Mike Bickle emphasizes the foundational role of understanding God's burning heart in developing a deep and lasting prayer life. He explains that this burning love is not only God's love for Himself but also His love for His people, which should awaken a similar love in us. Bickle highlights the importance of the first commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind as essential to our prayer life. He encourages believers to embrace their identity in Christ and to love themselves as God loves them, which in turn empowers them to love others. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a deeper participation in the fellowship of the burning heart, reflecting the love within the Trinity.

...of growing in prayer. We're doing it in this fall semester and then again in the spring semester. This is a big subject. We're wanting to address the foundational practical issues to developing a strong prayer life over 10, 20, 30 years. I mean, you can develop it strong in a short amount of time, but I mean to grow it deep for decades. And this session too is, I think, so foundational to our prayer lives, but we could easily overlook this subject. And it's the subject of God's burning heart, the way that God's heart burns with love for God, the way that God's heart burns for love for His people, and then how He awakens that in His people for Him. And this is absolutely foundational to growing in prayer, this subject. You could call it intimacy with God, but you might not grasp the full ramifications of that if you only use that term. But this isn't a secondary subject to growing in prayer. This is absolutely foundational. I have found over the last 40 years that this is, that's why it's session two, that's the beginning point. It wasn't when I first began, but some years later I found this is the true beginning point of our prayer life, is understanding this reality. Paragraph A, growing in prayer is deeply connected with embracing the first commandment. Understanding it, embracing it, understanding its implications in God's heart, and the significance of the first commandment to our prayer life. Jesus said, you'll love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your mind. Then Jesus identified this as the first and the great commandment. Now the Holy Spirit's first agenda right now in the body of Christ is to establish the first commandment in first place, and the whole church, but particularly for you, it's in your life. He wants to establish the first commandment as first place in your heart. This is critical to growing in prayer, this subject right here. Jesus identified the first commandment as the highest priority to God, because He's quoting Moses in the Old Testament from Deuteronomy 6, where Moses said that we're to love God with all of our heart and mind and strength. And then Jesus added here in the Gospel of Matthew, He goes, this is actually the first priority to God. It's the first commandment. He added that commentary to the, as He was quoting this command from the writings of Moses. This is to be the first commandment in our life, the first priority in our life, in our ministry. In other words, the focus of our ministry isn't first making an impact, it's first growing in this commandment in our life, even in our weakness, and seeking to impart this reality to others. That's what ministry impact, that's where it begins. That's the definition of ministry impact in one sentence. Of course, it's not the entire definition, but that's the foundation of making an impact on others. Some folks are happy just to get the, get a room of people excited about what they're saying, or they're singing, or what they're doing. But the Lord has something far bigger on His heart than just getting a bunch of people excited about your ministry. He wants people walking in the first commandment. Paragraph B, now the command to love God with all of our heart, it doesn't begin with us. The command to love God with all of our heart actually is one expression of the ultimate reality of the kingdom. It's a reality that existed long before the creation of the world. Before God ever created the world, and before He ever told us to love Him with all of His, our heart, He loved us with all of His heart. God loved God with all of His heart. The three persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons. Each of these distinct persons loved the other with all of their heart, all of their mind. And then they loved us in that same intensity. Then called us to respond, again in our weakness, in our brokenness, but in the grace of God that we would progressively grow in this grace to love Him with all of our heart. But this all of our heart, all of our mind loving actually is a reality that exists in God from eternity past. God has loved God this way. So when He calls us to love Him in this way, He's saying, no you're just in the, in the overflow of a reality, the ultimate reality that has existed from the foundation of the world. God's burned, God's heart burning in love within the fellowship of the Trinity. Paragraph C. Now God is love. That's what the scripture says. God is love. First John 4 16. God is love. Love is the very essence of how God thinks and feels. Love isn't just something He does. It's something He is at the core of His being. And again the context tonight is growing in prayer is understanding this reality and receiving it and being focused on it. Paragraph D. When we under, we understand the first commandment best by seeing it in its eternal context. Meaning the first commandment is not just a kingdom ethic. You know like serve one another, bless your enemies, stay away from impurity, love God with all of your heart. It's not