Episode #466 – Truth and Reality: Living in Christ

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Truth and Reality: Living in Christ
Episode #466
November 8, 2015

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 #463.

(Martha) Ok, this is the Scripture that just blew me away. It’s talking about Christ. Well, first it says in verse, Colossians 2:8, “See that no one carries you off as spoil or takes you captive by so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain conceit, idle fancies and plain nonsense following human tradition rather than the spiritual world, just crude notions following the rudimentary and elementary teachings of the universe and disregarding the teachings of Christ.” It’s a warning. We have to know this because what’s going out these days are partial truths and big parts error and lies; half truth is just as poisonous as a lie, because if you take the half truth of that message, you actually take in the whole message. I’m really kind of severe about this according to the way the world is going. But who you listen to, who you fellowship with determines so much of your security and food in Christ, feast in Christ that we had. Ok, then verse 9 is talking about Christ. “In Him the whole fullness of deity, the Godhead continues to dwell in bodily form giving complete expression of the divine nature.” The Godhead is in Christ and He is expressing the divine nature. Oh, that’s wonderful. I can see that in Christ. But then it says, “And you are in Him made full, having come to the fullness of life in Christ, you too are filled with the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and reach full spiritual stature. And He is the head of all rule and authority of every angelic principality and power.” And that blew me away the day I read. He has the Godhead. I also have within me the Godhead and all the magnificence and riches of that. Well, we have to lay hold of it and we have to pray to see it. This is one of the most incredible things in the Bible. It’s Ephesians 2:6. “He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together, giving us joint seating with Him in the heavenly sphere by virtue of our being in Jesus Christ.” We are seated in the heavenlies, and that is so far from a conscious reality that you’ll have to believe it before you’ll ever experience it. But we are not here. We are seated in the heavenlies. “He did this, seated us in the heavenlies, that He might demonstrate through the ages to come the immeasurable, limitless surpassing riches of His grace, His unmerited favor and His kindness and goodness of heart toward us in Christ Jesus.” So I have this card typed out, and I say at the bottom, “Appropriate daily this position by faith in the truth.” What you need, you appropriate. It’s taken me a long time. Don’t let it take you as long as it did for me. Sparks gave a prayer that I’ve written down too. He said at the beginning of the day stand in God’s provision and pray; “I do for today by faith definitely take this girdle of truth. You provided it, this breastplate of righteousness and what You mean by it and this helmet of salvation and this big shield of faith. I take in faith all these things, appropriate, stand in them and count on You to make over to me the good of Your own provision.” Now I see all of that is Christ. I don’t see it as issues a part from Him or things or principles even. I see that He is the righteousness. He has been made unto us righteousness. He is salvation. He is wisdom, but I take Him by faith everyday. I must take Him as my armor every day. And that’s something we can start proclaiming. Proclamation is simply bombarding hell with the truth of the Word and silencing hell by the proclamation of the Word. And the more you proclaim it the more it’s real to you and you live in it. I want to tell you we are not fighting cancer in my family. We are fighting the lie of cancer.
(Jennifer) I started listening specifically for an answer to a question when John was talking about, I think you called it the bastardization of God’s provision and the impudent asking for it. And it’s at the beginning of this whole thing is the answer, because I am very well versed in the demand of entitlement and that lie that says something was withheld. And I had, the truth is I struggled with John’s post where he talked about impudence, because for me I couldn’t see how it wouldn’t be a slippery slope into that entitled mindset that said I’m demanding because in some capacity I feel like I deserve it, ok? So it’s not just a need that it would cross over into things of want. And at the time He checked me on that, and He said, “Ok, well is that not…Who’s the parent, Me or you?” And that was His answer.
(Martha) The Lord.
(Jennifer) Yeah. That was… Sorry. I’ll make that clear. That was the Lord’s answer, and that’s often His answer to me, because I do that, you know. I take something and then worrying how in the world can I not mess this up, which is precisely me trying to keep myself clean and parenting myself and disciplining myself, which muddies the waters entirely. And that’s the lie too that I need to, that such a thing is something I need to worry about as if He won’t come and correct me when I need it. He most certainly will and does and is faithful to. But it just struck me. You began talking about, and you literally said, “Our strength is in the truth, is grounded in the truth in reality.” And this is the difference between spiritual impudence of a child of God to me the difference between that and the bastardization which is an independent rebellion of God. If you are rooted in the truth and the reality then He is a sovereign God, and that means He has a no. So, positionally your impudence is that of a child coming to a Sovereign Father, not an equal. This is not me initiating parenting myself and saying, “This is the ministry I desire to have. This is the mantle I desire to carry. These are the gifts that I desire to wield in this world,” as right or just as utterly initiated by me. In that scenario God doesn’t have a no. He is not sovereign. And He showed me this in the… He reminded, well, He reminded me because Martha’s devotional series that dealt with this. And it was Daniel. It was the last one. The name is escaping me entirely. Do you remember?
(J) Reign and Rule? What are you talking about?
