Podcast: Download (13.8MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Father, Not Taskmaster
Episode #218
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) Last week we did, still, a podcast about fear, and that perfect love casts out fear. And this morning the Lord has taken me to, really, the ultimate freedom from fear. But I want to demonstrate something first, ok?
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I’ve got some questions that I want you to answer as though you’re the typical Christian. And ah…
(J) Oh, I’ll answer them as if I am the typical Christian, ok. (Martha laughs) I’ll, ok.
(M) Ok. The first one is; if I were to ask believers this question, what would many answer. What is the purpose of being filled with the Spirit?
(J) This feels like a, ah, a path full of traps. (John laughs)
(M) No, not if you answer it’s what you know of Christianity out there. Typical Christianity. It’s not a trap for you.
(J) Ahhmm…
(M) What would you think the average believer thinks about the purpose for being filled with the Spirit.
(J) Ah, the purpose of being filled with the Spirit is to serve the Lord.
(M) Ok. Another answer would be, to be filled with the gifts of the Spirit.
(J) So that I can serve Him most effectively.
(M) Ok. Next question. What is the real purpose of answered prayer?
(J) (John and Martha laugh) So I can be happy! (He laughs)
(M) Correct wrong answer. (Martha laughs) Ok.
(J) Or so I can get my will done.
(M) Or so you can get your needs met.
(J) Or I can get my needs met, because… yeah.
(M) Mostly we think it’s to get my wishes and my needs.
(J) Because that’s clearly what answered prayer is, hmhmm.
(M) (Martha laughs) Ok, let’s answer the first question.
(J) Was there three?
(M) Ah, well one was ah, what is the purpose of abiding in Christ?
(J) So I can serve Him. (John laughs) And you know I’v ‘phhhhhht’ done all that, right?
(M) Yeah, I do know that, I’m just putting you in the hot seat for all of our wrong ideas. Ok.
(J) Which I have had. I mean I have lived those ideas.
(M) How do you think I know the questions? (Martha laughs)
(J) Yeah, I mean I’ve gone at my Christianity with the whole corporate thought, and the whole thing that you have to climb up the ladder, and, and do the whole corporate thing. And you have to, ah, unfortunately you have to, ah, smooch enough babies and kiss enough rears so that you can ah… Really, I mean that’s, that’s, that’s the point. You have to click your way up, because the further you go in that, the more pleasing you are to the Lord, and that’s your purpose, is to be pleasing. So you have to work you way into that, and you have to ah, you know…. Really, I, I did that, and then at the end of that I said this is pointless because You’re still not happy with me, and I’m just exhausted. And then, you know, there’s other avenue’s that I chose as well, you know? (Martha: Hmhmm.) Ok, well then I’ll charismatic worship You, and do that pleasure and… Which was a farce as well, because I was completely focused on me, and my needs.
(M) There you go. We are human focused; in all the spiritual matters we are focused on humanity, humanities needs. Oh, I forgot one question. What is the purpose for Jesus coming to the world?
(J) To save me from my sins.
(M) Right, wrong answer. (John and Martha laugh) You’re getting good at the right wrong answers. Ok, the reason Jesus came to the world was to go to the cross so that He could reveal the Father. The answer to why you’d be filled with the Spirit? Because “Those who are led of the Spirit are the sons of God.” And by being the son of God you come into all His provision as Father. See John, I’m, ok, what is the answer for answer prayer? Ok, it’s in John 15, and frankly, I’ve been in this chapter for a couple years now. And it’s so; it’s permeating me so that I’m beginning to see. It’s not a question of memorizing it, being able to say it, it’s that it’s getting in me. The purpose for answered prayer is in seven and eight. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you”, providing you abide in Him. “My Father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” The purpose of the fruit is to glorify the Father. The purpose for answered prayer is to glorify the Father. It is not for human needs to be met, as the first product of prayer.
(J) Well you know something? I, I feel like this is the thought behind that. God has everything; God needs nothing; so obviously we’re going to be focusing on ‘my needs’ in this prayer.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) You see?
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) I mean, You have everything; You’re completely sufficient in Yourself, I’m not, so I have to get my needs met through You, and from You.
(M) Right.
(J) So this is what I’m going to do.
