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Choose Love and Try Letting God BE God
Episode #598
5-20-2018
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Morgan
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #594.
Is there a secret to being an overcomer? What do we unleash when we choose to love God in the midst of turmoil? What does letting God be God look like?
Martha:
I’ve got this one thing that I…it came from Ian Thomas’ ministry. He said it was… In his work with young men, he told the testimony of this young Russian man who was born again and he said, “I told the Lord that I loved Him so much that I would do anything He asked of me. So I yielded and I yielded and I yielded and one day I realized another life was living me.” I love that.
John:
Is some part of the choosing not the choosing just to rest in Him? Is that not just, I mean I see it as it could be the bottom line, that I’m just choosing to rest. Because I can choose to strive, I can choose to work, I can choose to wrestle. But to choose to rest and to lean that’s huge.
Martha:
John, you just sparked a big fire.
John:
Yay!
Martha:
Ok, John, here is the word ‘let’. Did you mean for me to go there? (Laughs.) You had that up your sleeve, didn’t you? It’s letting God do what He likes and letting yourself be where you are. Letting yourself be. Letting yourself be vulnerable, be angry. You describe an anger, Jennifer. Bring that to Him. Bring it all to Him. David did. But it’s letting God be whatever mystery He wants to be without opposing Him. And the most difficult commandment to me, or, it was a commandment of the kingdom values – do not resist what evil men do to you. Do not resist at all. I have a tiny speck of experience with that where only the life of Christ cannot resist evil. We’ve had the most incredible, bizarre assault of evil lately, I’ll say. And God intends us by acquiescence and leaning… Acquiescence is harder than leaning. Leaning happens to you but acquiescence is letting God have it and letting God be whatever He wants to be and letting yourself be whatever you want to be. Letting everything be a hot mess. Let everything be a mysterious dilemma. Just letting it be. Not trying to fix it, not trying to defend yourself, not trying, uh, just let it be. I’m trying to think of, if the Lord will give me an example of this.
Morgan:
So, I’ve realized in my life lately that I’m not as afraid of my own choices as I am of other people’s. And think it’s something about being a mom and fearing for my kids. And, like, you just saying, “Don’t resist what evil men do to you.” To even know that that is in the hands of the Lord, of like, we could be driving on our winding road and some drunk person could hit my car and my kids could die. You know, going to the bottom line, like where my mind goes with my kids sometimes. And I know it’s fear and like we talked about your son flying in Baghdad. I asked her, “How do you do that as a mom?” You know, like, “How do you let that go?” But the choices of evil men, or not even evil, but the, just the everyday choices of other people that we have no control over. Even the choices of our husband that’s leading our family and you’re wondering, “God, is this Your will? Is this…” like the sovereignty of God along with our decisions or our choices and how does that, you know what I’m saying, conceal? Yeah.
Martha:
That dilemma is solved by relationship with Him. It’s solved by His voice and you are constantly being, seeking His face. The face, when David said, “You said, Lord, seek My face so I seek Your face.” It means intimate relationship. I have this on my mind. I really don’t want to share it. It’s so precious I want to be where I can expand it more. But the problem of the Garden was saving self and the problem that has to be resolved in each of us is refusing to save yourself. And when you save your life, you lose it. And when you lose your life, you save it. That’s the paradox, the great mysterious paradox of the Christian life and of Jesus’ calling. So when… It’s not that you let evil prevail. In the relationship you will know when to bind and rebuke. You will know when to confront. We can attest to that. But in, in many situations it’s letting it alone and letting God have it. So really it’s a matter of communication with Him in situations that you have to have His guidance moment-by-moment and issue-by-issue. I was, I can’t think of the situation, but I was all set to get in it and go at it and John said, “Leave it.” Do you remember? You said, “Leave it alone.” And it was resolved, poof, disappeared. Because the temptation… Adam and Eve wanted to be God and be independent of God. The sin of the Garden… It’s taken me years to understand that the sin of the Garden was independence. Then it was rebellion because it went to an act of rebellion. But the issue was independence. And we have to be returned to the state of utter dependence if we’re going to have anything with God and for God. That’s the state you have to come to. And Billy Graham succeeded in understanding that was what God was after and that was the only thing he needed to give Him. So then because of Billy Graham’s acquiescence to God, what he had was this peculiar love for Jesus. He said, “All I want to do is sit and tell Him how much I love Him.” That’s the fruit of the most abject, costly surrender…is a love affair so ecstatic. Billy Graham experienced the ecstasy of the love affair with Christ. It’s obvious to me he did. And the most… It doesn’t mean you don’t thrash and flail and hate and everything else combined with it. It’s, it’s…and I am going to give you the secret of overcoming. I came to a place in all that I’ve been through where… Ok, let me say first the Lord put me in Revelation 1-3 forty years ago. I’ve been in that ever since. And the one desire I’ve prayed for is to be an overcomer, and I failed so much that I can’t see that it’s happening, you know. But recently the Lord said to me, “You have overcome this particular whole lifelong war. You have overcome.” And He said to me, “You have overcome death and your daughter has overcome death.” And then He told me how I overcame, which I did not know. I was doing it not knowing it but I was instinctively… It was happening within me and this mystery going on inside of you that you don’t know and you are doing the right thing and you don’t realize that He’s doing it in you and you don’t even realize you are in the resurrected life. That is intriguing me! “Let the root of Christ go deep within you. Let the word dwell in you that has the power to change your life.”
