Podcast: Download (7.5MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Podcast (podcast-mp3): Download (6.7MB)
Subscribe: RSS
The Order of the Mind of Christ
Episode #473
December 27, 2015
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #471.
(M) God is knowable and unfathomable. And that paradox, most people who live in the mind don’t want.
(Jennifer) I obviously know very well what it is to want to be in that system and to move in that almost without even thinking; the need to know. But it’s interesting because I’ve been many times, I’ve been through many layers of that particular onion with the Lord. And it occurs to me that one of the last times that we were dealing with it, it was almost as if He was saying, “Is that really where you want to expend your energy, holding on to these facts, renewing these facts so that you have them to regurgitate? Is that where you want to prioritize things?” In other words, did I want to spend my life as a ‘wower’ in dinner conversations and Bible meetings? I don’t know; you know, somebody’s who’s able to throw out the truth. And once upon a time, yes, I very much did because I thought that was a good way to get approval. But what’s interesting is the more He… And I will absolutely say this, the more He frees up my mind, because it is a tangle to stay there. Your mind is not free. It’s bound and it’s limited to what it can take in in a natural way. So, it’s not open to be expanded for the mind of Christ. It can’t be renewed if I stay there. He’s limitless; I’m very limited. But I have an actual, practical thing. I have never considered myself someone who has a very good memory. I can memorize facts and things like that, and when I was younger that was something that I did very well. But I’ve never considered myself just someone who had a very good memory. In fact, that was in the category of details that I wasn’t very good at. And He reminded me a couple months ago that within a couple years of being here, I can recall things easily without even having…. And I couldn’t tell you how I did it; names of people, people who ordered two years ago that I remember randomly. And it has been entirely a function of where He’s called me to be, which is, you know, I talk to people on the phone at Shulamite Ministries, and I’ve had people who call, and they haven’t called in a year and a half, and within a couple seconds I remember who they are, and I remember what we talked about. And I couldn’t, I just saw it as well, that’s, you know, attention to detail. I didn’t realize, “No, that’s Him saying to that person they matter somehow.” Do you know what I mean? That they have been not only acknowledged but remembered, that they have value, that they have worth. And that’s the kind of thing He will do with the mind that is being surrendered to Him, and I wouldn’t even say that I’ve… I don’t know where I am in terms of the surrender. There’s no way I’m done, but that is something that He has done, and it has been for Him and for how He wants to deal with people, and it’s not something that I naturally have; that I can make people comfortable on the phone, yes, that I can recall who they are years after when we’ve only spoken one time. That’s ridiculous. That’s like some sort of a card trick. I’m not capable of that, and yet that’s one of the things that He’s done with me that is not… I can’t point to that and say, “That’s Jennifer,” because it’s absolutely not. So, I don’t, I think when you surrender that system, when you are in the process of surrendering that system, when you give when He says, “Give that to Me,” and you give that to Him. You get back things that you can’t even see, because for the longest time, I didn’t even see where the value of that was. John would say something and it would be like, “Yep, but what possible use does that serve?” I even said that. I said, “What, you know, what? So I can walk around the office, and I can tell you random facts? I mean, what does that even do?” But as He’s revealing to me the revelation of respect and seeing people and our enormous need to be seen and acknowledged as an individual, living, breathing person, that is a way He has done that over the phone with people that you can’t look at, that you can’t, you know, make eye contact with. And yet, He has found a way to make a connection in a rather impersonal medium that’s very personal. And that’s just amazing to me that He… It didn’t even matter to Him that I didn’t know why He was doing it. It was just that He knew.
(J) It’s a tremendous gift that He’s given you, and it’s a gift to us that you can do it. But the reason why I believe you can do it is because of the fact that you’ve taken responsibility, and you’ve stepped into and under the authority of that job. You’ve… That’s why I think you can do it. You’ve taken responsibility and then He’s blessed your authority over that particular area. And that, to me, that would be one of the highest values I had is to be able to see the people that actually call, to know them, to recognize their name, to remember things. That would be, I mean, you know it. That would be one of my highest values, because He sees me. He knows me. And we’re indwelt by Him and His life, and so, I want that communicated, not that you’re going to do a parlor trick and you can remember, you know, Bertha from twenty years ago. But the fact is is that God sees her, and I want you to communicate God’s seeing of that person. And I, you know, I will forget people’s names, but I will remember the situation. And, you know, and when I don’t there’s usually a reason.
(Martha) Well, Jennifer, I have to praise the Lord for that because you can remember what I have done, what I’ve written and what I’ve said better than I can. For me it’s gone. I’m on today… And I have marveled and marveled at that because in the beginning your assignment was to listen to it, to all of it. And in the beginning when you were with us I don’t think that was a lot of fun to put it mildly. But now it’s such joy that you convey. You will get excited if I ask you about something. You’ll say, “Oh, I’ll go look. I believe it’s so and so and such and such.” And frankly, I thought it was your brilliance, til this minute. I didn’t realize it was the Spirit of God keeping track of what He, Himself has written and said. It’s just amazing. Thank you.
