Mike Bickle emphasizes the profound identity of David rooted in intimacy with God and meekness before men. He illustrates how David's sense of success was not based on external achievements or positions but on his relationship with God and his ability to love others. Bickle encourages believers to cultivate their identity in God, finding value in being loved and loving in return, rather than seeking validation through worldly measures of success. He highlights that true success is defined by the movements of the heart towards God, which leads to a steady spirit regardless of life's ups and downs.

Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus, and Lord, we ask you for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the speaking and hearing of your glorious Word. Your Word is glorious. Your Word is a light. It's a lamp. It is honey to our spirit. We ask you to release a portion of that tonight, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Tonight, we're on session four on the life of David. We're talking about leadership lessons and the pursuit of intimacy with God as seen in the life of David. Turn to 1 Samuel chapter 13. That's what we're going to look at in just a moment. Tonight, we're talking about the core reality in David's life, and this was so radical in his time and is still radical in the time even after 2,000 years of church history. I would venture to say that most believers have never ventured to live in any consistent way in the way that King David's life shines forth. Living not just with values, though that's a very powerful statement actually, but David had a core reality of which everything in his life was rooted and anchored. It bumped into, came out of this core reality. It doesn't mean that he was 100% consistent and never failed. It came up short because we know that his life, he had many, many failures and weaknesses that the Holy Spirit highlighted in the word of God. But the radical paradigm of David in terms of the issue of his spiritual identity. Again, it's radical today, and as we go through it a little bit, we won't cover all the notes, but the notes are there for those taking the Bible school class, so you can just do a little bit of more study on your own. As I was preparing this, I was struck by how radical of a paradigm David actually lived by as the Holy Spirit bore witness to his life. When I think of the issue of identity, our identity, it's the way that we define our value or our success. When somebody says, well, his identity is in his ministry or his identity is in his position, what they mean by that is they find their primary value in how good their ministry is. Very common. Some people's main identity is in their business, which means their dream is to have a certain business so that they would be valuable if the dream comes true. And they're not valuable until it comes true. And between now and then, there's a long journey of suffering. And then, of course, we know from the experience of life, when they actually get there and the dream does come true, they're still suffering at the heart level because no human being's intrinsic value is ever in how good their business is or how big their ministry is. It can't be. Though I would venture to say most believers, that's their dream. For bigness and grandeur is actually, it's a dream for value. It's a dream for importance. They don't really want big. What they really want is value. So they dream for big, hoping to get value. And they're seeking value in all the wrong places. Our identity is the way that we measure our success. And again, the most common way to measure success is by big. If you're at the top of the org chart, if you're president of the United States, you've got a big position. If you're the CEO of the big company, it's big. If you're the leader of the large mega ministry, then you're important. The problem is that it's a very flawed, inadequate way of evaluating our life or seeking value or finding our identity. Now, the problem is because of the darkness of the human heart, because we're born with a dark heart, it is the normal way to proceed. And it takes a determined effort to cultivate our value in a place other than bigness, whether bigness of position, bigness of money, bigness of ministry, and honor before men. And King David is this bright and shining light. I mean, he stands almost in a category of his own in the Old Testament. There's others. I'd throw Daniel in that category with him and maybe a few others. But David stands nearly in a category of his own. Very few in history, very small percent in history have ever touched the kind of spiritual reality in terms of value that David touched in his life. That's why we find David has this kind of this infectious, happy, free spirit about his life, as we read the account of his life in the Scripture, and particularly in the book of Psalms, because we read 1 and 2 Samuel, we get the details of his life. But the book of Psalms is where we get the movements of his heart. We don't find much about David's heart in 1 and 2 Samuel, we find details of his life. And beloved, I, one of those visiting with us, I really encourage you to study the life of David. And the 30 years that I've been in ministry, nearly just barely shy of that, nothing has affected my life more than the study of the life of David. And I started it way back when I was 20 years old, and I'm 50 this year. My first teaching series was on the life of David ever, and I was 20 years old when I began it. And all these many years later, I look back at that, and there's been no body of truth that has consistently helped me for the 30 years. Now, the song of Solomon, I got ahold of 15 years ago. But the life of David seems like it's always been there. When I meet a young person, and they want to get on fire for God, I go, fill your mind and heart with the truth of the life of David, because you'll run into this. The great thing about David's life is you'll run into this reality, this radical paradigm shift of how David found his value, how he measured his success. It was so odd, it was so out of the ordinary compared to the people of his day, and even compared to church history. I have in the notes here that David's life, according to God and according to David, was valued. He measured his life on two core issues. David believed he was important because of these two issues. He measured