Belong to God? Put Boots on the Ground! – Episode #692

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Belong to God? Put Boots on the Ground!
Episode #692
03/08/2020

Jennifer:
I’m finding it hard to even remember the weird, tormented stasis of, of my life previously. And that’s what disobedience is. Whatever else it is, it’s not life and it’s not moving and it’s not living and it’s not going forward. You’re treading water at best. So…

Martha:
You’ve hit on the, such a major thing. There was someone in my life that simply would not hear me. I mean, years, would not hear me. And one morning I was praying with the Lord and He gave, He spoke to me
1 John 4:6. And that scripture says, “We belong to God and those who belong to God hear us and those who don’t belong to God will not hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” And in context, the error was, is about antichrist.

So the, the… See, here’s the secret to being you, discovering you, having peace with you, and having the power to put boots on the ground, is that you belong to Another. And if you belong to Another, you don’t have any rights. Rights are things we think of that we can say. You did a wonderful job of explaining that, Jennifer.

Jennifer:
I have did it.

Martha:
You have did it.

But it’s belonging. You’ve been bought with a price. You’ve been completely bought with a price. And He knows every secret of why He bought you and what you are to become. And I don’t want to miss it. It’s, it’s too marvelous. It’s going to be beyond my capacity, beyond my ability, beyond my talent, beyond every effort. It’s going to be beyond everything. But I want it. I want to finish my race, and the only way to do it is to belong to Another.

And, and I can say to people sometimes, “You’re holding something back. What is it?” Something, as you said, you would not give the Lord. “I will not give Him that.” Or “I reserve the right to say yes or no.” You have that right in the terms of God’s gift to you, but you don’t have that right if you want to plan to be His.

So belonging to Him and knowing that you do… It also gives you what I want to talk about next, is how do you know other people? We need to know other people. The Bible warns the New Testament, the Holy Spirit warns the New Testament, “Find out if there are false prophets in your midst.” The church’s weakness to me right now is not knowing when evil is present in the form, in the form of a lamb. We’ve had it. And I know that, that the church universal has this, too, because it is a warning to us. And we don’t know! We don’t know people because we don’t let the scriptures show us how to know.

And this was one of those ways that He showed me how to know. If people don’t listen to you, when you have a real… I belong to God! So, if I belong to God and I speak, I’m speaking from belonging to God. And if you don’t listen to that, then you don’t belong to God. It’s a, it’s a simple test. If people don’t listen to you when you’ve got important things to say for their lives and for their, life-and-death things to say, then you are of the antichrist, which is not for Jesus, it is against Him. If he… “He who does not gather with me, scatters.”

And so that’s one… If I belong, then I know what it’s like. I’ve heard you say, “I know what it doesn’t look like,” Jennifer. “So I know what it should look like and what it does look like.” If that made any sense.

Jennifer:
Um hmm.

Martha:
But that, that’s… It’s… Belonging gives you the eyes to see and the test to know. So you become yourself when you belong, but if you own your own self, your own rights, your own last, “I have the last word to what God wants me to do,” then you do not belong. Belong is when you put your boots on the ground, Jennifer. That’s when you belong. When He says something and you’re going. You’re in it. So…

But I want to search the scriptures about how we know others, how we can know if a wolf is in our midst because it’s, the Bible says it will always be exposed.

Jennifer:
And I think that there will always be that danger. Satan is never gonna leave the true church alone. He, he cannot, he will not. That’s, that’s Biblical, too. And, and God is gonna allow for, for training but also because He works on so many levels, for His total vindication.

The wolf is a soul as well, you know? “We wrestle not with flesh and blood.” That wolf in sheep’s clothing is a soul, utterly oppressed, sometimes possessed by Satan and his minions. But it is not God’s heart that any should perish, and when that wolf, whether redeemed or not, stands before God, God will be utterly vindicated as to what He did and how He loved in that person, in that person’s life. And that is what is so amazing to me about just how thorough He is. I mean there is not one ground that is uncovered by Him.

And, you know, I have, I have been watching John and Martha for ten years now and the one consistent thing in the two of you is that you do not just talk. There is a walk to support what you say. There is an experience. When you share something, it is born of boots on the ground. And that is, that is the power of the testimony. Your testimony… If your testimony is purely from what you read in the Bible and has no action in your life, I don’t believe it has any more power than, you know, Alexa reading the Bible to you out loud.

The real life-changing impartation of power is the testimony of Jesus Christ in your life and that’s boots on the ground. That is the testimony that is wrought in, in blood and in sweat, you know, and in sweat. I think that’s what…

It’s kind of antiquated now that “faith without works” deal. You know that whole deal? Which I think a lot of people say, “Well, I’m just going to do what I know to be good. So I’m going to volunteer at the soup kitchen and I’m going to this, that, and the other.” And God’s will doesn’t play into it at all. What if God doesn’t want you in the soup kitchen? What if, what if He wants you to join a fancy country club because those people are dying and don’t even know they’re dying. What if that’s His ground for a mission? You know, we, we don’t know.

