Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of loving God with all our strength, which encompasses our resources, time, and abilities. He explains that this love is not merely about financial contributions but involves a fasted lifestyle where we willingly give our natural strengths to God, allowing Him to work within us. Bickle highlights five expressions of this fasted lifestyle, including giving, serving, prayer, fasting food, and blessing our enemies, and stresses that true love for God requires intentionality and sacrifice. He encourages believers to seek grace for fasting in all areas of life, asserting that such acts position us to receive the Holy Spirit's empowering love. Ultimately, Bickle asserts that the greatest reward is the ability to love God deeply and authentically.

Turn to Matthew chapter 6. Tonight we're going to continue on session seven on the first commandment course, loving God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength. We've looked at each one of these four components or dimensions of loving God. Paragraph A, God's called us to love him in these four spheres of life. And tonight we're looking at the area of strength, which is a reference to our resources, that we love God in context to our natural resources, which is more than money. It's our time. It's our physical strength, our abilities. And it's not because God needs our money. It's not because God really needs that particular contribution. It's because when we offer it to him in love, I mean, he does use it and it's powerful in his esteem. But there are so many human dynamics that take place when we obey the Lord in these arenas of our strength. When we press to obey him and love him, talking about loving him now, by giving above and beyond that which most people would normally think. I'm calling that the fasted lifestyle, where we give to God in a way where we fill the weakness because of the, the extravagance of how we're seeking to love him in these natural ways, in these areas of our natural strength. I mean, and the part that we don't grasp is the human dynamics that take place inside of us in the struggle, in the reach to give ourselves to God in these ways. And we'll look at a few of these tonight. But the reason this is so important to understand, because some folks, they just think of loving God in a worship service and just kind of, they kind of love Jesus through the week and, you know, in a general kind of way. But we want to love him with our strength in the way that he prescribes and trust him that the human dynamics that he does not describe, but they do take place, that they will bring us to deeper love, deeper experiences of love. Now, many of you in this room, you've sought to love the Lord in these ways. I know my own testimony, the ways I've laid out in this handout here. I've sought to love him and I've found the rub points, the pressure points in money and time and words. I went, ouch, Lord. And he says, come on, love me. And I go, whoa, I didn't know about that fear or that uncertainty or that point of humiliation that I feel right now. Huh. He says, love me. Come on, all the way with your strength by fasting in these arenas. And we're going to look at five different, five different expressions of the fasted lifestyle where we're fasting in the area of a natural strength, as an expression of love, as a way to love him. But more than that, or in addition to that, not just are we loving him, it positions us to receive the work of the Spirit, the grace of the Spirit to empower us to love him more. So as we seek to love him in these five ways, he actually takes the, the intention of it as love, but it also positions us to receive more of the grace of the Spirit. So we're empowered supernaturally to actually follow through in love. Paragraph B, this session, we're going to define what it means a little bit. You know, it's bigger than one session. Some of what it means to love God with our resources, with our strength, the area of food, time, money, words, energy, and our influence. Or you could put our reputation and the position we have to influence other people. The Lord says, I want you to show love to me in every one of those arenas. And in doing that, you will position yourself for me to strengthen your spirit by the Holy Spirit. Again, there's many natural, many, uh, undefined human dynamics. Psychologically, they take place in our emotions. Physiologically, physically, there's things that take place. Spiritually, socially, things happen in our human experience when we endeavor to walk this out with follow-through. And the Holy Spirit's working with us in these areas. And though the Bible doesn't lay them all out in a psychological way, when you seek to do it, they become apparent. How it is, I mean, the deep parts of our being that come to light. And the way that we're empowered when we seek to love God in these ways. Paragraph C, Matthew 6, verse 1 to 23, gives us five different expressions of what I like to call the fasted lifestyle. These are five areas of natural strength where we fast in. Now, I wrote a book with Dana Candler called The Rewards of Fasting. It's a small book, maybe a hundred pages or so. It's not very big at all. I want to recommend it. And the reason I'm recommending it is, is that it's what I'm talking about here in this short session, but it gives a lot more detail, even though it's a short little book. And I want to say this, you will never mature in love for God without endeavoring to love God with all of your strength. Until the area of our strength is intentionally part of our pursuit in loving Him, we will always come up short and stay immature in our love. The issue of fasting is non-negotiable. It's non-negotiable for New Testament Christianity. And it's not because God's mean and He wants to see if we really are sincere. He knows there are human dynamics that happen psychologically, spiritually, socially in us, that if we don't fast in these arenas, those dynamics will not happen to the degree that He wants to. So He commands us to fast as the great psychologist and the one who understands the design of the human spirit and how it functions, and how it interacts with the Holy Spirit. So His call, yea, more than call, command to fast in these five areas, is a statement about the design of the human spirit and how we come to fullness in our interaction with the Holy Spirit. It's a statement about that much more than a statement about God just wants to see if we'll kind of, you know, be tough and really go for the hard stuff. Because when I hear some people talk about fasting, they