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Empty Vessel, Filled
Episode #231
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guests: Julie, Carole Nelson, and Jennifer Wentzel
(Julie) I mean to me, I know I’ve been convicted. I’m convicted when I deal with self-sufficiency. For me there’s such a terrible, terrible judgment of God, like you’re saying, at the core of that, that’s saying ‘You won’t give it, so I have to’.
(J) uhmhmm.
(Julie) and it is such a place of awful bitterness, based on unforgiveness from the past, and how I’ve judged anybody else that’s been in my life, and then project all that onto Him.
(M) Well, ok let’s say this. When you forgive, you empty yourself so you can receive. That’s one of the emptying’s, is forgiving. I don’t know how to express it, somewhere it’s in the scriptures, forgive from you heart, and then God will forgive you. You can receive forgiveness and mercy when you give it. That’s one of the huge emptying’s of your self-rights and self-offenses, is to forgive.
(Julie) And the exciting thing is it’s not just being emptied to receive some thing new, but it’s to receive Someone new.
(J) Hallelujah on that.
(Julie) And you said to me one time, early on with us, and it absolutely changed my life. One day when you said if you’re not going to let me speak and be me, if you’re just going to play all your old tapes and put those words in my mouth, then I don’t exist. I can’t help you. And I didn’t say it real well, but it showed me what I did, that out of all my bitterness and unforgiveness, I just played all my old tapes, and so I was not open. I was so full of all my old tapes, and all my assumptions about people, that I couldn’t receive someone new. I couldn’t meet anyone new. No one could be new, nothing, not just nothing could be new, but no one could be new. And that’s… even on like even in discovering Christ in this, it’s coming to know a Person, like I’ve never known before in Him.
(M) I was thinking about the parable of the sower, which is ever upon my agenda here, that the one who bore fruit was the one who received the seed. And of course the seed is the Word, and the Word is Christ. Everything is Him. I want to say one more thing. And that is, I find the most difficult thing to receive is the Blood of Christ.
(J) There’s such an onslaught against us believing it, and appropriating it, and getting in it, and it’s so all-inclusive and total. It’s unbelievable. It’s beyond our a finite little minds.
(M) That’s it. It’s beyond our minds. And so we have to believe. Your need for forgiveness has to be great enough that you take the Blood. And the Blood sets you free, completely. The work of the Spirit bringing and effecting the Blood if you, as you say, drink it, appropriate it. That is to me, the great stumbling block of so many is the unbelief in the Blood, and that is His… that is the most precious gift of the cross, I guess is the Blood, and then the resurrection is His gift of living in us. But Paul calls it the precious Blood of the Lamb. That’s, we’ve been redeemed. He bought us with the Blood. I don’t think we’ll ever, ever comprehend the Blood. So I gave up trying to a long time ago; I just decided I would believe it. And ah… Ok, let’s go back to fullness. You can only have fullness if you receive. And you can only receive if you are empty. This, Paul’s prayer in Ephesians three is predicated on believing and receiving, or receiving and believing. “May Christ through you faith settle down, dwell in, make His permanent home in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love, (that’s receiving love), and founded securely on love, that you may have the power to be strong and grasp the experience of that love.” Then nineteen says, “That you may come to know practically the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge; that you may be filled through all your being unto all the fullness of God.” That’s God’s… that’s what God wants, the fullness of Christ that we can receive. That’s what He’s calling us to, is fullness. Then to get there we have to be empty.
(Carole) I was just thinking, then that is His motive. (Martha laughs) Right there. And it takes the sting of death away.
(J) Hmm.
(M) I was thinking, I thought of the verse of His fullness; we have all received in grace upon grace. Let me read it in the Amplified. John 1:16 “For out of His fullness, abundance, we have all received, all have a share and we are all supplied with one grace after another in spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift heaped upon gift.” And it’s grace. It’s getting out of the law and going to grace. Jennifer’s been sitting over there weepy and full. I know she’s got fullness, so I’ve asked her to come and share what she’s getting.
