It’s All IN Christ, If We’ll Just Believe – Episode #532

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It’s All IN Christ, If We’ll Just Believe
Episode #532
February 12, 2017

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Carole Nelson

This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #528.
What if the only thing standing between you and the many promises of God is a lack of faith? What would you do? Would you be able to just believe?

(Carole) I thought about while you all were talking, you know, Jesus is not only in us, He is our ever example in scripture. And He walked in those woods with the Lord while He was walking through the multitudes and the screaming and the shouting. He was in ‘the woods’ with the Lord, as far as I’m concerned, with His Father. And because He was, He would see the Father do something, and He did it in response, because He was in that place of ‘being’ with Him and believing that He was with Him and that the Father was leading Him every step of the way.
(Martha) He believed.
(Carole) Believed.
(Martha) Once, I’ll confess, I said to the Lord, “I’ve asked You and asked You to control me, and You’re not doing it.” He said, “Yes, I am. You just don’t believe I am.” But remember I ran across this the other day. It’s one of my favorite things. I have it on a card, if I can remember it. Brother Lawrence said he made it his goal that he would live as though there was no one in the world but he and God. And for that life, he was willing to renounce anything that was not of Christ. That’s putting it a little simpler, but I’ve read that many times and prayed it, because I believe another thing He’s doing with us in this group, He is detaching us from maybe the world, the pull of the world, the fears of the world, the politics of the world. He’s detaching us and attaching us to Christ alone, so that our awareness is only of Him. And actually He has to keep my focus on Him. He has to be my focus on the Father. And Jesus said, He said in John 5:30, “Of Myself, out of Myself I can do nothing.” And to bring us to that place of where we don’t expect that we can do things or we can do anything and to accept our total nothingness and total dependence, that is a huge work of the cross. And He’s doing it very effectively I believe in our midst – detaching us.
(Carole) Well, that reminds me a little of, I guess several days ago I opened T. Austin-Sparks, which I get every morning. Sometimes I read it, and sometimes I don’t. But this particular morning obviously the Lord wanted me to read it. And Martha, as a matter of fact, read it that same morning. And the thing that jumped out so much at me was the prayer that he prayed, because I always judge what I do, and what I don’t do. And this so put a knife through that, and it’s simply a prayer. “Lord, capture, captivate and master me and become my Obsession, my one glorious Obsession.” And that’s all Him. He has to capture. He has to captivate. He has to master. He has to do it all, and He has. He’s provided it, and the only vehicle through which that will ever happen is my believing that it was and is.
(Martha) And you believe by His faith.
(Carole) Yes, because I can’t even do that.
(Martha) It is His faith. You can’t even believe that.
(Carole) No, I can’t.
(John) I forgot what that author’s name was that basically said that every promise of the Word, every promise is basically Christ, that all the promises of the Word and all the promises that were given, every single promise is basically a promise of Christ. And it’s a promise to Christ, a promise from Christ, a promise for Christ, a promise—it’s all Christ. Every promise is, no matter what the promise is, all the promises from God are… You know, even if they are promises for, that, “The just shall live by faith.” Ok, that’s a promise from, for, about Christ, not about particularly me. I’m able to experience… Does that make sense?
(Martha) Absolutely. I’m seeing, He’s showing it to me in a little different way. Ok. He’s showing me that every command, everything that is His will, every law of the Spirit, everything in the scripture that we are to do; love each other, etc. etc. etc. is a revelation of Jesus, because He doesn’t ask us to have anything but Himself. He doesn’t ask us to do anything but what He’s doing, so every command is a revelation of Jesus. The Beatitudes are a revelation of Who He is. If He commands that we love one another, I can’t even think of anything more complex, but then we know that that is Who He is. A little different…
(John) If it was any other way, then Christ would be leading us in error, because He basically did everything according to the Father, so everything He saw the Father doing, He did. Ok. And so, it’s the same way. Every promise is basically upon Him, for His life, from His life, about Him. And, you know, like the other day you were saying that you wanted God to, you know, particularly do something that you were saying, “Clean this or do this or straighten this,” or whatever, and I had an example of that where, you know, when you walk in my house, there’s a big, huge island with a stove and everything. And everything pretty much makes it to the island and nowhere else. So, I have like this island of junk swirling, like in the Pacific, all that plastic that’s swirling in the Pacific? Yeah, that’s what my entire, everything that comes into the house just kind of makes it and swirls around into this island. And then I have to move it back in order to cook without catching things on fire. And so, I was thinking, “Yeah, ok, this is what I need to do. I need to be cleaning this. I need to get this in order.” And He was like, “No, I don’t want to do that.” And He made me go behind this little area that I had no interest in, because nobody sees it. He says, “Go back there.” So I worked, and I rearranged this whole area behind here and behind my chair and everything like that. And you know, there’s a cabinet and stuff like that. And He wanted me to go organize all that. I didn’t understand. “Ok, well ok, fine.” So I did it. But now I’m particularly needing that area, and that area needs to be cleaned because I’m doing some painting, and that’s where it actually everything’s coming from, from that painting. And I’m able to do that over there in the corner. If everything was still over there, I wouldn’t be able to do what He’s asking me to do now with this painting that I’m doing. And so, you always… my opinion, and I think this is the way it should be, and He’s like, “Why don’t you ask Me, bub?”
