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Life Is A Mission Journey
Episode #256
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Don and Carole Nelson
(M) This morning we are in Anchorage, Alaska. John and I have been to the Northwest, meeting with precious saints, and now we are with Don and Carole in Alaska, going to see some of his world. And while we were having our meetings, Carole was at home praying, and the Lord gave her a word that is just exploding among us. So Carole.
(Carole) Well while I was praying for John and Martha and just kind of staring and praying in the Spirit, I felt like this is what I saw or heard, I think both. I just heard, “Your life is a mission trip.” And I thought about that, and then I heard, “journey”, it is a, your life is a mission journey. And I just, in trying to see that and take that in, I heard the word perspective. And I didn’t look up what perspective was, but this is what I felt like it was. I felt like perspective was seeing from a place other than where I usually see. It was seeing through God’s eyes, and the place I then thought of was Zion. Because it was seeing from the place of Zion that my life is, whether I am at the sink doing dishes, whether I’m sitting alone with the Lord, whether I’m in Suches, Georgia, whether I’m in anyplace else with the rest of my family, I am, my life is a mission journey. And Martha asked me the question, “well what is the mission?” And I answered something, but she said, “The mission is love.” And that just really, really struck me.
(M) Yesterday as we were talking about this in the car, it was too noisy to do the podcast, but the mission was unfolding.
(J) Umhmm, umhmm.
(M) The word the Lord gave Carole was unfolding. See, it’s like maybe she felt John and I were the missionaries; we were on a mission. But she also has a complete mission life is what I got out of it, is that right Carole?
(Carole) Yes, yes.
(M) That she had now to view her life as a mission, that means a missionary. So wherever she goes she has a mission. And then that progressed from Zion as the place where the Lord views, where the Lord sees, where the Lord has unhindered cooperation from us. And so, viewing that, viewing your life through that was I think a turn for you.
(Carole) Oh yeah.
(M) All of us are on a mission journey. And somehow it just naturally progressed to the mission is His love. It is Him; it’s taking Him, but His agenda… You said it’s not an agenda, later.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Carole) This morning, that’s what I heard. That’s what I heard this morning in pondering this and thinking about this. I felt like He said this is not an agenda, this is a vision; this is the purpose, this is My purpose. It isn’t something that you go out now and you do.
(J) Right, right, right.
(Carole) You are.
(J) Right, right, right, hmhmm, that’s exactly it. And the wonderful thing is one of the precious saints in Oregon and Washington, Kirk Acey was given a word for the conference that we were doing, and it was “panoramic, amplification”. And what I saw in that was, what God was doing was widening our, the vision, and amplifying the purpose. And what I feel like God is doing is, He is coming in, and He’s transforming in our thinking.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) He’s widening our vision, and He’s increasing and amplifying our purpose, that everything that we can categorize and label and file things as common or divine, or exciting, or boring, and we can, we can just you know categorize those and file them. And I think what God is doing is trying to say, you are eternal, you are an eternal being, and you were bringing forth the eternal. And let Me expand your vision to show you that you are walking as a missionary, walking out the eternal thing. And the most eternal thing, and the greatest eternal thing is love.
(M) Hmhmm.
(J) And so I’m, I’m real excited about this whole thing on love, because I’ve been such a dearth of, is it the, is it the word?
(M) That will do.
(J) (John laughs) Of love. I’ve just, I have capped it, I have sealed it, I have prevented it because of fear of it, because of whatever.
(M) We started out about light, and that the purpose was all Christ and for Christ. But then the thought, there is no light that is not about love. Light is love, and love is the light. Love is seeing God. And then He gave me this, “Love either takes you over, or it won’t have you.” Love is the issue. And it’s the core issue. We stopped at a… It’s taking, the mission is taking Christ, whether you say that’s what it is or not. And we stopped to get coffee, and it was a little bit, you know, we were asking for things, give us more cream. And there was a young woman there, if I, if I can make this point about love, I will say she was very ah, probably you could say unattractive, if you looked at it from the worlds point of view. She was a little handicapped; I don’t know if she was. And, but to the Lord, He goes and picks out people as you go along, and not everybody, but… And I had just exuberant joy with her and about her, and uhmm, asked, asked her to get things; and then we interrupted her as she was cleaning a window, a door, and I said, I guess you’ll be glad when we’re gone. And she said no. But anyway, I was, the Lord was pouring love on her from me. And that was all. That was my mission in McDonald’s
(J) Did you have it too? Remember that…
(Carole) I did feel that, I did feel the joy.