just one of the many very important kingdom ethics. It is in the context of loving God again is the way God loved God in eternity past. That's the context for understanding this mandate from God. It's much more than a kingdom ethic or a kingdom behavior. Paragraph B. This is one of my favorite truths. I want to encourage you to really take hold of this. That one of the foundational premises in scripture is that God loves us with the same intensity that God loves God. Now Jesus is the only one that revealed that. He revealed it very clearly in the gospel of John. But when you understand that revelation of God's heart from the lips of Jesus, then we understand that from Genesis to revelation, this is what God was after. God was after love filling the entire earth starting at this age throughout the millennial kingdom, which is the subject of our next session after the break, and then on into the eternal state on the new heavens and the new earth. That we would love God in the same intensity that God loves us, but that we would understand that God loves us in the intensity that God loves God. John 15 verse 9. The verse that I've referred to the most. Any one passage. If I had to pick the one verse that I've referred to more than any other verse in 40 years of teaching, it would be John 15 7. I mean John 15 verse 9. I mean verse 7 is the abiding in the word, which is all about prayer leading up to this. But in verse 9. And not that you have to do that, but I just want, if this is a new verse to some of you, I just want to highlight it that in my opinion this is absolutely central to the life of growing in prayer, which is really John 15 verse 7. The verse right before this. Jesus said, as the Father loved me, I've also loved you. In other words, in the same intensity that the Father has loved me, in the same way I've loved you. Paragraph F. Burning love in God's heart has five deeply interrelated expressions. There's five expressions of the love that burns in God's heart. And again, these are intricately tied to growing in prayer, being motivated to prayer. When I lose motivation to prayer, I lock into this reality. When I lose confidence in prayer, meaning I think that God's about ready just ignore me or throw me, you know, just disregard me because I've stumbled, I've tripped, I'm not connecting with Him in the way I want, I go back to these truths. And it not only motivates me in prayer, but it gives me confidence that even in my weakness my prayers matter because God delights in the relationship that He has with us and with such intensity. Well these five expressions of this burning heart that God has. Number one is God's love for God. God intensely loves God. The Father intensely loves the Son, intensely loves the Spirit and vice versa. Number two, God's love for first people. Not only does God love, I mean God loves us with all of His mind. I mean imagine that reality. And these are not just truths we look at and say, wow that's kind of neat. These are truths we want to thank God for. We want to ask Him to give us living understanding. Just today as I was praying for the session, I was just going down these five things and thanking the Lord specifically for them. And pondering each one of them and asking the Holy Spirit to teach me more, to mark me with all five of these. Not one of the five, all five of them. And I want that because that's what the kingdom of God's about. But it is the way to grow in prayer. I look at a lot of folks trying to grow in prayer separated from this reality. And prayer ends up a duty that they embrace as a way just to get more circumstantial blessing. And so as long as they want more blessing, they'll put up with prayer. But prayer's not a delight because it's just a means to an end to get more things from God in our life, you know to get our lifestyle blessed. And God does bless our lifestyle. But there's not delight in prayer if we separate it from this reality. Number three, our love for God. The way we love God is an expression of His burning heart. It's His own love that He has one for the other in the Trinity. That's the love that's imparted to us. We love Jesus with the love wherein the Father loves Jesus. It says in John 17 26. Again John 17 26. We love Jesus and the love the Father loves Him. So even that love we have for God is an impartation of that burning heart that God possesses. Our love for ourselves. We are to love ourselves in God's love and for God's sake. And this is uh something that some folks uh they neglect and others trip over this this reality. They can they're confused by it and they trip over it. I like to uh share the the story shared every time of the lady who prayed Lord I want to love my neighbor as I love myself. And the Lord said that's the problem. You do love your neighbor as you love yourself. You hate yourself that's why you hate your neighbor. That's really true. Many people despise others because they despise themselves. And we will never love others more than we love ourselves in the love of God for God's sake. In other words we see the investment God has made in us and how uh precious and true that investment is and who we are to Him. And we say thank you for who I am. I mean we want to improve in in our character and issues of our life. But I mean the essence of who you are in your personality. I don't mean the areas that I mean there's areas of our personality we're improving in wisdom and godliness. But I mean the core essence of the real you is the gift of God. And then through the transforming power of grace God has worked something in you that's very dear to Him. And He loves it. And He wants you to love it. God wants us to enjoy Him enjoying us. You know the Lord actually