talk, they, more of God, you know, the stern coach, and if they really get with it, they'll fast and rah, rah, rah, and it's kind of like a, you know, football halftime speech to the team to go out and go for it. And I'm thinking, no, the Lord's calling us to fast. Far more from the vantage point as the creator and architect of the human spirit, He knows how we function, and He knows the social and psychological and spiritual dynamics that will unfold when we pursue fasting for a lifetime in these five areas. So at the end of the day, paragraph D, it expresses our love to Jesus, but more, it positions us to receive the Holy Spirit's empowering to love Him. So I do want to love Him in these five ways, but I want to receive, I want to be in the position to receive the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. Paragraph E, the anointing to love God is the greatest possession the human spirit can have. The anointing to feel loved and to love God back. Beloved, there is no greater reward than when the Holy Spirit pours love into the human spirit. Now you can't always tell when it's happening. Now you can feel the tenderizing sometimes, but the Holy Spirit pouring love in our spirit is, it cannot always be discerned and measured in qualitative ways, quantitative ways. But He's working, and He's pouring love. He's releasing love in us if we're reaching to love God in the way the Bible says. That's why it's important we love God on God's terms. You know, I've said to the Lord, Lord if I was God, I don't think I would do the food fasting thing. I'd kind of skip that part and go right into more of the longer worship services. And the Lord's answer would be something like, well you don't know the design of the human spirit. You don't know all the dynamics that come to light, and you don't know the way my spirit interacts with the human spirit. So if you don't reach in these five ways, you won't be in the optimum position to receive the pouring out of love in the human spirit. Now of course the day you're born again, you receive the Holy Spirit. But the pouring out of love means the manifest presence to strengthen your emotions in your mind, your inner man. The greatest reward of love is the power to love. The greatest reward that I can have and you can have as a lover of God is the power to love Him. What a powerful thing. I mean imagine, what's your greatest dream? It's not about fame and fortune. It's the ability to be loyal in love to Jesus. If you walk in that anointing, beloved, you have everything. Your life will be over, your natural life in a minute. Whether it's a day or a hundred years, it's a minute either way. And if you can have in this life the power to walk in loyal love to Jesus, beloved, you are most successful among all the people of the earth. Paragraph F, the grace of fasting. We want to go after it. And what I mean by go after it, we ask the Lord for it. Have you ever asked the Lord for the grace of fasting? Not just food, but all five of these areas. Some of you may say, I never thought about it. Well that's why we're having this class. This is a critical prayer. Father, give me grace for fasting. The Holy Spirit might say, in what way of fasting? Food, money, time, words. What kind of fasting? All of them. He says, okay, oh Lord, I really want this, but be easy on me because I'm a weak man in the flesh. He'll give you grace for fasting in all these areas, but we have to ask for it. If we ask for it, we'll get more. In a little while, we're going to pray for grace for fasting. We're going to pray for grace for fasting for food, but not limited just to food, because all Matthew 6 is all five of these areas. Paragraph G, God gives more if you hunger for this grace. If you seek it, He'll give you more. If you seek more grace for fasting, you will get the ability to fast more. And if you fast more, you're positioned to receive more of the power of the Holy Spirit to love God. And that's the focus we have in this course. Fasting as it relates to loving God with all of our strength, because you, I could talk on fasting as well as others could about its impact in many other areas of life in the kingdom, but I'm talking about fasting as relates to loving God with all of our strength, A-L-L, all of my resource. I want to express love and position myself to receive the grace of God in my spirit as I reach for you, Lord, and the human dynamics that take place. Paragraph I, this is one of my favorite passages. Of course, you get a hundred favorite passages, right? First Corinthians 15, this has really been one of my favorites over the years. It's describing Jesus as a man at the end of the millennial kingdom, when all of the nations of the world are manifest as obeying Him. Every single nation, in every institution of every nation, in every part of the earth, they obey Jesus. It's a thousand years after His leadership as a man, fully man, fully God, but as a man on the earth after the second coming, a thousand years later, all of the institutions are Christianized and obeying God and loving God. Talking about a man with strength. He has strength in every capacity, economic strength, really good reputation, a lot of influence in every single way possible as a man. And here's what it says. First Corinthians 15, verse 24, then comes the end. It means the end of the millennium. Jesus delivers up, or you could say offers up, the kingdom. He's talking about every nation fully Christianized in every way. He offers it to the Father. Verse 28, and when all things are made subject to Jesus, when everything in the earth is under His authority, I mean, think of the greatest revival in the book of Acts and how it touched a little portion of Jerusalem, and just multiply that times thousands in every nation of the earth, talking about everything subject to Him as a man on the earth at the end of the millennium. Jesus subjects Himself to the Father for one reason. He wants the Father to be all in all. He says, Father, I did this. I conquered the nations for You. I only, I wanted it for You. I died, Lord, to redeem them. But I wanted them all to love You. This is the ultimate statement of loving God the Father with all of a man's strength is here in this example of Jesus. Revelation 4, the elders, they really get caught up in this inspiration. Now these elders are humans and they take their rewards. Their crowns are their rewards from their obedience on the earth and they give them to God. They don't lay them down and say, we know you're going to give them back, so come on, give me back. Father, give it back. No, when they cast the crowns, they