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Living Stones
Episode #281
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
With special guest: Carole Nelson
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(J) I just, I will always be amazed that He can use our weakness of the uni-directional vision, and uni-focus, that He can actually go outside of us and explode… But see the thing that I’m grateful for is that now I’m seeing not only that, but I’m saying, oh, ok, when it is You, I can know You. I think I’ve had a dearth of that. I think I’ve, I’ve not ascribed those things to Him, to know Him. I’ve not, I’ve not, you know what I mean? I’ve, I’ve…
(M) See, we don’t think He comes. If we ask Him to live through us, He comes so naturally, and sometimes we don’t realize it’s Him, it’s so natural. Right? Is that what you’re saying?
(J) That’s exactly what I’m saying. And so then I have missed part of the knowing of Him, saying, oh, you know…
(M) I understand, I understand. And like I said, I think the more He expresses Himself, the more it takes the Body to recognize Him, that we need the Body to recognize that was Christ. It’s a loss of that self-focus that you’re talking about. Thank God we lose that self-focus, that He is able to just quietly take over and be Himself…. Which is what you’ve wanted.
(J) Yeah, that truly is what I wanted, absolutely. Well, you had an awesome scripture I’d like you to read, because it seems to fit directly with this, you know, about His building up of His Body, and His expressing Himself through us. So, what’s the scripture that you had, Carole?
(Carole) It’s really Eph.2:22, but I want to start in Ephesians 2:20, because it was after the culmination of meditating on this and seeing how He has, He has revealed Himself in this Body through the individual members of this Body. Then He took me to the scripture, and for me, showed me what He was doing, ok. “You are built upon a foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself the chief Cornerstone. In Him the whole structure is joined, bound, welded, together harmoniously, and it continues to rise, grow, increase into a holy temple in the Lord, a sanctuary dedicated, consecrated, and sacred to the presence of the Lord. In Him and in fellowship with one another.”
(J) That’s amazing.
(Carole) “And in fellowship with one another, you yourselves also are being built up into this structure with the rest.” And I see the transcendent church, even, even in the rest. “To form a fixed abode, a dwelling place of God in, by, through the Spirit.” Amen.
(J) That’s, that’s it, that’s exactly what this is, isn’t it?
(M) It’s so amazing, what He has planned, and what He does. It’s just beyond anything we could have imagined the Christian life would be. The young woman understood that what He wants you to be, He is, and what He wants you to do, He does. She went ‘ahhh’, that’s so easy. I say, the real Christian life is the easiest thing in the world, but to get there is the cross, the chastening, the death to self, the choice, but when you get a glimpse of it, it’s too wonderful for words. And all that He’s written, in that New Testament, is true. So if we could read it and just say it’s true, we will be just blown away.
(J) ‘Mr. Visual’, here, all I see is like Lincoln Logs, that we’re all like little Lincoln Logs, dead little Lincoln Logs, and He takes all of those little notches, and puts those notches all together, and builds a dwelling place of Himself; but all of it is Him.
(Carole) And the Blood flows through every bit of it.
(J) Yeah, absolutely, the Blood flows through all of it.
(Carole) All through the Body and back up to, to the Head, and all through the Body and back up to the Head…
(J) It gives you a motivation for emptying yourself of the self-life.
(M) Hmmm.
(J) Because the self-life at the core and at the end of it all is so wretched and so meaningless, and so pointless, and so futile, and empty, and gross and painful.
(M) And alone, and separated from God.
(J) And His life on the other hand is full and complete and total and energized and filled with life and light and energy.
(M) And unimaginable blessings.
(J) So why would you ever choose the self-life? And it’s just… At the end of the day, it’s the lonely, cold, place and barren, absolutely barren place where allowing Him to indwell and to live and to be… awwwww, that’s everything.
(Carole) And then we come together, and we see Him. We see more of the fulness of Him, because of each other, and because of what He’s done in each part. And being in with fellowship with Him and with each other, that more of Jesus is revealed.
(J) And that’s why it’s fellowship. That’s why it’s fellowship and that’s why it’s worship. Because once you’ve allowed Christ to indwell your body and to express Himself through you, and you are becoming that, the dwelling place, individual stones placed together, when you do come together as a Body, the natural progression of that would be worship.
(Carole) Hmmm, hmmmm.
(J) That’s real worship. That’s why there is not worship without the indwelt life. And you know, otherwise it’s just singing. And anyone anywhere can go sing Kum-by-yah, anywhere, and that… you know what I mean? That’s, what is that? But if I have a Life, and you have a Life, and you have a Life, and you have a Life, and we all have that Life, and we’re all emptied of ourself, and we’re all full of Him, and we all come together, then the natural expression of that is going to be glorifying the Father, because that’s who He is. He glorifies the Father. Everything He did was glorify His Father. So my emptied shell filled with His life and light, wow! Of course it’s going to bring worship, and it’s not just going to be song worship, it’s going to be exaltation of, of God as God, and glorifying God as God, revealing of God as God. Yummy! (Laughter.)
(M) Pointing the ‘mic’ at me and all I can say, it makes me want to just go down to the river and cry (Martha laughs), and ball up in a little ball and say it’s just too wonderful, it’s too wonderful. I almost can’t bear the glory of it.
