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Eternal Works
Episode #245
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson
(M) I told John yesterday, we’re in the middle of doing podcasts on the issue of work; work in the Lord. And they’re just conversational, but in the middle of that I had done a tape of the month teaching called “Work Of Faith, Labor Of Love”. And those two phrases just so impacted me from 1Thessalonians chapter one, and where Paul was commending the Thessalonians for their work of faith and labor of love. So, anyway, I did a CD of the month on it, and will do a second of the series, possibly a third, on the whole issue of practical work; and had such good response from it and such enthusiasm. And I was, the morning I did it I was so excited about it, and then I realized we hadn’t even mentioned that in connection to the podcast.
(J) Right, hmhmm.
(M) And the reason I got there was because after doing that taping for the tape, I had two utterly wretched days working. And I thought, did I make all that up? (Martha laughs.)
(J) Hm, umhmm.
(M) And the Lord had given me insights so rich, all the way back to Genesis, about the meaning of work. And the end of the second day I realized it was horrific warfare. And as soon as I saw it as that it was gone. But Jennifer’s been sharing her insights about the joy of work in the Lord, and I think it’s really… That was a signal to me that it’s very needed, that the Lord needs it, and we need it, and we need it. We need our work to be eternal.
(J) Right.
(M) And we need our work to be of Him and from Him and through Him, or it counts for nothing and it’s totally frustrating. But anyway, I wanted to go back and just say there’s more about it on the tape of the month.
(J) I remember that revelation when the Lord told me about, that even say, cleaning the toilets can be something that’s eternal, and that it sounds profane, you know, to say something like that, but that really, literaly anything that He does in this earth, anything that He does is eternal. And if He does the miniscule tasks, then they’re eternal. There’s something gained and everlasting about the work that’s done. And you know, He did all that work, you know, the first thirty years of His life. He made things, but because it was Him, it was eternal. It was eternal. So now, when He does something in us it has an eternal principle and an eternal power, and an eternal longevity. And so it doesn’t matter what it is. And I’ve never understood it. I know the revelation of it, and I’d love you to explain it, but, (John laughs) if you have it, because I understand the revelation of it, and I understand the principle behind it, but I don’t understand how it can be. I can’t understand how cleaning the toilet or washing the dishes ‘in Him’, when He does it through my body, that that can be an eternal act that lasts forever. So can I put you on the, on the spot, and ask you how that, how that is? And how that really… Because I mean you, you meet with Him at the kitchen sink. Ok. Now I can understand the interaction between the two of us at the kitchen sink can be eternal, but how can the dishes be eternal? How can something so temporal be eternal?
(M) I could say it simply, and then I can explain a little bit, what little I know; that it’s Christ, period. And the other thing is that the wonder, the amazing thing of allowing Christ to perform a task within the human body increases His Kingdom in some mysterious way. That’s all; that’s what I know. The other part of it is that you are rewarded. There is a reward waiting for you, and that’s going to be in the next tape of the month. There is a reward for you when you let Him do that work. When you let Him in to such a minute, mundane task, and I’m going to be talking much about that in the second tape; I can’t wait. You are building a reward because you let Him live, so to speak, and when He lives there is a dynamic beyond the performance of the task. Who knows? Ok. Who knows? We know from taking a look at quantum physics that matter is influenceable. What if your kitchen sink was influenced impacted by the presence of Christ so that the person that comes in your house senses Him because of that act. Suppose it’s in the air, His presence. Things are changed physically, how shall I say, in matter things are changed when He is there. But your reward will be there for letting Him do that. I can see you’re thinking; what’re you thinking?
(J) It’s all the addition and multiplication, that anything that is Christ, anything that is from the Kingdom, is continual multiplication and addition.
(M) And it’s life.
(J) Right.
(M) So that life remains in you and at the kitchen sink and in that house and in that place. Life has come in, and death is not doing the dishes. We don’t understand, we don’t understand life and death. And I hadn’t thought of this in terms of work, but we don’t understand that all the old man can produce has its ultimate end in death. And whatever Christ… It goes on and on, that death goes on and on.