and found himself successful on these two issues. Number one, related to his intimacy with God. And number two, according to his meekness before men, his meekness before people. When David, when David's intimacy with God, and we're going to, we're going to, I'm a coin of phrase, I call it the anointing to love. We'll look at that in a minute. I'm going to use the more common idea of intimacy with God. When his intimacy with God reached higher levels, he believed he was more successful. He believed his life had more value to it when his intimacy increased. When his intimacy decreased, the impact of his life from his esteem went down, his success factor went down related to his intimacy with God, this ability to operate in the anointing to love, to receive it from God, to receive the feeling that God loved him, and then to overflow in love back to God. And of course that it always overflows to others. When you talk about intimacy with God, it always, always our intimacy with God spills over to love and kindness and good deeds towards others. Always. It's not that it should, it always does when that mighty rushing river of tenderness touches our spirit from God in our hearts, between our heart and God, it always overflows to touch our relationships to others. It's not like it ought to, it just does every single time. I mean, in every life, I don't mean every minute of every day, but I'm talking about in every life, there's an overflow. When David walked in meekness before people, he saw his life as valuable. David did not see his life as more valuable when he became a higher, when he got more countries or more territories, what I mean, under his dominion. David didn't have, you know, one bit of authority and says, well, I'm kind of barely starting out. Then when he had more authority, then he saw his life as more valuable. That's the common way that we do. David didn't see that. When he had more territory to govern, he didn't believe he increased in value as a person or he didn't believe he increased in success either. He measured it in an entirely different way. It's radical. Jesus would come and formalize this in the Sermon on the Mount, this whole lifestyle, this paradigm shift. But if you and I could find our primary value in this reality, in this core reality, if we could measure our success by this reality that David did, then the kingdom could come into our hands and go out of our hands without our heart moving. And that's the most, one of the most remarkable things about David is the way that he had this open-handedness with God, how he could take blessing and adversity in his heart, not every time, but when you measure the whole of his life, there was a steadiness. There was an unusual steadiness in the time of prosperity and adversity. There was a steadiness in his free spirit. And we think, how could it be? Because he didn't measure his value or his success by the prosperity of the adversity. He measured it in an entirely different way. And in that, we mean he got his identity in God. That's what it means to get your identity in God. And it's not a natural thing. It's something that's cultivated. It's not automatic. It's something you go after in a deliberate way. And I would venture to say that most believers do not have their identity in God, though it's their inheritance to have it. And therefore, when the honor increases, their heart is happy, and then it stumbles over into pride. And when the honor decreases, their heart is sad, and then it stumbles over into bitterness and complaint. And that's always the test. Of course, nobody knows when they're proud. They know when they're bitter and complaining. Maybe not bitter, but they know when they're complaining. They, normally, that's rooted in bitterness somewhere, at least the tentacles, the beginnings of it. And I'll say this, that as happy as I get with a promotion before man is equally the measure of how sad I will get with demotion. If my happiness factor increases double when I'm promoted, when I'm demoted, my happiness factor will cut in half. And I would also go as far to say that if my happiness factor increases with promotion, that is the measure of how much pride is alive in my heart. And depression will always be on the back end. Those things always go together because they are all the same subject in reality. This is different ends of the same reality. Roman numeral one, David's primary identity, his intimacy with God. He got his primary sense of value in who he was before God, how God viewed him. Easy to say, hard to cultivate, but possible for everyone. If we make it the goal of our life to go after this. A, David's primary identity or his success or the way he measured his value was established on who he was spiritually before God. Here we have it as one that God loved, then as one who loved God in return. Let me say this again. If you went to David and say, David, define success, because that's what it means to define identities, to define the way you get success. He would say, I am successful because I'm more aware of the fact that God likes me. And the more that God likes me, it touches me and it causes me to like God back. It causes me to love him back. And again, the overflow to people is always there in time. I'm not going to talk about the way it overflows to people every time. It's a given. It's a given. Anytime that radiant spirit touches our heart, we always overflow in tenderness to others and kindness. In other words, by the anointing of the spirit, I'm reading from the notes here. David felt the power of being loved, being liked, being enjoyed. He felt the power that God enjoyed him, even in his weakness. And when he felt that power of God enjoying him, beloved, that's an that's an intoxicating feeling to feel God enjoys you. That is an intoxicating feeling. A little bit of that goes a long way. There's an anointing of the spirit that releases that that reality, that revelation, even with feelings. It's not all feelings, but I would be remiss to say that it's not got a dynamic dimension of feeling to it. God loves me when I don't feel it. But when I do feel it, it really feels good. It's powerful. God loves me when I don't feel it. It's true when I don't feel it. But when I do feel it, it changes me in a dynamic way. The power of feeling enjoyed by God, even our weakness, there is I don't believe there's any emotion. I don't believe