“Few of you really understand the plans that I have for you. Many of you read My Word in an attempt to pattern yourselves after the heroes of the faith. You examine their lives, dissecting them to find the pieces that you feel comfortable enough to emulate. You will never find proper direction until you realize that difficult times require a hero’s heart. The times in which they lived demanded hard choices and selfless decisions. My warriors were ordinary people just like you, but they were valiant in their approach to the call that I had on their lives. I don’t see that same heart in most of My church today.
“You are on the brink of major changes in your world. You know that the culmination of My plans is fast approaching. You see the times and seasons in which you live. Still, you have not made the heart decision to become a real player in the unfolding drama. You still consider your life, your finances, and your time to be your own. You have this hope that what you are seeing is not really happening. You are preparing for a time when things will return to normal. Your world will never be as it once was. You must finally accept that and plan your life accordingly.
“Stop padding your personal portfolio. Draw a line in the sand of your life, and cross over to My side. Ask Me for a hero’s heart. Require of Me what is needed to equip you to represent Me properly. Pursue the kind of faith that allows you to sell out completely to My plans. The time is fast approaching when you will need to walk free from fear and from the entanglements of selfishness. You will be required to hold nothing as your own. Practice that now. Take on My heart motives as your own.
“Do an about face from your personal plans and begin to walk with My motives for your life. Plan on being My new heroes. Equip others who have begun to move with Me until you can do so yourself. Plan on being a hero to those who will spend eternity with Me because of your representing Jesus to them.”
Hebrews 10:32-36 NIV
32) Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering.
33) Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated.
34) You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions.
35) So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
36) You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV
1) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
2) Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3) Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Being in a ministry that observes the plans of God and encourages others to participate fully in those plans, I have seen many people stop short of the fullness of their calling. It is painful to observe someone on the brink of fully appreciating the reason he was born and the plan for his life; and then watch helplessly as he turns away because the cost is too high. Most people take on a posture of doing many “good” things in an attempt to make up for the emptiness that is in their hearts from knowing what they have done.
At this very moment, the signs are all around us that our world is changing. Who we once were as a great nation is long past. What we are to become is all part of the end-time plan of God.
What amazes me is how few people are really acting as if they have consciously considered the times in which we live. It is almost as if they do not want to acknowledge what is happening. We have become a church with white knuckles from holding on to the treasures that hold our hearts. Most of us will not even attempt to press into the plan for our lives. The price seems to be much too high to go all the way, even when God is calling us to do so.
I am reminded of the horrible scenes in movies taking place during the beginning stages of the Holocaust in Germany. Gallant people, who without knowing it were on their way to the gas chambers, feverishly packed their meager belongings and personal treasures to take with them, hoping to somehow hold on to the things they loved. They had no way of knowing how valueless those things would become in their near future. I can’t begin to understand the fear they must have been going through, so I won’t begin to claim that I would do anything differently.
The point I believe I’m supposed to make is how fast value that is placed on the things of this world can change. What is deemed as most important can become worthless in a matter of moments. Still we, being on the very threshold of possibly the most important time in history, are positioning our hearts for better times coming in the future, hoping that things will soon be back to normal. We are holding on to our treasures, treasures in each of us that Jesus spent His life for, and which are ordained for the work of God in these perilous times. It is as if we are looking and listening to what the Lord is saying, but not seeing and hearing what He is telling us. We do not even consider going to the Lord and asking for a spiritual hero’s heart, a heart like Jesus’, that will guide us properly during the challenges ahead.
Make no mistake. Investments in this world could overnight have little value. Investments in the desires of our Father God, however, will reap untold eternal harvests from the ripe fields around each of us.
Wanting to have the heart of God’s kind of hero,
Jim Corbett