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Abba and Father
Episode #220
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) I looked up that phrase, Abba Father, and Abba is an Aramaic word. It’s a personal name, Abba is Daddy, we could say. And it’s a word, this commentary says, “framed by the lips of infants.” It’s an unreasoning trust. But father is the expression of an intelligent apprehension of the adult. So see, what I got out of it is the infant in me cries, Abba, I have a Father, I have a Daddy. I have a precious, loving, tender, compassionate Daddy, and I live in His love. But as an adult I have to know Him as Father, because what I need as an adult is safety and provision. And if I have safety and provision in the Father, I can have no fear.
(J) I know that David went through that in Psalm 34.
(M) Really?
(J) David was kicking around with Abimelech, pretending he was insane, drooling in his beard, and he basically, the Psalm 34 goes through his process of seeing that He was a Father, that He was a Daddy. He says, “Taste and see the Lord is good. Blessed is the person who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord you holy people who belong to Him. Those who fear Him are never in need.” And basically David was coming out of his original thought of slavery, drooling in his beard, thinking he had to maintain his own protection, which we all go through, but then in the Psalm he comes through and he basically is starting to see Father; and so, my question to you is what is the process of coming to that Abba? What, what has to transpire in the life of a son to have his eyes changed from the fact that they see God as a slave-owner and a taskmaster? What process happens? What? I mean I know that it’s a work of the Spirit, but do you have a process that happens, that, that changes that?
(M) That’s a wonderful question, big, big, big question. And I can say that that process of the Spirit is entirely individual, but it has certain elements in it that are absolutely necessary.
(J) Ok, so what are the elements?
(M) Ok. The surrender to the Spirit, it has to be an absolute, absolute surrender. I think I said that in the last, at some point.
(J) You said it in yesterday’s CD of the month that’s coming out in March.
(M) Right. Ok. God has given absolutely, and He requires and expects and can, absolute surrender, not partial, not selective. If it’s selective you haven’t surrendered. So it has to… There has to be an absolute surrender to the Holy Spirit at some point in your life.
(J) And that’s what I saw with that person; there was a selective choosing of what they would do and what they wouldn’t do, and because they did that they were totally out, totally.
(M) Hmhmm. And someone said to me recently, discovering that, said the Lord told her, “You have made Me what you think I am, and you have not seen what I am.”
(J) Shewwww.
(M) But when you’re led by the Spirit, and that requires, like in, I think it’s Luke 14, you cannot be a disciple unless you will lose or give up all possessions. You cannot own anything. If you’re going to be a slave, you’ve gotta own things to be ok. But if you’re a son, you need to own nothing, because your Father owns everything, and everything He owns is yours. This is what Paul tried to tell the Corinthians, “All things are yours”, “You’re Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”, and all, everything is yours. So you move, when you give up possessions, that is a big huge hurdle in the Spirit. And most people don’t make it through that because it’s the ‘eye’, it’s “the narrow gate”, it’s the “eye of the needle”. It’s going in with nothing, not knowledge, not possessions, not people, not…
(J) The threat of you essence.
(M) Yeah, hmmhmm, the very threat of your essence, very, very good. So you’re going in with nothing, and that is, that is the crux right there, whether you’re going to be willing to follow the Spirit right through that narrow gate, “broad is the way” and many go that way, but the narrow gate is the loss of all things. And it’s the criterian of a disciple. Another thing I’m seeing is if you do not do that you are not a disciple. You’re a nominal believer, a mediocre believer with a fruitless life really, no matter how it looks it’s going to be fruitless. The disciples have the treasures of the Kingdom; the disciples have the have the provision; the disciples have the power. And that comes, that is part of it. You become a disciple as led of the Spirit. The Spirit leads you down the path of whatever it is you’re holding onto, and ah…
(J) You think a lot of the time it’s self-protection? Protecting yourself against a God that, that is what you think He is, is a taskmaster?
(M) Sure. Yeah. And I think it’s being your own God because you don’t think, you don’t want to come under His… You don’t want to, there is no excuse John. He will not accept any excuse.
(J) Right.
(M) Because Roman’s 1:21 says everything has been made clear in creation, so man, you’re without excuse. The very nature of God is this lavish giving in this world. It’s so lavish what He has given, beauty and provision and everything.
(J) Ok, so the first element is absolute surrender.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) And that’s, that’s… do you have another one?
(M) (Martha laughs) Well, absolute surrender to the Spirit on a continual basis, is everything of my part. His part that I allow Him to do by following Him is to take me down this very complex path into the resolution of my earthly father, and the resolution of the people I have made god. The cross comes to kill ‘all my fathers’ I’ll say. You could expand it to our podcast on husbands and, and whatever else. But the Holy Spirit brings you to the cross, then you have another choice of whether to be led by the Spirit, and let that idol be destroyed; give it up! Let go of it. And you’re listening to that audio book, “The Art of Letting Go”, is that the name of it?
(J) Hmhmm, hmhmm.
(M) That’s what you were referring to a while ago, and there again, it is a continual pathway of letting go of what God requires, or what God has taken. Sometimes you don’t let go of what’s gone. But if you continue to let go, and continue to give to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit will lead you into the Fatherhood of God, Who is the One and only.
(J) He’s so patient.
(M) Oh, He’s incredibly (Martha is experiencing deep emotion) patient. To know the Father is an indescribable place to be, because He is so completely perfect and splendid. And I asked for that for a long time.
(J) Well I’ve seen it very evident in your life.
(M) Have you really? (Martha is weeping)
(J) Oh my goodness. It doesn’t matter what you go through, what the circumstance is, He is always Father to you.
(M) He’s always taking care of me in the most perfect, complete, not just complete but overwhelming overabundance.
(J) It may not be how we would want it. It may not be as we direct it, but it certainly is perfect. And I’m amazed at it, because it’s always perfect.
(M) In this place, real… I’m sorry; I interrupted you.
(J) Uhuh…
(M) In this place of being a child of God, you have the security, number one of His love, and you have the security that He’s going to take care of you, and He’s going to provide for you. Recently I saw in the Spirit, I think of the provision of the future as just enough; (Martha laughs) or maybe a little less than enough. And I saw that everything is laid up like you would do for a child. If you send… I sent my children off to college, and into marriage… I mean I provided furniture and everything for them for the future life. How could God be any… And that was just a poor mother, a very inadequate mother. But when my kids went to college, I mean they had everything down to the Kleenex. And when they married, they had everything I could lay hands on to set up, you know, to make their provision. Well, that’s what I saw of God is that the provision for us is unbelievable; we can’t even conceive of what He’s got laid up to take care of us in the future. But when you get to the place of being a son of God, a child of God, and you have come to the place where the Spirit can cry in you, and convince you that you are adopted as a child of God, this great God, then your prayers are answered because you’re not asking, as you said earlier, as a slave. You’re going and saying in exuberance… Oh, I see this. The other day I wanted something and He said, “Don’t ask Me for it, you really don’t want it. Because if you ask Me for it I will give it to you, and then you’ll just have to get rid of it.” (Martha is laughing) It was a funny transaction. Yes, I will give it to you, but you really don’t want it. (Martha laughs) But if you ask it of Me, as my child, I’ll have to give it to you. I can’t imagine such a thing. But I think that, that to please Him, John, is to go through that complex process that I couldn’t have possibly understood where we were going or why. It’s too complex for me; it comes from the exquisite, personal intimate knowledge of God, of each one of us. Why He would care for this ‘speck’ I do not know, but He does, with the most infinite and specific knowledge of what we need.