Ok. Here’s how I overcame. And these people know the story of my life and all the many things that I have lived through that I’ve never told. In every situation my goal, my life verse is “Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy strength, all thy might, and all thy whatever, everything.” And that’s the verse He brought me in on. That’s the verse He accomplished in my life, that’s got to be my foundation is loving Him. It’s the first commandment. You’ve heard these things. So He said, “This is how you did it.” You said, “In this situation, Lord, I will love You even if you slay me.” Job said, “Yet will I slay…will I serve You.” But in this situation I would say, “In this situation I choose to love You.” That’s the choice, Morgan, to love Him. And that’s how Billy Graham ended his life. “All I want to do is sit and tell Him how much I love Him.” I wouldn’t, I doubt I would have two sentences to say. But Billy Graham had enough to say that he could sit with perfect satisfaction and tell the Lord how much he loved Him. And the Lord showed me that was the secret He gave me without my knowing I had the secret of overcoming. I simply prayed, prayed, prayed to be an overcomer. And all I did was in each situation say, “Ok, Lord, I hate this situation. I really don’t like You. But I choose to love You in this situation. Surrendered and living in the middle of this hot mess.” As y’all say. So the, the whole thing… That’s the meaning of the whole thing is to…what do you love? What do you love and who do you love and whose love do you love? That’s the question forever of each person is it’s always an issue of love. You will… What He comes after is what you love. I loved to work and keep a house and I loved to work in my garden. So what had to go? All the order that I am accustomed to living in, all the peace… I had to learn to live without any peace in the surroundings and wrote two books in the middle of it. And everything that He touches He’s touching in some form your idol. We talked about it in the last podcast, the issue of work. So He came through, the wind came through and wiped out that in my life. And to come to say, “I will love You right here and I will follow You, Lamb, right here.” Simply a choice! Not especially of feeling or a love for Him or a loyalty to Him but an instinctive choice was “Ok, I’ll love You here.” He did train me in it, if it matters to this conversation.
Choose Love and Try Letting God BE God – Episode #598 – Shulamite Podcast
Is there a secret to being an overcomer? What do we unleash when we choose to love God in the midst of turmoil? What does letting God be God look like in daily life? These basic questions and challenges of the Christian life must be reckoned with by every believer!
Dear Martha, what He prompted you to say: “What He comes after is what you love. I loved to work and keep a house and I loved to work in my garden. So what had to go? All the order that I am accustomed to living in, all the peace… I had to learn to live without any peace in the surroundings…” this is where He has me right now! He is overwhelming me with my “job” (wife, children, farm, garden, etc) so I will love Him in it and let Him have it all. I smiled when I read what you said, He was talking to me…. Thank you for being His voice to me!
Thank YOU, dear Rachel, for understanding and ‘hearing’ Him. I read Oswald’s Utmost for May 22nd and it is such a clear answer of God’s purpose. The Father is always answering Jesus’ prayer for oneness with the Father, the same as His own oneness. Amazing! It explains the meaning and necessity for our wilderness experiences. Stay tuned, love, we are going to talk about this!