is enjoying you. But some of you don't at all you're not connected with it. And you despise yourself. And you have no connection with God enjoying you. And He actually wants you to enjoy God enjoying you. And I'm saying that not as a correction. I'm saying that as a statement of liberty of liberty of a statement of hope. It's like wow. Because our prayer life will have a won't go very far if we despise ourselves. Even if we're aiming to love God. But we despise who we are in His sight. In the grace of God. Who we are in the grace of God. Our prayer life won't go to the same dimension of maturity. And so these are not just subjects that are to build up your spiritual life unrelated to prayer. I mean that'd be good in itself. These are dynamically related to growing in prayer. And the paragraph I mean the fifth paragraph here. Our love for one another. Our love for other people. And our love for people is is actually the fruit of the first four. When we touch the first four our love for others grows. Paragraph G. These five expressions of love I refer to them as the fellowship of the burning heart. You don't have to use that term. But there's this fellowship that the Father has with the Son with a burning heart. That the Son has with the Spirit. That fellowship God has with us. That fellowship we can have with one another. That fellowship is is part is is so critical and foundational to the kingdom of God. And so I refer to this the fellowship of the burning heart entering into it. Our greatest destiny is to participate in the burning love in the family dynamics within the trinity. When I talk about the family dynamics of the trinity. I mean the Father, Son and the Spirit. Their unity. Their love. Their mutual embrace and working together. There's many dynamics. We are called to participate in some of those dynamics. We're not just the workforce on the earth that gets the kingdom done. We are the vehicle that God uses to extend his kingdom. But something far more dynamic. Beloved we are called in a way the angels are not called. We are called to participate in the family dynamics of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. God calls us sons and daughters. The scripture calls us the bride of Christ. The eternal companion of Jesus forever. We're not angels who serve God at a distant. They serve God at a distance as merely servants. Yes we serve God but we're in the family. We're in the royal family. We have the indwelling spirit and we can participate in the family dynamics of the trinity of the Godhead in a way that angels can't. This is I mean absolutely critical. Not that we're immature in this right now but it's critical that we're grasping I mean reaching to grow in this. Talking to the Holy Spirit about this is critical for the maturing of our prayer life is the point that I'm I'm making tonight in this uh session. Let's go to paragraph I. Paragraph I. Our primary life goal. Our primary life goal is to be focused on receiving, expressing God's love. See Jesus let's go back to John 15 9 again. Jesus said as the father loved me or in let's put it in the same intensity the father loved me I've also loved you. Then he says abide in this love. That phrase abide in this love is is essential. In other words focus on it. Uh stay uh make this the primary occupation of your spiritual life. Now I have a and you have a number of assignments in our life. When I think of my life I have several uh assignments uh that that I'm to do in the kingdom. But the primary assignment is always to abide in love. And that doesn't just mean to love. It means study it. Focus on it. Grow in it. Don't ever outgrow your focus of this subject. Jesus is saying lock into this reality. Abide in my love. Now I want to challenge you to talk on this subject often. Pray about it. Study it. Fellowship around it. That is one aspect of abiding in it. I mean it also means to live in it to experience it. But we'll experience it related somewhat related to how we study it out and how we talk about and how we pray about it. I want to encourage you talk much about this subject. Don't ever outgrow this topic in your study. Some people want to get to the deeper stuff. This is the deepest subject that you will ever study. And Jesus I believe this is uh one of his most important commandments. Not that we have to list the importance. Abide in my love. Search it out. Study it. Stay focused on it. Pray about it. Talk about it. Share it with others. Seek to walk in it. Seek to experience it. That's not just something we'll do in this age. We'll be abiding locked into this subject even in the age to come with a resurrected body. Top uh top of page two. Paragraph J. The essence of eternal life is to know God. And to know God is much more than just information about God. But it's experiential knowledge. Jesus said this is eternal life. This is the essence of eternal life that you may know. You might experience God. Know him. And it's again more than information though information is important because our heart knowledge grows some somewhat out of our head knowledge. So head knowledge is not bad at all. We fill our mind. We renew our mind with a word and then the Holy Spirit touches and marks our heart with it. Salvation is so much more than escaping hell. And I know that you know that. But it's an invitation to participate in the fellowship of the burning heart. When we're offering salvation to somebody we're saying come and be saved. We're not just saying escape hell go to heaven. We're saying enter into the family dynamics of the Godhead. Fellowship. Enter into the fellowship of the burning heart. I mean we're offering so much more than escape hell and have a little bit better