(Martha) “My thoughts are not your thoughts. My thoughts are above your thoughts.” And we ever think ‘we know.’ Even the simplest thing we don’t know.
(Carole) And we don’t want to be wrong. We don’t want to mess up. And I so want to get past that, and just trust, because as long as I have that in me, then it’s self-protection. It’s not freedom in Him. He doesn’t even call me to that. He is absolutely capable of correcting me if I have a misstep.
(John) Umhmm.
(Carole) But I want to get to the place of freedom where it is unhindered relationship with Him. It is faith in that relationship.
(John) That’s the word right there: faith.
(Carole) To lead me where I need to go without any condemnation from myself.
(John) That’s it. That’s it. Well, it says, “It’s impossible to please God without faith.” “Impossible.” So, if you’re in faith about you… “Oh, my gosh, you mean I have to be in faith about me?” Yeah, that He can guide you, that He can lead you, and that He can put you exactly where you need to be.
(Carole) And that He does.
(John) And that He does. That’s the crazy thing.
(Carole) That’s the trip up, right there. And that He does! Thank you very much.
(John) Yeah. And I just have to have faith that He does.
(Carole) Yes!
(John) And trust that He does. And my whole involvement with my fear and not faith just takes me away from Him.
(Carole) And it’s law. That is the law.
(John) And it’s law. Oooo!
(Carole) And that takes us back to how He has been about – and that footnote in Habakkuk, it is such a visual. It’s a visual for me, now. It becomes a visual that I can look at and get, that He really is about, and He is accomplishing getting rid of the thousands upon thousands of laws that I have over myself – of effort, of trying to please Him when I don’t, because I don’t just believe.
(John) There you go. I mean, without, without faith it’s impossible to please Him. So if that Hebrews scripture is correct, then I have to have that faith that He will do it, that He will lead it, that He really is God. “Oh, my gosh, You’re kidding. You’re actually God!!??
(Carole) And really, it’s just surrendering to what He’s already said. John, isn’t it? It’s just… And that is costly. That is costly to me, because I have to die. I have to die to myself and let it be.
(John) But see, in that death, then you have that experience of the little girl in the woods. Then you have, you know, what’s that old song that you used to really like about, “He walks with me and talks with me?” “In the Garden Alone?” Basically, is that not the entire vision of this? It’s in a song. It’s the vision of basic living garden reality now… Garden, He walked and talked in the cool of the morning. Ok, well, that’s garden living now in the middle of the craziness. And that’s what Christ did. He was walking in the cool of the morning with the Father. “He walked with me, and He talked with me.” What’s the rest of the song? What’s the…? “Tells me I am His own.”
(Carole) His own!! That’s….
(John) Faith, justified. Here I am, justified.
(Martha) Here it is. Romans 4:5, “But to the one who not working by the law trusts, believes fully in Him, who justifies the ungodly, His faith is credited to Him as righteousness, the standing acceptable to God.” That’s the Amplified Version. Let’s see what else. Romans 4:5. Let me just read the New Living of this. Romans 4:5. “The people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God, who forgives sinners.”
(Carole) We went to Romans 5:1, “Therefore having been justified by faith…” That is a state of being. That isn’t something I’m trying to do. That is a state of being that He has translated me to.
(Martha) There’s nothing to attain.
(Carole) No, there’s nothing to attain.
(Martha) It’s already given.
(Carole) It’s already there, and I am! But look at the result of believing that. “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Martha) And He considers us righteous.
(John) Here’s the lyrics to that song.
(Carole) “I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, and the Voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.” “He speaks, and the sound of His Voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing. And the melody that He gave to me within my heart is ringing. And He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
(John) That’s it. I know, that’s it though. That is the picture.
(Carole) That is the picture!
(Martha) That is the picture.
(John) That’s the beautiful picture of walking in the forest and not necessarily talking, but having communication and communing. That’s the sweetness where there doesn’t even have to be words.
(Martha) You don’t have to orchestrate anything. You don’t have to manage anything, because He’s managing it all.
(John) Again, faith.
(Martha) “The one who not working by the law, believes fully in Him.” It’s just too wonderful and too simple and too easy. The whole Bible is the promise of Christ and the incarnation, if we would just see it.
(John) But I take it beyond that, and it’s not just every promise in the Bible, but it’s every promise period; every promise in your life. Every promise that the Father gives is all about, ‘It is Christ.’ Every answer to every promise is Christ.

It’s All IN Christ, If We’ll Just Believe  – Episode #531 – Shulamite Podcast

What if the only thing standing between you and the many promises of God is a lack of faith? Or doubt? Or guilt? What would you do? Would you take the leap of faith and rejoice in the promise fulfilled? Would you be able to just believe?