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The One Law
Episode #237
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) Many years ago in my early walk, I was really, really joyfully serving the Lord, but I was pretty exhausted, and I said to Him… I call it: ‘I bumped my head on scripture’. My thinking, my beliefs, collided with what He said. And I said to Him, “You say Your burden is light, but it feels heavy. You say Your yoke is easy, but it feels difficult. So the problem is me.”
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) “Solve it for me. Why am I not in harmony with what You said?” And, and He did, He showed me in time that it was because I was carrying it. I was carrying the load. And…He carries it. Well, in this season in our midst, which is the Lord revealing, mostly our standard for ourselves.
(J) Hmhmm, absolutely.
(M) The laws we make for ourselves. I might let you off the hook, but I don’t let me off the hook. That’s, that’s what we are experiencing. So I’m assuming that when the Holy Spirit moves, He moves through the whole Body of Christ, and that I just felt like this was timely. It’s timely for us, and we’re part of His enormous corporate Body, that it would be timely for others.
(J) I wonder how many there are out there that are just really asking that question, you know, what about the government, about their expectations, about their laws, about their ‘should’s and ought’s’, I wonder how many. And it would be very interesting to hear how He was revealing that same revelation, because, you know, He did the ‘ought’s and should’s’ with you, with me it was the word government. So it’d be very interesting to see how that is being translated throughout the Body of Christ.
(M) I think it’s evident in being heavy-laden. He says simply come. I think, I’m thinking of a situation where there’s… If you are in a situation, a marriage or place or job or, where someone is legalistic over you, but they make a standard for you that they don’t make any attempt to meet themselves, that you begin to, the law in you begins to come out toward them.
(J) Oooo, Hmmm.
(M) You begin to be legalistic toward them; you have the ‘ought’s and should’s’ toward them, as they do toward you. I’ve found that if a person is legalistic, they awaken that legalism in you.
(J) It’s very contagious, absolutely.
(M) It’s very contagious and very difficult to be in a situation where you have to live with that every day. I’m thinking of someone who’s had to really, really deal with the Lord and be dealt with about responding back with legalism; ‘but you don’t’.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) ‘You want me to, but you don’t and you should.’ So it’s so pervasive to humanity, that we really don’t recognize it as a law. I think one of the things the Lord’s had to destroy in me is perfectionism.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) That’s, that’s legalistic.
(J) That’s the addiction to the law.
(J) Ah, is it really?
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) Well He’s … He said to me one time years ago, “Martha, you’re a perfectionist.” And I said, “Lord, I don’t do anything perfect.” He said, “You just proved My point.” (Martha laughs.) But we really believe in perfectionism and idealism. And in working with people in discipling, that’s one of the things I have to tear down. There is no ideal. There’s only One perfect and that is Christ. And there is no… Perfection as we see it, is not how God sees it or demands it.
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) God, He knows that we are dust, and He really works with us in our realm, in our… He works with us in our world, realistically. And He doesn’t require the perfection that we do; we torment ourselves with our own laws. You know, I think on a tape I said that God gave ten laws, and then a number of additional laws, but the Jews added six hundred and something laws…
(J) Six hundred thirty, yeah.
(M) Six hundred and thirty, to that one, I mean to that, to those few laws that God made. It’s, it’s impossible. And it’s meant to be. That’s what we don’t get. It’s meant to be impossible. There’s only One in the universe who can please God, and that is the Son. He has set us free. He has set us free of the laws of man, the laws of God, Himself. We have been set free, and Paul says don’t be entangled again in bondage. It is to deny Him. And what He has given is a measure of freedom that we really don’t comprehend, and it will take a lifetime to begin to see it. We are free! There’s only one law; what the Spirit says, and what the Spirit moves to, at anytime about anything. That’s means I’m not subject to the obligations, the expectations, and the laws of other people at all. And myself, most of all, myself.
(J) Hmhmm. I’m the biggest ‘copper’ in the, (John laughs) in the precinct, that’s for sure.
(M) (Martha laughs.) Well, the moment you go to the law, you go to flesh and leave your spirit. And the point of Paul’s writing in Galatians is that the two will not mix. You cannot mix that; that’s impossible. So may we all live completely in grace, and give each other grace.
