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It Is Our Choice to Accept God’s Sovereignty
Episode #589
3-18-2018
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Rebekah
This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #585.
We have a choice to accept or to resist the sovereignty of God. We can partner with Him in prayer or oppose Him by trying to exert control. What a choice!
(John) I always go back to what you say, that every requirement of the New Testament, every requirement of my life is Christ in me. That is the requirement. Fulfilling the, you know…
(Martha) Every command is to Jesus, not to me.
(Rebekah) He accepted death. He gave up His spirit and He accepted death.
(Martha) And was it one of the ones on the cross with him, “Call down angels to save You.” And He could’ve. He could’ve done that. He had the power to get out of it.
(Rebekah) He was even being heckled by other people on the cross!
(John) Umhmm.
(Martha) Yes! Yes, isn’t that something?
(John) Humanity always heckles Him.
(Rebekah) A guy’s hanging on a cross right there next to Him but has the energy to heckle Him.
(Martha) It seems that He had that choice in His own hand, didn’t it? It reads as if… And the Greek reads that way. That He absolutely gave up, He gave up. It was His choice.
(Rebekah) The only thing He cried out against was, “God, why have You deserted Me?” That was His only anguish in the entire thing. Or only, His only explicit anguish was being deserted by God and that was it. He yielded.
(Martha) He accepted everything. And it’s quite a test of life.
(Rebekah) It wasn’t passive though. It wasn’t, “Oh, woe is…” you know. It was a choice to accept where God placed Him and the circumstances God placed Him in and the people God chose to surround Him with.
(Martha) Umhmm. Good point. He had fought the fight of His own will against it. He had a fight and the fight was of the will. And once that was settled, He had no more resistance and that’s what we have to… We have to have a Gethsemane. Many times, where we, in the light of evil, where we have to bow our heads to His will.
(John) Well and isn’t every surrender to His sovereignty, isn’t every one is a Gethsemane? It may not be the extent of the Gethsemane He had, but it is a crossing of my will where I have to choose Your will over mine.
(Martha) It is a death, no matter. I’ve said He died in Gethsemane. That’s where He died. I see it that way. The real battle of life or death was there.
(Rebekah) That would explain how He got through the rest of it. I think often we think that acceptance is passivity and they’re not the same thing. Passivity opens you up to be manipulated.
(Martha) So then the opposite is active and active is?
(Rebekah) Active acceptance.
(Martha) Is acceptance. Umhmm. That’s a good point.
(Rebekah) “I accept” is an active verb. Well, I’d confirm that with Jennifer but I think it’s active.
(John) There is something volitional that you’re doing.
(Martha) Which means you are involved, not letting it happen to you. You are involved in the course of events under God.
(John) I’m not just being carried by the waves.
(Martha) I’m not vulnerable to anything but God. That’s the deal.
(Rebekah) Passivity make you vulnerable to whatever.
(Martha) Whoever and whatever will passes by. But choice is the issue, to be in it. The acceptance of it and the willingness to be in it. And go through it. I’ve thought of this three times so I’m gonna tell it. I don’t much want to but… There was someone that came into my life that God called me to. Very difficult. Turned out to be a very evil person, and had been diagnosed with a mental disorder that they said was, she would never – apart from a miracle – she would never come out of it. And she didn’t. But she was pretty terrible and God would not release me. And one of my children called me one day and said, “Mom, she is dangerous. You need to, you need to get away from her.” And I said, “I do know that but I’m not… My only safety is to go through this on God’s ground.” And eventually, there was, when He was satisfied that He had tried with her, it was gone and never to return into my life. But it’s not a matter of what feels safe. It’s, your only safety is in God’s will. I perhaps would have been killed if I had left her apart from God’s will. I never thought of that before but it’s a very real possibility. I think she was a psychopath. But… that’s why we have to, have to be involved with God in situations that we’d love to run away from.
(John) I’ve seen you a number of times endure and stay when it was not, when there was no clear path to leave. You would endure and stay and be steadfast with Him in the situation until He released you. I’ve seen that happen over and over again. It’ll be like, “Let’s just hit the ejection button. Let’s go, let’s (rocket sound).” And uh uh, we can’t do it. It’s about the will. It just, it really is about the will. And if you’re surrendered to it, He will, He will communicate it to you and show you clearly what it is.
(Martha) Yeah, and take you and protect you. Amazingly protect you, if you’re in His will. And His will is sometimes dangerous. But you know, it all depends not so much on your strength or any of that, but it depends on what do you want at the end of this? I want Him at the end of that. There’s no, for me no other choice. No other option. But I want to be with Him at the end of all things. And that keeps me through all these situations. The choice has already been made, so then the crisis, all I have to do is die (laughs). Another time. And it, I want to say this too. If prayer is the issue and it ends up being in this life what we know about, what we’re living with, what we’re seeing happen. Our responsibility is prayer. Then prayer is answered to those who are inside His will. So the fight of life is not to be able to pray, not to be able to endure, but to be inside His will. That’s, it’s like, it’s like the kingdom. His will is the kingdom and the kingdom is His will. And if you’re inside that, you are safe and you have all the clothes you need and all the food you need and all the provisions you need. You have every need met inside the kingdom because the kingdom has it all for you. So the point of it all is that God is God. He proves it in the scriptures, that He is God. He proves it in our lives, if we let Him be God and not take His place or give His place to someone else. So I hope that in this whole conversation we have exalted the sovereignty of God and proven a little bit by experience that He is to be trusted to be God. He doesn’t need me to be God. He’s not needing any other, any help, or any advice. He is truly God and that’s what we need to know. That He really is God. Actually, we don’t believe He is. We believe He’s there, but does He really have power? And is He willing? Yes. Yes. We stand for— We live for His sovereignty. We live IN His sovereignty and we live FOR His sovereignty and proclaim the wonders of this sovereign God. Thank you, Lord!
It Is Our Choice to Accept God’s Sovereignty – Episode #589 – Shulamite Podcast
We have a choice to accept or to resist the sovereignty of God. We can partner with Him in prayer or oppose Him by trying to exert control. What a choice! Nevertheless, that is the choice before each of us, every day and in every situation and relationship.
