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No Half Redemption
April 5, 2015
Episode #435

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel

(M) But real humility is being forgiven and cleansed apart from yourself. That’s real humility. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but I understand. And I said it in a podcast or somewhere I think. But when I came back from surgery for cancer and we went away for a week; it was planned months in advance. I said to the Lord, “Oh, I’ve got to sit down and absorb that I have had cancer.” And He said, “No, you don’t. You’re not to think of yourself as… Do you have cancer now?” I said, “No, Sir. No.” I kinda got down low. And this is the same thing, Jennifer. We forever want to label ourselves by something that is less than what He has given. So, thank you for bringing that in. I didn’t even think of such a thing. But true humility lies in just being forgiven and being nothing. That’s true humility and being utterly dependent on God. That’s beautiful. But some groveling self, you know, containing yourself by some label, that’s not beautiful. That’s tragic. And I agree with you about how blessed, I mean, I’m thankful. I know members of the family who’ve been through AA, but God’s way is complete cleansing, complete redemption and beyond, making you what you never were. And He conquers everything. There are things in my life I have said my besetting sin was red-headed temper, and I had to confess that and confess that hundreds of times. And one of the reasons I came to what I came to in that scripture was because I needed to know that it was taking effect and that I was; that that temper was leaving me, and that it was, that every time I confessed it, I had the reward of being cleansed. And so eventually, one day I realized, “Oh, my goodness, how long has it been since I had anger? It’s gone.”
(J) I think the good thing about AA is that it does make you own it.
(M) Yes. Responsibility.
(J) It does make you come to the, take the responsibility and the truth and that brings you to the confession part of it. And most, you know, like you, they say when there’s an alcoholic lie when he speaks. Ok. So, but it takes you to the truth. It takes you to the confession part of it. How is that any different than what Carole and I were talking about where we would confess, confess, confess and those sins would linger because we never went to the belief.
(M) And you’re showing me that when you operate in confession and faith, your own labels vanish. They really do. I didn’t realize that until you said it. But we have labels for ourselves. “Oh, you’re so stupid.” “Oh, you always spill things,” or worse. And those labels vanish, because you’re just a cleansed believer. That’s all you are. There’s nothing, there’s nothing more. I don’t think God wants us to have any label but His child of love. That’s my only… That’s your only identity. I’m His child.
(Jennifer) Well, that’s, it’s not Kingdom living. It’s living in the world and applying gospel premises, and there’s no miracle there. There’s no possibility for a miracle. When I say, ok, this is what the Bible says, so now I’m going to apply it to my life, but I’m going to apply it with my old mind. So I’m just seeing there is in the work of belief, it is… you cannot do it apart from the renewing of the mind, surrender of the mind. And there is an audacity, there is an audacity in a life lived forgiven, because there is a joy that the world says you have not earned, you should not have. Why so you not suffer more for the person that you were. Where are the consequences of your wickedness? And the truth is in the Kingdom, God determines our consequences and what they are not. God forgives where He forgives, and He asks no one’s permission to do so. So you could in fact have a heinous murderer who is miraculously saved, who lives in complete grace and the people who look at that life say, “Why should they have joy when they killed?” “I’ve lived a relatively good life. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t have that kind of joy.” And that is a diabolical, insidious… that is the world’s system. That is Satan’s..
(M) You pay.
(Jennifer) Yes. And it is jealousy for anything beyond what you have, for anything that comes seemingly born out of nothing what was earned. Ok? And I used Alcoholics Anonymous because that is the most readily accessible example. But John’s absolutely right. We all apply this in different ways when we’re not in the Kingdom.
(M) Oh, ok. I’m going to give you the example, Jennifer. Paul wrote many wonderful things. He had the special revelation of the indwelling Christ, but he has a message that I don’t know that we’ve heard, and it’s exactly what you said. He was a murderer of Christians, and when you hear him, and when you hear him speak in what he writes, he has nothing but joy, and no, no… He does not identify himself by even the murder. He is the example of the grace of God. His message on that ground alone is phenomenal and the joy that he felt even in prison and what he gave… A murderer of Christians gave us the primary New Testament, interpreted it in a way that the apostles that walked with Jesus didn’t get. That is the size of grace and restoration and redemption. I know that my Redeemer lives and He is complete! The redemption is overwhelmingly complete and we fall short of receiving it. I do, and I want us to receive all the freedom, the liberty of the Spirit of the Sons of God is ours! And it’s just this tiny step, one more step to have it all and to live in complete joy as a child, because a child isn’t conscious of sin that much, and that’s how He wants us to be; a child, not conscious of what we’ve done wrong, and not conscious of what we aren’t, and not labeling ourselves by what we aren’t, but simply a child, who’s loved.
