Episode #263 ^{_{(Click to Listen)}}

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Carole Nelson and Julie Wilson

(Carole) The scripture that popped into my heart, my head, was “Blessed is he who is not offended by Me.” And that just opens up a whole realm, because I can get offended at the drop of a hat over anything, and it’s really getting offended with Him on some level. Is it not? Is it not getting offended with Him?
(M) Yes. I’m really coming to see that to resist anything that comes at me, to me, against me, to resist anything, to resist any person, to resist any event, is to resist Him. That’s all, that means He is God.
(J) Does the scripture say “in Me”?
(M) Umhmm. Yes.
(Carole) Ok.
(M) “Blessed is he who is not offended in Me.” What’s the difference?
(J) There’s a big difference, I can tell you there. (Martha and John laugh.)
(M) Yeah there is. A very careful choice of words He made. That’s personal.
(Carole) But you know what, I’m thinking, as you say that Martha, there are a lot of people who can hear this and say ok, then that is what I need to do, I need to just go ‘bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’. (Someone in back ground takes it up with ‘hmmmmmmm’.) (Everyone is laughing.) ‘Bzzzzzzz.’
(M) We need a video of that.
(J) We needed a video of that one didn’t we? (Don in background: yeah.) Yeah, I’ll do it; I’ll find a good picture for that one. (Everyone is laughing.)
(Carole) Was it you Jen, that said it was like Zen? (Jennifer in background: yes.) ‘Hmmmmm’. (More laughter.) Anyway, I won’t belabor that.
(M) Ok.
(Carole) But it’s not that, because God is such a mystery. We just cannot control Him. We can’t figure anything out on our own. You, you do not resist, I’m talking to Martha, you do not resist the evil man, but you stand on the ground of the holy God, (John: Hmm.) in defense (John: Hmhmm.) of Him, and in vindication of Who He is. Whatever that means in obedience, whatever He calls you to in obedience. You may not resist the evil in the man, but you stand against. Am I right in saying that?
(M) Thank you, yeah that’s, that’s… It’s not passive.
(Carole) It’s not passive.
(M) It’s faith. It’s faith is very active and very set.
(Carole) And you have to hear. You have to hear what, what the Lord is saying and what He means in every situation where He (Martha: yes.) says do not resist the evil man. What does that mean here, Lord?
(M) Exactly Carole, thank you; it’s wonderful. You have to hear, and hear is active. You don’t just let it be. You might be called to take authority over it, to attack it, whatever, or forget it, but there has to be a response. But the response is His. And it’s never lying down and taking it, as such, as ‘a given’.
(Carole) Right.
(Julie) John, calling attention though, “offended in Him”, I mean it just… You said earlier we were going to talk about experiences, and the context of that scripture right now is so personal because it, it is about the cross. I mean John the Baptist was facing the cross in that moment, you know? He was in prison, and here was Jesus doing all these incredible things, but Jesus wasn’t coming to rescue him out of his prison. And, and to me that, it’s such an… So I guess that statement, “Blessed is he who is not offended in Me”, it’s so intimate in a sense, and it’s, it’s so intimate in a deep sense of discipleship. It’s a disciple’s question. It’s (John: That’s right.) not a general question.
(J) That’s entirely it, that’s  right.
(Julie) It’s a disciple’s question, because there’s going to come a point… And I guess because I just met this so painfully and powerfully this week, there’s a point at which, and I’m sure there’s many points at which we realize He’s not going to serve me. And so much of Christianity, you can go a long way into Christianity and still deep down be believing that in the end He’s going to come rescue me. He’s going to be ‘wow, Jesus!’ for me, on my terms, how I want Him to.
(J) Hmhmm.
(Julie) And when, and, and, I mean this has been a deep experience of the cross, to realize that His holiness, and what He’s about; He’s on His own mission, and He may well let me die in that prison, and have my head cut off. And, and not, you know, He’s not going to serve me. And, and it’s those, those it seem like, I don’t know if this is true, but those seem like are some of the most crucial points of meeting the cross. Of whether I’m going to die to everything that I wanted, everything I even wanted of Him, and accept and love and, and cherish, and enter into only what He’s about, and not me. Is that valid?
(J) I think it’s precisely that, because everybody is offended ‘by’ Him, everybody. What human is not offended by Jesus, He’s an offense all over the place. But there’s a big difference to be offended ‘in’ Him, that is an intimate word like you’re saying, a word of saying this person’s in me, this person’s in My will. Don’t be offended ‘in’ My will. It’s a very, very tight, and very, very intimate word. And to say ‘by’, it casts a general cast over it. And I’m glad you said ‘by’, because it emphasizes the ‘in’. It just, ‘by’ is, everybody’s in the ‘by’, everybody.
