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The Work Of Believing
Episode #252
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Carole Nelson and Julie
(Carole) You can record it and then take it out, but what I was going to say, Martha, after that one incident when I went ahead and did something, set up a plan that I felt like was the Lord; got real excited about it. I went to bed and woke up, and I was totally condemned about it. And I thought, oh God is so upset with me; and oh God, what have I done? Oh my-gosh, I have just really messed up. Went into work, and Martha came in, and I said, oh I was just really, you know, really upset in my spirit this morning because of something I did yesterday. And her comment was, “well, what were you upset about? What is the reason? What was the real reason you were upset?” And I thought, well, I just assumed God was real upset with me.
(J) Hmm.
(Carole) That wasn’t the reason? But it provoked me to go back and say, “Lord, ok Lord, why was I upset?” Immediately He said, “You have”; this may not be the right words, because I can’t, I don’t want to misquote Him, but it was something like “You exceeded your boundary’s.” And I had to think about that. It’s where we’ve been. I leaped over where I had a boundary even in relationships. I’m only going to go this far in this relationship Lord. I can’t possibly go any further, because who knows, that may just not be Your will to do that. And oh well, you know, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. And, and He exceeded those boundary’s. And I immediately condemned myself for it, because I, because what you said, Jenn, I’ve made a law; I made a law of relationships in that particular case. So I went back and I told Martha about it, and she says, “Oh, well you, you instinctively knew.” And I said, “I did?” She says, “Yeah, you said,” something that, that I must have gone beyond my boundaries, or something like that. So when I saw this quote, I know, I just know it was from the, the Lord, “The walk that dwells in union with the Spirit is more instinctive than deliberate.” (MK)
(Julie) Sometimes I think that, at least for me the… Well not for me, because I honestly don’t know if I do this, but the hardest work we ever do, and the hardest work I see you do every single day, is to trust the Holy Spirit’s keeping.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Julie) I mean I see you work out your salvation, in that sense, of trusting. I’m thinking of the Jude passage that you’re memorizing now, “Unto Him Who’s able to keep you.” I mean sometimes it seems like the work is to believe that He keeps me enough that I can trust that instinctive leading, and not have the boundaries. Right now in my life He’s asking me to trust Him into a whole new area that I have no family history of any talent or ability, or anything. I mean, no reason in the natural for me to believe in this particular area, but it’s trusting that ok, the Holy Spirit led me into it and so He’ll provide; and I have no idea how that’s going to happen, but. But I see you, I see you Martha, even the story you’re telling us about the gardening, you do such a work to trust that He’s keeping you, so you keep going.
(M) You quoted one portion, Julie, that the work of God is to believe. And that comes from seeking Him. I think that’s, that’s why we seek Him, is to believe. I don’t think He asks us to do something without the faith, but we have to go and from His Word, from His Voice, comes the seed of faith. And this passage I’m going to go into in the next CD, (Martha laughs) the sixth CD. Jesus said, “You seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” That’s people who seek Him only to be blessed or fed. That’s, You serve me, Lord. You give me. He said, “Do not work for food which perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you; for on Him the Father, even God, has set His seal.” That’s when they said “What shall we do then to work the work of God,” and He said, “This is the work, to believe in Him that He has sent.” If we work for food that perishes, we have a perishable fruit. But the work is for the eternal life. And He will give it to us. It’s a gift. All we have to do… The work is to ask, the work is to seek and the work is to receive. Receiving is a work too. Bowing is a work. All of that is spiritual work. We tend to leap over and do some physical, practical or presumptuous work, rather than the basic. T o me, the Lord has shown me in Genesis, the basic work is the communion with the Lord. And it’s like He gives you, He feeds you with the faith; it’s a gift. When we go seek Him, it’s not to seek in what to do, but what to believe.
(J) Uhmhmm.
(M) And what we, what we’re willing to believe that He says to us, is that which is eternal, rather than temporal. Did that make any sense?
(J) Hmhmm.
(M) I haven’t put it in words yet, I’ve just been ruminating on it, that, I think it’s probably a greater work to receive than to give. (Jennifer laughs in the background.)
You got it; you got it.
(Carole) Receiving takes humility.
(M) Receiving takes humility. Giving can be grandiose and pompous, and ah condescending. But to receive, to get to the place where you can simply live a life of receiving, that is a miraculous life.
(Carole) And when He answered, when He answered that uhm, condemnation that I felt, I had the peace that passed all understanding. That was the fruit of having sought Him for the answer and Him giving it.
(M) Yeah, and see, Carole, He blew up your limitation and opened you up to what will be a great blessing, that He was orchestrating intuitively within you. He put the thought in you. It’s not typical of what you would do. I know the circumstances. So it’s not logical or typical, that you did it spontaneously….
(Carole) Spontaneous and joyful, and then I went (she stamps her feet) ‘euuuuu, I take it back. (Martha and Carole are laughing.)
(M) But see that’s, that’s what I’m trying to say this book has so inspired me to, is that it takes going beyond yourself and finding out there’s a safety net there. But He, the Lord Jesus, by the Spirit is always challenging those boundaries that we set to be safe, to feel ok, to not be in danger, to not be, ah…but that is really not the life that He calls us to. I think in this, in this taping session, several of us have been, have been blown up. (Martha laughs.) See I didn’t know when He called me to write, that it was a call to receive the writing.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) I started working, of course. I started trying to write; that was a failure. I went to classes. I went to a seminar on writing, and I did come away with something, but it was what was given to me. And I fretted a whole lot; I’m not writing. When am I going to write? I’m not writing, Lord. I can’t do it. But it was just… It was a matter of coming to the place to receive what He called me to, that I could not perform the first dot of it apart from Him. So it’s, it’s such a mistake not to seek Him about who you are, where you are. Even to seek Him is a scary thing, to take something to Him is a, oh it’s risky; to be willing to hear is dangerous, or so we think.