(J) He didn’t live with caveats. He didn’t have a caveat and said, “Oh, yes, I’m now the apostle Paul, but you know, I really was kind of a sleezy, scanky murderer before, and I did kill… He didn’t live with his caveats about who he was.
(M) No, but he didn’t ever leave it. He said, “I am the least of all sinners and by His grace He has let His…
(J) But it wasn’t a caveat though. He didn’t underline everything he was by who he was in the past.
(M) Right. You’re right. He didn’t. He was free.
(Jennifer) But I’m seeing that, I’m seeing as I never have before that level of humility; that that is what it is, that he never, he did not explain away or
(M) Justify?
(Jennifer) Justify, forget. He didn’t try to rewrite his history in any way, nor did he run away from it. He admitted it freely, but he was not owned by it.
(J) There, that’s the word; owned.
(Jennifer) Owned, identified. He did not, he was not connected in that sense. He was not bound by who he was, so he could freely say, “Yes, I did, I killed and I’m forgiven.”
(M) Yeah, umhmm.
(Jennifer) And there’s no earthly explanation for why I should have such grace on me. Oh, well.
(M) You’re right!
(Jennifer) You know? And I’m just seeing that in the sense that I have never known how to reconcile. I think perhaps because what I’ve seen more than not are people who don’t acknowledge any aspect of their human wickedness, former or current. Ok. And I have struggled because that to me was always such an impediment to God; this idea, really? So that there’s just nothing, nothing there. That was one of the things I struggled with before I was saved was, “Is this who Your people are, they don’t, they’re not human, they’re above human?” These sorts of things. So, but that’s Satan’s twisting of the miracle of grace, and that’s a life lived not under the power of the Spirit and not lived in the humility of one who is forgiven and cleansed, and I’m just seeing that Paul was meant to be the example like David. And honestly I think Paul and David both are stumbling blocks…
(M) To the religious.
(Jennifer) To the religious, to the very world system that says, “You could not possibly be a man after God’s own heart when you blatantly went after a woman, put her husband in the front lines. I mean that’s murder by war, you know, not a gun but, you know, battle. And then you took her. So how can you, how could you doing this… And by the way I’m not quoting anybody. That’s me. That was me before I was saved. I said, “Really, Lord, that’s the kind of man you want? You’re ok with that? Well, fantastic.” Because, see, to my way of thinking, how dare You not go after, how dare he not bear consequences, which is ridiculous because he certainly did. David did not have an easy life by anyone’s stretch of the imagination. He did not live in a penthouse and, you know, do what ever he wanted to. In fact, one could argue that he paid royally for… I mean he was in, he was thrown out, he was hounded, he was, you know? This was not an easy life. David knew pain and suffering, but see, from my old woman, she looks at that and says, “Well, not enough,” because he was still called the man after God’s own heart. And that was what stuck in my craw. And it did, but I’m realizing that there is, there is a level here that I have not made that leap; that I have not made that leap of faith and it is a leap. It is a leap to move in and say, “I will believe that I am cleansed,” because there’s no earning it. I can live my entire life as well as I possibly can, and if all it is is applying the gospel under that system, I will never get there. There is no possible way of earning it, and I’m just seeing this huge and rather horrifying, living color… and as you say it’s one half. It’s living one half of the repentance story, and here I would get so worked up over alcoholics anonymous and say, “Lord, but then they live the rest of their lives blah, blah, blah…,” you know, we don’t know our own heart, because that’s what I’ve been doing. No, not everywhere, because again He’s much greater than I am, and there are places where I don’t struggle to believe it. And so there I can live and be free, but then there’s others where I say, “Well there’s just no getting out of that. Be realistic; come on now. There’s no real freeing from this. Perhaps this is the permanent, I don’t know, crippling of your life.”
(M) The Lord, I asked Him once, “Did You bear not just our sin, but did You bear also the punishment we deserve?” And He did. He bore the consequences as well as the sin itself. That is unbelievable. Well, it is believable because He did it, but it’s astonishing that He even bore the punishment. I said in the conference that we’ve heard it said that we stand in the court being accused of what we’ve done, worthy of death, and Jesus steps in and says, “I’ll die in their place.” And I think it’s much more than that. I think He steps in and says, “She didn’t do it. I did it.” He took it that deeply into Himself and solved it, so that that’s how you and I can be holy and pure, though we have never been innocent.

Redemption is Total, There’s No Half Redemption – Episode #435 – Shulamite Podcast

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