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Pleasing the Spirit
July 27, 2014
Episode #399
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Aaron
(Martha) Well, we’re looking at Roman’s 8. Ok, “Jesus died so that,” verse 4, “the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. We do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who are,” or should be live, “for the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” And I think Jennifer said then that means we’re either in life or death that every moment according to what we set our mind on. And it’s kind of desperate in me that we learn to set our mind on the Spirit. And the Amplified calls it, “being controlled by the Spirit.” It uses, and this is what I have prayed a lot. Well, it’s, “those who are living the life of the flesh cannot please or satisfy God or be acceptable to Him.” That comes in verse five. “Those who are according to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit set their minds and seek those things which gratify or pleasing the Spirit. Ok. Those who are according to the Spirit, meaning surrendered to the Spirit and are controlled by the desires of the Spirit, they are the ones who can set their minds on the things which gratify the Spirit. Did I make sense? There’s a way, what you have to do before you can set your mind on the Spirit. Those who are surrendered to the Spirit, then are controlled by the Spirit, and then they seek those things which gratify the Spirit. Aaron was making a point of waiting, which I think is crucial.
(Aaron) I was just seeing that word ‘set.’ Martha, you had to say it again. What was that place called? The councils of the Most High. In Daniel, it says in Daniel 10:12, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humble yourself before God, your words were heard.” And what I didn’t see earlier when we were talking about that, cause I wasn’t living it; I was just talking, was that He waited. And that waiting was a death to natural senses to enter a bigger reality. And I was thinking, I was so struck by what Jim was talking about with the boat, and how Peter waited to be invited. And how, I was telling John, it’s like the issue… He stepped out. And the issue wasn’t the water, per se; it’s that he looked inside himself to walk on it. He took his eyes off Jesus. He said Peter can’t walk on the water. It was his mind. And it’s not that it wasn’t real. Men naturally are bound by law of gravity that they step in water and they drown. It’s a law. For the man of the flesh, that’s the result. But Christ is a greater reality, and somewhere there’s the surrender of all expectations of the old man to wait, because flesh can’t do it by law, and so there’s a death and a waiting to go into a bigger reality; the law of the Spirit. Then in the Spirit, in the new man the water is irrelevant because Christ said, “Come.” But the old man can’t walk on water. So why make him walk on water? It’s not even an invitation to him. It’s only to the new man in the Spirit.
(J) Well, what it makes me think of is who said it with you that addiction is just strictly the failure to wait, the unwillingness? So I’m amazed at how you were saying that really addiction, all addictions is just literally the failure to wait. It’s just the refusal.
(Martha) I would have said a year ago that it was the unwillingness to wait, but I say now it’s the inability to wait. When you’re in the flesh, you cannot wait. You cannot possibly wait. And this week I had some crisis. I can’t remember at the moment what it was, but I was pretty desperate with the Lord, and He said Isaiah 40 is your answer, “Those that wait on the Lord shall mount up on wings as eagles. They shall run and not stumble; they will walk and not faint.” And that’s, there is a discipline of the will and the mind that has to take place before we are able to bear the mind of the Spirit, I think. That’s what I’m on. I want to know how you can set your mind on the Spirit and live controlled by the Spirit. I want a practical answer to that question that can teach people how to get in the Spirit and stay there. And I don’t know that it can be taught. But there is… And I’ll tell you what it really is. I’ll tell you from the scripture, and I’ll tell you from personal experience. It’s Romans 7. When you get sick of self, when you get frustrated and desperate with self and the stumbling and stupidity and constant failure of self, when you can’t take it anymore, when you are at the end of your patience with yourself and it’s continuous demands and selfishness and centrality and stupidity and going, leaping on ahead; when you get sick of that, then you cry out, “Who will set me free from this body of death?” And the Holy Spirit will come in and say, “The Law of the Spirit life in Christ Jesus has set you free.” But until you get tired of flesh and its stench and its obnoxious nature, even to you; until it’s obnoxious to you, you will not need the Spirit badly enough to cry out and say, “Dear, God, deliver me from my self.” And then He’ll put you under the law of the Spirit. We cannot live lawless. We either live under the law of self and flesh, submit to the laws of flesh, which is me, me, my, my, mine, or we submit to the law of the Spirit. But the word law is what we drop a lot of times about the Spirit. We drop that word, and that word means absolute standard that we come under. The Spirit has a law that is higher than the Old Testament ever was. And I love your phrase, Aaron, ‘another reality,’ because even in his carnal state, Peter transcended the laws of nature, and that’s what the new creation is intended to do. It is intended to transcend our humanity and take us into His, as you say, ‘another reality.’ And that other reality is possible in the Spirit, but it is not possible in the flesh. And we have a choice constantly, daily, if not second by second, whether to listen to the flesh or listen to the Spirit. And I want to know how, but I don’t think you can come into the law of the Spirit or the dictates and control of the Spirit until you’re sick to death of self. And that’s what Paul went through as a born-again believer. That’s not contrasting the being saved and not being saved. It’s not that at all. He was sick of that self, sick enough to demand of God a solution. “Who will deliver me…?” Does that speak to anybody? I’m desperate. I’m not sure you can teach it, but I think you can teach the experience that brings you to the surrender to the Spirit.
I hear your cry, Martha … and feel your desperation …
causing the soil of me to be troweled, dug up, turned over …
exposed …
and I am grateful …
Jesus los siga Bendiciendo amados hnos. Por mi vivencia y experiencia por muchos años, es que Todo viene de Dios, Él lo Da, inclusive el esperar en Él. Bendiciones desde Pto. Vallarta. Mex. <
TRANSLATION:
“May Jesus keep on blessing you, beloved brothers. Out of my living and experience for many years, everything comes from God. He gives it, even waiting on Him. Blessings from Pto. Vallarta, Mexico.”
My desperate plea is to be helped to set my mind on things above – Colossians 3:2. I somehow feel that it will let me love better – being kinder to those not in the Spirit. I so long to walk in the Truth of our Father’s kindness as it is portrayed in Luke 6:35 – I just bless Him for that and cannot stop adoring Him for that.
The “unfruitful” waiting that honours God. Have you seen the “Lord’s prayer” as waiting? That prayer is the wish of a child that waits. To pray is to wait for the Father to DO and BE.
Love you people.