really gave all that they received as a love gift. It's yours, God, because it's impossible to outgive God. But they keep casting it down and it's for real. It's, it's not kind of a show. They are overwhelmed at how glorious and kind they want to give all of their strength to Him in love. Top of page two. Now we're going to look at one of the fundamental ideas. You got to get this idea down. If you don't get this idea down, then fasting doesn't make sense. Fasting is voluntary weakness of your areas of natural strength. Let me say that again. Fasting is to voluntarily, to voluntarily take these five areas of your natural strength and give them away to God and then to be in weakness, waiting for the Spirit to touch you and for God to return that strength back to you in His own timing. We really give it away and we wait. Lord, touch my heart as I endeavor to give myself and give that strength back to me. He says, oh I will. Maybe in this age, a hundredfold. Maybe not a hundredfold in this age, but a thousandfold in the age to come. Just trust me. Give it to me and trust me to give it back when I want. And trust me to touch your spirit in the process so you mature in love. This is what giving our strength is about to God. Now in this voluntary weakness, we're positioning ourself to receive grace. Because it takes God to love God. I can't love God just by gritting my teeth and making a decision. I do have to make a decision. But it's not enough to make a decision. If the Spirit doesn't help me, then that decision's not good. There's not going to be power. It's not going to be effective. The Lord says, okay the Spirit will help you in whatever measure you want. But the Spirit will help you in a greater measure if you do it my way. That's called fasting. And many believers don't buy into the fasting in these eight and five arenas. And the Spirit helps them some. But they have very little maturity in love, even after decades. It's a supernatural work. And we can have it at a higher degree, a higher measure, this work of God in our spirit to love God. Because it takes God to love God. If we will give ourself to Him in these five areas. Now we're going to go to heaven one way or the other. We're going to live and then heaven's coming to earth. We're going to be part of His kingdom. But it's not just a part of His kingdom when you die physically. I want the anointing to love Him in this age to the full degree that God will give the human spirit. He says good. Then come in these five areas with all of your strength. And I don't know what that means. That word all in the flesh is a big word. Like all of my strength. Come with all. How much? Whatever measure you will come in, that's the measure I'll meet you in. Oh Lord, these are big areas. Love me with all of your strength and I will help you to that measure. Well Paul in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, it's one passage of Scripture. I mean it's one subject. Paul's talking about his weakness. Now you got to read 2 Corinthians 11 and 12, not just chapter 12. Read the whole context. He's talking about his weakness. But when he talks about his weakness, he's not talking about moral weakness. Paul's not talking about failure. He's not talking about sinning. He's talking about voluntary weakness. Giving his strength to God because of love for God and then letting the spirit touch his spirit and let God return the strength back in his own timing. That's what Paul's talking about. Now he talks, he covers fasting, prayer, money, time, all of these things. But he's going to press the issue of persecution. Of how he relates to his enemies. That's the issue Paul's going to press here in 2 Corinthians 12. But chapter 11 and 12 is all five of these issues you'll find in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. The fasted lifestyle issues or expressions of weakness. Paul says, a thorn in the flesh was given to me. It's a messenger of Satan to buffet me. Verse 8, I pleaded with the Lord three times, take this thorn away. Jesus appears to him, is how I imagine this happening. Stands in front of him and says, Paul I got a new revelation for you. My grace, and grace doesn't mean forgiveness here, it means power. Grace means forgiveness sometimes and power the other times or enabling. And mostly in the New Testament, grace means the enabling of the spirit. And it incorporates the idea of forgiveness of which the word mercy is the main word. Mercy is a subunit of grace. Mercy is the forgiveness part and grace involves forgiveness but more than forgiveness, enabling. So Jesus says, my enabling or my power is sufficient for you in this trouble Paul. For, here it is, here's the grand revelation, my strength is made perfect to you in your weakness. What a statement. Now first you want to think of the subject, the concept perfect strength, perfected strength. How would you like to walk in perfected strength? I look at this strength made perfect. Oh my Lord, I want it. He says, throw yourself into loving me with all of your strength. Embrace weakness. Lay your strength aside in your pursuit of me. Love me with all your strength and you will experience more of my perfected strength in this age. Now what Paul is not saying, what Jesus, I mean Jesus is talking here in verse 9, he's not saying my strength is made perfect in your weakness, in your moral failure. He's not talking about sinfulness here. He's talking about the fasted lifestyle. He's talking about them voluntarily embracing weakness and the weakness that Paul was embracing is that he was preaching the gospel in a hostile area where persecution was inevitable. You know, many guys would just go to the other area. Paul said, no, I'm going. I know it's the Holy Spirit inviting me into this region. I'm going in it. I mean I wouldn't encourage somebody just to go to a hostile area just to prove that they would. Paul was being led by the Holy Spirit and the Lord says, Paul, I'm going to give you perfected strength because you're saying yes to weakness. You're voluntarily laying your strength down in order to trust me and I will return the strength to you. Now in Paul's case, later on, not in this case, he was actually killed in Rome. Lord, I thought you were going to, his physical strength was extinguished. Well, Lord, I thought you were going to return the strength. He says, yeah, Paul will have a resurrected body forever. I'm going to return it beyond any measure you could imagine. But it's not just that God's going to return our strength. We give him money. He gives his money back. We pray. He touches. He moves. His invisible hand moves. But