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Blasting Apart My Settled Opinion
Episode #512
September 25, 2016
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel and Carole Nelson
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #510.
(Jennifer) You know, “His ways are not my ways.” So to move from my ways into His ways in the perfect training, in the perfect confrontation, however the Holy Spirit does it to break us completely free of these strongholds that we’re in, it can sometimes feel wrong to do it His way. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Carole, when you were saying it didn’t feel unnatural to you at all. It felt even right for you to hold these lesser opinions of yourself. It felt true, lesser and limited. But I’m no stranger to that, and there’s a place in that where that feels like you’re being realistic. That feels like you’re being honest. That feels like you’re being unsparing, that you’re not flattering yourself, that you’re not puffing yourself up, that you’re seeing yourself as you really are in all reality.
(John) So one part of it is that I can literally, you know, believe that it’s true. I can feel that it’s true, that it’s honest, that’s it’s humble, that it’s correct, you know, literally believing that it’s all correct. But the other part and the other side of that is that Satan can make it feel like it’s so heavy and weigh me down, you know. It’s too much work. It’s too much effort, it’s too much. It’s going to take so much, and what your message did was it told me this isn’t too much work. This isn’t too heavy. This is not easy, but it is simple, and that’s what I appreciated. All of a sudden I said, ok, yeah, this is simple, not easy, because the reason why it’s not easy is because you’re having to do the work to choose. And if you have a life time of choices in a different direction, all of a sudden now you have to choose against that direction and kind of go against the rut to come out of it. But even that I believe that God will give you… It’s not like God’s going to say, “Alright, out there and start digging,” you know. You know, “Get your hoe. Go.” I think that His desire is so much for us to be here, that He will move heaven and earth for us to be there. And so, you know, he always wants me to believe, Satan always wants me to believe it’s difficult, it’s hard and it’s impossible. The big word is impossible. That, “Ohh, God, ooooooo…” And it’s just not true. And it can be difficult. The struggle that you’re talking about is not an easy struggle. If it was easy, then no one would have a problem. If it was easy everybody would be floating around on clouds, but we’re not because it’s a difficult work in that you’re having to fight yourself.
(Martha) I wanted to ask you if you could see the adventure of it and the possibilities and the fascination of Who He is, and that He wants to reveal Himself not only to us, but through us? We’re supposed to manifest Him. And the one… Years ago, John, we read someone’s writing that was… I’ve always regretted that I lost it. He talked about introspection and how evil it is and demonic. And what we’ve all been saying is that we’re prone to introspection, to assessing ourselves, thinking about ourselves. And I don’t think a child is that self-conscious. They don’t start out that way. And to be free of self-consciousness would be a huge load.
(Carole) I just saw when you were speaking for me, I saw it, that you were speaking… The message went to my heart. It didn’t go through my mind. It went to my heart and when it goes to the heart, it believes. And you said in the message that everything begins in the mind. The flesh begins in the mind. We think about, we think about it. We make an opinion about it. We assess it. We decide whether the thought is something… a legitimate thought, and it becomes a belief system. But your message went to my heart, and I believe, I have faith somehow. I can’t tell you how. It’s a mystery. I have faith, and I believe that He is about doing it. He is about bringing it to the manifestation. He has done it.
(Martha) Umhmm.
(Carole) It is done, but He is bringing us to the place where He is manifesting the reality of spirit. And I wrote down what you said that… This is very simply put, but that the soul and the flesh is what comes out from me, my thoughts that come out from me. That’s what soul and flesh is. Would that be correct?
(Martha) Umhmm.
(Carole) And that the spirit is that which comes out from Him, out from God and out from the Holy Spirit. And one of the things that I saw in this last dealing was I was in the kitchen and I thought, “Carole, He has brought you to a place…” He has brought me to a place. It has been a struggle. I don’t know how far along I am, but I know I’m farther than I was last year. And that is a place of knowing that I am nothing, and that I can do nothing. I think we’ve all been going through the experience and reality of that. But in seeing that I was nothing, I stopped there because I was still counting on me to come up with something, rather than to see as Jesus did. He didn’t fret over that, because He was a receptacle, always receiving from the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t about Him. Somehow it was never about Him.
