The Righteous Shall Live by Faith - ShulamitePodcast.com

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The Righteous Shall Live by Faith
Episode #529
January22, 2017

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Carole Nelson

This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #528.

(Martha) Carole and I were talking, and we were talking about the fact that God’s work in our midst has been to come into us and expose the laws we have. Now, law does not bring you to faith. Law brings you to death: “the letter killeth.” Law brings you to discouragement. If you’re trying because you’ve ‘got to,’ you do not know the rest of faith or how to live by faith. And Carole said something so profound. She said, “God has called me to a purpose for which He has completely disabled me from being able to perform.” And when we got into this verse, “The just shall live by faith,” we came up kind of with our own translation, because “the just” in that context mean righteous, “The ‘righteous’ shall live by faith.” And so we said, “The righteousness of Christ, I will live by the righteousness of Christ in His faith.” And she said…
(Carole) “I have been crucified with Christ, it is…no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
(Martha) Actually, that should read, “We live by the faith of the Son of God.” And His indwelling is the place of our faith, and we know from Corinthians that, “Look away from all that would distract unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.” So, it’s looking to Him for faith, and He gives it. And you know, it’s just incredible, because there is promise after promise in the New Testament, especially in John 14:14, 15, 16, in there. Ask whatever you wish, whatever you want and it will be done for you. “If my Word dwells in you, and you dwell in me, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” And that’s the faith. So, it’s to come down to that. I believe that’s what God is doing among us. He is reducing us to that one thing, that whatever it is we need, we believe Him for it. It’s just so simple. There’s not much more to say about it. But we translated the verse into this, “The righteousness of Christ in us, we live by His faith indwelling.” The righteousness and the faith are indwelling already. The righteousness is achieved. I believe that. I’m to believe that, then I can move by faith in believing Him.
(Carole) You know, as I was thinking more on these verses, because we started in Habakkuk 2, but, you know, there in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10 something. I can’t remember the actual verse or the right verse. But “The just and the righteous shall live by faith,” and I thought, “Christ in me is the Just. Christ in me is the Righteous,” so it truly is the Righteous shall live by His faith, because it’s Christ in me living by His faith. And as I, you know, I thought about Martha’s words over the last, oh my goodness, probably 4-5 years, since she and John went to Spain. And the two words, ‘yes’ and ‘let,’ they are avenues to, “The just shall live by faith.” Because as I ‘let’ and I say ‘yes’ to Christ, and I let and relax and say, “Believe Christ in me.” Not in me, “By Your faith, Lord, by Your faith, I believe,” then I have the peace and the joy of the Lord. But when Martha read the footnote in Habakkuk 2 the other morning, (Amplified Version) and it talked about the law and how Moses had over 600 laws and then they were reduced by David to 10 or whatever and then Micah, then Amos, and then finally Habakkuk reducing it to, “The just shall live by faith,” it was like a light went off, because all of us over these last months have been dealing with law after law after law. Haven’t we? And the Lord destroying, blowing up, first showing us, exposing those laws that we have. And then we renouncing those laws, and the Lord taking those laws away. I saw that that is what He has been about doing, that He has been about reducing and destroying the laws and reducing it to one law of the Spirit, which is, “The just shall live by faith.”
(Martha) These are some of the notes that I made that morning. “The righteous means Jesus, so you could say the righteous in Christ shall live by Christ’s faith. And so, it happens in my body, but it is not of me, not about me. And we wrote down, Carole, receiving, letting, assenting to what is already mine and Who is in me. The faith is in me because it is His faith. It all centers on His indwelling and nothing in me.”
(Carole) And what the law does is it makes it all about me.
(Martha) Wow. It puts the all the burden on you.
(Carole) It puts the whole burden on me. It’s all about me. Under the law it’s all about me, and I know that one too, too, too well. But when the just and the righteous live by faith, it’s all about Him. It isn’t faith about me in any way, shape or form. It’s faith in Christ Jesus. It’s faith in what He absolutely accomplished on the cross. He finished it all on the cross and simply offered it to us to receive. My tendency is to make a law out of everything including my calling to pray. And so, He has completely rendered me hopeless and helpless, and I live in a state of frustration because I cannot do what He’s called me to do, because I’m trying to do it, and I’ve created a law that holds me under the burden, when it’s not my burden. It’s Christ’s burden to perform.
(Martha) And that’s true of every single thing. My granddaughter gave me this cup, and she had had it specially made. This coffee cup, and it had, I think it’s Psalm 138:8, “God fulfills His purpose for me.” And I’m accumulating, I’m gathering those scriptures. There’s so many that say God fulfills His call to you; God fulfills His purpose. And there’s just many scriptures that I’m going to put them all on cards, and I’m going to read them all the time. But there’s one writer I believe knows grace and faith more than any other that I read, and I read a number. And it’s Andrew Murray. We have a book called – what is it, Carole? “Life in Prayer.” (correction, readers: It is, “The Prayer Life,”) and it’s about how you come to be the vessel of prayer and not the work of prayer. And this is one of the things that Murray wrote. “Faith in the love of the Lord Jesus is the only method of getting into fellowship with God in prayer.” And his emphasis is on faith in Christ’s love for me. I have to have that faith. That’s the foundation of all else that God will do is believing and experiencing the love of Christ for me. And that’s something everybody I know including me has times of struggling with that. And I believe it’s warfare. To live believing, the basic belief is to believe that Jesus died for me and loved me, loves me. That’s the basic faith. Everything has to proceed from that faith according to Murray, and that statement is just awesome. I’m going to repeat it. “Faith in the love of the Lord Jesus is the only method of getting into fellowship with God in prayer.” Murray’s book, there’s one called “Jesus Himself,” that I just adore. In those books and in this book, he’s always showing you that it’s all a matter of Christ’s doing it. And that’s grace. So, we’ve got a lot more to say about the law and grace. So, stay with us for a few weeks and we’ll get on it. But whatever He gives you to do, He doesn’t expect you to do. That’s the funny thing. He expects you to come to Him and believe that He will perform what He has given you to do and to be. Anything, everything you need, everything you want, everything you desire is a question of faith. I remember asking a woman who’s a very, very strong Christian. I said, “Do you believe that God gives you everything you ask for?” And she said, “No, I really don’t. I don’t see it happening.” And I understood, and I could appreciate that, but I had to come back to the fact that He said it. And some way I had to seek to find how it could be that everything you pray for, you get. And the answer is, you get the faith for it, and then you pray it, and then you believe it, and it happens. It’s got to be simple, because at our best we are children. At our worst, we are adult.
(Carole) And He says, “So, shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth, it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” And to believe, it’s what Martha says, it is so simple. It’s a child who goes to her daddy and asks him for something, and never thinks for a second that it’s not going to be. “Daddy, I want to go have some ice cream tonight,” and he says, “Well, I’m kind of tired.” “But, Daddy, I want to go have some ice cream tonight,” and he says, “Oh, ok.” That child believes that her daddy is going to do what she’s asks him to do, because He loves her and for no other reason. He loves her. And when Martha called me on the phone to read me that quote from Andrew Murray, that it is faith in the love of the Lord is the only method by which we can have the fellowship in prayer, I even had trouble writing it down. I said, “Ok, it is my love for him,” and immediately I’m going, “I don’t love Him like I want to love Him, so that’s going to be a problem, right there.” And she said, “No, no, no, no it isn’t the love for Him. It is His love for you. See, that is a stumbling block. And I think it’s a stumbling block for every adult that lives. It’s not a stumbling block for a child.
(Martha) Which means that the work of faith is to believe in His love. And what you believe in, you can have.