(Jennifer) Well, when Carole was talking about the talent, I wrote down, “My Master’s voice is precious.” And then uhmm, when Julie and John and Martha continued on, I added to that, “My Father’s voice is precious, but ah, I kept the “Master’s”, I didn’t cross it out, because for me that’s His role in terms of my fear of Him. He is, He’s Master. But the relationship that’s the Father. (Jennifer is speaking with deep emotion.) But His voice being precious, that went to Psalm 95: 7 through 9 specifically. “For He is our God and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as on that day at Massah in the wilderness, where you fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they had seen what I did.” And ah, I have to keep being reminded by Him that I am a child, that I’m His child, and that I have one responsibility before Him, and that’s my choice; that’s the free-will He gave me. Even if I’m imprisoned and bound, I have a choice of whether to praise Him or curse Him for it. I always have a choice, and that’s just something He’s got me real deeply in, because I’m (Jennifer takes a deep breath) so twisted up on that point. But I have to, I have to fight for His voice. And that’s, a child knows their parents voice, and there is an onslaught I think, at least in my life, in getting low, and in getting empty.
(M) Yes.
(Jennifer) And the onslaught comes and says, you idiot, you can’t hold onto the least thing that He gives you for even a day. You wake up the next day and it’s gone. You’re not in His precious bliss. You’re back confused and saying, what’s going on today? I don’t know. Well you know what? That’s a child. And that’s ok. And that voice can yell all it wants, but I’m responsible for saying no, and I’m responsible for going to Him and saying I’m really sorry, I dropped the ball and I can’t find it. And He’s my Father. And if I will be willing to fight for His voice, He will parent me. And I can just ‘be’, and it’s ok. And uhm, it’s such a block to receiving when I hear the other voice, because I’m letting them define me, and define Him, and I’m believing that lie; and I’m responsible, I’m accountable for it. And I just, this morning I just see it, as that’s really, that’s my warfare, that’s my battle; and it’s daily, and it’s (Jennifer is crying, taking a deep breath) so vital.
(M) Jennifer, when I first started walking with the Lord, I was such a stupid newborn believer. I didn’t know anything. I was child-like. I was really better off. I said to Him “You better silence the voice of the enemy and,” (John prompts in background) was it my voice? “The voice of the enemy and my voice, because what I hear, I’m going to obey.” And He did it. The Shepherd is to take care of the enemy. Yes, every day you have a choice. Thank you for being that real with us. And it’ll help ‘whoever’ out there; it helps me. But I forget that He is, He is the Shepherd. And I said to Him once, I missed Your voice in that. Why did I miss Your voice? Your sheep know Your voice, a stranger’s voice they will not hear. He said, “You wouldn’t be a sheep, you were being self-sufficient, so you didn’t hear Me. If you will stay a sheep, a lamb, that is a child, it’s the same thing as a child. No defenses, no wisdom, completely weak and stupid and fearful. If you remain a sheep, then I can do all of it. But the minute you become your own shepherd, you’re in trouble.” So, I ask Him to silence the voice of the enemy for you, and for all of us here. And He is; that is His role. He is to pull the poison weeds out of the field, He is to keep the wolves away, He is to guard you and make sure the stranger’s not there. And I didn’t even know that that wasn’t really typical to ask. I just, I thought it was what you’d silence the enemy, and silence me, because I’m going to do what I hear. And I’ve told that a… that was forty years ago, and it, it works. It’s again being a child, I can’t deal with the wolves, I can’t deal with the voices, I can’t, I can’t…I have to stay under Him. And I know so well too, Jennifer, that when the onslaught comes, and there’s an onslaught right now, a warfare against me. I don’t know where it’s coming from, and it doesn’t matter, I know who it’s coming from. But the only way I can get free of it is to get low. If I try to withstand it, or change, or get the right thoughts, all of that is, is virtually ineffective. But when I get low and humble enough to say God, I can’t handle this, and I’m nothing, and I have nothing, I have no strength, then it passes over my head. So humility… the enemy cannot touch humility. He cannot, he cannot invade humility. Humility is: I am nothing, I have nothing, and I can do nothing, and I receive it. And I look to You, Lord; I gaze at You. I don’t even ask anything, I just gaze, because You’re everything I need. And I, I’m nothing. When I, when I stop trying then I’m in the humility that makes me immune, because I’m in His arms as the lamb. I don’t know if that helps, but… Humility is such a door, ohhh; humility is the narrow way. So…
