Podcast: Download (2.0MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Dying Into Life
Episode #313
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guest: Julie
(M) I believe every life is destined for greatness, whether the world sees it or not; that every born-again believer is destined for greatness and should attain a greatness before God if nowhere else; and those who did remain century after century. But there is a price to pay, and it is reality. That’s what the issue is. It’s reality. God comes to you with a gift in the very beginning, and He says I want to give you the gift of the love of truth, the love of reality; and those who worship Me, must worship in spirit and reality.
(J) Hmm.
(M) So you either come to love reality and know that the truth sets you free, and you pursue that reality, or you go into delusion and try to circumvent this obstacle course, try to get an easier way out. And as you say, Julie, it’s so true, it’s so much harder to avoid the way, because eventually, if you avoid it long enough you won’t even be able to find the way. And so the refusal to train is a foolish, but most typical way to respond to it.
(J) Well, there’s countless lines of people, books, and speakers that will tell you, ‘oh, don’t worry about it; you really don’t have to do that. That’s too hard. Come over here and I’ll give you seven steps to perfection, or I’ll give you four steps to prosperity, or I’ll give you three steps to a greater spiritual life.’ It is scary how many. You can go onto Amazon, or you can go into Barne’s and Noble, or you can go anywhere, and you can just see lines and lines and lines of people that will tell you how to avoid the cross. Here’s the secret to avoid the cross. Don’t worry about it. Come this way. Hmm.
(M) Yeah, that’s what we’re really talking about is the cross. That’s exactly it, because you have to die to be instructed. You have to die to your independence to be helped. And it is, as Julie’s found that treasure in there, it’s the leaning on God that you come to only through what I call ‘the trenches’. It’s the cross. That’s right.
(Julie) That’s one thing I saw. Our divine training in the faith is a divine training in reduction. And so those two things really are. Those are the two points that we will refuse on. If we’re going to refuse on anything, it’s either one; God doesn’t get to be in control, His administration, or I’m not going to be reduced to lean. When you realize that God’s objective, His objective in putting you on this big obstacle course of the cross is to reduce you to where you have to lean absolutely every possible area of your life. That’s what I see in you as a seasoned warrior. The evidence is that you lean almost unendingly, that’s the goal. And you’ve had to tell me, and even when you told me it didn’t always make it any easier when it actually came. It’s very vulnerable, it’s very, very, very vulnerable and frightening to be reduced to that kind of leaning. But this passage in scripture validates it and helps me see. If I understand that God’s objective is to bring me to that leaning, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, or maybe not, it will help me not fight it so bad. (Julie laughs) And success then is in leaning. How strange is that?
(M) Not achieving, not conquering, but leaning. Yes, that’s well said.
(J) Powerless.
(M) Yes. Hmhmm.
(Julie) I’m thinking about General’s who have all those decorated stripes. All your decorated stripes are your leaning. Isn’t that interesting.
(M) I have a, kind of a fresh testimony of it in revelation of it. When this podcast goes out we will have just finished the conference. And so, I had this horrendous experience yesterday of being brought to leaning, and it was… I knew when I went through it that it was an example of living it for the message. And I still couldn’t do it well. I still had my resistance, and I had to thrash it through with God, and it was a terrific battle, not with the enemy, but with me, with my will. And so, I’m looking forward to sharing it, because it’s exactly what you’re saying. It is never… and frankly I have surrendered for years, and here He touched a point of calling me to surrender beyond, so beyond myself, so beyond my desire even, so much bigger than I want. And to surrender to that was just a process that He… I could feel Him smiling at me the whole way through, and it was not pretty. It was (Martha laughs), it was, ‘Do You know how old I am? And you want this of me?’ (Martha laughs) ‘Do You realize, God? (Martha laughs) what You’re going to have to give me to be able to do this?’ So, and it doesn’t end, it gets bigger. The necessity to lean, the greater the call, the greater the leaning must be, and He will achieve it if we’ll let Him.
(J) We come into this world with the complete need to lean, then we think as a teenager that we can do everything and that we’re able…
(M) We know.
(J) And we know everything, and we don’t need to lean about everything. And there’s the peak in your early twenties where you start sliding down, and you really think you can still do it, and you’re still trying to do it, but the further you go down there, the more you go backwards to needing to lean more and more and more, as you age. And so at the golden years, so to speak, that’s where you are unable because of your physical form anymore. You have to lean. So hopefully you learn your entire life how to lean, and then you can lean. But oh, how many miserable people do you know that never leaned, and are awful in the golden years?
(M) I often think of Oswald Chambers who died in his early forties, forty-four or forty-two. I’m astonished at what he knew, and what he had gained, and what he had written, what he understood at such a young age. He had a spiritual heritage. He had someone go through the jungle before him, his parents. It probably will take me a hundred and fifteen years if I live that long, and you’ll just know well, poor thing. It took her that long to get it. But it is faith. The definition of faith in the Amplified Bible is so comforting, it’s leaning the entire personality on God. That kind of faith I can attain. It’s this grandiose conquering faith that is difficult, but leaning, leaning is easy… sometimes.
(Julie) It’s like what you said is so profound, John, about how it’s true you can go into any bookstore, you can go anywhere right now, and I mean you go into any Christian category in places like Amazon, and you’re right. The vast majority of what’s out there is how to be a better you, how to become stronger, how to become more capable, how to blah-blah-blah, and that’s not it. One of the reasons I’m so grateful to you, Martha, is I feel like you convey to me God’s values; and His value in me is not strength, but weakness. And if you don’t have that understanding, you’re on the wrong course to begin with, and you’re just butting your head against walls for no reason. And it is comforting. Like you said, I have no hope of a faith that I have to achieve in greatness. But surrender, hard as it is, at least, at least He’s made me for that. At least it’s in line with the nature I have. So.
(M) The new nature can do that. (She laughs) The old nature absolutely, it’s impossible. And that’s one of things that drives you into your new creation is the fact that you cannot of yourself bring yourself into the knowledge of God or the service of God. It takes this reduction, as you call it. “Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.” And it seems like every five years I say can it really be this few? Yes, it’s very few. The statistics of the Green Beret’s is a good gage, if not less than that even in the Christian way.
Announcement:
Shulamite Ministries would like to inform and invite you to download the new Shulamite App, available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Experience your podcasts and read articles that jumpstart your moment, the Shualamite App. Stay connected to the ministry, on the go or at home, right in the palm of your hand.