it's not just he returns the strength back. He actually releases grace on our spirit. He gives grace or enabling on our spirit, the strengthening of, of our human spirit with might. Paul said, because of this, we're at the end of verse 9, I boast in my weaknesses. He goes, I'm, I'm all for it. Why? So the power of God would increase in my experience. What he's saying through the language of, of, of what I'm using tonight, when I fast more, that's the infirmities, when I, when I embrace voluntary weakness more, I experience more power in this age. And that's the wisdom of this passage. That's what Matthew 6 is about, of which we won't have time to look at all of it. But as always, I give you more notes than we'll cover, so you can read it on your own. And of course, my desire is also that you would take some of these teachings later. Many of you will teach Bible studies and small ones and big ones, and that you take these notes and use them, because you know, our copyright's the right to copy. So you could take all of this stuff and make your own notes with it. And train others that if they will embrace weakness, they will experience more strength, more of the power of Jesus in their, in their experience in this age, not just the age to come. Paragraph A, we invest our natural strength in these five areas. Now the, the problem, we invest our natural strengths, there's a time delay before the Lord returns the strength back. And that time delay is when all the human dynamics happens psychologically inside of us. We give our money. One thousand, you know, t minus ten, t minus nine, t minus eight. Lord, are you giving the money back? Yes. Like when? I'm not telling you, but I want you to give more money. Ah, I haven't seen the return on the last one. Oh, I've got my records are perfect. I'm going to give you way more than you give me. So keep giving. Well, I was thinking that I'll give more after you give me a new installment. And the Lord says, well, no, it's not going to work that way. You just keep fasting in the money. You keep sowing and trust me, many human dynamics come into play. Fears emerge, our motives come to the surface, good ones and bad ones, but good ones too, not just bad ones. Because it's in that working of that muscle that you might say, I'm going to love you with my strength. I don't care when the answer comes because I'm yours. And the Lord says, oh, that moves me. I take that personally. So it's not just that negative motives come to light. So do positive motives, because the perseverance, the delay, I mean, of God's answer creates a tenacious reach in your spirit to stay steady that the Holy Spirit uses to strengthen you with. But it also solidifies your motive in love and it moves God's heart more than we'll ever know in this age. We do it in prayer. We pray. We say, Lord, I would like the answer to the prayer. He says, you'll get it more than you'd ever imagine in my time. Keep praying. Okay. Because prayer takes time. The big problem, I mean, the challenge we're going to see in a minute about prayer is that prayer is a very costly thing, a strength in terms of investing our time. And beloved, your time is one of your greatest strengths that you have in this life. I mean, how many times I can think of over the years, and many of you could say the same. I just did not have the time to sit quiet before the Lord at being a prayer meeting. Yes, the Lord says, yeah, you do. If I do, I'll miss this opportunity. That's okay. Give me your time. Well, I'm going to miss this social opportunity, this networking opportunity, this financial opportunity. The Lord says, that's okay. I'm worth it. Give me your time and trust me to touch your spirit and trust me to return that opportunity back tenfold and a hundredfold, but in my timing. So I've been in many a prayer time over the years going, oh, I could get stuff done that would make my life stronger. The Lord might say, stronger for a minute, but not ultimately because I'm going to multiply every hour you've given in over the years. I'm going to multiply it back in my relationship to you. You're going to have an increase and in all the effectiveness that you could have done if you would have skipped the prayer time. But it will be in my timing, not in your timing. And how many times had to make that decision? Hmm. The invisible God with the delay factor. That's where all the psychological dynamics take place. God's invisible and he delays. If he was visible and always on my time, there would be no element to fasting. Fasting my time is what I do in prayer meetings. Fasting food, which really fasting food we'll look at in a minute is really not so much about hunger. Fasting food is about strength. You lose your physical strength. And when you lose your physical strength, you lose your productiveness. I can't get as much done fasting. The Lord says, no problem. He goes, I'll multiply it. Well, if you were not invisible and you didn't do the delay thing, it would be easier. The Lord says, yeah, but then the pressure wouldn't be working on your spirit to purify your motives and to solidify what you really want. I'm giving you a hundred chances to change your mind. If you don't really want to love me in that area, the fact I'm invisible, the fact I'm delaying, you can bail out anytime you want. But if you really want me to stay with it, Oh, here I am. I'm going to stay with it in money, in fasting food, in fasting time, which is prayer. This idea we'll look at, uh, or we'll reference in a minute. The, the blessing our enemies. Ooh, that's a tough one. I would rather tell the whole truth about how bad that guy is. Let's just don't forgive him and bless him. Fast your reputation in your words. Lord, would you not be so invisible and not delay so long? Lord says, no, I'm working a process in your spirit. Number one, I take it very personally that you really love me. You're staying with this and I am moving on your spirit and I'm going to return everything that that guy took from you by speaking evil against you. I'll return it all far beyond anything you could have had. If you would have done it on your own. Roman number three, the five expressions of the fasted lifestyle. Here they are. The five in Matthew six, a very, they're quite simple and to the point. Now these are five ways we express fasting, not just food. Now this is a long term lifestyle. I call it the fast and lifestyle, not just the day of fasting food, fasting food for a day's good. But if you fast your money, it's called giving and your time that's serving or prayer. Add your reputation, that's blessing your enemies and