Podcast: Download (2.0MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Knowing The Lord Is ALL
Episode #274
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Don Nelson
(M) The question I asked everyone, that Carole mentioned, is what did you know of the Lord in 2011? The reason I asked that question is because it was time for me to write the year-end letter. And I thought, oh my goodness. You’re supposed to write a year-end letter about what you have accomplished, and what your ministry has accomplished; and it’s like I can’t, I have no idea. And so, uhmm…
(J) You going to read it?
(M) Well, I’m going to re-write it, so, I’ve come at a different angle. But I couldn’t name accomplishments. Oh, we didn’t travel much, we got one booklet out instead of six, and it was like, you know, a long grim road to get that one done; and it was great glory when it was finally finished. But I realized that you can’t know your accomplishments for the Lord; there’s no way. You don’t know how you influence, we don’t know who’s hearing us. We have no idea. People turn up that have been listening to us, maybe in Timbuktu, and we didn’t know it. So, and there’s no way to measure accomplishment. And then I read… and for me it was a… I call it a strange empty year of fullness. (Martha laughs.) There was no, no lack of the revelation of the Lord flowing, but it was a year, for me, of a lot of bewilderment and feeling, as John said, this is a year He’s both weakened us, and shown us where we are weak, and struck where we were trying. And it has been a year; I said to John recently, I said you and I and this group, some of you had to be strong for the rest of us, ok, (Martha laughs) but a number of us have been struck with weakness in one form or another, whether it’s been spiritual, physical, maybe even mental. But it’s been a year of one thing, of the one thing, and that is to behold Him and to know Him. It’s to know Him, to consider Him in His presence, all the beauty and attractiveness and specialness and wonderfulness of Christ. It’s been a year to know Him. And you had it Jennifer, and you had it Carole. And here’s what Paul lived for. And if you have this, you have a year. (They laugh.) If you don’t have this, you’ve wasted a year. So the priceless privilege… These words are so precious to me. The Amplified; I want to meet that lady who did the Amplified; I’d kiss her feet. “The overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and I’m progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly.” That was what Paul lived for. And he lived for it. He knew that He had to be known through the fellowship of His sufferings and conformity to His death. And so, if you’ve had a year like that, where you’ve been in the fellowship of His sufferings… I’ve had much more sufferings years than this one, but it has still been a year of the cross, where I learned I was weak, but that He was strong. And I learned that when I don’t know what’s going on, there’s still going on His plan. That I don’t stop, I want His will, I want His plan, and I’m bewildered most of the time whether I am even knowing what it is. And still He is moving with such precision, such order, such direction, and fruit that He is accomplishing while I’m just simply…My only job is to know Him. My only job is to gaze at Him, the one thing. And I can say that I got to know Him this year, and I knew that what I learned about Him is He’s beyond me. I don’t know Him. He is unfathomable, but He’s in charge, and He’s in control. And the security that He’s not only in control of the world, the nations, He’s in control of this Body, and of me. And I don’t need to know so I can orchestrate it, or even pray it. All I have to pray for is His will. And He is moving in this enormity, this force that pushes everything and everybody aside, including me, and He is going to accomplish what He is going to accomplish. I bet you, Don Nelson, that you would say yes to that one.
(Don) Yeah, I’m probably going to talk when you get… (Everyone laughs.)
(M) Ok, well, I’ll get through quick then, ok. But this is what helped me get set on the right path. T. Austin Sparks, “For all increase, progress, enlargement, growth and maturity, it is essential that there should be in the heart a continuous unveiling of Jesus Christ. And you and I will never get to the end of that unveiling. It is possible for some of us to say with truth that we have seen more the meaning of the Lord than in all the previous years of our lives.” Now, you may have gotten to know Him as disciplinarian, as the scourger. We are scourged with the same word that He was scourged with. You may have gotten to know Him that He’s really God; then you’ve gotten to know Him. You may have gotten to know Him in His severity, His demand for holiness, and it’s crushed you and, and decimated you; then you have gotten to know Him as He is. I had an experience in the last two days of seeing His holiness, His fire and demand that we be pure and holy. And I was experiencing it through someone else’s chastening, and I was just seeking it, I was trembling over the depths of wickedness and the depths and heights of holiness. And it was just… But that helped me see, that all you need to do is see Him, then you have increase, maturity, growth, fruit; that’s it. And so, I don’t know how to write that for our newsletter. It doesn’t sound like you’re supposed to write. But I ended it this way, “The ultimate experience, the expansion of faith will be the secret God unfolds for us, the vast mystery of Who Christ is.” I know, I’ve known Him since I was twelve. I’ve known Him in the Spirit for forty-six years. I don’t know Him! He’s too wonderful. He’s too huge. And in case… I want to read my prayer for the listeners, because probably not everybody will get this letter that I may get to write somehow. (Martha laughs.) And this is what I’m praying for us, and for everybody that hears us, and everybody that doesn’t hear us. “I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of the Lord.” See, there’s no reason for spiritual wisdom and insight, that’s not the end. It’s a ‘so that’, so that you might grow in the knowledge of the Lord. “I pray that your hearts may be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope He has given to those He called His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.” And that’s Ephesians in The New Living translation. So that’s my prayer. The wisdom and insight so that we’ll have the knowledge of Him, that’s all God wants of us is to know His Son. You said, Carole, He’s revealed Him in each of us, and He’s revealed His Son in you, who you don’t usually think He can be seen, or that He is doing as much in you as He does. And I think the closer you get to Him, the more you get the grace and the knot tied in the rope. The closer you get to Him, the less you have any idea that He’s manifesting through you. Because He, Jesus is natural. He is quiet and unassuming and unobtrusive, He doesn’t shout in the streets, He doesn’t… He comes in so quietly and gently that you really don’t know He got there. (Martha laughs.) So, there’s my letter, (she laughs) ok.