circumstances in this life. Because that's how a hell. That is foundational. I mean that's important. But then they go you know if you give your life to Jesus then he'll touch your life. Your life will get a lot happier. Well sometimes life gets even there gets new dynamics happen in our life that are not always make our lives easier. But a lot of times the gospel is presented in how to make your life happier in this age. Obey Jesus's leadership. And I go well there's a lot of truth. Our life does certainly get blessed and happier. But there's other dynamics that come with it as well that are not so easy on the flesh. But we want to understand salvation as a call to participate in these family dynamics of Godhead. To fellowship with the in the to participate in the fellowship of the burning heart. Okay let's go to Roman numeral two. And we're going to go through just kind of cover the same area again. I've just kind of given the introduction. We'll look at it again. I'll just kind of make a few points here. I'll skip kind of most of our notes here. But just give you some notes to read on your own time. But let's look at all five of them again. Just some of them I'll just mention real briefly. The perfect the first expression of perfect love. The first expression of this burning love is in the relationships of the trinity. So the way the father loves the son. The way the son loves the spirit etc. Paragraph c. Now the way that God loves God is the only way He loves. Meaning wholehearted love. God doesn't love in any way less than wholehearted. God can't love 90 percent. He only loves fully. He never denies any of His attributes when He exercises others. Everything He does, He does from a foundation not just of love, wholehearted love. The way the father loves the son is the only way He can love you. Because He can't deny part of His character to love you. That's the way God loves. He always loves in fullness. His love never diminishes. His love never grows. Like when He loves you, then He loves someone else on the other side of the world. His love for you doesn't diminish. Like well you know I'm loving her over there in another country. So you know I'm really kind of overtaxed right now. And my bandwidth is really full. And you know I'll get back to you. But you know you're dear to me. But I'll be I'll get back to you. No He doesn't diminish His love for you when He loves another. And He never grows in love. Jesus in a million years from now isn't going to make a grand announcement. Hey it's been a great year. I grew in love this year. That's never going to happen. He dwells in perfect, eternal, wholehearted love. That is who He is. And He never changes. He can't change. If He changed, He would deny the truth of who He is. His love is infinite in measure and eternal in duration. Infinite. It cannot increase. Eternal. It lasts forever. He will love you this intensely a billion years from now. He does not love us with part of His heart. Part of His love. That would be to deny some of His own character. Paragraph D. The relationships within the Godhead. And again the Godhead is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They are the model of how God loves us. But it's also the model how we love God. We find particularly in the Gospel of John. But more than that. But that's where most of the information. We get insight into how the Father and Son relate to each other. I mean some very significant insights. And the relationship of Father, Son and Father to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit to the Son. And the Son to the Holy Spirit. That is the model of how we relate to God. And even how God relates to us. Now there are dimensions that are unique God to God. That are unique. But many of the ways that God loves within the Godhead. He loves that way towards us as well. Paragraph E. For example. Jesus has joy and enthusiasm in His love for the Father. He is moved in loving the Father. He's moved in being loved by the Father. When the Father loves Jesus it moves Him. When Jesus loves the Father it moves Him. In other words. Jesus is never bored in the relationship with the Father. Never. He has joy in it. He has enthusiasm. He loves being loved by the Father. And He loves loving the Father. Here's the good news. He loves you in the same way. He has enthusiasm in loving you and being loved by you. Though our love is weak and frail. Even in the grace of God. Because of the weakness of our flesh. The way we walk out our love it's weakened. The grace of God is strengthening us over the months and years. But He's enthusiastic about our love for Him. He's not looking at it and saying well you call that love? Are you kidding me? That's not how. That's how people relate to people many times. But He has joy and enthusiasm in loving you and in being loved by you. This is a practical implication of understanding some of the truths about the Trinity. When I know how the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. It's an insight into how He loves me and I love Him. Some people say I don't really do that study the Trinity stuff. It's kind of theological and difficult. And it is true that many of the presentations, theological presentations on the Trinity are complicated and difficult. But there are some on the internet and out and abroad that are really helpful and kind of pick the low-hanging fruit to kind of tell you the practical things. And I encourage you to spend some time studying out the Trinity. How the Father and the Son and the Spirit relate. Knowing, well number one, it's glorious in itself. And it's fascinating to behold in and of itself. And it leads to us glorifying God and seeing the very worth of Jesus. And the worth of