(Jacquelyn) I’m thinking about how we so often are offended with the Holy Spirit, and offend Him, and leave Him in the area of correction. We don’t see that as love. He’s saying there’s a bus coming towards you, get out of the way; and we would rather be hit by the bus than be obedient and submit to correction.

(M) I don’t know whether this is just humanity or what, but we believe that correction is the absence of love. And correction is the most costly form of love because it… to come to see the need for correction is work. To come from that recognition or discernment of what needs…  I’ve spent hours on one person in the last couple days, hours with the Lord saying, ok, I know there’s a need for correction, what is it? What would, what is the correction? And then hours hearing Him, of how to go about it, and what to do. And it’s at the risk of her love for me. I’m risking her love for me. I’m risking my reputation if I say to her, you asked for correction, and the Lord has given it to me. And so it’s… And for a mother, you risk the child’s love if you correct them. So it’s a personal death to correct. And when you, when you begin to bask in the love of God, you don’t want to be corrected, that doesn’t seem to fit in. Wonderful view Jacquelyn, thank you so much. I wasn’t even thinking of that. But it’s so true that you can quench the Spirit most easily by objecting to, resenting or refusing correction. And the church is weak and run over and contaminated, not the real church, but Christianity that functions as a church because they don’t confront and don’t correct each other. And that’s what we… If you get the gist of Paul’s Epistles, they’re constant correction and telling each other to… Ok, “encourage one another daily”, and then I just read a passage, the Lord said to me this morning Ephesians 5:5 and 6, and it’s about correcting and then separating. And we don’t have that strength and cleansing power in the Body of Christ because we aren’t willing to risk our own self. To correct someone or to approach someone with an insight, it costs you your death. And if you’re not willing to die, you’ll let them go to hell with no objection.

(Jacquelyn) “Greater love than this, that a man will lay down his life for his friend.”

(J) I’m wondering if we don’t do that because we’re so unconnected with the Spirit. And that we, that that’s the problem is that we have detached from the Spirit. We won’t be vulnerable like the Sprit is vulnerable.

(M) We won’t obey the Spirit.

(J) And we won’t obey Him. I wonder if the unwillingness to correct is more about just resistance to the Spirit, and that vulnerability…

(Jacquelyn) And don’t we want to keep our so-called reputation intact?

(J) Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

(M) I know so well John, from forty years of walking with the Lord and His sheep that the Lord brings you into an arena of safety and love so that you can bare the correction. So that you can bare… We, we’ve just come to so welcome it, because we trust each other in this small group, we trust each other to want the best and to love us enough. This is, this is a place of safety. I’m not… I believe that in the Body-life is the place of correction more than any other place. We’re to encourage each other and hold each other accountable. And it’s, it’s ah, better ‘now’, than ‘then’.

(Carole) To want the ‘everlasting’ for one another.

(J) I wonder if it’s because the mother-love is so tangible and so close, and so nurturing, that it happens best in that type setting.

(M) Umhmm. That’s where it’s supposed to be, where we really know each other in daily walk. I said to someone, “I can’t answer that question, I don’t walk with you.” And sometimes I think people are ‘lone rangers’, simply because they don’t want any correction. They want to be ‘the one’, and keep the place of control and so they don’t… You know it’s easy to look at us at the conference and think they understand how we function, but because we’re in military order. And I think sometimes, you are the authority of the ministry function, but in Body-life we’re all equal.

(J) Umhmm.

(M) We’re all on the same ah… Like this meeting for instance, we’re equally sharing and equally the Voice of God to each of us, and the revelation.

(J) I have the  authority, because I have the responsibility.

(M) Ah.

(J) I’m going to answer for it, so I have the authority because I’m going to answer for it. So ah, you know, that puts it on, on the line of, hey, you’re going to give account for this, so you better treat it like it’s yours because you’re going to give account.

(M) Which means you have to protect it from usurpers of your authority.

(J) Absolutely. And if I allow that, then they’re basically robbing me and God, and I’ll answer for it regardless, because He said, hey, I’ve given you this, this is what I’m going to allow you to steward. So you steward it, and if you allow it just to ‘go to hell and in a hand-basket’ so to speak, it’s on you. So because I’m going to answer for it, I have to do it a particular way.

