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Living the Spirit Life
15 February 2014
Episode #376
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) I gotta bee in my bonnet today. And ah, so I want everybody to talk about it. And it’s going to be about the bad ole ‘self’; won’t that be fun? (She laughs.) Ok. Well I’m on the self, I read something by Sparks, and I’ll give you where it is. Uhm, Sparks and I do terrible titles to our, not that I put myself in his category, but I don’t do good titles, and he doesn’t do good titles. This one is called, “The Essential Newness Of The New Creation”. (She laughs.) “The Essential Newness Of The New Creation”, that’s what this is.
(J) There’s a New York Best seller.
(M) A New York Best seller, ok. But I got into “The Essential Newness Of The New Creation”, and this is what he says. Ok, I’m going to give you the scripture to prove it in a minute. “The furnace of affliction is the application of the cross to the getting rid of you and me, in order to leave the whole place for Christ. It is the measure of Christ that God is after, not to cut in between the good and bad in us,” that’s what we think, God will bring the cross to kill the bad, but the good is good. No, He’s going to cut in between what is Christ and what is ourselves. This is what the Lord is doing, He’s after increasing Christ, and in order to do that He has to displace ‘self’, the old creation. The realm of God is not going to be refined-self, reformed-self, or any kind of patching up of self; it’s going to be none of self, and all of Christ. That’s what the cross is. Anyway, ok, “So the measure of God’s standard is none of self and all of Christ. The new creation is that of all things of God, and the activity of the Lord in our lives is to get rid of us in the old creation and to bring us to the new creation which is Christ.” Ok. “God’s entire concern, by the Holy Spirit”, that’s big, He has an entire concern by the Holy Spirit “is to put Christ in, and to enlarge Christ until there’s nothing but Christ.” So he says, “What is ministry? Ministry is simply the measure of Christ that is being passed on.” What he means is, if you have Christ, you’re living in, out of, and for Christ, you’re going to actually reproduce Christ in others, that’s what fruit is, amazing. So you come to know when you’re being ministered Christ, and when you’re not; you come to know that. I remember, I’m not through reading this but I’ll just tell about Iverna hompkins, I believe that was her name. I went to a meeting where she was speaking, many years ago. And the worship was terrible; even I as a novice knew that something was bad, wrong with the worship. It wasn’t moving my spirit, it wasn’t taking me to God; it was just kind of rankling in your ear. And I remember Iverna sat there very quietly, and I remember thinking, why doesn’t she see how bad this worship is, there’s no Spirit in it. So she gets up to speak, and in the most brilliant way, where you couldn’t, if you didn’t want to get it you would miss it. In the most brilliant way she explained the difference between spirit worship and soul worshipping. She got it completely, but in great discretion and kindness she gave the explanation that you can’t worship God with your soul, it’s abhorrent to Him, that you have to come into the Spirit, that He seeks worshipper’s in Spirit. So anyway. She got it, very, very skillfully. “What makes you a minister?” This is Sparks again. “It is just the measure of Christ. Just in so far as Christ fills you, dominates you, governs you”, and I’ll add my own thing, owns you, “just in that measure you’re a minister of Christ.” So sometimes you’ll hear things that you know something’s wrong. If you could identify it you would say there’s no life in that message, there’s no movement of the Spirit in me from that message. And ah, and so much, John has this great objection don’t you, about music that’s in the soul. Would you like to talk about it?
(J) Well I’ll just, I actually just am writing a blog, it’ll go up on, ah, Tuesday, it’s called “Agnus Dei”, and it’s particularly about this. And God shoring me up on the issue, and ah, what He showed me. You know I basically thought that ‘canned’ worship didn’t have the Spirit, that when the Spirit was moving on something and it being live, that that’s when it had… Not that it was in the studio or not being in the studio, just that it didn’t have any heart. And God shored me up and basically said, “You know something, it’s where I’m moving, it doesn’t matter what it is, it’s where I’m moving.” And so I wrote a blog about that at GetAlongWithGod, and I’m real excited about it. I’m wanting to see how it’s going to affect the worship at the conference and ah, how people will respond to it. Because if you put a value of, and if you put your trust and your value and your hope in the fact that it’s going to be something palatable, or it’s going to be something that people are going to like, or whatever, uhmm, ultimately the, the end result of that is death, because it’s only what He puts His Spirit on that has life. Literally, so this goes right back to what you were saying, it’s literally the ministry of the Spirit is the gage and the governor of the Spirit Life. The Spirit has to do it or it’s nothing. So I’m excited to see what the Spirit will do with His worship. And I literally said in the, in the post, you know if He chooses to bring silence, then that will have to be good enough for all of us. Because you know, if the Spirit impregnates the very air and silence with God’s presence, why would you trade that for some sing-songy, soul-whirling song? It’s repugnant, and it’s disgusting. It’s where He wants to be. And so I used the example of, you know, a four year old singing, “Jesus Loves Me”, or Jeff Buckley singing “Alleluia”. You know, you have two totally different things, you have someone who’s a very skilled artist, who is not a Christian, and you have a four-year-old girl who possible could be, you know or whatever. So it’s just where the Spirit’s choosing to move. And I’m amazed at that.