the Father and the Spirit. But also it really is practical about stirring up our own hearts. Okay let's go to Roman numeral two, Roman numeral three. Now we're looking at the second of the five expressions. And I'm going to point out two of the most dynamic statements, I believe in the whole of the Bible, two of the most dynamic statements made by the lips of Jesus. We already looked at one but we're going to look at a second one. In John 15 9 again, as the Father loved me. He's talking to the twelve disciples. He goes, in the way the Father loved me. That's the way I love you. And he knew that that night they would all deny him. So Jesus wasn't living in idealism. He wasn't saying I love you because I think you guys are really got, you really have it together. And I mean you're the kind of guys I want to hang out with. It was more than that. He says I love you in the way the Father loves me. And I want you to know all of you will deny me tonight. But that didn't change anything I just told you. Beloved is that good news or is that good news? I mean we have it made. I mean life is hard and there's challenges and difficulties and setbacks. But he loves me the way he loves the Father. And in the way that the Father loves him. Oh my goodness. In the same way the Father loves Jesus, Jesus loves me. You know I don't like difficult circumstances. I don't like setbacks and challenges. But no matter what I have it made. And so do you. If you're a believer and you're a new creation in Christ, I'm telling you, you have it made. And we lock into this and we abide. We focus on this truth. We abide in it. We stay locked in on it. I tell you it will change your inward life. Well he didn't only end it in John 15 9 as the Father loves me. That's how I loved you. Look at John 17 23. He says that the world may know that you have loved them. Jesus is praying now to the Father. He says the world will know one day. Talk about it's really in the Millennial Kingdom when this is comes to full full expression. That the world will know. Literally the nations of the world will know that Father you loved them in the same intensity that you loved me. So not only does Jesus love you in the way the Father loves Jesus. The Father loves you in the way the Father loves Jesus. Jesus loves you in the same intensity the Father loves him. The Father loves you in the same intensity the Father loves Jesus. Fantastic. And God loves with all of his heart. Can you imagine? He loves you with all of his mind. All of his strength. Well let's turn to page three or the third expression. Our love for God. Our love for God. Well paragraph eight. He loves us with all of his heart. He wants us to respond with all of our heart. He wants us to bring our all into the relationship. He wants us to bring our all into the relationship. I love it how Dana Candler says it. That though our all is small, he wants our all. It's not the measure of our all. It's the fact of our all. In our weakness and brokenness we bring our all into the relationship. He brings his all into the relationship. I mean it's really different but it makes us equally yoked in love. Our all is small but we're bringing it to the relationship. And he says yes we're equally yoked. And his capacity is infinitely beyond ours but we're bringing our whole capacity into the relationship. Now God doesn't want us to love him with all of our heart because he feels lonely. Some people think well you know God really needs us. No. God delights in us. He's not lonely at all. The Father and Son and Spirit are fully satisfied in the fellowship they have with one another. They're not lacking and thinking you know I'm a little lonely. Why don't we create some humans? Because we feel a little lonely and a little empty. That's not what's happening. That's not at all what's happening. But the very love that God possesses, it demands to be multiplied. Love by definition demands multiplication. Love by definition demands to be shared. That's the definition of love. He is love. So he's compelled by love to share the overflow of who he is and multiply that love. So he's not loving because he doesn't call us to love because he feels a little rejected, a little lonely. I wish you guys would give me a little more attention. I feel a little lonely up here. That's not it at all. He wants us to love in a wholehearted way because he is wholehearted love. That's why. That's who he is. And again when I grasp this it helps me kind of shake off the slumber and the and some of the dullness and go wow this is what I'm about. And prayer is the dialogue. We pray in terms of declaring our joy in who he is and the worth of who he is. We pray in giving our heart to him. Those are parts of prayer. We're going to look at all these other sessions. We pray to release his power into the created order. There's many dimensions. There's several dimensions of prayer. I'll say it that way. And at the very center of it it's this love dynamic that motivates prayer and gives us confidence to pray. Paragraph C. This is important that Jesus defined loving God as rooted in the spirit of obedience. Doesn't mean that our obedience is mature but we've set our heart to obey. There is no definition of love in the Bible for God that is separated from the spirit of obedience. Some folks imagine and they even declare it they can love God on their own terms. Meaning by their own definition they can have sentiment for God without setting their heart to obey him. But the Bible doesn't call that love. You can have religious sentiment. You can have feelings in a worship service. But if in your heart we're not committed to walk in obedience. Again we fail in our obedience. Our obedience is weak. I'm not