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Unfolded Mystery of The Great Exchange
Episode #762
7/11/2021
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
This the continuation of a series of podcasts started in Episode #759
In the Great Exchange you unfold the mystery. That’s what it means. The exchange is what that means.
John:
In the last podcast we talked about Joan and what she was saying about the books and we were looking for what was the difference between the impact of them. They are both written in the same voice obviously because it’s me and they’re both written kind of the same style. But there’s a distinct difference between the two. And I wanted her to come and say it. I was trying to do it my best and I just couldn’t do. So, what do you have Martha?
Martha:
Well, she saw the connection between the two and when she saw that, I saw that Sovereign Touch is God’s side, God’s voice, God’s speaking. And The Great Exchange is man’s side. But she said it in very interesting terms deeper than that.
John:
That’s amazing to me. That’s just amazing.
Joan:
What I saw the difference in the two books is in The Sovereign Touch it is about John’s journey to seeing God’s sovereignty and God’s side of his story. And so, you can read it as John’s story. You read it, it’s very personal yet you can read it and stand objectively outside of it because it’s John’s story.
Whereas The Great Exchange is also John’s story but it’s our narrative as well in our history with God; our journey. And there’s no escaping it because John immediately as he did in the other book takes you in, he brings you into his story, but in this he brings you into your own story and he’s very personal, he’s honest. It’s exposing of where our lives really are, how we live, our internal life. John takes you right into your own guts of your story so there’s not an escape on it whereas The Sovereign Touch you say, “It’s John’s story.” But The Great Exchange, no, that’s all of our story.
John:
Yeah, when you said that, I was amazed because I do know that I say at the very beginning of the book of the Great Exchange I say, “Listen, if you’re satisfied with your good Christian life, please, please put this book down. This one is not for you.” I’d rather you just go, really, exhaust that phase of your life that you think that you’re good and that you’ve got it all set and come back when it’s not, when you are needy and needing an exchange of life; you’re needing the victory side of life; you’re needing His victory lived in your life. Then come back. But if you think you’re a okay doing it why even read it?”
Martha:
The wonder of it for both the books but especially for The Great Exchange is I said to Joan, “John is never superior.” And so, he has the power to impart it to other people because he doesn’t look down; he’s looking up.
John:
Um hmm, hmm.
Martha:
He doesn’t look at himself in any superiority.
John:
It’s not a point of telling. I’m not telling you.
Martha:
Right, you’re not telling but you’re sharing your own journey and in doing so you have us accept out humanity and our need because you don’t write from superiority.
John:
Wow, how wonderful!
Martha:
Yeah, it really is.
John:
I facilitate you coming into your own existence, accepting your own sovereign touch, accepting His life. I facilitate the acceptance of….by being in vulnerability to it and exposing it. I say some things that I would never tell anybody in that book, The Great Exchange. I would never tell anybody. I would be like, uh huh; I would go to the grave with that but it wasn’t my story so He could do it. But I love how it facilitates that. I literally, I give you…ah
Martha:
Meat.
John:
…meat and permission, yeah. Meat though, sure enough, I give that.
Joan:
In The Great Exchange John gives us permission to be as human as we truly are, as needy as we are, as failing as we are, as weak as we are and unashamed of our need. His books are inclusive. By not being superior he doesn’t exclude you from the narrative; he brings you in.
Martha:
One other thing he does in The Great Exchange he unlocks the mystery.
John:
We just did that podcast that we were stewards of the mystery and that’s exactly what the book does.
Martha:
It make accessible…
John:
Right.
Martha:
…a mystery. It is bringing the eternal mystery that was hidden for ages and generations and was revealed according to the scripture to Gentiles.
John:
Wow!
Martha:
And so that mystery is Christ.
John:
Which is a huge boast. And I’m glad you’re saying it not me.
Martha:
But see it’s not just the mystery is Christ. That’s not the full mystery. The full mystery is Christ came in human form.
John:
Right.
Martha:
That’s the mystery that God could live in man; the incarnate Christ. You unfold that mystery. That’s what it means. The exchange is what that means. It is the mystery. You unfolded the entire aspects of the mystery. And it’s no small gift.
John:
It’s no small gift and it’s no small thing because I know that it wasn’t me. In that I know there was no way that it was me because how does this man that’s living in the mountains of North GA how does he has the mystery that’s been covered for eons: generations and generations and generation and all of a sudden, oh yeah! Well, no it’s not that I’m the only one that has this. That’s not it. But it was something that was given to me to share.
Paul was a steward of the mystery and it wasn’t by merit of Paul for him to boast. It was grace that he got that message and the fact that he could deliver that message it was all grace. It’s beautiful grace that he had. It was God’s choosing. “This is the one I want to bring it through. And this is what I want to say and this is how I want to impact My people.”
Joan:
And because John doesn’t explain the mystery, you’re able to come in to the mystery. I don’t know if that makes any sense to y’all but John doesn’t attempt to bring a mystery down to be explained. He is able to see it because he was willing to live with the mystery and, therefore, he can see it and just puts it in living terms not in teaching/explaining terms. Mysteries are received not to find.
John:
Wow, wow, wow. Yeah, a mystery isn’t something that you explain it’s something you receive.
Martha:
I really believe that in our age that mystery is little known. In the first century it was the foundation that Christ’s indwelling is the Christian life. In the first church, in the early church somehow, they conveyed that. I don’t know what it is. It could be our self-sufficiency because if you live by the mystery you live by everything from Him and nothing of self.