(J) I was sitting there just delighting in her.
(Carole) Precious.
(M) Oh yes, she was, she was delightful. She was.
(Don) She was a sweetie.
(J) Umhmm.
(Don) And it was like she was ah, associating with us for a purpose.
(M) Yes.
(Don) And we, and that willingness to associate is, is, then the love pours out, and is received. I mean, I think she received that, because what was her response when you said I guess you’ll be glad when we’re gone.
(M) I don’t remember.
(J) She said no.
(M) Oh, no.
(Don) She said no I won’t. She said no I won’t.
(J) So I was amazed because it was almost like she was delighting in just kinda being there; she didn’t want to leave. It was kind of like ok, this is kind of a cool little coffee place.
(Don) But there’s another person, I don’t want to take away from… there’s another person that is so pleased and happy with her work and what she does. But people will see her as something ‘different’ when they see her.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Don) But she, she found joy and pleasure in everything that she was doing.
(J) Absolutely.
(Don) Smiling while she cleaned the windows.
(J) Right, hmhmm.
(Don) Talking, I mean she was enjoying her work, as insignificant as that work might have been; she was.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Carole) We have no idea; I have no idea…
(J) I have no idea.
(Carole) …what is going on in the spirit when we are, when we’re going anywhere? And this, this perspective, this vision that He is giving that we are on, ‘we are’, we’re not even ‘on’, ‘we are’, our lives are a mission journey. That as that takes us over, then it will somehow in the Spirit, beyond our understanding, connect. It’s what Martha said, to pour out, and she received love, and she may not know where it came from or what it was all about, but she did, I believe experience that; I did.
(J) I did. Yeah, I agree with what Carole just said, she said life, life; I mean I wrote this down yesterday. Life is a mission trip and you are a missionary. And life is for love, not for service. I thought to live for Him was for service first, and it’s not, it’s for love first. Service comes out of love or it’s slavery. Yeah, I wrote this, ah, service must come out of love or it is not service; service without love is slavery.
(M) You said, you said the power and motivation of service has to be love.
(J) Absolutely.
(Carole) This is really an expansion of the, the past podcast. And I didn’t see that, but this is God’s expansion of the past podcasts where we’ve been talking about the deeds that we do in Him, out of Him, that He is performing in, through us. The expansion of that is mission. It is part of the mission journey.
(Don) While I was just thinking, this morning when we got up, Carole said what’s our agenda? And I said we don’t, we don’t have an agenda. And I think what probably prohibits the Holy Spirit moving as God would have us move in this, what we’re representing here the… If we have an agenda that gets in the way of God moving, and the Holy Spirit doing what it needs to do, because we, we truly get in the way of what that might be. So we shouldn’t have an agenda. The Holy Spirit gives us the agenda as we are the missionaries and we walk and we go through, then it takes us through then.
(M) I just looked up the word mission, and it is a special assignment that is given to a person or group. I think your definition, Carole, and your statement is not just for Shulamite Ministries, it’s for the whole Body.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Everyone is on a mission journey. I love the word journey, because that means… a trip says to me ‘you go from here to there’, but a journey says you’re experiencing the process and the going.
(Carole) Yes.
(M) And ah…
(Carole) And the journey… I was thinking this morning. Sometimes when I, ok I’ll say I think about missionary, I’m thinking about my giving, or my ah, my interacting, but somehow in this, the mission journey encompasses the whole process of God, of God forming in us the love, His love. It is the process of even tearing down the walls that inhibit His love flowing through us. It’s all, that journey encompasses all of that. It’s not about just giving it out; it’s about ‘being formed’ for the purpose.
(M) Exactly! Ouu, ouu-ouuu.
(J) I’ve seen mission trips where, you know you take youth out to mission trips to third world countries. And I’ve seen the initial thought of the brand new missionary child going out. They go out thinking they have something to give. They come back realizing that they received. And because, what you really see is that they’ve been impacted by God to be a vessel, to pour out, but also to receive. And so that’s what I’m seeing is what you’re saying right now is you’re going out; if you stay in the stance that you’re the one that will pour, and you’re not going to receive, you’re going to be limiting yourself, and you’re going to be, you’ll be missing what God’s doing. Because this, this thing is about involving you, through you, in you, towards you, about you. It’s literally, you’re being taken into the swirl, or the stream of love and purpose, and there’s no way that you can’t be impacted and impact others when you step into this.
