him.

As husbands and fathers, you have the most important battle of your lives facing you every moment of every day. The demands you face and the choices you make will determine how well you are able to carry out your offices. If you don’t recognize that your priority must be to develop an intimate relationship with Father God and fight desperately for it, your life and the lives of those in your care will be greatly affected. Instead of a vibrant, world-overcoming love relationship with your Lord, you will find yourself and those around you counted among the lukewarm masses, unable to lead others to a significant life, the one bought for you at the cross. You’ll be held captive by your activity, unable to break loose from your bondage or help others to overcome their war. Is that what you want?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

5/06/22 Press in Now

“Press in. Press in to Me for whatever part of the character of Jesus that’s needed in your life. You need to respond to My call during this season. You will need the wisdom I have for you. You will need the faith that you will gain by Our fellowship. I am about to test those who say that they have little need of Me. I am about to break the pride of those who will not serve Me now but are Mine. You press in now. Gain what I have for you. Carry what I give you to those who will be reeling from My hand upon them. My hand will bring them to their knees. My heart will hold them while you show them Jesus. Press in now!”

John 20:21 NIV

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

Rom. 15:1-7 NIV

1) We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.

2) Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

3) For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”

4) For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

5) May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus,

6) so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

7) Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

II Cor. 1:3-4 AMP

3) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement),

4) Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God.

II Cor. 5:20a NIV

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

So often we forget what our real purpose is. We become so involved with the matters of our own lives and the needs of our own hearts that we pass by so many opportunities given to us by the Lord. The world really does take care of its own in its own way. We are called to take care of our Father’s children in His way. His way is the way of Jesus. His way has eternal value, not temporal fixes.

Send me with Your heart, Lord,

Jim Corbett

5/06/22 Do You Really Need God?

OK. Your job is going quite well. Your marriage is as good as any of your friends’ marriages. Your children may not be serving the Lord with all their hearts; but they’re basically honorable, and anyway there’s plenty of time for that to change. In fact, things could be classified as satisfactory. You really don’t need to seek the Lord with all your heart, do you?

Whether you know it or not, you’ve become a blind guide for those around you. You’ve forgotten what your relationship with Jesus is all about. You’ve bought the lie that it’s all about you and how well things are going in your puny world. You have become the center of your relationship with the Lord and are teaching others to do the same by your actions.

Being a child of God and a steward of other people carries with it grave responsibilities - life and death responsibilities. Christianity 101 is being so sold out to Jesus that others see Him in you. Never in the Word is there any hint that your relationship has anything to do with your comfort or complacency other than when God calls those areas sin. You and I are called to be the light of Christ to the world.

I don’t know about you, but I desperately need God and His mercy and power to be anything like Jesus. I believe that’s the bottom line for every one of us. The things that happen in our lives have little to do with whether or not we are to pursue a first love relationship with the Lord every moment of every day, and urge others to do the same with our every action and breath. If we persist in pursuing the Lord, our lives will be significant assets for His use.

When people see who we are when we act like Jesus, they will see who they are supposed to be. What happens after that is of little consequence to our mission of knowing God and being where He desires us to be. As we walk as Christ walked because we have been with Him, everything else will fall in place. We really need God every moment of our lives to get to that place and stay there, no matter what others do.

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

5/05/22 Look Beyond the Fear

“Fear is a tactic used by the enemy to nullify your effectiveness. When you fear, you make improper decisions and rash judgments. You tend to look at your circumstances and then attempt to change them on your own. Usually that brings you to a place that is not My perfect place for you. When you are driven anywhere by fear, much time is required to bring you back to a place of real safety in Me.

"I ask you, My children, to determine in your heart to stand in the freedom that you have found in Me. Do not be moved by those things that challenge your physical security. Be moved by the things that allow you to remain free, no matter what is transpiring around you. That is your real place of safety.”

Luke 10:19 KJV

“Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

2 Cor. 10:5 AMP

[Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One),

Gal.5:1 NIV

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

During my early years with the Lord, one of the subdivisions near my home blocked off two streets during the Halloween season. About sixty houses on those two streets went all out in decorating their homes with the most macabre scenes I have ever seen. Most were animated in some way, and sometimes people would hide behind bushes and jump out when you passed by. You could only walk down the streets, which added to the fright of the night. There was an astounding darkness that encompassed the times that the displays were up, and thousands upon thousands of people came with their children.

(To combat the darkness, we set up a brightly lit, human demonstration of the recording, “The Champion,” by Carman. In the midst of all of the horror, every five minutes or so, the words “Jesus is the Champion” rang out throughout the night. Many people came to the Lord. The Halloween celebrants of the subdivision didn’t like us at all, but that’s another story)

During one of the evenings, a man - having just walked through one of the dark roads with his screaming four or five-year-old child on his shoulders - dropped the child hard to the ground and proceeded to scold him. The child was frightened beyond normal fear. He was shaking uncontrollably. Then the dad jerked the child away after repeated tongue lashings and nasty remarks, mainly focused on what a wimp he considered his son. He kept asking, “Why are you always so afraid?”

Fear is a very real weapon, which Satan will continually employ to try to nullify us. He uses it to capture his people. He also tries to inundate God’s children by using fear to get us to react to whatever is making us afraid, instead of relying on God. The most important action anyone can take when fearful is to draw close to God. He calls us to become familiar with His presence, to practice it during times of peace, so that we are comfortable being there when things get rough.

God is the source of our peace. He knows that when we are in His presence - sitting on His lap, and viewing our challenges from His lofty perspective, high above the din - we are where we have been born to be. From there He whispers His love to our heart, drowning out any clatter of fear.

Throwing down the junk and tucking in with my Father,

Jim Corbett

5/05/22 Distractions

Nations rising and falling, threats of economies crashing, terrorist threats world-wide, reprobate thinking abounding, Christian persecution being given a more prominent platform, and many more disruptions fend for their place in our minds on a daily basis. Any thinking believer can see that the world is changing at a rapid pace. Formulas that used to flourish during normal, much easier times no longer work. Procedures and plans that brought relative safety only a few years ago will not help our families survive if things progress in the direction they seem to be heading.

As prominent as all these disruptions are in our world, they’re really nothing more than distractions from the real war at hand. In the Word, it says that we are to look past those things that are temporal and on to the eternal. We are to look past what we see and on to what God is doing. All these issues that invade our lives distract us from keeping God’s plan and our real purpose in life from being in the forefront of our thinking. They take up our time by having us worry about them and plan on how to remain safe from them.

The plans of God, the falling away of the church, nations reeling in terror, wars, and rumors of wars are all foretold in the Bible. They will not be avoided. We, as believers, are to prepare spiritually when we see these times and seasons on the radar. We, as husbands and fathers, are to become all that we can be in Christ not only for His glory, but for those we steward. We are to show others the path to safety in Christ by looking past the distractions all around us and on to the real life we have been given because of the cross. We are called to overcome this dying world in the same way Jesus did. What are you looking at and how are you responding to it?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

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