There’s a dear woman who, who I, oh my goodness, I love her so much, and she is older and so she is really had some health problems lately, and she told me that she was, you know, just worried because she thought she as going to have to go in a home soon, an assisted living home. And for me, I just wanted to sit down and cry. And as I was getting ready for some real good, walloping tears, my mouth started working and I realized the Lord was saying something. And it’s kind of, I don’t know if it’s the first time that’s happened. It’s not the first time I’ve been surprised by something that came out of my mouth (laughing). I’m often surprised by what comes out of my mouth, but this was the Lord. And He said, “Oh, if you, if you are going to a home, that’s because Jesus needs boots on the ground there. And it’s gonna be magnificent!” And I’ve never before thought of going into a nursing home as a battlefield. But that’s exactly what it is. There are all sorts of battlegrounds. So it’s not just…

If we decide that we know what is right and what is good and how to be a Christian, we are missing as… John, you used the word gladiator. Well, you’re missing the field of battle that God would have you in because every single one, regardless of their position or their authority… This is one of the things I’ve seen. I believe I am now of use to the Holy Spirit. That’s what boots on the ground means. I am, in fact, a living sacrifice. I am a vessel that He can move into the world as He wishes. However small that may look to somebody else, in my life, that’s enormous. That is enormous.

And I now have stories that are really crazy, amazing stories and that’s just in three months. Good gravy boats, what have I been doing? That’s what I want to say. All, all what? So I could have the right to eat a piece of cheese cake and cry quietly into a pillow over, you know, my sad life? Seriously?! Yes, yes, that, that’s my story. That’s going to be my story, too. And that’s okay. I, I accept that and, and that will be of worth to Him or He wouldn’t have written it, so it’s fine. But that, that is astonishing to me.

And, and what you’re saying Martha about knowing who we are, who we are and who we are to Him. Not just in our being but in our function, in the purpose of our life. I mean this woman whom I adore… I, I, you know… Just because you’re old and sickly does not mean that God doesn’t have a purpose for you. She could be like a nuclear bomb going off in one of these facilities that are so full of despair and grief and all the rest of it. We do not know. And I say that if there’s somebody out there who’s on their own and listening, your life is not over until He takes you home.

Martha:
I love the story of the revival of the Hebrides, in the turn of the century around the, 1930. Two sisters, one crippled, the other blind, could not go to church, so they decided to have church in their home and from that came a world-impacting, worldwide revival. And the heritage… The niece of one of those ladies went to New York City, married a man named Trump and they had a son named Donald. He came from a revival. He came from a heritage of a revival. It was a revival.

Just what you’re talking about, Jennifer. Taking your limitations and living inside of them for Christ, to see what He will do. And those women prayed Duncan Campbell into their midst, who was a, the famous man who had revival went wherever he went. And many… And the men started praying and went into, several of them went in the barn and said, “We’re not coming out for two weeks. We’re going pray until revival comes.”

So they, they began in that limited life, totally limited, just the two of them. “We’re gonna have church anyway!” No telling what they had. Wouldn’t you love to be there?

Jennifer:
And what if they had let Satan in the guise of Job’s friends tell them that clearly they were sinful people who had no point of authority for their prayers because they would be well if they were right with God? Oh, I’m going to say it that strongly because I have several people that call, and these are older people and they have struggled with their health and nothing makes me madder than, you know… And the Lord has put me in a place and I thank Him for it, but I can’t tell you the number of calls that I have fielded where they have been weeping, because they need the body of Christ to tell them, “No, no. No, no!” Because they have had friends of Job saying, “No, seriously, this cannot possibly be God’s will for anyone, ever.” Really? Really?!

So what other battlegrounds are off limits for God? Just out of curiosity, is it just that one? So anybody who’s sick, deformed, diseased, God doesn’t want to worship in that vessel? Hmm? Gaahhhh!

John:
And ultimately what they say is that’s they’re sinners. “You’re, you, you are in sin. This is why this happening to you and you need to repent. And if you will repent, then this would go away. But because you’re so willful and won’t repent, that’s why you still have this.” And I just think that’s real limiting to God.

Martha:
It’s Job. God, God called him a perfect man and they called him not a perfect man. And the story is incredible because it shows that everything is sovereign, even what happens to us. And Satan asked for it and God granted it and it was terrible – boils. The same is true when Jesus said to Peter, “Satan has asked permission to sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith would not fail. And when you’re converted, help your brothers.” So… There’s another one I… Paul’s thorn in the flesh could have been a sickness. There are people who say, “Nope, not possible.” I say, “Very possible.” It doesn’t say, so how do you know?

Joan:
And it seems like Job’s friends, which are everywhere, attack the actual anointing and attack what God’s word is. Job was a perfect man, righteous in all his ways. And they, as the accusers and using Satan’s voice, said, “No, you’re a sinful man.” And so what I love about Job is – and Habakkuk – he took the fight to God. He said, “I’m not talking to you people,” you know. “I’ve listened to you for days now. You’re wrong.” Job swore to his own hurt and I love that about him, because he just said, “No, that is not true about me” and that is not at all what God had said about him. God said to Satan, “You see my servant, Job? He’s perfect.” Satan said, “Well, why wouldn’t he be? Why wouldn’t he be? We’d all be great if we had all that Job has.” Not so, because God did take everything from Job – everything Job loved, everything he valued. God took it all, and Job still said, “No, not true. Your accusations are false.”

Martha:
But at the end he saw the face of God.

Joan:
Yes, yes.

Belong to God? Put Boots on the Ground! – Episode #692 – Shulamite Podcast

When you belong to God completely, your life will display boots-on-the-ground obedience. You will go and say and BE all that He asks, and flourish! Though you will be attacked, like Job maybe, if you know what GOD says about you, then you will overcome.