(M) Ah, I loved the word you used, intimate, and ‘in’ Him. The ‘by’ is external; I’m offended by what He does, but I’m wounded by what He does to me. I’m offended ‘in’ Him.
(J) You have to be ‘in’ His holiness, you have to be ‘in’ His, (Martha: relationship.) ‘in’ His relationship, you have to be ‘in’ His will to be offended ‘in’ Him.
(M) Hmhmm. It astonished me that He didn’t send comfort; go tell him I’m the One that heals the sick and raises and heals the lame, and, and blessed is he who’s not offended in… He didn’t send His comfort, He sent him truth and reality, and that was the only comfort he needed.
(J) Because he was in the correct place.
(M) And he was the greatest prophet, Jesus said... He ended the era of the prophet with his death.The whole old testament era of the prophet ended in John the Baptist.
(J) He was in his calling, he was in his purpose. He had lived out his purpose to the point of what he would dress, what he would eat, what he would do. He was in his purpose; he was in fulfilling the will of God by having the will of God lived out in his life; but don’t be offended in that. And He didn’t have to come and, and comfort him, He didn’t have to. His comfort, if in the will, that is your comfort, (Martha: Yeah.) that you are in the will. If that is your highest value…
(M) Is the comfort.
(J) Right.
(M) He said, are You the One? He asked the question. I’m doubting Who You are, are You the One? Because You’re not saving me. Go tell him.
(J) Was not ‘the will’ his highest value? So all He had to do was clarify, yes.
(M) I Am.
(J) I Am. And then for him it probably was all he needed, that was all the comfort. If your highest value is ‘the will’, the highest comfort could be known that yes, you are in ‘the will’.
(M) At that place of death, the question is, ‘are you willing?’ Who are You really? Are You who I thought I…? Are You Who I laid my life down for? Are You still Him?
(J) And it’s valid.
(M) And it’s valid. It’s the only  question you have.
(J) You mean to just to be affirmed in his life-choice, and his life-choice was the will of God.
(Carole) Was it, was it his need to, to ah, to have his focus re, I’ll say refreshed.
(J) Or reaffirmed.
(Carole) Reaffirmed. His focus, to bring it from what… When you’re faced in a battle of circumstances, it is very, very easy, at least for me, to look all around and see nothing but my circumstances, especially if somebody’s got my head brewing in their hands, you know? And when he went, and he was doubting because of these circumstances that were all around him, and Jesus brought his focus right back to Himself, He says to go tell him I heal, and I whatever, whatever.
(Julie) I think, just again, just having experienced it kind of, and I don’t need to put my experience into it but I, I think ah, I didn’t realize I had expectations of God until He didn’t come through the way that I thought He was going to. You know what I’m saying? And it’s just, it, it’s almost like a, a precious disappointment that leads you to a deeper discovery of Who He is. You know? But, but I do think, I think that, like Carole’s saying, there can be times when there are circumstances that shake us so badly that we’re not sure. And I realize in my situation the fault was mine. I’m the one who set the expectations.  I’m the one who, and didn’t even realize I had them until He flushed them out just right, you know?  But those expectations, I’m not, I praise Him, I praise Him even for killing them, because they would have thrown me off, you know? And Martha tells us a lot of time that so much about what we’re going through right now is preparation so we’ll be ready when the anti-Christ comes. If I have false expectations of how I think God’s supposed to perform, or what He’s supposed to do, or what He owes me that I don’t realize I think He owes me, or whatever, if I still have that ‘self’ alive, and I’m not, this I’m not saying this is John the Baptist, this is Julie, ok. (Laughter.) This is just what I had to go through, but I realize that if I have those expectations of Him or false claims based on my expectations, then I can be shaken. Does that make sense?
(M) And you can be fooled.
(Julie) I can be fooled.
(M) By one who claims to (Julie: yeah.) give you what you…want.
(Julie) So it’s, it’s love; it is a Father. It is love that His chastening, kind of going back to Hebrews twelve, that He would come in and shake everything that can be shaken, and shake loose these expectations and these false ideas, and these places where I’m not dead and I’m still in it for ‘self’ buried way deep down there in all kinds of religious mess. He’s got to deal with those things so that I am on the solid Rock of Who He is alone, Who He really is alone, and not what I thought.
(M) Somewhere on the web site I say, “Kiss His disappointing Hand.” Loving Him when He has disappointed you and f… I started to say failed you, (Martha laughs.)
(Julie) Can you say it like you did this week about the mission, that that is the mission, or a missionary part in mind. Remember how you said it to me? You said that what He’s wanting is to form a missionary heart and mind that will kiss the Hand that disappoints you. And even along the lines in that same week, you talked about how the essence of a missionary is you die for His will.  That is the mission life so to speak. And John the Baptist did. I mean he lost his head, as a part of the big picture.