(J) We have such a linear mind, and we can’t see in a grand scheme, that we see the bigger picture. And I’m sure we’re not supposed to. I mean, you know, if we needed to see it, He would show it to us. But it’s exciting to me that He can do the miniscule tasks, and that it can have a multiplicative purpose. And I think that that’s really, that it goes on and on and on, and though it’s temporal in my life, and though those dishes are going to get dirty again, I’m going to pull them out and put more food on them, or the toilet’s going to need to be cleaned next week. Somehow it’s out-reaching, it’s going beyond…
(M) It’s going into the atmosphere. But I tell you what else it is, John. It is… I was trying to explain this to Julie about gardening, or we were discovering it, that the humility of Jesus is the most phenomenal character quality in the universe. And we don’t know His humility, because we look, we like to look at His power and His love and His niceness. But His humility is shocking because it is so foreign to humanity. And when you let Him in to that humble place, you have been touched by Him in His humility, and you can see Him. When you take that yoke of His life, and His, the work of your assignment, you know Him and He is meek and lowly hearted. And so to know His humility in that small task is a rare, unheard of almost, aspect of Jesus, that He is willing to come in your life and my life and do that, that mundane thing. So it’s His humility to me that is the revelation.
(J) Well the amazing thing is, is when you’re in the garden I can see it more easily.
(M) Ahh.
(J) Because you’re literally taking the life in the seed that was birthed in the original garden.
(M) In the word, yeah.
(J) And He, you are now taking that same seed, and you are placing it into the ground to make more seed. I can see that real easy. And it’s almost like you’re making a time continuum of, from eternity past to the current and beyond, by planting seed in the ground and allowing that fruit to continue, and to continue, and to continue. And it’s got that multiplication going on, and that addition going on, and there’s like a union almost between creation when you’re planting and when you’re growing things. And so I can see that. But the toilet, the thankless toilet, and the thankless dishes, you know, but I do understand what you’re saying now, and I think that that’s amazing.
(Jennifer) The idea of the seed going back that far just…
(M) And that is so phenominal…
(Jennifer) It’s kind of mind-blowing. But who’s to say that toilets and dishes aren’t the fallowing of ‘us’.
(J) Hmm.
(Jennifer) Because we’re seed that’s going on, and those things are necessary to us living.
(J) Because you’re not going to do this life without those miniscule things, it just doesn’t happen. We’re supposed to do that. You know?
(Jennifer) They’re part and parcel of the planting of us.
(J) So maybe the…
(Jennifer) I prefer to think of the toilet in an ethereal way like that. (Jennifer laughs.) It does.
(J) Hmhmm, it could be, absolutely. How do I know that the impartation and the, the deposit eternally isn’t in me, just to do it.
(Carole) Well that just provoked a thought. Everybody wants their lives to be eternal. Everybody wants their work to have been eternal. I do. And when we started talking about that, I was sitting in that chair where Martha is and I go, God is there anything I have done that is eternal? And I listened to the podcast and the CD of the month, and I said, yeah, there is, because He’s done it.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Carole) And I can look back and see things. If I could ‘let’, and say ‘yes’ to Him to do everything, then my reward is knowing that my work is eternal. That is a huge…
(Jennifer) Joy.
(Carole) Joy and reward, to know that your work is eternal forever and ever; that when you go to the grave all that doesn’t just die and it was for nothing. That’s just uhmm…
(J) But I’m the eternal thing, you know, I’m the thing that’s going to be eternal and go on forever and ever, and, and, that’s… I think that’s amazing that He may be literally, you know, laying seed in me and in my heart and in my being for eternity. That’s… Wow. You mentioned the CD of the month, and you mentioned that next month you’re going to bring a continuation of this one. And I don’t know if everybody knows that we do have a CD of the month, that there’s a message every single month that you do that’s brand new, and it’s a fresh current word. And it’s really awesome because it’s, it’s kind of like Body-life. It’s where, it’s the word that’s going on amongst us at that current moment, and what’s impacting each of us, and what each of us are working out in our lives. And so there’s life behind it. And you bring the word and every single month it’s coming out. And you can subscribe to that at the website and get that. Or, actually you can order individual, something just really, something that really catches your eye and in the description that you really say oh-my-gosh, that’s a message that I need, that’s something that’s going on in my life currently. You can actually order individual CD’s. It’s actually more expensive to do it that way, but you can do it that way. And so, the one that you’re doing, coming up, is going to be directly connected to the one that just came out, all about work. And that’s all tied into the podcasts that we’ve just been doing for the last, actually it’s going to be four weeks. This week we have we have the one with Jennifer called “The Practical Work”, and then the following week there’s another one. And so, and it’s not like it’s being rehashed and regurgitated, the same word, it’s a developing of that word. It’s, it’s…
(M) It’s new.
(J) Yeah, it’s new. And so what you hear in the podcast actually is just emphasized and gone into further in the CD of the month, and back and forth, you know. If you’re hearing the CD of the month it just gives you more insight into that subject.