forgiving the people. And a lot, and by the way, enemies are just not the mean guy on the other, you know, the other side of town or whatever. Your enemies are anybody that's resisting your plans. It might be the person right there in the row in front of you. That wasn't a prophecy. Even Mike said it. No, that was, that was just in. No, but our enemies are anyone that's opposing or resisting the plan that's in our heart to go forward. A lot of, so it's not just an enemy in the general sense. It's anyone that's blocking your goals at any way. You're just goals for a good reputation because that guy's talking bad about you. And he's, he's in the ministry. He's in the family here. Why is he talking bad about me? Just blessing. I tell you that the blessing, the enemies, I find of the five is the hardest when it's all said and done. I don't know. I think maybe the food's the easiest one. No, and the food's not easy, but we think of food is the hard one. But if you really got on the line in the area of money to obey God with all of your strength in that area or in your time, you know, it's after the meeting or before the meeting is on the weekend or it's during the week, whatever we get all this time Lord says, I want your time. I want your strength. Yeah. But everybody else, he says, give me your strength and I'll return it back to you. Your time with your words. Lord says, I've given you my strength and I assure you, I will answer you on all of these areas. One of the reasons that many of God's people don't grow in love, I've, you know, been a pastor over 30 years. They think of loving God is what they do to worship service. What they do all week long. I mean, they want to love God, but they never, and they're sincere as can be, but they never ever get past just the most superficial love because they don't press into God with their strength, all the areas of strength in their life. Or they don't do with their mind. We look at a session the other day or their soul with humility. They don't embrace the attitude of humility. Lord says, but I'll give you love. If you, that's what you can't live without. I'll give it to you supernaturally, but you've got to do it on my terms. And beloved, I know there's many of you like this. I want everything that God will give the human spirit in this age. I do not want some preacher to get me off the hook with some kind of mouth-angled grace preaching that keeps me spiritually superficial for decades, and I feel good all the way that I'm doing okay. I never mature. I want the grace to be abandoned, not to feel good while I'm carnal. And so much of the grace preaching today is, it's distorted. It's making people feel good while they're carnal, feel good about their carnality. I want to feel good that God loves me when I'm weak, but as I repent, but I want to know that he's going to strengthen me where I can go deep in him. Well, the greatest men of God, paragraph A, in history, Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul, there's others. They were all into the fasted lifestyle. I mean, if apart from their testimony in scripture, if you saw them on the stage of history, they don't really figure in anybody's book. If they weren't on the Bible, they wouldn't figure as important to anybody. But these are the guys that God calls the greatest ones in history. And in essence, they were the ones that pressed into the fasted lifestyle. I mean, John the Baptist, the greatest man ever born of a woman, 18 years reaching to God in a fasted lifestyle, and his ministry only goes 18 months, and his numbers are minuscule compared to ministry standards today. If he was in ministry today, and he wasn't in the Bible, he would be written off by the church as a failed ministry. Well, he only made it 18 years, 18 months, and not that many people actually did anything he said. You know, John was a good boy. He meant well. That boy had a good future if he could have got out of that wilderness mode. Hung out with the Pharisees, got in the system, did a little bit more networking, showed himself a little bit friendlier. He had a future. Jesus comes on the scene. This, the ultimate picture of the fasted lifestyle, as John the Baptist said, he's the greatest man ever born of a woman. And that's the sort of thing, it's those kind of esteem Jesus would have said about Moses and Elijah. Because of the fasted lifestyle. Forget what everybody's telling you out there. The Word of God is the standard God goes by. So I'm locking into this roadmap called the Bible. I'm going for it. Burning all my bridges, putting all my eggs in one basket that it's true. Throw my strength, my money, my time, my food, air. I'm going all the way. And I'm putting all of my hope on the fact it's true. And there's an eternal life in all the strength is returned and multiplied measures beyond anything we can imagine. Yes, good. Yes, I did it. I did it. You got X amount of decades to live on the earth to decide if you want to do it all the way, part of the way or a little bit of the way. I want to go all the way. And I know that many of you do too. Paragraph C, in giving, giving money, we're actually fasting our financial strength. When you give somebody money in the kingdom of God I'm talking about, part of your resource base you're giving it away. You give them that money, it's not yours anymore. You can't influence with that money anymore. You gave it to them. So you're going, Lord, did you see? Because the dynamic, invisible God who delays. I gave that money. I don't have it now. I could use it now. The Lord says, I know. Are you going to give it back to me? Yes. More than I gave? Oh, yes. Soon or not so soon? You'll see. Oh, I don't like that answer. You'll see. But I want you to keep giving. You give your financial strength. In serving and in prayer we're giving our, our time. And again, our time is our, is a huge resource to us, is our time. I mean, money is power, but time is life. You can get money back. You can never get time back. Your time is your life. You're sitting in a prayer room or you're, you're serving kind of on the back row. Nobody sees you or out of the way. God sees you and you're serving or you're pouring yourself out. The Lord sees it. You can never, ever give that hour again. You can't lose it if you gave it to God and you can never recover it if you didn't. In food, we're giving our physical and emotional and our mental strength. Again, I mean, food, there's the element of hunger, but that's not the real essence of what fasting food's about. It's about being spacey and kind of like, I know what I'm trying to say, but I just can't say