(Martha) Not to Him.
(Carole) Not to Him it wasn’t. It was all about the Father, and somehow I got a glimpse for a moment, a revelation that, “Wow, I don’t need to, I don’t need to have an opinion about myself or limit myself because if I’m a receptacle, there is no limit. He is limitless, because I’m nothing but a receptacle. A receptacle can receive the boundless provision, because there are no limits. Is that right?
(Martha) That is right. Something happened to me during this time when I’ve been weak. Something happened. I can’t explain it. All I can tell you is the result of it’s been a touch of the Lord, something He’s accomplished. I’m the big shot that’s always talking about being a child. And I’m prone to be very adult and burden bearing. And so that’s… But He did something to me. He took something from me and gave me something. It’s kind of a mystery, but what it did was every morning I wake up, and I have to come back to this sometimes. “I’m a child. I have no agenda for the day. Take my hand and give me the wonderful things You’ve got in mind, and just walk me through it because I don’t know where, I don’t know what You’re going to do and where You’re going, and I don’t need to. I’m just a child.” So, I’m done. I can even make a plan, and He can blow it up. That’s ok, which He did this week. That doesn’t matter either. But the primary thing is looking and asking and praying for His will. That is so crucial to pray for His will, because His will’s outside of my imagination. And if I don’t pray for His will, I won’t have it. It won’t destroy my boxes and my labels and my preconceived ideas, so I’m coming as a little child more than ever in my life to say, “Hello, what’s the day? I have no plan. I have no agenda. Let’s see what Your, where You take me, and You have to do it all, ’cause I’m just a little child. You have to take me, and You have to do it, and You have to show me. And You have to guide me, and You have to correct me, and You have to do it all. And I’m just gonna… I’m here. Here we go, or not!” So, I’m just telling you, what you just said is He will do it. He will get us to that place. And the surrender to His will and the desire for His will is a big key, otherwise we’re not open. If I think I get settled into His will, which I do, then I’m not open to the possibility that is beyond my imagination. “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man all the things God has prepared for them that love Him.” But they’re revealed to us by the Spirit, and He revealed something to you this week by the Spirit that was beyond your imagination. And it’s wonderful.
(Carole) But because I had an opinion, a settled opinion, I didn’t think that thought. I didn’t..
(Martha) Right. You didn’t call it a settled opinion.
(Carole) Yeah, I didn’t. I didn’t know it was a settled opinion. I didn’t, but none the less it was. And I thought I knew. That’s what you were talking about. It was a ground where I decided I knew what God thought. I decided I knew what God thought, and He came in and bashed that. Thank God! But it took the Body. I’m going to tell you. It took Martha and it took this Body, because I was inexcusably, I was blind to the stronghold of my…
(Martha) Of your opinion.
(Carole) Of my opinion about…
(Martha) Opinion of yourself.
(Carole) The opinion of myself, and He blasted that open for His purposes and His good, and for the purpose of His Kingdom. I mean the whole thing was that His Kingdom will come and His will will be done. And my opinion of myself was an impasse for the Holy Spirit to accomplish that which He has called into being.
(Martha) Your opinion was in opposition. It was a lofty argument against..
(Carole) Yes!
(Martha) …God’s plan without even knowing that’s what you were doing.
(Carole) Right.
(Martha) But that’s the power of the flesh to deceive us, that ‘we know.’ And the work is drastic for all of us in this room to bring us that we do know nothing. That is so essential to break that down. Much of that’s been broken down in you, and that you can do nothing. And so, the cross comes to cut if off and cut it off and knock us down until we can receive that we don’t know anything. The last bastion; it’s hard enough to know that you can’t do anything, but to know that you don’t know anything, that is all kinds of vulnerability. And it’s not easy to live that vulnerable to God and have no way to save yourself, no way to take care of yourself. But I can tell you the amazing provisions of God when you get in His ultimate will, not that I am, but I know enough to know that His provision is shocking to support you and take you through.