(M) Well, I want to read a scripture. Hebrews 4, it’s talking about the rest. “Let us fear lest we fail to enter the rest.” And then, always in scripture if it gives you a challenge, it’ll give you the way, right after it. And I have puzzled over this for years. “Let us therefore be zealous to enter the rest, for the Word of God is alive and active, it is sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing asunder even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joint and marrow, laying bare the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Ok, let me read it, “The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword”, that’s pretty sharp, “piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” How do you enter the rest? You hear the living Word. Now it says in verse 10, the Amplified, “He how has entered God’s rest has ceased from the weariness and pain of human labors.” This is real important, “Just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own, let us be zealous.” Then it says, “The Word that God speaks”, and that’s accurate, it’s the Word God speaks. When the scripture comes alive to you that is God speaking. “Full of power, making it active, operative, energizing, effecting; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing of the soul and spirit, joints and marrow.” You know that your life proceeds out of your marrow? The marrow of your bone is where your white blood cells are created, and the red blood cells too. So your marrow is really the core of your health, and it stands for the source of how you live, whether soul or spirit. So anyway… Most of… I’m going to say, boldly, that most of those considered Christian, music, teaching, preaching, expounding, is soul. And when God divides your soul and spirit you will be able to know soul when you see it and hear it. But if you’re going to get… It’s lose your life and save it. What are you laughing at John?
(J) I’m just laughing at, that’s just; you just, (he’s laughing) cut the legs out from underneath most Christian ministry and worship, absolutely, huh. And it really is true. And the spiritual man can judge what is Spirit and what it not.
(M) Good.
(J) And also can judge God’s response.
(M) Umhmm.
(J) Because it may not be what you think it is.
(M) Brilliant, thank you, I hadn’t thought of that, but one of my favorite passages is, I think it’s 2 Cor.2, (John laughs in background) I’m determined to be in second Corinthians, “But the natural man does not receive the things of God, they are foolishness to him.” In fact it goes on to say, “The natural man,” that is the soul man, “opposes God,” sometimes in the guise of serving Him.
Oh how true.I’ve experienced this a few years ago and I was very grieved in the Holy Spirit. All I want is to know Jesus , in companionship and fellowship. When you fall in love with the Bridegroom and are filled with love and worship for Him, and then hear or see flesh in the “name of Jesus” – it is truly repugnant, as that 4 year old would say – YUCKY !!!!!
Well we love you all, don’t think we’ll make it to the conference,like our Bro.Bruce funds are a little tight this time. But we are all still in the Family – Praise the Lord.
Love you all much, Cindy
Thank you for putting out this little voice, out of the wilderness into the world. No Martha, I guess you were not too bold. SOUL impregnates most of the christian music/worship world out there. It is like a race to “win” the soul, to “attract” the soul. There are a lot ministries out there reaching out for souls with soulish power. The result is so easy to predict. After a while, souls starve. Like an “starvation concentration camp.” I have been there.
I was meditating on this podcast a little bit. I then just saw it not so hard to see/recognize/know when the Spirit rules. The Spirit, IF you follow Him, IF you want HIM, IF your heart’s desire is for Him, just takes on His shoulders your soul, its practices, its schems, its power, its planning, its sayings and its own thing. The Spirit is such a New and Wonderful thing that it overides and overrules soul power… while loving and embrazing it. He doesn’t crunch my soul. He leads YOUR SOUL…. IF you want to follow.
When the edge of the knife comes to your life to CUT and DIVIDE you, and YOU WANT HIM, then you will discover the Spirit and see the difference between Spirit and Soul. The Spirit of Christ cannot be “reproduced” or “copied”. He is just another thing altogether… and THAT’s Who we look for so desperately.
Again, thank you people for your little voice coming FROM the wilderness. Bless you in the name of the One God and Father, Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, so true! I too came to “hate canned worship” to the point of thinking something might be wrong with me… But i couldn’t swallow it any more!
And yet God is so ‘Greater Than…’ that He will use for Himself even my soulish offerings – as though they weren’t! HA!
But once you have tasted of the Spirit, nothing soulish will ever satisfy…