Episode #107 ^{_{(Click to Listen)}}

with Martha Kilpatrick and John Enslow

(J) Look at all the men that gathered to David. They were all men of… that were rejected. They were all…in some way they were rejected; the three “d’s”, I don’t even remember.  There were three “d’s” that described them.
(M) Despairing.
(J) Despairing.
(M) Dejected.
(J) Dejected and in debt, or whatever it was. And they all came. They had some form of rejection but they came through and became a mighty army.
(M) And you know, this need for acceptance is so strong in us that if you have a stronghold of rejection you will go wherever you’re accepted, even at the compromise of your soul and the loss of your life. You will go, you will go to someone who lies to you if they accept you, and that’s the danger. The greatest gift you can give children is to accept them and know them in their identity, not in your role that you set for them. People will always go… Love is acceptance. And the danger with teenager’s is if teenager’s are not sent out ‘accepted’, they will go wherever they’re accepted and follow that crowd; even to their own destruction. That’s how desperate we are to be accepted. And one of the most powerful statements is “We are accepted in the Beloved”. God has accepted us John, He knows who we are. Humanity is known to Him, and He still wants us. And He’s even given us the way to come back to Him. And that the word grace is the power of God that comes on you to accept your life. He has to give you the power to accept your story, and yourself, and to accept His will. But He gives you that even; He gives you everything you need. So everything including this resolution of your rejection of God comes from God. A little further this same chapter ten of 2nd. Corinthians, Paul says, “We do not dare”, the New American says, “We are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves, but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.” I love the King James says, “without wisdom”. It is not wise to compare yourself. It’s always, always a source of pride. And pride is the audacity to judge God and to think I can define Him and define His actions and to judge Him.
(J) And His choices.
(M) Yeah. So I think this is huge, that really the root of bitterness is the rejection of God. And the example is Esau. That’s astonishing to me. It’s difficult to accept wherever God has placed you. If He places you in a position of leadership, that is very difficult. We talked about that this morning.
(J) Umhum.
(M) If He places you in a position as servant, that’s very difficult. And then I’m looking at Joshua who paid the price to be a servant to Moses; really a ‘nothing’. He paid the price to follow Moses even when Moses had a lesser faith than him. He was being schooled to be the leader, and if he had rejected that role with Moses, or had rejected Moses, he would have never been the outstanding type of Christ to take the remnant into ‘the promised land’. He was a man of faith, because he was a man who accepted and bowed to what God ordained. It’s the difference between success or failure spiritually, life or death, eternity, or the temporal.
(J) He even accepted the choices of those men and women around him that kept him in the wilderness for how many more years.
(M) Wow. Yeah. And he and Caleb believed, and underneath that belief is some kind of tremendous transaction of surrender to God. And Caleb even said give me the mountain country where the giants are, I want to take them on! (Laughter) He knew His God was God, and good.
(J) Hmhum.
(M) So I think you could find this all over the scriptures. And I think too John, that a lot of people come into the Christian service, whatever, Christian ministry, to seek the acceptance of God, when He’s already accepted us. We work for what has been given and proven. But because our faith is in rejection of Him and we live actually in a ‘bitter-root judgment’ of God Himself that defiles many, we go to a ministry and defile untold millions in the Name of Jesus. Am I making any sense?
(J) Hmhum.
(M) We go to gain the acceptance of God, say look I gave You my life, could You please, serve me now. But instead we defile the many.
(J) We go to earn what we already have been given and end up bitter against God for not giving it to us.
(M) Hmhum. And we don’t see it when it arrives.
(J) Well I know that one well, so.
(M) Don’t we all. I’m just thinking of “Manna” and know there’s one of the most wonderful wives there could be. She’s godly, she’s ah, she serves, and there’s not one thing that he receives about her. He rejects her one hundred percent. I asked is there anything he likes about you? She said, looked rather startled, she said no. You see he cannot see her. She’s a proverbial woman; he cannot see her because he is caught in the rejection of himself. So he rejects everyone and everything. And he’s one of the most blessed men I know. And he has no enjoyment of it, no joy, always dissatisfied, always critical, but it’s God he’s critical of, his god is not good. It’s the tragedy is enormous because it’s an unnecessary tragedy; that’s what makes it such a tragedy. So how do you get out of it? You see the Name, you say in the Name and the blood of Jesus, which defeated every, every aspect of the enemy. In the Name and the blood of Jesus I destroy this stronghold, and I believe that my weapon, the Name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus is strong enough to dislodge the strongman and take his goods. You see there’s a spoil that you gain from doing it.
(J) Tell me about that.
(M) The enemy holds our goods in his possession and many things are cursed because they’re under the stronghold of rejection.
(J) Are they our blessings?
(M) Yes; the gifts of God and the prosperity that we cannot receive. Satan owns the house, and when Christ comes in, not only are you set free, but you have the right to take from Satan…
(J) The very gifts of God.
(M) The very gifts of God, and more. See, in this, not only, in every persons life that defeats this stronghold, that accepts the annulment of the covenant of death, it goes, oh, I don’t know how to say it, it goes into other lives. It opens up a thousand doors where God can come flooding in. Then the danger is this, it follows that, that passage in…that if you clean the house, if you get the strongman and all of his army out by renouncing every aspect of rejection, asking forgiveness for the sin of building it, really repenting by the Spirit of believing Satan’s lies about God, and of rejecting God, alright, then you’ve done repentance and you’ve done renouncing and you’ve destroyed the stronghold. Then the house is swept clean and if you don’t fill it with the Holy Spirit, seven worse will come back.
(J) Now why wouldn’t you fill it?
(M) The only reason you would not fill it is that you still want your way. You still wouldn’t surrender to the Holy Spirit as Lord, Master, boss, everything.
(J) So the original problem never is dealt with. So then the original problem is multiplied in your life.
(M) You’ve gotten rid of the problem, but you have to replace it with the solution. It… its sort of like diagnosis and remedy. The solution comes, but a life has to change, it has to change.
(J) It kind of goes into what Jennifer is going to talk about with the ah, coming out of the prison, once you’ve been, the doors open, lights come in, you have to come out of it and start walking in it. Well there you go, there’s what you’re talking about, you literally, you ah, you have repented, the doors open. You’ve been given light, you can come out. But then if you don’t come out, then they’re all going to come right back in with you.
(M) And worse. But you see John, we are a vessel, we’re an earthen vessel, we’re a temple, we’re, we are merely a container. And if Satan is emptied out of the container, then the container is empty, and it has to be filled with the life of Christ, because we are only vessels of  One or the other. We are not this independent being that can be without a spiritual indwelling entity. We are going to be filled with someone, something of the two powers. And so since we are only vessels we have to make sure that we don’t go back to the enemy, because then he has the right to increase his hold. Christ has to become the Master, and indwelling Lord. And then all of the power of Christ’s acceptance of… His acceptance is astounding; we would never be able to see the end of it. He accepted twelve motley, wretched men and even accepted one betrayer. So yeah, I was just thinking about Jennifer’s testimony that’s coming up next. It’s a practical application of this principle.