Tag: 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.

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Jim Corbett

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!!!

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Jim Corbett

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?

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Jim Corbett

The key to the success of your marriage and family is planting pure seed into fertile soil. Seed will not grow in hard, dry ground. It may sprout for a short time, but it will die soon if it isn’t tended.

As a husband and father stepping into your offices, your first step is to break up the hardened, fallow ground before you plant any seed. That is done from your knees. Only by the power of the Holy Spirit and waiting on God to go before you - guiding your heart and directing your steps - will any lasting work be done.

Start today! Observe your wife and children, asking the Lord to let you see them with His eyes. Ask Him to show you their spiritual needs. Ask Him to reveal to you what He desires for their lives. Ask Him also what you need to change.  Partner with Him against anything that denies His Lordship in your family. Wait on Him for His power and timing before you move in any direction. When He reveals something, wait on Him some more until you’re told to move; then move in His love. Step after step, healing after healing, you will find good fruit growing, because good seed was planted in prepared soil. It’s God’s way; isn’t it time to make it your way, too?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett

From The Father Factor by Jim and Merry Corbett

It is vitally important to remember that from this moment on, as you are in the process of rebuilding your marriage and restoring your family, you may be fighting conventional thought, bucking religious traditions; and breaking loose from whatever spiritual bondages hinder you or your family from living world overcoming lives before the Lord. You may need to minimize your relationship with those who cannot see what the Lord has shown you. You may even need to sever some relationships that hinder you or your family from following God in the manner in which He directs. Remember that you are destroying spiritual bondages.

As you focus on restoring your marriage and rescuing your children, you may have to make some definitive choices that may not be understood by those around you. You may need to be very direct at times. One more time, it is critically important that you immerse yourself in prayer, seek wise counsel, and move only after you and your wife are agreed. She is your most important ally once your marriage is restored.

Remember, you are embarking on an eternal work that is inspired and directed by God. Remember also that the steps you are taking are very important to Him. Remind yourself every moment of every day to move only as you are directed in prayer and only in God’s timing and the love of Christ.

Love is the key to every eternal action. Everything that God does for us is motivated by love. Everything we do must have love as its motivation. How important is it for you to get started?

Let’s talk more!

Jim Corbett