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Work Out of Love for Him
Episode #501
July 10, 2016
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Carole Nelson
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #499.
(Martha) Everything we do out of the motive of work for the sake of love and self-love – oh, I just said it – other than the origin being the love of God ends in death. You kept saying it over and over again, Carole, that it must originate with His love.
(Carole) I just, for that moment, and I don’t want to lose it, but for that time I just so clearly was seeing. I know it was by revelation of the Spirit. I know that. We heard this, it’s not that it’s brand new, but for that time, it was so clear that that is… And that’s all He wants. It brings Him great pleasure. We don’t enter the rest because… They didn’t enter the rest because of unbelief. Unbelief in what? Him. Unbelief in His love for them. Unbelief. And I am guilty. I have been guilty. But He is about His business. And I think I ended with, “I am His business, dadgummit!” And He is about the business of us here, and I believe we’re all going through very similar, the same issues, very different, perhaps circumstances, but the issue is there. And He is, He is, “doing His good pleasure.” And He is doing far… I’m going to say it one more time, and I’m going to memorize this, “Lord Jesus, hold me, hold me.” “Now to Him who by (in consequence of) the action of His power that is at work within us is able,” He is able to carry out His own purpose! “and do superabundantly far over and above all that we dare,” I dare! “to ask or think infinitely..” Martha saw that word infinitely. It’s like beyond the universes, shouwwwww! “infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen!” Now, that’s faith.
(Martha) I believe He’s so closed us up that we will not experience Him except on His terms. And His terms are what Watchman Nee said, and I’ve put it in my Bible, and I’ve prayed it. “I will be only one who is to be loved by You. That’s all I’m to be is one who’s loved by You.” And you said it beautifully when you said, “It’s all He wants to do is love us. That’s it.” This morning I said to the Lord, “What is the purpose of this time? What are you doing in my life, because You’ve hemmed me in so?” And He answered me in Austin Sparks. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” You’re relating this issue to faith this morning, Carole. Over and over again you kept taking it to the issue of faith. “God does not tell us what He’s doing when taking us through dark experiences. If He did it would alright. If He said, “I’m going to lead into a bad time. It’s all going to be dark and strange and perplexing and bewildering and helpless.” And that is exactly, perfectly describes where I feel like I am. “But it’s alright. I’m working a tremendous thing that I’m going to bring about out of it.” So, that’s what He’s doing I feel to us. And you describe it in that way, that He’s hemming us in until I’m willing to just be one who is loved by Him.
(Carole) Well, as I was on, “Only believe,” you were also on absolute surrender. And you said, “You really can’t believe without surrender, and you really can’t surrender without believing.” And I thought, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?” It’s really as I accept and surrender where I am in this place, His faith increases. His faith in me increases as I surrender. And I cannot, I cannot… There has to be both. There has to be unequivocal surrender to Him, unequivocal acceptance. I thought of the… All of a sudden when Martha and I were talking, it was like I said, “This is a mountain.” And I thought about that for a second, and then I said, “But I feel the serenity even in the mountain.” And it brought to mind the prayer, “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” which is absolute surrender, “the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
(Martha) “In Jesus’ Name.”
(Carole) “In Jesus’ Name, Amen,” which is the original.
(Martha) Here’s another thing you said. You said, “You, Lord, have done it all,” meaning this parameter that you’re talking about, closed you in, “so that I will have a single eye, nothing outside the origin of Christ’s love.” You said, “Prayer is a work to me, it’s not a time of love.” You see, whatever He calls you to, immediately you think you’ve got to work.
(J) Umhmm!
(Martha) Right? He’s given me the most unbelievable responsibility; people, farm, ministry, on and on, family, twelve books to write that aren’t written. And if I look at that as a calling, I will immediately make it a work that I cannot perform, and I will fail. I fail right there. And eventually I’m going to get to the New Covenant, because this is what the New Covenant is. God says, “I will do it all. You just come and receive everything from Me. Just receive love and power, and out of that Love the power to work and the ideas and the creativity to work, so forth and so on. But it’s that single eye that I have prayed for, for so long. Can I read this that you said?
(Carole) Yeah.
(Martha) You said, “This is what I have dreaded.” I don’t know what you meant exactly at that moment, but you said, “It’s all so convoluted, and I don’t relax and surrender in His arms for Him to do what He promised to do. It’s just sick to not do that.”
(Carole) Well, I think you had just finished saying that when we do work out of work, when we do work out of that motive or intention of work, then it’s going to end in failure and death. It will. And in response to that it’s like He’ll say… Some of you don’t know this but I have this Japanese maple tree in my front yard that my dear husband planted for me seven years ago. And when I bought that, I brought it home, and I wanted to know how to care for it, so I looked up the specific type of tree it was, and it’s called a Tamukeyama Japanese maple tree. And do you know what that tree says, means? It means, “Hands folded in prayer on the mountain,” and it’s planted in my front yard. God gave me that tree, and He planted that vision. And He planted that call, and I have utterly failed, because it has been a work to me that I have felt like I have had to do. And I’ve failed repeatedly to just relax and let Him be that intercessor, and let Him be that prayer, and let Him be what He wants to be. And He gave me that. It was a gift and calling and a promise. That’s what it was. It was a promise to do exactly what He was calling me to do, He would do in and through me. That’s what it was, a promise! I don’t take it as a promise to believe.
(Martha) You take it as a work!
(Carole) I take it as a work and try.
(Martha) And you know, Carole, this is the irony. If you have a little bit of integrity, it can kill you with work. And if you don’t have the integrity, then you will never get up to do it. So, either way you fail until you understand that Christ does it.
How absolutely beautiful is the privilege to share in Carole’s revelation!
“It was a promise to do exactly what He was calling me to do,…”
Bless The Lord for allowing us to share in His revelation to you!
As I was listening and this was shared, “You really can’t believe without surrender, and you really can’t surrender without believing.” And I thought, “What comes first, the chicken or the egg?”
This is what I thought, “Surrender-believe, believe-surrender, which comes first? It doesn’t matter because “we” do neither successfully. Only the Holy Spirit is able to perform that which glorifies God. So as we bow our will and allow Him to both surrender and believe for us…it doesn’t matter the order.
I’m excited to sit “in church” with all of you!
Love!
Tammy, you put that so well! i was just sitting and listening to all of this in awe of His love; wanted to reply but it would have been so incoherent . . . so much; so simple; so profound.
All I can say is “AMEN!”
(“. . . only one who is loved” – so beautiful, Martha.) Carole, you passion is contagious!
Love you, friends!