What Does It Look Like to Live by Faith? – Episode #530

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What Does It Look Like to Live by Faith?
Episode #530
January 29, 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.

(Martha) Ok, Carole’s just reminding me what started that morning. That morning I began to weep, and I had no idea what it was about. I thought maybe I’m sad. I cried and cried, and I called Carole. And God said, “Go to Carole’s house.” So, I called Carole and I said, “I’m a mess, and I’m supposed to come over.” In the meantime she got on her knees and asked God what it was. And He said, “Travail.” I believe it was travail for this message. And you saw it as warfare against the revelation, because I was in travail for the nation.
(Carole) Yes, and all… I am just seeing, as I look at my life, as I look at the places where I go so down in my spirit, it is… I can look back, and I can see where the essence of that promise, and that is a promise in Habakkuk, “The just shall live by faith.” It’s not just a command. It’s not just a statement. It is a promise that, “The just shall live by faith.” All hell comes out against that to kill it.
(Martha) Wow, Carole.
(Carole) I can look at today. I can look at this morning. I can look at… I tell you what. I am, I have been in a place of distraction all day long trying to focus on what the Lord gave us that morning, which is, “The just shall live by faith,” and I have been distracted by something that happened this past week that so shook me and so troubled me that I couldn’t get past that. And it has been an attack against this message. All hell has risen up to discourage me, to frustrate me and to not believe that Christ in me, Who is the Righteous and the Just; it isn’t me. It isn’t about me. It is all about Jesus. It is all about what He accomplished on the cross. It is all about the fact that, “It is finished.” It is all about the fact that we must enter into prayer from the place and the stature of victory and no place else. If we enter into prayer believing in the defeat, we will not have or experience the victory. We will not. And that has been much of my life. Honestly, it’s been much of my life.
(Martha) Umhmm. But we’re seeing some, I’m seeing some answers to prayer that are phenomenal. We’ll tell about that another day. But Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” Now, I bet you anything that is ‘rhema.’ Faith comes from hearing God, a voice. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Rhema: it’s the spoken. Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the mouth of God, the voice of Christ. It’s all a matter of hearing Him. I’ll tell a little story. You just have to be so alert to know what God’s thoughts are. Two days ago in the morning I opened my Bible. It was opened to Psalm 119, and it was just precious. The Holy Spirit came immediately on that scripture, but I went to other things. I went here and there, and I did this and that, and the day got by, and I never got back to the Bible. So, the next morning I said to the Lord, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m supposed to be in the scriptures before anything, and I’m so sorry that I let that go by yesterday.” And He said, “So, it’s a law?” He said, “I want you to come to the Bible as a lover seeking the Beloved. I don’t want you to come as an ‘ought’ or a ‘should.’ I want you to come to find Me.” And I found Him there. He was right there in Psalm 119 in precious ways. But it was ok that I left it with Him. It was ok, because I was committed to His will, and I did things that I assume were ok. And the lesson was to teach me that I am not to make a law that I have to start in the Bible everyday. I do, but when I made it a law, He disrupted it. And He took me around the world in different things, work and joy and notes and taking care of practical things. Does that make sense?
(Carole) Yes! It makes absolute sense.
(Martha) But He was jealous that I would go to the scriptures looking for my Beloved. That’s what I used to do. That’s what I know it’s about. But I had begun to say, “This is rigid, this is a law.” And He said, “No, I don’t want it to be a law. It’s not grace, and it’s not love when it’s a law.” “The letter killeth, the Spirit giveth life.” It’s that subtle. If my nature picks up something as a law, I’m paralyzed to do it. If my old man decides to do and to perform and some obligation, I’m absolutely a failure. Jesus fulfilled the law.
(Carole) And that’s why He has rendered me unable to do what He’s called me to do.
(Martha) Umhmm.
(Carole) Because my tendency is to take it on as an ‘ought’ as responsibility, as something I have to do rather that exactly what you’re saying, just to come to Him, for no other reason than just to be with Him.
(Martha) And you know what? It takes faith in His indwelling and in His Lordship over me. It takes a faith even to let it go. You know what I mean? Even to trust Him that I’m going about my day doing practical things. But it’s exactly what He wants me to do in His will, to trust Him to take control of my day. That’s a bottom line faith, that He will get me, He will speak to me where He wants to. And it’s rhema. Rhema is the spoken Word.
(Carole) For years I’ve had a vision of myself as a little girl walking in the woods, picking – mostly I see daisies. I can see myself as that little girl that had long blond hair with ringlets, and it appeared that she was alone, but she wasn’t, and she knew she wasn’t alone. She was with Him, the Lord, and there was no trying. There was no doing. There’s just being with Him and believing, so believing that He was there, that the trying was just not a part of the story.
(Martha) Because I asked you, “Was that how you lived as a child?” because that’s I lived. And you said, “No.” This is where He’s brought you to. This is where He began with me, being alone in the woods. I didn’t know it was Him. I never felt alone, and I never felt afraid. I tromped in the woods and in the creeks and in the hills, and I went through the hay fields, and I gazed at the mountains, and I sat on rocks and looked at the sky and never felt alone. So, He’s bringing us… I think what I’m trying to say is I believe it’s universal. If you’re called to prayer, and we all are, then this is the life of the child, that He’s given you the vision for, Carole. It’s being in His nature, in His presence. What you said was so powerful that morning because you said it was not – in this vision – it was not seeking for Him. It was absolutely, He was there.
(Carole) There was no seeking. It was that life of faith, Martha, that was natural. It was a natural…
(Martha) Natural, that’s the word, natural living.
(Carole) Life of faith, knowing He was there, knowing all of my thoughts. I didn’t even have to speak, because He knew, He knew… We did speak.
(Martha) You communicated.
(Carole) We communicated. Thank you. There wasn’t necessarily speaking. There was communication. There was, as John always puts so piercingly, relationship. He was there and I knew that I knew that I knew He was there. It wasn’t an effort to know He was there. He was there.
(Martha) And you used the word ‘being.’
(Carole) Yes!
(Martha) It’s being who you are.
(Carole) It’s just being and walking through the day as you would a forest in absolute rest. Walking through the day receiving and relating with Him.
(Martha) And that’s what it is to live by faith.
(Carole) Yes, yes.
(Martha) You’ve given a visual of living by faith.
(Carole) And I long for that, and I long for it, because He’s put that longing in me.
(Martha) And He’s given you the vision.
(Carole) And He’s given me the vision, and He says and I believe it that He will present me with ecstatic joy before the Father without fault or blemish. He will present me perfect before Him on that day.
(Martha) Umhmm. And there are days that I feel anything but that, but that promise holds. I want to get into and don’t know that I’m ready to, but I want to get into living by the promises. That’s the reality. The promises are the reality, and you’ve named, you’ve just quoted one of the promises, and He will present you blameless in His presence with ecstatic joy! That is a promise. And so, you’re believing it. And that’s where we go instead of to worry and effort and pursuit and responsibility. We’re given tremendous responsibility, and He will give us the faith equal to that responsibility. He has given it to us.
(Carole) Yes.
(Martha) It’s a matter of accessing, not even receiving it, but accessing it, believing that it is already in place.
(Carole) Yes.

 What Does It Look Like to Live by Faith? – Episode #529 – Shulamite Podcast