it. They're going, come on, come on. Or you don't have the energy to engage in the productive ways that you're used to, but you're asking the Lord to make up the difference because you're embracing this weakness. We do all of these as expressions of love to him. And I'm repeating myself to position ourself. We're doing it to say we love you, but we're positioning ourself to receive more of the inspiration of the Spirit. And he does return it all back to us. All of the strength we gave, give to him, he returns much of it in this age, delayed, multiplied and delayed. But the, the vast majority of it, he returns in the age to come. But even when he gives us in this age is, is, you know, it's like I've given money many, many times and he's given me not twice, but 10 times. I think, Lord, that's really good. He goes, not so good. It's good compared to you and the guys on the earth. When you give 10, you know, investment, get 10 fold back. To the human mind, he said, that's good, but I'm about to give you a billion times back in the resurrection. This 10 times is going to look different when you see how much I've got stored up for you economically. And so I like the 10 fold, but don't get so excited about the 10 fold. You lose sight of the billion fold that is yours economically. So yeah, we get some return in this age, but it's only a little bit, even if it's 10 fold. Top of page three. Okay, giving money, giving our financial strength. Jesus said, when you do a charitable deed, a charitable deed. Now this, in Matthew 6, all five of them were there. The charitable deed has the charitable, the economic dimension, and it has the deed, the service dimension. This one has two aspects of the fasted lifestyle and different translations will say a different, but both of them are repeated over and over in the New Testament. There's the money part, the charitable part, and there's the deed, the service part. And in this particular verse, Matthew 6, 3, he puts the two concepts together. Now the key, God sees in secret. Not just that you're in secret, God's in secret. Like, God, are you really watching? Are you really? God's in secret and you're in secret. And he says, I don't want you to make a big deal out of it because you're doing it for me, with me. You're not doing it for them. If you do the, the psychological human dynamics get minimized and cut short. We're doing it because you love me. I don't need your service or your money. I don't really. I got plenty of guys to do that job and plenty of money. I want your heart. Something's happening in you. That's why it's critical we don't make it known to others. The human dynamic with the Holy Spirit is cut short. This is about encountering God, not about getting ahead on the church org chart. That's not what it is about. Or in the marketplace org chart. It's about interacting with the one who sees on his timetable. He says, don't talk. If you talk, the whole process is minimized. Not that it, it's not that I'm mad at you. The human dynamics that I wanted to work in you don't work if you're getting all the kudos from everybody for what you're doing. I want you to do it without any response and for me and for that muscle to be strengthened over and over and over and over. And by doing that, put that pushup thousands of times, your inner man will get galvanized in a resolve for righteousness and my spirit will strengthen you. Don't short circuit it by hinting the story. So people give you the credit and then the whole pressure of reaching is now minimized the reach of your spirit to do it for God and only God. That's okay if they, if people find out like, you know, one guy, you know, the guy finds out, oh no, you found out like, no, no, no. He's like blowing the trumpet 10 times louder now. Just chill. You know, not a big deal, but Jesus really hits this thing hard. The issue of money, Matthew six, verse 19, he goes treasure on earth. Don't lay up treasure on earth, lay it up in heaven. Verse 21 gives the psychological dimension here. He goes where your money is, but really our treasure is all of these five things, not just money. Because as you seek to do this, which many of you have, you know that all of these are your treasure, not just your money. Where your treasures, where you give, where you invest these five things, there your emotions, your heart will be invigorated and inspired and expanded. Your heart will be wherever you invest these five things. Now he's talking about money for sure in this passage. But since it's in the context of all of these five things, it's the next verse after it. Because the five are listed in verses 1 to 18. Then in verse 19, Jesus says, now let me talk about the treasure. And he's talking about money, but he says, your emotions, verse 21, are dynamically connected with what you do with it. Lord, fill me with love. And the Lord says, position yourself to be filled with love. No, I don't want to position myself. I just want you to sovereignly fill me with love while I'm doing something other than. Position yourself, pour your treasure into me and I'll move your heart. Verse 21. No, I want to do what everyone else does, but I want to be filled with love. I want to wake up filled with love one day. The Lord says, no, I want you to do it my way. Because wherever your treasures, your emotions will get stirred up in that direction. Paragraph C, the widow's might. That's interesting. She only gives these two pennies. And the guys come along in verse 3 and they, verse 4, they give millions or whatever. Jesus said the two pennies is worth more than the millions because the millions were out of surplus and she gave more because it cost her more. And I don't care about the money. I don't need your money. It's your heart I'm after. She gave more. She expressed love that was more costly to me than the rich guys did. The rich guys got out and gave a lot more, but it was surplus. It didn't cost them. They didn't even notice it was gone. It's not the amount, it's the costliness of the sacrifice. Because the costliness is what the statement of love is that moves God's heart. Paragraph D, David understood this. When he was going to make a sacrifice before God in 2 Samuel 24, he said, I'll buy the field. And, and the guy goes, no, I'll give it to you. David goes, no, I'm not going to offer an offering to God that costs me nothing. Because David was going to offer a sacrifice. He goes, I'll buy the land to make the sacrifice. And the guy goes, I'll give you the land. You're King David. My goodness, I'll give it. David goes, no, I would never offer something to God that did not cost me personally