(Jennifer) Yes, Reign and Rule Like Daniel. Thank you. Rule and Reign Like Daniel. Something like that. Yes. The Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo in the furnace, which was complete confidence in the ability of God in His total sovereignty, in His all powerful nature, in what He could and could not do, but if not, meaning at the end of the day He has the final say. That was their position. Yes, He can save us in a second. That’s not an issue, but even if He chooses not to, meaning He’s in charge, not me. It is His choice whether or not to do this. And it’s just, to me, that is the culmination of living in reality of who He is, being gifted with and receiving the fear of God, which is the first step toward reality, the beginning of wisdom and I think the beginning of seeing the reality as it actually is. But also positionally, which is they answered to the Lord, and they could be calm about it because they knew Him, and they knew His character, and they knew that if He allowed them to die in that situation, it was what was best. It was good. And that, that to me, it was just such a picture to me that that is where the impudence is safely expressed, in that truth, in that position, in that reality. Then we can be entirely impudent, and there’s room for the Lord to discipline as He needs to, to say no as is His right as my sovereign God, to write my story, to make the choices that I don’t have the vision to see to make and to trust that in fact whatever He, however He chooses to respond to my impudent demand, that it is perfect and it is perfectly good. And I just, I think about that and I think about the gift that if you’re rooted in that truth and reality and more than that, Martha, you talked about the need to know the character of Him. The more you know about Him, the less you have to worry about being positionally wrong, I suppose is the best way to put it. The more firm and the more…. It’s not just accepting. The more you rejoice at your position of His child in Him as sovereign Father and God. It becomes less of a fight with your flesh, because that’s the place you go. It’s the place of safety, and as you said, it’s the place of provision, where it’s safe to be impudent, because you trust that your Father can well handle His own child.
(Martha) And the promises of God are in Jesus Christ yes and amen. It’s not yes and no. And sometimes when I feel like I am just a flat out failure, I will say, “Ok, You said that You’re able to keep me without stumbling or slipping or falling to present me unblemished and blameless and faultless before the presence of Your glory in triumphant joy and exultation with unspeakable, ecstatic delight,” so I’m counting on You to do it. You can, You’re able. You can do it! I can rest on that.” And of course that’s Jude 24, “And to the one only God, our Savior, Jesus Christ, be glory, majesty, splendor, might and dominion and power and authority before all time and now and forever in the ages to come of eternity.” That’s my, that’s my promise. It’s His to do. I don’t know how He’s doing it. I’m bewildered most of the time if I’m anywhere or if He’s working or if He’s doing. I don’t know where I’m not doing right. I don’t know where I’m not pleasing to Him, unless He tells me. But I’m counting on Him. He will finish what He has begun. That is His Word. So, I’m not, I’m not as susceptible as I used to be to fretting over my own inability, which I also know that the man who obtained the bread from the baker in the parable was a man who had nothing. And because he had nothing, he demanded it. And so the more I have nothing and am nothing and know nothing, the more I have to demand of Him that He perform what He’s asked me to do. So my poverty gives me possession of the Kingdom, whatever’s in the Kingdom. I understand it like never before, only because I’m in poverty of spirit. If He doesn’t do it, it doesn’t get done. If He doesn’t say it, it isn’t said. If He doesn’t give it, it isn’t given. And so, it’s all His problem. You can remind me of this next Friday, but that is having the Word deep within you, so that you can say to Him, “I don’t have the ability to finish my race. I don’t have that ability. You have to finish, accomplish what concerns me.” I’m going to end on this, that this is a very crucial message, because I’m very aware that the warfare is increasing. And you are too. You can look in the world and see it, but you can look in our own life and situation and know that the warfare is more fierce, more ugly, more cruel, more seemingly powerful. And we have to learn how to combat and overcome the enemy. And He’s given me a few clues about that that I hope to put into a book or booklet. And I beg for prayer for that because it’s … Every time I get a revelation that I’ve never read in anything else of warfare, I am so assaulted that it’s just shocking how viciously. So, this is… We have to learn how to combat the devil, because he’s going to be unleashed in greater power in these end days than ever before. That’s my understanding. So, here’s Revelation 12:12. “The devil is gone down having great wrath knowing he has but a little time.” So we are… The end times are all not so much in our face, but the end times are going on out there. And if I compare it in my childhood and Carole’s childhood, we never saw things like this going on now. Never heard of such. And yours too. Not that long ago that we had a ‘normal’ country and a fairly normal life, certainly better than any country in the world. And it’s all collapsing, and the enemy is having a heyday, and he is in great fury against anywhere the Testimony of Christ is intact and operating. However, the provision for that message is absolutely complete and overwhelming for that place where Christ is the Reason, the Center, the Message and the Hope.
(Carole) I just have one Scripture that is reverberating in my mind. I can’t let it go. And it’s from the NLT in Ephesians 1. “For us who belong to Him, we have received an inheritance because we were chosen in advance, and He makes everything work out according to His plan.” I’m just listening to your testimony and I think He is, He’s summing all of this up into a picture, and the picture is that through these testimonies today, He, it is the manifestation, it is the fulfillment of His promise that He is making everything work out according to His plan.”

Truth and Reality: Living in Christ — Episode #466 – Shulamite Podcast