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with Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
(M) I think when you’ve been dominated or tyrannized or controlled and you allow it, it causes you to believe your choice and your desire has no power. But we’ve been talking about surrender, and we have to exercise the choice to surrender. But you know I’ve been on the word ‘let’ that God spoke to me in Spain.
(J) Yeah, you’ve been speaking about that in “Manna”. You just started “Manna” back up and then you started that with the ‘let’ word.
(M) Umhum. And I think I’m understanding that while surrender must be total, and it must be absolute, the word ‘let’ gives me a whole different view. I think it’s the release of yourself, the choice to release yourself to God, to relinquish to Him even your very hopes and dreams. And to let Him be God is to surrender ‘being god’. So it’s a whole new word that means the same thing. But the choice, we have to have our choice. You can’t make choices for another human being, because I have tried very hard. I have wanted Christ for people more than they wanted Christ for themselves. And ah, so I have a whole history that’s under the blood of trying to get… Begging people to receive Him. But I understand now that the freedom is simply to make sure that everybody understands they have the choice. And that it is powerful, that God takes your choice. He doesn’t expect performance of you, He only wants you to have the freedom to choose Him, or not. And we can choose Satan, we can choose hell, we are free to choose. The problem is if you don’t choose, there is a choice in the wrong direction.
(J) Absolutely.
(M) So you’re saying that ‘I want’ is assuming the responsibility, but ‘I choose’ is, is exercising your real responsibility and giving the job to God, so to speak.
(J) Ah, I remember the, Disney version of “The Hunchback Of Notre Dame”. Remember when the gypsy woman was singing her song in the church and all the people were coming up with their wants. I want this, I want this, bless me, bless me, bless me. But there was a whole bunch of wants coming, and they were all completely powerless. But I just, I can see the throng of people coming, coming through with their wants, and I just think that that’s why we’re bringing it in to the podcast, because I believe ‘want’ is a trap of Satan to hold us; because if I continually want, I will never have.
(M) Oh good, expand on that. I knew that’s what you were going to say and I’m excited about it. Yeah, you’ll never have if you stay in I want God to do so and so, or I want to be so and so.
(J) It doesn’t work, and uhmm, it’s futile, and it leaves us empty, it leaves us ah, debilitated. Because though it’s a power position, it’s also an irresponsible position. And I’ve never seen that… And that’s actually… that came out of my mouth and I didn’t have any idea, you know. I didn’t, I didn’t realize the ‘cast’ position. I knew about the power position, I knew about the achieving, the grasping ‘want’. But I didn’t know that it also cast you on your back so that you can’t ‘get’. W hat a tragedy though. But I can choose, I can say ok God, I choose this, I choose it. This is the life that I want to come forth out of me, and I can choose that.
(M) Again I think the hardest thing is that we’re afraid to choose, because we believe that we’ll have to perform it. And something in us… We know we cannot perform. And so many times I’ve had to separate the choice from the performance. It’s frightening to think what we have to do with God and for God. It’s overwhelming if you, if you realize it.
(J) Umhmm.
(M) And so, choosing I think can be frightening, and there’s a place of unbelief. I don’t believe my choice will matter, I don’t believe I have my choice, and I don’t believe… I’m so weak in my choice I don’t believe that it will change anything. But God takes our choices as real and responds to us in choice. ‘Want’ is a prayer, but it’s not a choice. You can want in prayer and give God the desire, but it’s not the same as choice. Choice is a direction, a decision. It’s like the Amplified says, “A decisive dedication of your body.” You have to choose certain things, and God cannot move in your life until you do.
(J) Well I’m praying that the liberation, the liberating Life of Christ that is coming out of this ministry would liberate people to their choices. I would say, put God to the test about your choice. Choose, and watch Him do it, because He will do it according to your choice. It may not function how you want it to function; it may not look how you want it to look. Ah, when we started going to the whole surrender thing, I chose surrender. It has not gone how I wanted it to go. God has taken over and has done some things that I’m going wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I didn’t sign up for this, this little road. But I did, I said I want, I choose to surrender my life, and He said ok, and has done some pretty wild things to prove to me that I can’t do what I think I can do. So, I want a liberation to go forth, people to be liberated unto their choices and delivered from their wants, so that we really can see the Kingdom come forth. We really can see His Life come forth. That, that would be worth it all.