in a significant way. I won't do it. It must cost me. That was an amazing revelation that David had of what Jesus told about the widow. So I'm talking about, you know, the 18-year-old student can be giving in a costly way that just might be pennies compared to the other guy who's giving out a surplus and to God he's giving more. But here's the problem. I've seen this in the 30 years. Many young guys have that spirit of devotion because it's easy to give when they have a hundred dollars or a thousand, but that same guy 30 years later can't give when he has a million. When he was 20 and only had a thousand, he could give half of it. When he has a million, he still struggles giving that thousand dollars when he's got a million. I've watched it many times. Paragraph E, David said, I've set my affection on God's house. You could read this on your own. David gave a hundred billion dollars. He said, I won't offer anything that doesn't cost me. Now he was the head of state and had lots of spoils of war, but still David said in 1 Chronicles 22, verse 14, I have taken much trouble to prepare. I have gone to an extreme because my affection is on this. And his affection wasn't on the building, the house of prayer. His affection was on God who was the object of the house of prayer. Let's go to the top of page four. This issue of money is really important. I've seen many sincere people, but they can't get it right on this subject. I mean, they'll even tithe, but when they tithe, it's a mere, it's not even out of a surplus. They can't even, they have so much money, it doesn't even matter. Lord says, I want your heart. I want all of your strength. That doesn't mean give all your money, but I want you to give till you feel it in your devotion to me. You could read this on your own. Malachi 1, verse 6 to 10, really amazing passage about money, where God told the leadership. He said, I don't want your offerings that are half-hearted. You keep them. I don't want them. He said, I want it to cost you. I want it to be something that matters to you. I guess I got y'all interested now. I'll read it. I mean, it's a really, uh, poignant passage of scripture, right? It just hits the nail right in the head. God says a son honors his father, a servant is master. Well, if I'm the father, where's my honor? If I'm the master, where's my reverence? That says the Lord to the leadership, you despise me. And they go, we despise you. How could you say that word full-time ministry? We're offering the sacrifices. He goes, I'll tell you how you despise me. Verse 7, you give defiled food on my altar. You give the food that's spoiled. You give the food that nobody wants. You give the food you can't use anyway. He goes, I don't want that. I don't need that offering on that altar. I want you. You give me the thing you can't use anyway or that you won't miss. They said, what do you mean we gave you defiled food? He says, here's what you say. The table of the Lord is contemptible, which means because they, the table Lord means the offering. It's a burden for us to have to bother with this thing about giving our good animals to the table. We don't want to bother with the, the good animals. He says, I heard your conversations. It's a burden to you that you have to give to me because I've heard you. He goes, then when you do give me an offering, you give me the blind animals and the lame ones, the ones nobody wants. He goes, why don't you have your governor over for dinner, pull out the diseased lamb, and then offer it to your, to the governor. The guy will go, no. He goes, well, then why are you doing it to me? Well, God, you're not eating it anyway. The governor's eating it. I want that which is costly to you. I don't care if it's the two cents, the two mites of a widow or the hundred billion of David. I want that which costs you economically. I want you to love me with your strength. Verse 10, the Lord says, I wish somebody would just shut the doors of the temple. Just shut the door. Don't even offer this. It offends me that you just want to give me what you don't use anyway. Beloved, the body of Christ is so like this today across the western world. I wonder, I made a determination when I was in my early 20s. I was going to live a simple lifestyle and I was going to give God the lion's share of everything he gave me the rest of my life, economically. I said, Lord, I'm going to give you my strength and my money, my time, and whatever money you give me, and I'm not going to tell you what I've done or haven't done, but I'll say this, it's a decision that I do not regret having made 30 years ago. I said, I am going to give you the lion's share, the vast majority of what you give me. I determined that as a young man, 21, 22, something like that. It was because of these kind of passages, I wanted to love him with all of my strength. Now am I doing it? I don't know. I'm trying. I hope. I might stand before the Lord. He may go, hey that was good. He may say, well almost. Oh no, don't say almost. So you don't know till you get there exactly. But I want to challenge you on this subject. Don't go with the status quo of how the body of Christ treats money. Go with the extreme expression of love before God. Roman numeral five, serving people. The out-of-the-way service. Everybody can serve up front. You're giving time and energy you could have used to build your own agenda, but you're serving the out-of-the-way thing. And that doesn't mean just the poor man on the street, that, that too. But even just the guy in the fellowship that nobody's helping out who needs help. It's that guy. Don't just look for the random homeless person on the other side of town. The guy you actually live with. The person three rows over, that's the one as well. Not just, don't wait till next month for the outreach. Hypothetically. We want to serve because we're giving to people the time we could have given ourself. Now I want to say this, having said that, some people do that and they take all their time before God and they give it away because they have time before God. They think, well that's personal time. No. God demands you give your heart to Him. Give your play time to that person, not your time with God. Give your recreation and entertainment time. Don't give your prayer time away to somebody. Give your networking time, your socializing time, your entertainment time. Don't give your fasting and prayer time away when you serve. Give your play time and your networking. Well if I do that, then the rich guy comes. I can't meet with him and then the doors don't open. Lord says, that's okay. Serve the brother anyway and keep your prayer time. I'm only saying this because I'm trying to be helpful. