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with Martha Kilpatrick and John Enslow
(M) It’s what He said to me this morning, pride is thinking you are something, something superior or something inferior. No, freedom is to say I’m nothing. I’m the same as everybody, and everybody is the same as me. We’re all nothing without God. So it’s the root of bitterness. Bitterness is just pride, and self-hatred, but of all things is simply pride. I hate myself for not being what I think I should be, when Christ is what I should be. There is one Life in the universe. Everything is empty; everything is a vacuum that He is going to fill when all things are summed up in Him. So really the Lord had you on the same thing in a different aspect that was the same.
(J) The defining of ‘self’, yes. So, is it arrogant to think that ‘you know’. And you remember that one time when we were reading with a gentleman and the Lord, He gave me the word that basically… I don’t know the exact words right now, but you’re unqualified to make any decisions because you do not have any facts to make the decisions. I wish I had the right quote. I don’t know where the notebook is but the Lord said through me to someone that you are unqualified to make any decisions because you do not have any of the information you need to make the decisions. So if you think you have that ability to make choices and decisions, you know you will but… When you don’t know any of the factors, when you’re in a complete ahh… Like you’re driving down the road and you’re in a fog, and you’re going to say, oh, I’m going to turn right, and you don’t see any of the road signs, you don’t see any of the anything, how can you make a choice?
(M) You’re reminding me of a radical statement of Paul, “Those who are led of the Spirit are the sons of God.” And I think its Austin Sparks that says, ‘when you’re not being led of the Spirit you are not in the sonship’.
(J) It’s the thinking we know, and then the determining your life according to that and coming to Him and thinking that you have some kind of ability to make choices, and, and define things. I can’t define anything. He has to define everything. He’s the creator. He’s created me and I’m who I am. He’s revealing Himself to me and I, when I go in and I’m saying, oh, ok, this is who I am, and this is how it’s going to be, and this is this, I don’t have the right or the smarts or any insight.
(M) What you’re saying John is… This is the reason He says, “Judge not”. On the other hand, His life in you can define ‘the everything’. But it cannot come from you, that’s what you’re really saying. And it’s a phenomenal way of saying it; that you don’t have the facts, so you can’t label anything. What I find is we have the tendency in us, the propensity, I mean in our flesh, to start labeling everybody and everything. And only God can do that, because He’s the only one with the facts. You were telling this man, only God has facts, and He will give them to you, or He will take you… Knowing the facts He will take you where you should go, since He knows what’s down the road. But within yourself you cannot, you cannot know anything.
(J) I don’t know anything.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) Especially not enough to define myself to my Creator. Ok, this is what You feel about me God; ‘Oh really?’ ‘Hmm. Strange, could I maybe have My own Voice here?’ Ah, but no, I’m trying to tell God who He is, and who I am, and, and I don’t know from day to day, anything.
(M) It reminds me of God saying to Job, “Who are you that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?” Who are you to tell Me what is?
(J) You can’t even verbalize it John, how can You tell Me anything? (Martha laughs)
(M) Here’s Job 42:3 “God said to me, Job, who is this that darkens and obscures counsel by words without knowledge?” “He says I have uttered things I did not understand.” And God said to him, who are you, to counsel Me? Who are you to tell Me? He is to tell us everything. And the abundance of what He will tell is so vast that we can’t even take it in. so it’s a happy place to ‘be nothing’.
(J) Scary.
(M) Why?
(J) Because of pride. (Martha laughs)
(M) It’s very vulnerable. For me that’s where it’s scary. It’s very vulnerable. Because when I hit something in which I am utterly incapable and ignorant, that’s scary. But it’s really a place of freedom because He is sufficient. He is utterly and totally available and sufficient. And I don’t ever go to Him in my ‘nothingness’, but that He becomes all I need, and answers every question.
(J) It just reminds me of when you go and speak. And when… The one time I can really, really, really see it, is when we were in Honduras, I think it was the first or second time, and you literally had nothing. And you were, I mean you were a bland slate, and you had to go speak to all these pastors. And then you were just…
(M) I sat down and cried and cried, and cried out to God in front of the whole American team, and, and the Missionary said, ‘who is this woman?’ I thought she knew what she was doing. Who is this that comes and says I can’t do it, I don’t have anything? And it was completely vulnerable. I was ‘nothing’. Then He said get out three by five cards. And one by one He gave me the issues and the scriptures and the progression, and the stories to illustrate it; and it was right there. I’d never done it that way before, but He was rendering me ‘nothing’. I said… I said what can I say to pastors in a third world country? Nothing. Absolutely… Right. Nothing, I could say nothing to them. (Martha laughs) And that was what God wanted. I didn’t ask you to speak, did I? Who asked you? (Martha and John laugh) I just need a vessel. And so He, He gave it, and there was great fruit that He produced. My boast is in Him. So other than the vulnerability, I think I… I don’t know if I have learned to trust Him in that vulnerability better than back then, but… To be nothing is, is utterly free. Because pride is self-worship, really John, isn’t it? Isn’t that ultimately self-worship which is Satan worship? So if you’re focused on trying to be ‘better than’, or focused on ‘not being better than’, you’re focused on yourself, and your fears and your ambitions are all focused on you, not on Him. And He is faithful to break it. He brings the cross if we will receive the cross. It actually kills that pride, until your only hope is Him. Well let me end with this, coming back to 1Cor.1:30. And I won’t read it in the Amplified. It’s very rich there. The Amplified says “It is from Him that you have your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom.” The NIV says, “It was because of Him that you’re in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—and that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” And that means not in ‘self’. I had no boast in me.
(J) Boasting that I’m so horrible, or boasting that I’m so wonderful.
(M) Exactly, either way is pride. Hallelujah. (Martha laughs)
