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A Life Of Peace
Episode #192
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) This is what I want to say. We’re to live in God’s will as the only agenda. I’ve been finishing the booklet, “Power of Decision”, and it is so… God poured out His Spirit on me about that booklet like I can’t describe. I worked I believe one day, nine hours without a break; and I had to call somebody to fix me breakfast and I ate it while I was still writing. It was so wonderful.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) But what I came to was, there is one focus of life, and that is His will. And I think that the confusion and din, and the right of the enemy to oppress us, is our selfish ambition and envy. That, and not honing, not honing life down to just His will, that’s how Jesus had peace. He was, He… And I went through the scriptures looking for where He described it, to write the booklet. And it was… He lived to please the Father. He wasn’t living to please Himself even.
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm.
(M) So it is… The life of Jesus within us is peace, order, a dignity, humility. His life is all of those things. My life will never be anything but a din. (Martha laughs) And, but when we are honed down to dependence on His life, and the goal of His will, that is the arena of, of internal peace.
(J) Hmmm, hmm. Which is unaffected by any environment, because the will of God for you can be in any environment. It’s wherever His will is for you.
(M) Right.
(J) Wow.
(M) And living in that simplicity… I wrote in the booklet something someone said to me, “Martha you’re so complex”, because she could never anticipate what I was going to answer, or where I was going to be. She, she felt that that was complex. And I said, “No, I’m not complex at all.” I have one agenda, one goal, the Lord honed me down to that years ago, and so, that’s it. I don’t know where He will go next, or what He will call for next, but I don’t have to worry about that because I’m, I’m in His will. And I don’t say that bragging; I say that because He did it. He called me to it, and He poured His love on me enough that I would give Him that. But that’s the way to live in peace. That’s the way to live in order. His will. And then you live His will by His life. Oh, it’s so exciting. No matter, no matter what… And as I look back on these months of such quiet, I really understand, John, that He laid me down to rest, just rest, simple. That was His will. I had a hard time with it. But the only… the times that I could accept it and enjoy it were the times that I understood that it was His will to lay me down in green pastures. I went back to Psalm 23 looking in the commentaries, and sometimes they are funny, because they’re so cerebral, they’re so mental. And it says, “He makes us lie down in green pastures”, and the commentator said, “He doesn’t make us”, and I wanted to say, “Yes He does. (Martha laughs) Yes He does.” And He just puts us there in a place of rest. I didn’t know He can make you lie down if you won’t do it. If you don’t think you need rest, and you don’t think you need quiet and simplicity, He can. And the story is that He breaks the legs of the lambs, and that stray. So… (Martha laughs)
(J) You know I so thank God I didn’t have to ever do that; that would have been horrible.
(M) Hmhmm. Yeah, that’s a real commitment to their safety isn’t it.
(J) Oh, it’s, it’s a contract with, to keep their life going. (John laughs)
(M) And to keep them from the wolves primarily, and as we have, the wild dogs. But I feel like this rest that I’ve been in for months is symbolic of… it’s a rest ‘before the time’. When my husband was on the bench, and it was so exhausting and debilitating, and… oh it was, as he would say, “I have to listen to liars all day.” Ah, someone advised him before a difficult trial, you rest beforehand. You rest in advance, and ah, not after words. After words you can’t really relax, so you have to rest beforehand. And, and I think that’s a spiritual principle that God has… He did it for you in that two years that we’ve talked about. He put you aside to very much rest, enormous spiritual work, internal work of rest. It was a housecleaning almost wasn’t it?
(J) Absolutely.
(M) And as you’ve told before, you put God on trial, and He answered you in those two years of wonderful grace. But my point is, you had a friend, Robin, who said, “John, the Lord has told me for you to accept this rest, because there will come a day when you wish you had some rest.” And that was true wasn’t it?
(J) Hmmm.
(M) We’ve been working very hard since… for years now. So coming to, living in an internal world of Christ’s life, the peace that He gives as a gift. “My peace I give to you, not as the world gives, give I unto you.” It’s the peace that is a gift, but it is the gift of His life. It’s also the gift of forgiveness. It’s living in the Blood. It’s living in the humility of accepting yourself.
(J) Well, and the Blood, that’s the only place that the guilt and the shame and the self-condemnation can’t get you, if you’re resolve is the Blood.
(M) Oh and I read something this morning that greatly impacted me. I don’t remember this ever impacting me. It’s Luke 24:47 in the Amplified. It’s when Christ comes to the disciples before His ascension, and He says, “He opened their minds to understand the scripture that the Messiah must suffer, and on the third day be raised. And that repentance with a view to and as the condition of forgiveness of sins should be preached in His Name to all nations beginning with Jerusalem.” And what that says is, that the condition of forgiveness is repentance. We want forgiveness without assuming the responsibility of the sin. And that is the way to peace, that’s the access to the Blood. And it’s so subtle because if we have any excuse… someone has made a confession of their entire life, complete responsibility, removing all blame, all excuses, all delusions, and just saying, this is my sin. That is repentance, John. And so forgiveness… it’s not that forgiveness isn’t there, but it’s that you can’t access it without the repentance, without the stark responsibility. That is the… And I’ve never seen it stated in the scripture quite like this. “Repentance with a view to, and as the condition of forgiveness of sins.” That’s what He gave, He gave a gift, peace and forgiveness, grace and mercy, but in order to access that gift, you have to meet the condition of receiving it. The peace is the need for a quiet internal… Peace is, the peace comes from our need.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) When you don’t have peace and you understand you’re supposed to, then you can receive it. If you want forgiveness, you can only access it experientially, if you repent. That is the condition. And this is the generation that explains sin as understandable, or believes God excuses because of our suffering or because of our abuse. No, no. God doesn’t excuse sin, He forgives it; and the condition is that responsibility, that Light from the Spirit, of seeing how God views whatever sin it is. Seeing how God views it, and then receiving the forgiveness. So, a light saying, you know, forgive me, without repentance, will not connect, will not bring the peace of the Blood. I think that needed to be said somewhere along in our talking about the Blood. And this is what is to be preached to all nations. And so I just… I said early this morning, “Oh Lord, let me go back to preaching that to the nations.” So here we are. (Martha laughs)