John:
The mystery is utterly fascinating.
Martha:
It’s fascinating because you come to live the mystery. You come for Him to be in you and to be all that He is instead of all you are not. Not of me and you but…
John:
Oh, me, yes, it is me. It’s all of us. It’s not a focus on what we’re not.
Martha:
And I think I said in the pod cast that the Greek meaning of the word mystery is it’s some news or revelation that is supposed to be revealed. It’s not a mystery that is to be hidden forever and ever just because it was hidden from generations.
John:
It’s a treasure.
Martha:
It’s the treasure.
John:
Right.
Martha:
The secret of His life and it’s so little taught and so much left out of the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ incarnate. That was the promise all through the OT, the heart promise and that has come. At the cross it was realized. He brough a new life in His resurrection that it supposed to be our way of living.
John:
Incarnate in me!
Martha:
Yes.
John:
In me!
Joan:
I think what I’ve seen is when you receive it then it can be revealed. We are ever in our culture looking to achieve. We want to explain, we want to achieve a life. We don’t want to receive a life or believe that we have need to be given a life and it’s only when you come to that utter desperate place of failure that you’re willing to even receive what you know you can’t achieve. I think innately we all know we cannot achieve a life but we try and our trying takes us to be failure to be willing to receive.
But that’s what’s revealed. John, I feel like you had it reveled to you because you received so in receiving the mystery it can be revealed to you and then you can transmit it to other. You can impart it to others because you’ve had revelation not achievement and someone else is willing to come in and say, “Oh, yeah, I need this, too.” Because it’s not out of your self-sufficiency. It’s not out of you and what you’ve achieved. It’s out of what you were willing to receive and let God give you.
Martha:
This is not the day of celebrating John although that’s what we’re doing. There will be a much bigger day than this that he will be celebrated for this message because he came to see this through being an abject servant of whatever the Lord asked him to be and do.
We’re sitting here, Joan and I, looking at John and we know how he lives and what he’s done with this life is to become a servant of Jesus on whatever ground and some of the ground has been tough that he’s agreed to be the servant.
And in that level of surrender I think it should be noted if we’re going to explain the book in any form that we’ve got to talk about who John is as a vessel. There is nothing that he withholds from Jesus of what Christ wants him to do in this world. And he does it with joy and abandon without drum beats and hoopla.
So, John’s willingness to be a servant not of the ministry, not of the ministry, that’s not it, of us, that’s not it; it’s a servant of Christ and an absolute follower of God’s will.
The message of my life probably is that everything you come by you come through the will of God. And he remains firm, cemented, and consistent in seeking God’s will and so God is able to give John the secrets of the kingdom. Jesus said to His disciples,
You have been given the secrets of the kingdom.
But they were His disciples to whom it was given. The crowds didn’t get what the disciples got in terms of revelation.
And so, we have to go behind the writer, behind the vessel to see what kind of vessel Jesus is looking for. Where will He put His life into that human life. It’s in those who are His servants. The disciples left everything and John left everything, absolutely everything including business and church to follow Christ in GA. He wouldn’t brag about that, never speaks of that. It’s just a fact. But that’s the level that like Peter and John that walked away from the boat and the fishing nets and didn’t look back; left everything. And that’s what a disciple is.
If you’re going to be a disciple, Jesus says, you have to lose your life to find it. And if you find your life, if you orchestrate a life, your own making, your own building, you’ll lose your real life and real destiny and real identity.
So, I just want to say what John would never want me to say and that is that the vessel has been in a crucible of surrender and a willingness to follow that is unique and so his revelation of the mysteries of God is profound and personal and very, very real. Thank you, John, for giving us the gift of Jesus in your own life.
Unfolded Mystery of The Great Exchange – Episode #763 – Shulamite Podcast
In The Great Exchange John gives us permission to be as human as we truly are, needy, failing and weak as we are and unashamed of our need.
Crumpled into…craving…HIM. I’ve struggled in all the ways you’ve brought it…the Spirit of Truth does set us free. I bring all that’s a part of “losing my life”, to Him….& that changes everything…”He, as me”. My weakness ‘nothing’s’ me…& a nothing gladly receives. John isn’t looking at us…he’s looking up, at Jesus, & Jesus looks where He wants to look. That is the place of seeing. There HE is ever in the picture. “I’m not telling you.” That’s why it’s terrible–wonderful…you can’t know it, we must each live in the mystery. The mystery both invites & presses us, & frees us to be receivers. ‘Oh tell me, tell me, & it’ll just be you, & I can decide what surrender & obedience are’….”Go to your God”. He can only live His Life in ‘me’, in me. Our practical lives make clear where our focus is…when our eyes are on Jesus, we are at the Standard, & our weakness will cry out for HIM. (practical or sublime) Do i love my weakness? No. Will we love our weakness? Disciples did…& i believe we will too, because Jesus lives it all, in us. Perhaps it will be again & again…but increasingly we will see HIM…until one day we stand in the splendor of His glory, the Worthy One! Our deepest desire is to live in the mystery. His passionate pursuit is to set us free to receive! ALL. I heartily celebrate you, John! So grateful for the authority of Love in all you write. Your life evidences your gaze. Thank you!
Allow me to celebrate along with you – the life of one who embraced the Mystery and who`s sacrifice of love has blessed us all! We love you John!