Podcast: Download (2.0MB)
Subscribe: RSS
The Fully Engaged Heart (Part 1)
Episode #188
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
With special guest Carole Nelson
(M) This morning Carole shared some things with me on the phone, and I got so excited I said, “You’ve got the podcast”. So come here, get with us, and you’ve got to tell it. It was a wonderful insight and really, revelation of the Spirit. Then she’s got a connection from the last conference, so, ok, she’s got two things. And then if there’s room I’ll tell about one. Carole, tell it to everybody.
(Carole) Well, I was out in the garden and the yard yesterday, and watering, and had my Bose ear phones on, listening to music. And in the course of listening to music I began to think about Peter, for whatever reason, that’s what the Lord brought to mind. And I was thinking about Peter’s response to Jesus saying that He was going to the cross. And Peter just boldly and spontaneously said, I will follow you, and I will lay down my life for you. I’ve always thought, you know, the Lord did such a work in Peter, in spite of the fact that he, you know, he kind-a let his mouth get ahead of him and out of control. And the Lord stopped me and, and I felt like the Spirit said, oh, no, no, no, no, it is ‘because’ Peter was who he was, a man fully engaged in his heart, filled with passion for Jesus, just unrestrained passion for Jesus. A passion that when he sees Jesus after the crucifixion for the first time, and realizes it’s Him on the shore, he takes off his clothes. I think that’s what it says. And he dives into the water, and he swims to Him. That’s the kind of passion that Peter had. And I was thinking about that, and I was thinking mostly about how the Lord uses words like ‘therefore’, and ‘if’, ‘then’, and the word He was using here was ‘because’. Because Peter was who he was in total spontaneity and passion, the Lord could do what He wanted to do. And I started to think about what had Jesus said. And this is what He said in Luke 22, starting with verse 31. He said, “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has asked excessively that all of you be given up to him out of the power and keeping of God, that he may sift all of you like grain. But I have prayed especially for you Peter, that your own faith may not fail; and when you yourself have turned, strengthen and establish you brother.” And Jesus didn’t say I going to pray that Satan doesn’t sift you; He didn’t say that. He said that I’m going to pray that when you come through the sifting your faith may not fail, and then you will turn and strengthen your brother. And I pondered on that, and pondered on that. And I realized that the sifting is what needs to take place. And Peter could be sifted because he was passionate about His Savior, passionate about His Lord; that was the reason, it was because of that, not in spite of…NOT in spite of. The sin that Jesus saw, or the failure that Jesus saw in Peter, was not an issue. It wasn’t an issue to Him; it was nothing. Because Jesus had already solved that, He was going to the cross, He was shedding the Blood, the Blood was going to cover the whole thing. He was not concerned about the sin and the failure. He was concerned about preparing His man for Himself, for the Kingdom. And I was just… For me, I was overwhelmed at that because I personally look at my sin and see it as ‘the’ hindrance to the Lord. And that’s not my hindrance. My hindrance is that I don’t let my heart go fully to Him, abandon myself with no reserve, unrestrained passion! Right or wrong, right or wrong, Jesus isn’t, isn’t troubled by my wrong. It’s not an issue. He’s troubled by my lukewarm-ness. That’s what He’s troubled by. And then I started thinking this morning, either before or after I talked to Martha. It may have been after because it just… I didn’t consider this a particularly great revelation, I just was… I did get excited about it at one point, and He said go in the house and write this down, because you will forget it. So I went in the house and wrote down “Because”. That was the big word, ‘because’, Peter was who he was, not in spite of, because Peter was who he was I could do what I chose to do, and prepare him as My Bride. So then I started thinking about… Because we’ve, as our little group we’ve been kind of on and off Job from time to time, He took my mind to Job. And it wasn’t until later when I looked at the scripture about Peter being sifted, that the cross-reference was Job. I didn’t see that until later. The Lord had already taken me in my mind, in my heart, to Job. And I began to contemplate that, and I thought, you know what? Job was a righteous man in God’s eyes. And like Peter, Satan came and asked to sift him, to sift somebody, and God pointed Job out. Why did He point Job out? I’ve always wondered about that. He condemned his friends who said he was full of sin and that had to be the reason that he went through all the suffering, but, but that wasn’t it. And then I thought this morning, ok, I don’t know if this is the reason, but it is, I believe in my heart, a big aspect of the reason that Job suffered. He was fully engaged, and he was full of passion for his God. Right or wrong, his ‘grapplings’ with God were fierce and violent, and a wrestling match. But because he was fully engaged, and God saw his passion, I believe that, I believe that God wanted to reveal Himself to that man, that man who had passion; to enlarge his passion, to let him see and know the ah, the True God, Who He was in all of His aspects. And then the Lord took me to Psalm 91, and He said, “Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him. I will set him on high, because he knows and understands My Name, has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love and kindness, trusts and relies on Me, knowing I will never forsake him, no, no never. He shall call upon Me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.” ‘Because’ he has set his love upon Me. And so Peter was sifted; he was sifted by Satan, the ‘tool’ in the hand of God. God used His very enemy to prepare Peter and Job, and you and me for the Bride of Jesus Christ. Then, I guess lastly, or in the process of all this, because I’d been listening to music… And He took me back to “The Battle Hymn Of The Republic” which at the last conference was really the beginning and the end as far as the praise and worship went; it started the conference, and then it ended the conference. And as I was reading through the words again, one of the verses which is a verse that is… At least I have never heard it recorded, even in the version that I love so much done by the United States Army Band, it’s just, its just wonderful. But that verse is not in the presentation of that song. I think that is very interesting, and probably very telling. And the verse goes like this. “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat, He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat; O be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on.” And I saw that what… in that song, that what Jesus wants is not just an army of men and women marching and proclaiming, and praising, and worshipping. He wants a sifted army, an army that has been tried by His Holy Spirit, has been, who has passionately allowed the Lord to come in and expose the sin, come in and expose the division between flesh and spirit, and prepare us as His Bride for that day.
(M) Well, after you told me that Carole… (Martha speaks with deep emotion.) I’m sorry; your anointing has just so blessed me. I went back to look at the hymn and the lyrics again in the original. That’s in the original writing of Julia Ward Howe, is that her name? But what it’s about, it was written during the civil war. What it’s about is the coming of the Lord. And that is the battle. She saw… She got this word for word from heaven, in the middle of the night. And she saw that the battle was not on that field that she had visited. She visited the camp.
(Carole) Hmhmm.
(M) The battle was for the coming of the Lord. And so it’s like you have tied the last conference to this conference because… and perhaps it’s the same theme, I don’t know, because the battle is against us being prepared for the coming of the Lord. That’s the essence of the battle. It’s to defeat us so that His intricate preparation is not made.