there's any experience anywhere in the created order that rivals that and surpasses it. The feeling of being enjoyed by a transcendent God who's mighty. He looks down and says, I'll make it personal. Mike, I really like you, even in your weakness. Oh, my goodness. That is a powerful feeling. And that and that feeling of power has a corresponding feeling goes with it, because when I feel God likes me, my weakness, it makes me like God. And me loving God and you loving God is a different emotion. The feeling of knowing that the very that all the power of your being genuinely loves God, even in your weakness, you were genuinely given yourself to him. That feeling is a powerful feeling. And that feeling is for every single man or woman in the body of Christ. I call it the anointing to love. The anointing, the operation of the Holy Spirit to feel it from God and the operation of the Holy Spirit to feel it back to God and then to overflow towards others. I call that the anointing to love. I love the song. I was I was working on this and reading over it and hearing the song. We were made to love. We are called to love. It's an anointing of love to feel it from him. It's not enough. And that's the best. But there's something that goes with it to feel it back to him, which is distinct. And then again, it always overflows to others in time. B, this was the first way and circle the word first, if you want. This was the first way in which David saw himself or the first way he measured the success of his life. David did not measure the success of his life by how big the kingdom was that he was king over. He did not measure his success by how great of a musician and singer and how big the crowds were that came to hear him. How many of you believe David had crowds when he sang? I bet he did. He was called in the in the word of God, the sweet psalmist of Israel. He had a voice like an angel. He was a gifted musician and he had what would seem like to us an open revelation, an open heaven of revelation of God. He had more revelation of God and unique revelation of God than any other man in the Old Testament in terms of God's heart. Could that boy sing or what? He had the voice. He had the instrument. He had the anointing and he had an open heaven. He was singing out things about God's heart that never, ever been sung in the word of God. He was writing the word of God and did not know he was doing it. I imagine the room was full more than once in his day. David did not look at the room or the quality or how stunning his words were and measure his life. He measured his life by the operation of the spirit that communicated God's love for him and the empowerment, the ability to give it back. That's where he measured himself. I call that the anointing to love. This was the first way David saw himself. This was the first way he measured the success of his life. What what if all the preachers, all the pastors in our nation, which all pastors aren't preachers and all preachers aren't pastors, but what if all the ministries in our nation measured their value by their ability to receive and give back love from God and back to him and not by how big their crowds were or how stunning their messages were. Think of what that would do to the body of Christ. Well, beloved, let's go for it in our own lives. Let's not wait for everybody else to get on board. Let's just do it. It doesn't take a lot of discernment to say what's wrong with the church in the nation. Let's be an embodiment of something other than the common way in our nation now. In other words, be David felt successful before God in context to how much he grew in this anointing of love. That's how he felt successful. And he actually was, in fact, successful from God's point of view. Beloved, do you know what it feels like to feel successful? Most people feel like a hypocrite. They feel ugly. They feel broken. They feel hopeless. Most humans feel those feelings most of the time. They don't feel beautiful. They don't feel optimistic. They don't feel successful. They don't feel at peace. They're afraid that what they have will be gone. They're afraid their dream won't take place. They're afraid there'll be a hopeless failure. They're afraid they'll be written off and left alone. Most humans on the planet feel that way, a predominant amount of their emotional in terms of their personal life. Now they get distracted with their job and they're not thinking about themselves. But when they do, that's how most people feel. And to feel successful in our spirit. When the company or the ministry is real big or real little to feel fiery and successful and powerful when it's big, but also when it's little to feel successful. It's amazing, but it's not just amazing. It's doable and it's God's intention for every single believer to live this way. But we've got to, it's a paradigm shift. We've got to refocus on what we define as successful. It was the Lord Jesus, I'm still in B, who told Martha that her little sister Mary of Bethany, he says, your little sister Mary of Bethany, she didn't have any, there was no, she had no public ministry in the New Testament. She had no notoriety. She had nothing. He says, she has chosen the best part and it will never ever be taken from her. He says, she has this anointing to love on her heart and what she has done will never ever be forgotten and never be taken from her. Let's look at C. Now I got to put in my Mike Noble quote here. Look at that, Mike, in the notes, all of God's paths lead to love. I was speaking the other day and he said, the Lord told me all of God's paths lead to love. All roads lead to Rome. You know, all roads lead to love. If God's leading you to dig ditches or leading you to run the country, if God's leading you to the wilderness or leading you to time of prosperity, if God's leading you in the word of God to study the end times or to study the apostolic strategies of the book of Acts or the economics in the Old Testament, if it's God, all of those leadings lead you to experience love. I said, man, I'm taking that. I said, only because you're here will I mention you. But if you wouldn't hear, I wouldn't even mention your name. Okay. At least I'm an honest thief. Okay. C. Let's summarize it. Let me say it. This is the most important thing of the, of the whole, uh, little handout we're going through. It's this sentence. So it's so simple. It's so