A Sovereign Touch of Love – Episode #643

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A Sovereign Touch of Love
Episode #643
3-31-2019

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel

This is the continuation of a series of podcasts started in Episode #642.
God’s sovereign touch of one person can become a force of grace and love to usher in the sovereign touch of another soul. It’s such a powerful encounter!

John:
I’ve written, at the end of the book I said, “I’ll never come to the end of this.” This is not something that you, you say, “Oh, ok, I’ve got that. Now it’s a feather in my cap and I can keep on going.” This is something that you will forever as long as you breathe on this earth in your body, you are going to be dealing with God as sovereign. You will have to continually bow to Him as sovereign. And you’ll have to continually trust Him in faith that He is God, that He is your Father and that He is sovereign over the things that happen in our life, even the things that we don’t understand – particularly the things that we don’t understand.

Jennifer:
And, John, I, I found myself asking the question, “If you don’t know God as sovereign, can you ever really know Him at all?” You know, in a way that truly matters and the way that Paul meant when he said, “To know Christ is eternal life.” He didn’t say it like that but, right, but that was the verse. “This is eternal life to know…” But with that it’s, it’s to know God as God, right? Not God as I think He might be; my idea of Him; somebody else’s idea of Him.

John:
Or how I want Him to be.

Jennifer:
Yes. How I wish He was. How I wish He was something that I can control.

John:
Yeah, I‘d love a controllable God, so I think! You know, the second I had one I’d hate it but, you know.

Jennifer:
Well, yes, of course! (Laughing) But, yeah, that… So to me this book, this book is integral to bringing, bringing us to the crossroad to make the choice that enables the move of God in our lives in a very real way. Because I think we can choose to refuse to see Him, to refuse to know Him, to refuse to let Him in, to refuse to acknowledge Him. Romans 1 makes very clear that we can…

John:
And do!

Jennifer:
…refuse to acknowledge God as God and refuse to be grateful to Him.

John:
Yes, unfortunately and do!

Jennifer:
And do, yes!

John:
Yeah, yeah.

Jennifer:
And so I think even Christians though, we can refuse to engage on that ground. We do have that choice. And so I think, also, this is, this is a book that is very sobering because it will, it will bring you to, to ask that question.

John:
But the amazing thing is, is that it is so fraught with love and grace. It’s not like it’s gonna be punching you in the face and, and though, though there are some punchy statements, I’m not gonna tell you there’s not because there are, but it’s not a, a beating you into submission. It’s a wooing you.

Jennifer:
No, that’s the shocking part of it, John. That’s the shocking part. We don’t think… We think of sovereignty as purely, I’ll call it a battle of wills. Capital ‘W’ will and my will – little ‘w’ will. Right? And so we view it this very charged maybe even contentious, you know… I’m a little peon and God’s up on His throne and, yeah, He’s God and God is love. But it’s very removed. Do you know what I mean? He’s removed from my heart. It becomes this, you know, this issue outside of us almost. And what you’ve done is, is you’ve, you brought the person, the Father, the Shepherd, the engaged and intimate God. Sovereignty is not some far off issue. It’s not some thrown out in the heavens that is far removed from my life that I can’t see and then I’ll sing a hymn about for now, you know, a few times a year and be like, “Oh, isn’t that awesome and amazing to contemplate.” But it’s very distant for me. It has no real bearing on my life, my heart. And, and that is shattered. All of that is shattered. And, and we think that meeting God as sovereign would be this purely awesome thing and it is awesome. But it is also incredibly intimate and Martha has an afterword and it’s, you know, her story is in there as well and it’s, I mean this book is just from start to finish.

John:
Well, the amazing thing that it’s ended with her forward and her story. That story impacted me and her own sovereign touch came and impacted my sovereign touch. I mean, you (talking to Martha) really kicked it off. You know, I fought the sovereignty of God. I fought God as God. I fought that forever. And then He used you as a, an entreating force to begin to yield to, to Him as God and, and embrace the sovereignty all the way to the point that it became a, and has become a, a point of rejoicing. I rejoice over His sovereignty in my life because it gives purpose to things that are inexplicable, is that the word, and indefinable and unbearable, yeah. There’s certain things that I needed someone to be over and in control of things that happened. And when I entered into that sovereign touch relationship, my world opened up. My complete world opened up.

You know, while I was writing this book I had several people that would, would run through my head and it was almost like I was answering them while writing. And some, some gruesome abuses, some hideous things that I would, wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy that have crippled and that have so negatively impacted these lives that they, they have never really recovered from it though they can hold it together there’s still, there’s still a crippling. And I wrote a lot of this thinking of those people, because it’s real hard to in the hardest, most painful areas of our life for you to say, “Well, God’s sovereign.” It’s almost obscene. It’s profane and obscene if you don’t understand the sovereign touch. You know, it almost sounds like, “Hey, suck it up!” You know, “I’m so sorry you were hurt but, you know, God’s God and you have to suck it up.” Well that, that is not what this book does at all. Not even for a second, because I was constantly aware of that thinking that person I’m talking to and though I, I am faithful to the Spirit’s revelation and how He wanted me to say it and how the truth is often rather prickly because you have to embrace something that’s just gruesomely painful.

But at the end of the day it, it is such life and resurrection and, and I believe that it, it opens the door for that resurrection life of Christ to come through and that’s why I believe this book had to come before my exchanged life book. Because if you, if you can’t accept God as God and His sovereignty, you’re really never going to experience the exchanged life. It’s just… You can experience Christ but experiencing Him living your life, there’s got to be such a yielded vessel to be able to do that and a surrendered vessel to His Lordship and His choices.

And so, I’m, I’m, I’m excited to get into the exchanged life book next and, and it looks like we’re gonna be doing that in about three weeks starting, starting that, that process but this, this book lays a, lays a, a stake in the ground and, and a flag of victory. And I’m excited! I’m excited! I’m excited, excited, excited because I feel like not only is it a, a tremendous victory standard in my life, it is a, it’s a proclamation of His… It’s a defense of Him. Not that He needs to be defended by anyone but I feel like the Spirit used this and me and my life and what He did to be a defense of the Father and the Father’s choices. I don’t think you’ll leave this book thinking, “He is so uninvolved in my life.” I mean if, if you could have a relationship with a God who could, who literally could cover and kind of shore up all of our questions, all of our quandaries, all of our contentions—if you could have a God that could do that in every wince-producing moment of your life, in every pain-inflicted moment of your life, if He could do that, wow! Just wow!

A Sovereign Touch of Love – Episode #643 – Shulamite Podcast

God’s sovereign touch of one person can become a force of grace and love to usher in the sovereign touch of another soul. It’s such a powerful encounter! Embracing sovereignty isn’t a theological exercise; it’s the heart-move that will open your whole world.