(Carole) What you’re talking about now is gone to kind of Body life, and based on what Sparks was saying that it is experiential. The Word of God is to be lived experientially. I know for me when I have had a revelation, and I have brought it to you, I’ve known that you’ve probably known that, but you in all reality, in all, without any guile will say, “Wow,” and that is a, that is Body life. That is, that is encouraging each other to feast…
(Martha) Just one second, Carole. I want to interrupt and tell you, you give me life from your life living. What that Body life is is the transfer of life.
(Carole) Ok, and that’s what it is. But when we share, there’s no resistance. It’s an expansion. Even if it’s something we’ve had some idea about, or experienced to whatever level, it’s new, and it is an encouragement and it is a banquet of Jesus Christ. It is feeding on Him as a Body. And that is such an adventure. There’s no… It’s almost like we then become, we’re on equal level with one another. We’re open and wanting to learn and experience more of our Lord. That’s what it is. To have that love relationship, and I need, I need the Jesus in you and the Jesus in John and the Jesus in Jennifer. And you probably need the Jesus in me. But it is, it becomes a banquet of Jesus Christ, and not of the letter. It becomes a banquet of our God, our Lord, a Person.
(Martha) You call it, I think, sometimes a feast on Jesus. But Sparks goes on to say that it’s not only death, but he says, “Systems of truth have become cruel because they are one sided.” Isn’t that true? It’s cruelty. He says what we need is life. Life is basic, and that we will only grow on the basis of life.
(Jennifer) It’s cruel in it’s onesided-ness.
(Martha) What he means is for instance, if a church focuses on grace, there’s also judgment. So, if you focus on grace, your cruelty is that you’re not holding people accountable. Grace covers everything; ‘You’re fine, you’re fine,” because of grace. Actually it’s letting people go into judgment because you don’t balance that. Truth is always two sided, Jennifer. It’s always got two seeming opposites; it could be the double edged sword, yeah. But if you focus on pre-destination, then you’re not having the opposite, which is free choice. And so, it’s cruel, and ultimately it’s death to the spirit. But it is also cruel. If it lays on you a burden of the law without the balance of grace, that’s cruel. You know that well.
(Jennifer) It’s just like there are some times that there are words that pierce right through it, and there’s a difference between, “Oh, I was wrong,” and “I was cruel.” Do you know what I mean? And that just, that word was incredibly piercing to me, because… And that’s what He does. That’s the Holy Spirit who cuts through the fog of our equivocation, lays it pretty bare, doesn’t He?
(Martha) Well, there’s one more thing. I keep saying one more thing. There is an order. That’s kind of what we’re looking for. We always want something solid. We want an order. We want something we can grasp, but we have to grasp the Person. The order is bigger than we are. There is an order, even in chaos, even in the crisis of our lives. There is an order that will appear. Can you imagine Joseph’s life that he thought was absolutely out of control, unjust, cruel, whatever. But despite that there was a divine order. Everything was working to make him able to rule in Egypt, able to give grace to his family, even able to transcend their cruelty and bring them to reconciliation with God through repentance. So, there is an order there. I think we have to trust that the order is bigger than I can see.
“…we have to grasp the Person. The order is bigger than we are. There is an order, even in chaos, even in the crisis of our lives.”
Once I choose to surrender ALL to Him then through faith I can trust that He is in control. From the beginning His order has surrounded us. So even when to the world life looks chaotic and out of control it is not. It’s all part of the adventure He’s designed for my/our life.
Blessing Him for you all.
Love.
Thanks to all of you for the insights Holy Spirit is revealing to all of you ,they are certainly ministering to my spirit and mind. Grateful for your sharing these beautiful truths that help us on this journey .
I have a picture in my kitchenof some butterflies and a bloom that says: “Where there is love there is life”.
I am in the middle of so many things in my life that I just don’t have a clue how to solve (not that I have not wearied myself out trying and getting nowhere…)
The only thing that I hold on to is that I have a God whom I do not fully know, but Who is alive and good. “Knowable and unfathomable”. Alpha and Omega.
Grace to you all in Christ our Saviour!
WONDERFULL MESSAGE!! Oh, the Grace of God!
Here’s an excerpt from Andrew Murray’s book,” The Spirit of Christ”, page 62. God made man in His image, to become like Himself, capable of holding fellowship with Him in His glory. In Paradise two ways were set before man for attaining to this likeness to God. These were typified by two trees–that of life and that of knowledge. God’s way was the former–through LIFE would come the knowledge and likeness of God; in abiding in God’s will and partaking of God’s LIFE, man would be perfected. In recommending the other, Satan assured man that knowledge was the one thing to be desired to make us like God. When man chose the light of knowledge above the LIFE in obedience, he entered upon the terrible path that leads to death. THE DESIRE TO KNOW BECAME HIS GREATEST TEMPTATION; his whole nature was corrupted, and knowledge was to him more than obedience and more than life. Lord help us!
Yes, yes…. we really don’t know that everything that belongs to one member in the body also belongs to the rest of members in that body. Everything you have of Him is mine, and everything I might have of Him, is also yours.
The Body of Christ is a huge revelation that I am still chewing, probably just the surface of it. May He expand the vision of His Body in the members of that Body.
Love!