(M) So that’s what prayer is.
(J) Prayer is basically human focus, because He has everything, why does He need anything from me.
(M) Ok. And here’s the transformation, that when you go as a son, you go to bring glory to the Father, because you have everything. As a son you have everything, you don’t have to ask. You might ask, but I mean you really… If you perceive of yourself as a son of God, you have all that He has. You live in a different place than as a suppliant. Is that the right word? Coming to get something. You go to the Father, ostensibly, to please Him. As you said, you had that basic thing way back in your life, to please Him. And you knew when you didn’t. But to please Him, is coming as a son to receive.
(J) It reminds me of what Jethro said to Moses. You know what Jethro said to Moses?
(M) No.
(J) In the movie Moses, with Ben Kingsley, you know the, ah, Bible collection from TNT. I’m going to paraphrase here, but ah, he was basically saying why are you trading a slave-owner on earth for a slave-owner in heaven. It’s a paraphrase.
(M) Ok, what did he mean?
(J) He basically was saying that uhmm, ok, so you’ve left Egypt, you’ve left the slave-owner and you’re no longer a slave. But now we have to get the ‘slave’ out of you, because you’re trading the slave-owner on earth for a slave-owner in heaven. And so you’re still functioning like God is a slave-owner. And that’s the difference, where you go from slave-owner on earth, to slave-owner in heaven; but then you have to go beyond that and you have to say, ok, let’s go to sonship, where I’m no longer a slave, I’m full. I am chosen, I am, I am complete, I am total, I am whole, and ah, I mean, you know, Jethro knew that.
(M) Well, but I see it, John. Moses saw himself as a slave for the people of Israel.
(J) Absolutely.
(M) He saw himself as a slave to them, and it was unbearable.
(J) And they saw themselves as slaves to God.
(M) Oh, wow.
(J) Because see, they had the mentality of ‘slave’, they had the thought of ‘slave’, they were focused on ‘slave’, and being a ‘slave’, and so of course when they went out of Egypt and they went into the wilderness they still saw a slave-owner. They still saw a taskmaster, so basically you’ve traded a taskmaster on earth for a taskmaster in heaven. Go further, and he was basically saying that to him because he was exhausting himself with all the judgments.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) And Jethro was saying, really? He’s going to put it all on you; and He’s going to wear you out; He’s going to make you exhausted. No. You need to have elders, you need to have people who do the minor little, day-to-day judgments; you do the major ones.
(M) Oh, that speaks so much of us, because we come to God that way, to serve Him as the slave, and not… And that means in limitation and poverty.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Ah, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that.
(J) It’s so, it’s so obvious that we do that in how we relate to Him, and how we relate to one another, we are in competition. Why? Because it’s a slave-mentality; we’re competing with the other one because if you don’t compete for that ‘scrap’ of food, you’re not going to eat; and so, you know, God’s saying no, no, no, no, you’re full. We have to get that whole point.
(M) You belong. And that is to be a son is the security.
(J) It’s in Exodus eighteen. And it’s basically when Jethro comes and finds out all that the Lord had done to extract, basically, the people of Israel from Egypt; and found out how he’d done, and he was rejoicing and he delighted in it, and then he said He has saved you from the Egyptians and from Pharaoh, and He has rescued Israel from the power of Egypt. I know the Lord is greater than all other gods because His people have escaped the proud and cruel Egyptians. And then the next day he comes and he basically says… The people were complaining, and they were going at Moses saying, you know, decide this, decide this, be the judge. And they were lining up from morning till evening to have their cases heard, and his father said, you know, what are you doing? It’s not good. And basically, that was the whole point behind that, is that the people had to come out slave-mentality. And I mean God worked that out of them, and some of them wouldn’t leave it, and some of them had to die in the wilderness because of it. And so that, just for me, I hear that, and I look at that, and I say, ok, the working of sonship in is a process, a long process of extracting wilderness, death, trial… fighting. And it’s just not something that you just go ‘poof’ and get, because you have to have worked out of your head, your false concepts of God.
(M) That He is a Father, and not a…
(J) Taskmaster.
(M) Taskmaster, yeah.
(J) It’s hard, hmhmm.
(M) And that’s what you kept saying when you thought you said you were serving God. That was… wow.