(M) Well you know John it was down to not a matter of words of want or choose; it’s a heart transaction. And I think you could use the words interchangeably. The issue is God knows what you mean in your heart by what you say. And I know I’ve walked with a lot of people that said I choose, but didn’t. And time proved that to say it does not make it so. I mean sometimes we will think that if we say the right thing to God then that’s ok, we don’t have to do it, we don’t have to be committed to it. And uhmm…
(J) He’s looking for a heart transaction here.
(M) Exactly, and He knows when it has taken place. So you could say I want to lay down my life for You, and in your heart you mean that that’s what you choose. So we’re putting it in two different categories, and that’s valid to explain it. But it isn’t a matter of what words you use, it’s what your heart in the depths of your being has decided.
(J) And I think my want… I did choose, but I somehow…
(M) I don’t think you believed your choice had power, because there was no performance that you could do for it.
(J) I’m addicted to my performance.
(M) Well we won’t go there will we?
(J) I don’t think don’t think we will.
(M) No, let’s don’t. We can close the podcast now. (Laughter) But it’s so, it was… Oh it’s a wonderful thing how free we are to choose, because we can perform none of it. We cannot be what He asks us to be. We cannot do what He asks us to do. He’s not asking for that. He’s asking us to choose.
(J) Ok, well then, we do have to go here a little bit because you just revealed why I thought want was a power word. Well, because I wanted and I thought I had to perform. That’s why I thought it was a power word. I ah… My performance was behind my want and I could never do it. But now you’re coming to the whole surrender thing and you’re saying ok, you’ve got to surrender your life and you’ve got to surrender your choice to God and then He will perform it. So that’s why I really was truly ‘cast’, because I was looking for the source to be my effort.
(M) Well, we all do, that was Jacob. I always wondered why he felt he had to steal the blessing that God had given him. Because he believed he had to do it; and he had to wring out his own prosperity and wring out his own destiny. And he didn’t understand that what God says, God Himself will perform. And we all have our ‘Jacob’ walk, John. It’s inevitable because Jacob stands for humanity in all of its trickery, ambition, independence, above all independence. I am dependent on God to take up my choices so it’s almost like the play of a child. You know, you can choose whatever level of spirituality you want God to do and He will do it. Now as you’ve learned, the path there is costly. And even though your path is costly, you’re not going back. That hadn’t occurred to you. You’re going forward and you’re dealing with it, with the infirmity and you’re still knowing, you know, after you choose you know and believe. After you really give God what He’s asking you’re caught. You’re captured to your choice and He will perform it. It’s so wonderful because it is free. It’s all up to Him. The only responsibility we have is to choose what He brings to us, and even that is a pressure He puts on us and a revelation He gives us to show us what choice He’s after. My choice, my personal choice at the moment is not faith, but trust. Faith is sort of as in Hebrews 11, faith is something God has promised. But trust for me, the challenge of God to me right now is will you choose to trust Me. Trust is a blind confidence in His character, whatever, whatever He does. It’s not about a specific; it’s about ‘Who He is’. So my choice these days is, ok, I will trust You, I will. And I expect Him to give me the trust that He’s asking of me.
(J) It’s so in us, it’s so in us to believe in performance, it’s so in us and ah…
(M) I think it’s the delusion that Satan put in us in Adam and Eve, the delusion that we can know without God, that we can know equally to God. It’s the delusion of independence, and we are such utterly dependent beings. He made us that way. Our independence is so foolish. (John laughs) It’s ridiculous, your laugh says it is ridiculous that we think we can do anything. Jesus said apart from Me you can do nothing, and that is insulting to every part of our proud humanity. We are so independent and we don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. Your use of I want is on independence. I decide, I decide what I want of God and with God. I choose is I decide with God what He has chosen for me. That’s the distinction to me. I want what I want. No, I choose is I choose what You choose. I agree with Your choice with all my being. And that is dependence as well as responsibility. To choose is dependence.
(J) This whole podcast has kind of blossomed, you know, it started out one thing, it’s just kind of bloomed. So that’s neat, that’s good.
(M) Yeah, well you’re encouraging to me in my life these days. And I know it’s the Life of Christ that has me more than yesterday.
(J) It’s evident, it’s just evident, and I know it’s so evident that you are seeing it. You know, usually we don’t see it. We don’t feel it. You know a lot of things that go on in the Spirit we don’t see or feel. But you’re literally feeling the effects of it.
(M) Humhmm. Yes, I know where I am, in complete weakness. And I know that His Life is rising over and over and over again in me in ways that are, I’ll say new. I’ll say greater. I have decreased and He has increased, I pray.