talking about our track record how good we do. I'm talking about the setting of the heart to obey. It's the Lord I want to obey you. I set my heart to obey you in this. We stumble and fail. We receive his forgiveness. We push delete. We declare war on the area we stumbled in. And we recommit ourself to obey. We are never at peace with compromise in our heart. Like say well I'm just going to live in sin for a while and just take it from there. Lord says no that's not loving me. It's the setting of the heart to obey that's an essential part of love. Again our love is weak. I mean our obedience is weak. Therefore our love is. But our love is still real. When our love is weak it's still real. It's still genuine. And so don't wait till you mature in obedience to imagine that you're loving God. You're loving God each step of the way. A brand new believer with a lot of darkness in their life still. A lot of areas the Holy Spirit's going to clean up with them over the weeks and months and years ahead. They love God with all their heart the day they're saved. And the Lord says I'll take it this is good. Best you know you're giving me your all. And it's like that uh microscope you know that uh you clean up it's like you put the little uh you know the the lens underneath there that that microscope slide and you clean it up and you think you got it clean and all of a sudden the Lord turns it up a hundred power. You go whoa where'd that dirt come from? You get that cleaned up and then he turns it up a thousand power. Whoa where'd that dirt come from? It was always there. It increases the light He gives us so that we grow in our capacity to love Him as we grow in our capacity to obey Him. Okay Roman numeral uh five. Roman numeral five in the middle of page three. The fourth expression of the burning heart that is again critical of growing in prayer. You can't skip these truths and grow in prayer to the same measure. You can still grow in prayer some but not to the same measure. That's why again at the very beginning of the course I wanted to lay out this foundational truth about prayer related to the love of God. Okay uh the redeemed are to love themselves in love in God's love and for God's sake. Paragraph A. Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself. Now don't forget that phrase as you love yourself. We are to love ourselves through the lens of the revelation of Jesus. What He's like. Who He is. The lens of what He accomplished on the cross. The lens of our great worth to God. Do you know how much you're worth to God? You're worth a lot more to God than you are to yourself. I mean somebody says well I just really love myself. God could say, Jesus could say, I love you far more than you love you. And I want you to enter in to the way I love you. We've received the very gift of God's righteousness. I mean what a what a uh uh extravagant commitment that God has made to us. Giving us His own righteousness. We have indescribable value and worth to Jesus. Seeing this changes the way we feel about our life. We feel differently about our life when we identify and receive the way God sees us and values us in Christ. Paragraph B. By seeing ourselves in Christ we see our new identity. We see that's how God sees us. It's our new identity in Christ. Our new destiny. Our new worth to God. By seeing this we are empowered to love ourselves by the Holy Spirit. Beloved you'll never love other people more than you love yourself in the grace of God. Paragraph C. Now there's a paradox. The Bible calls us to love ourselves in the grace of God, but to hate our lives outside of the will of God. That we are to hate what our life is outside of the will of God. Like what we would do outside of His will, we're to despise that. Say no I don't want that. But who we are in the grace of God we love. So I can love who I am in the grace of God, but be sorrowful for some of the things I've done outside the will of God. So I'm sorrowful for what I've done, but I love who I am in His grace. And again I'm talking to sincere believers who are seeking to obey Him and they are enjoying the Lord enjoying them. We are to love who we are in Christ. We are to love our new identity in Christ. We are to love what we do in the will of God. Now that's a big point, love what we do in the will of God. Because most of what you and I do in the will of God is very small and very weak. Even giving somebody a cup of cold water in the name of the Lord. We look at it and say ah it doesn't really matter. We serve somebody, we bless somebody, we bless our enemies, we pray in secret, we give in secret. Nobody noticed, nobody cares. They might even criticize you for the way you're serving them. Most of your service is weak and small and out of sight. And we can look at it and say I'm not even going to do it, it's not worth it. You're despising what you're doing in the will of God. That's what I'm talking about right there. I've heard people say I gave all these years to do this or that and I wasted it all. Not if you did it for God you didn't waste it. You know I was involved in this ministry or that ministry and I didn't get anything back that I thought I was going to get. But I tell you if you did it for God that is alive and well in the heart of God forever. You never waste any investment of time and money when done in the will of God in God's eyes. If you're doing it to gain some recognition or to gain some benefit and that's not a horrible thing that you want to gain some recognition and some benefit. That's a normal thing. But if that's your motive you can get really burned out in serving and you can really despise your serving. It's so small. It's so weak. I mean what I'm doing nobody notices. It