(Don) I said amen to Martha. This has been quite a year in the Lord for me as a man. I recently shared my opinion of men with Martha, and it will even be hard to express all that He has done. But what I share with you, I think has value for the Body. I am the one that is not here a lot. I’m about His business, because it is His business; it is not my business. But I know though I’m not here that I am with you, and you are with me. I know that. And that’s very important that I represent that. I always know you’re there. Uhmm, but what this year has been like is that God is sovereign. There is nothing that I can do as a man to influence, direct, any purpose that He has for me, or this Body. It is His plan; He will execute it in His timing. I can tell you that what I have learned so much this year that I know He is all the provision that I need. He is all the provision that we need. I have no expectations. I have no thoughts of what I am to be about, or where I am to go. There shouldn’t be any expectation’s in this Body about what we should do, where we should go, what we have done, what we are supposed to do. I know He will give us the direction that we need in the timing, exactly when we need to have it. His plan is so perfect, and I have learned over the years that I have done much to muddy that plan up, insert self, because I’m certainly a lot smarter than He is. (Everyone laughs in background) And if nothing else, I can tell you that I can sit here and know that He directs the business I’m in. He directs Don. He tells Don what to do when he’s supposed to do it. I do not worry for nothing. I don’t worry for money; there’ve been times we’ve had none, there’s times we have plenty, there’s times we have none again. (Everyone laughs.) What He has taught me is I am to rely solely on just Him, and that’s all it is. We are to rely solely on just Him. He will give each and every one of us our purpose and our direction for this Body. We only need to rely on that, that He is willing and able to do that, and He loves to give that to us. I will never be able to explain to you where I am, but I am in a place I have never been before. I want for nothing, I have need of nothing; there is nothing I can do in myself. I only need to be the vessel for the Lord. He will provide everything that I need to have, whether it’s for this Body, and I know there is… All of us have a purpose here. And Martha, though you are attempting to compose, your letter would be justifiably made up of the bodies that are within this group here, and what everybody has been through, and the influence you have had on each and everyone of us to get us to the place we’re supposed to be at. And that to me you can’t put it in words but it is easily seen, and I love you for that. But I can tell you that I am comfortable. I don’t even know how to tell you where I am, but you know I am in a different place than you have ever known me to be before. (Everyone laughs.) But is one of great comfort and I have need of nothing because He is my total provision; I don’t need anything else. And yes, I can say amen to that because I can’t even tell you what it’s been like this year. And every time I get out of line, this is really interesting. I was trying to share this with Martha the other day. If I try to influence in any way, He creates this humbling experience for me. (Everyone laughs.) No, no, I mean really one where I could get angry. (Everyone laughs.) And, but He creates this humbling experience that when I go and ask forgiveness for what I have done, then He blesses then, with something else. And I shared several things with Martha. He blesses it with something else. So He makes sure that I don’t deviate from where He wants me to be, and when I get out of line He drags me right back in. So, I bless Him for this last year. It has been a tremendous year of growth for me.
(M) Well, I think you’ve just written the letter for 2012. (Martha laughs.) And when you wrecked me at the end Don… and, but I just feel like you’ve written the next year, 2012; you just did the letter and the prophecy and the prediction for 2012. We will lack for nothing, and He’s doing it all, and we don’t have to worry about anything.
(Don) Amen.
(M) Was that, was that some of your letter for 2012? (Martha laughs.)
(Don) Amen.