(M) Well, I’m just thinking of how the military functions. If they’re going out on maneuvers, there is someone in charge; and sometimes, for instance if there’s an injury, then the medic is in charge.

(J) Absolutely.

(M) So it moves and flows like that, and that’s how we move and flow. So your authority in the conference and in the office is one aspect, but there are many other ways this moves. So it would be easy to judge us as if you knew. And people do of course.

(J) And you know, I’m thinking about surviving the cut, the Discovery channel show, how those  who ‘washed out’ were those that were, so to speak, would not submit and surrender to the authority and to the literal principle of authority, and the person of authority, and they went out on their own thing, and did their own thing, and they ‘washed out’, they did not make it. And if you think that you are able to be above an authority structure, and go out and do your own thing, you’re…

(M) You’re dead.

(J) You’re dead, and you’re going to ‘wash out’.

(M) You’re dead, hmhmm, exactly. I always… I touched on authority in this conference, and it’s always so easy to misunderstand it and then to assume a sort of legalism. But in the mother-love in the Spirit it moves on the ground of love. It moves on the ground of mutual respect, and of God’s order. It’s very hard to make it come across as beautifully functioning as it does, and as mutual and respectful as it is.

(J) You have, you have displayed that to us and trained, you’ve trained me. You trained me in that. I, you know, I don’t always do it perfectly or well, but you’ve trained me in the sensitivity, and, the love of, you know… It’s amazing how you go through it, and, and you display that Spirit-heart, and you listen, and though you might have to give hard words, or you might have to, uhmm, seem harsh sometimes, you do it in such a mother-like spirit, everlasting motherly love of God way. You’ve trained me in that. You’ve softened my heart. You have, uhmm, you’ve made me more vulnerable to, ah, His whims, and His thoughts, and His direction. And I’m not in that, as much, in that dogma, the dogma of ‘this is the way it is’ ‘daggumit’, hell or high water here we go. You’ve softened me to be more sensitive to the Spirit. And you’ve trained each of us to be open-handed to the Spirit, and to allow Him to move and flow, and do what He wants. And I think that that’s what you have to have. Wouldn’t you all agree?

(M) Well, you know, on the other hand John, I am keenly conscious because God taught me years ago, of the authority of a man. And when I go in that conference, I am really very, I’ll say intent and anxious that I would have the men who appear to be ‘behind the scenes’ in that conference, I want the men, ah, standing I’ll say, available. I want this to be a ministry that is balanced with men and women.

(J) I remember when you were in Slovakia, and you basically were going up to speak a message about forgiveness to a group of people that had been literally raped and pillaged by the Russians. They came through there and they literally took everything including the kitchen sink. I mean literally. And they were basically a culture of people that had been leveled by looters.

(M) In religion too, for centuries.

(J) And probably in religion, yeah, absolute religiously done. But so, so then what you did, you went in there to deliver a message on forgiveness, which was, you know; it’s real easy for us in America to go into a communist bloc country and say forgive. You know? But you went in there, and I remember very specifically, you went and entreated the men to stand with you during your message. You pleaded with them, please stand with me. And you were sick, and you were, I mean you were damaged, but they did. I remember all of them stood up, and it wasn’t about them, it was about the Spirit. And it was really powerful to me, actually; was it powerful to you?

(M) Oh yeah, I was pretty desperate, because I knew I was facing something very dark. I’ve never been in such a dark country. And the Lord had me do that. And I had met with a couple of them, and just precious men of God.  They were ministers there in the same conference. And so I had a relationship that had sort of been instantly established with them. And I begged them to stand, and I don’t think at first they knew quite what to do, but eventually two of them got up and stood in the back. They got up in the middle of the message and paced. And they told me later that they realized I said ‘stand’, so they stood. And that message was going out over all of Europe on T.V., and it would be repeated they told me. So I have no idea where it went, but it was one of the, for me, it was one of the most powerful messages on forgiveness God ever gave me. And I knew, I knew how radical and confronting that message was to people who’d been oppressed for generations, generations. Thank you, I’d forgotten that.

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