hardly impacts anybody. I mean I encouraged a couple of people today in a few conversations. I mean so what? God says are you kidding? I have that recorded in my books forever. Beloved don't despise your destiny, your identity or what you do in the will of God. Don't despise it. Don't underestimate its value. Some believers are only excited about what they think will be a big thing they will do one day. So they're enduring today. They call well these are years of preparation. I'll endure the preparation because one day I'll do something really big. That is a really bad mindset. That will get you into burnout and bitterness almost every single time. I've watched this for 40 years. People serving hard today so that 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago what they do will be really amazing. They get there 5 and 10 and 20 years later and it's not what they thought and they're angry. They're angry at God. They're angry at the church. They're angry at ministries. Beloved serve God in the joy and delight of the smallness of today because it matters to God today. And the fact it is preparing you for something tomorrow is still true but I'm not pouring myself out today because I'm waiting for a breakthrough tomorrow. I am waiting for a breakthrough tomorrow but I'm doing it today because today is good to obey God. It can be little. It can be weak. It can be out of sight but God sees it and it moves Him. Paragraph D. Bernard of Clairvaux, he was a monk in the 12th century in France. And Clairvaux is a city in France and he was very one of the most influential men in the kingdom in the 12th century in all of Europe. And he was real focused on prayer and intimacy with God and he wrote this statement. He talked about loving ourselves for God's sake. To be jealous, to be all that he's called us to be for his sake. Meaning be everything he's called you to be. That doesn't mean bigness. It might be bigness but have that focused connection to God. That life of obedience. All that you can be for his sake. And beloved that's a beautiful thing to do. And to love it and not to despise it and not to just only like it if it's big but to love it because God loves our obedience. And so we want to be all that we can be for his sake. Jesus doesn't want us to walk in the false humility that minimizes how much he enjoys loving us. He wants us to enjoy being loved by him. We magnify Jesus as we love ourselves in agreement with the way he loves us. I'm going to say that again. You're actually magnifying and glorifying Jesus by loving yourself in agreement with the way he loves you. We're honoring his investment in us. Paragraph B. Jesus delights in who we are in the grace of God. Isaiah 62.4. God said, name the people of God Hefzabah. Tell them Hefzabah. Hefzabah means the Lord delights in you. Name my people. I delight in them. Name my people this. I like them. Name my people this. I rejoice or I enjoy them. Beloved your name is God likes you. Your name and the spirit is God enjoys you. He told the prophet, tell them that's what I call them. And I want them to buy into this and agree with me. He wants us to love the person that he loves and the person that he loves. Yes, we don't have the wisdom in the full way that we want. We don't have the follow through in the full way that we want. We struggle with issues. We fail and stumble, but we say in our spirit, yes, we love the gift of righteousness. We love who you are, Jesus. We loved it. We want to obey you. We're stumbling. We're tripping. He gets all of that. He goes, now I love that person. I love that person. I really do love that person. And beloved, it will really change your prayer life when you love that person like he loves that person. If you don't at this time, David understood this a bit. He said in Psalm 18, he said, God delivered me because he delighted in me because he liked me. And Psalm 18, if you know the context, Psalm 18 was written right after David was in Ziklag. And Ziklag was 16 months of compromise in his life. And David repented of his compromise. I mean, his compromise was in every area of his life, but he had an element of compromise in Ziklag. And the day he's delivered from Ziklag, he says, God delivered me because he liked me. His team could have said, he delighted in you. David, you've been in some compromise lately. He goes, I know, but the Lord delights in me. That's why he broke in and rescued me. What a glorious thing. Well, let's look at a Roman numeral six. We love others. The fifth and final expression. We love others in the overflow of the way that God loves us. And right there in John 15, it's all one passage describing prayer and Jesus loving us and us loving people. It's all connected together. The Lord wants us to enter into how he feels about others. He doesn't want us just to enter into how he feels about us. But when we see how he feels about us, it changes how we feel about us. Then we're far more empowered and equipped to see how he feels about others. These other believers that are bothering you, some of them have your same last name as you have. Some of them live in the same apartment you live in. Some of them are on the same worship team you're on. Some of them bug you. Let me tell you, the Lord wants us to see how he sees and feels about them. And it gives me a tremendous different perspective. If I can, and I ask him, Lord, let me see and let me feel what you see and feel about this guy that's on my leadership team that's bugging me. Hypothetically, of course. And my point is, we can enter into that fellowship of the burning heart. Amen and amen. Now I'm going to want you to take just five minutes. We're going to put it on the clock and get in groups of four.