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm actually, I know the way that this works. I'm actually being truthful because I'm trying to help you. I'm fighting for your greatness. I'm contending for your greatness in God's love. Roman numeral six, prayer. It's about time. Top of page five. Now you think here in the house of prayer, I'd spend more time on the prayer part, but for time's sake, I think you you understand that. But prayer is a time investment. It really is. And there's emotions because you can sit in a room and do nothing. To engage takes some emotional energy. So it's time and it's an emotional engagement. It's not enough. I don't want to sit in a chair and pass an hour or two. I want to engage. It takes energy to do that and it takes time to sit there. Top of page five. Forgiveness, the blessing of your enemies. Paragraph eight. When we bless our enemies, we're fasting our reputation and our words. By fasting words, we refuse to come to our own defense. Paragraph B. When we restrain our speech, we don't use our words to defend ourselves, we use our words to bless. Paragraph C. An enemy, as I mentioned, is anyone who blocks your goals. Doesn't have to be an unbeliever. Doesn't have to be a guy with horns. It's not the devil. I mean just that one guy, you know, that's in the room. He's blocking your goals. He's in the way. He's causing you to lose out on a few things. Lord says, I want you to bless him and trust me to make it up to you. Yeah, but how will anybody know if I don't tell? Lord says, you know, I talked to one lady. She goes, I'm just doing it because it's the truth. I said, so you're really into the truth? She goes, yes. I go, then let's ask God to tell the whole truth about you. Well, I'm not that into the truth. I said, you're not into the truth. You want it to go good for you. I said, I appreciate that, but it's not because you're so zealous for truth. You want things to go good for you. Because if you're zealous for truth, all of the negative about your life, you would gladly tell everybody on a microphone. She said, I guess maybe it's not the truth. Maybe you're right. I said, let's do this. Let's bless the guy and let's wait. Yeah, but I can't wait. I've already waited. I mean, it was Monday he did this. It's Thursday. I've been waiting. I said, a year from today, let's talk again. Roman numeral eight, fasting food. It's about physical strength, but there's something about our spirit becomes sensitized when we fast physically. Top of page six, when we fast, our spirit becomes sensitized. Paragraph B, tenderize. We fast food. We fast in all these five areas. Some practical suggestions. First of all, fasting is basic to Christian life. Some people say, man, you're with this group. You guys do fasting. It's radical. I go, no, no, no, no radical. It's not radical. It's normal Christianity. See, if they think it's radical, then they think it's optional. Fasting is not radical. These five things are not radical. This is normal Christianity 101. There is no Christianity that's devoid of these five things. It's not radical. I wanted you to, these are not optional. This is the way of the Spirit in the kingdom in this age. Paragraph B, I want to encourage you. Fast a day a week. Try twos better. Ask for the grace of fasting. Tithe, but don't, don't be settled with tithe. I've never been content with tithing. You want to tithe, you want to believe God for 20 and 30% more than that. You want to give your strength because God's watching. It's not just so much people watching, God's watching. Say, Lord, I want to, you didn't trust me with billions of dollars, so I'm going to show you that this thing, I want it for you. He says, I'm watching you. I'm watching. In your prayer and Bible study time, get a Bible study plan. I want to encourage, if you don't have a Bible study plan, so I did this for some years, some years ago. It's been a while since I've done it because I've got another plan. Read 10 chapters of the New Testament every day. You'll go through the whole New Testament once a month. I did that for a couple years. A guy told me that. I said, really? Because you know the one reason a lot of people don't read the Bible, they don't know where to start. So the guy said, here's what you do. You read 10 chapters and the next day you just pick up where you left off. I went, that is brilliant. I was only about 20. I thought, that is brilliant. It worked. Now I want to talk to a couple of you zealots. And then a guy told me, he said, I do, I read 20 chapters a day. I read through the New Testament twice a month. I went, oh, I was about 21, 22. I went, oh no, a human can't do that. And I don't know if I made it a year, but about a year I did that. I said, hey, if that guy can, I can. I determined nobody was going to be more committed than I was. Yes, there was a little extra elements to the whole thing going on, but it still worked. Paragraph D. One thing I want to tell young people over my years of ministry, so much spiritual life is lost in the evenings and weekends. And I realize in internships, you're kind of hemmed in. That's one of the reasons we do Friday and Saturday night. It really is. I've been, in my years of pastoring, so much spiritual ground is lost on weekends. It's just, it's painful to me because somewhere it's kind of the unspoken law of the kingdom. Weekends are, is free time for the flesh. If it's free time, go deep in God. Go deep in God. When you're done with the programs, I want to challenge you. Take this fasting of your time called prayer and the word and go deep in God. I've been, since, you know, a lot of you have been in these programs and gone, I'll just say this to you, that I determined when I was about, I don't know, maybe 18, 19, 20, something like that. I'm 53 now, so a long time ago. That I was going to spend every Friday and Saturday night, for the rest of my life, of your exceptions, before the Lord in word and prayer. It's 30 years later plus, and 90% of the time I've done it every Friday and Saturday night for 30 plus years. And I have zero regrets. I was 21, 22, 23. All the guys are out doing that. And I was in the little prayer room, three people for years, five people. And I said, no, I'm going to give the strength of my weekends to God. Then I woke up one day and I was 32, 33. Woke up another day. I was 42, 43. Now I'm 52, 53 and I'm still doing it. I'm going to do it until the Lord returns. Amen. Let's stand. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle, please visit mikebickle.com.