simple, but if you get it, your life will be totally changed. It'll be totally changed. In summary, David's identity was in being one who was loved by God and one who was a lover of God and others. David's life was, was, uh, his identity was being one who was loved and a lover. Therefore he was successful. That's a phrase I've said 10,000 times way more than that. Sometimes it seems like a thousand times in a day. I'm sure that's not true, but it seems like that when I've gone through pain over the years and disappointment and, and they just, the anguishes and disillusionment of life and mistreatments and, and just disillusionment and disappointment, things didn't work like they were going to work. I would go a thousand times. I would get before God and say, look, God, life is hard. Why am I doing this? Because pain always makes you ask the question. Why am I doing it? Why am I messing with this? Why am I getting this degree or starting this ministry or running this business or reaching out to these people or living this lifestyle? Why am I, why am I endeavoring to do this, to learn this skill, to, to flow with these people in this way and that way. And at the end of the day, this little sentence that the, I, uh, the Lord put in my heart so many, many years ago, I would, the only place I could find comfort, I would say, I don't, you know, I would have my little, I'd say, why am I doing this? That's a bottom line. You love me. I love you. Therefore, I'm already profoundly successful already. And it changed the way I viewed that struggle entirely because the struggle went from the primary issue of my life value importance to a secondary issue. And when it became secondary, I could manage it. When it was primary, it was like a forest fire that I couldn't see with all the smoke in my eyes. If getting in ministry and getting anointed in front of people is your biggest thing, if it's delayed or diminished, if you have it and it's diminished or it's just delayed the anguish you will have, if that's the primary issue of your life. Again, we have our, our, uh, Joseph company summit here. If, if, if getting that kingdom business is the primary thing, not the secondary thing, beloved secondary is not so far down the list. Secondary is not bad, but when the secondary thing becomes the primary thing, it corrupts our heart. It defiles us. And I would ask the Lord, I would be endeavoring in ministry and there would be this breaking or that breaking of frustrations, not enough money, not enough people, not enough unity, not enough energy, not enough time, not enough about 10 more things. And I would say, it's not working. It's not working. Ah, why am I doing it? And the Lord says, why are you on the earth would be the idea of the logic. Why are you, why am I on the earth? Because you love me and I want to feel your love and I love you. I want to feel it back. I am loved and a lover. Therefore I am successful. And I would work that muscle a thousand times. And when I would do that, the issue, the conflict would go from first priority to second priority. It would drop down and then the bonfire begins to just be a distant hassle over at the side. And it was significantly more manageable because with the feeling of a vibrant spirit with success, when I, when I managed my problem, when I related to my problem from the place of success in my spirit already, it was a totally different problem. But when that secondary issue became primary, then my feeling of success was completely undermined and I did not have success. And then to be able to manage the problem from the inward life of feeling like a failure in a loser is a very hard way to manage a problem. And I find most people, that's the only way they try to manage the diminishing of what they have or the delay of what they want. You know, maybe your business, your ministry, your, your number of friends, your honor in the community that you're a part of, your honor in the, in the organization you're a part of the, your honor is at one level, it goes down a level when it diminishes. How do you manage that? We manage it when it's not the primary thing that defines us as successful. Does it mean that it doesn't have any pain at all? It means the pain is manageable and the pain is dealt with from a spirit that feels confident and bold in God. Totally different way to manage pain. Totally different way to manage a crisis, a crisis. Because if that issue is the whole of your life and you get a spirit of defeat, you get a spirit of failure and hopelessness. It's very, very difficult. That's why there's so much despair all through the body of Christ and depression. Here I got passed over again. I thought I was going to be the one that to stand up front and do the next thing, whether it's singing or speaking or leading. And I got passed by my life is miserable now. And the Lord says, no, no, your life, your life is powerful. Still, if that passes you by five more times, if you never get into this life, you're powerful still right now. Don't you see the wisdom? I am the transcendent God. I have all power. I'm in love with you. And you're one of the few of the earth's. I mean, not that many people are born again, maybe 10% of the globe. I don't really know the real number, but it's probably something like that. You're one of the 10% or whatever the number is that actually loves God back. You're numbered already among the profoundly successful of all of history already by virtue of the fact you're born again. I'm going to read this again. See David's primary identity was in being loved and a lover, therefore successful. And when David felt successful, he had power on his heart, even when his kingdom was being threatened to be taken away or, or never ever, uh, not just taken away by Absalom in his late days, but it could never have been established because of Saul. His heart had power on it when he felt the success of being loved and a lover. D Samuel, the prophet undoubtedly taught David much about how God viewed him and how God viewed David's calling. See, Samuel was the first one to receive God's point of view of David long before David received it in that prophetic direct way. Samuel, the prophet, God speaks to Samuel, the prophet about this young guitar player on the backside of the hills of Bethlehem. He says, let me tell you, prophet Samuel, what I think about that young boy. And let me tell you, Samuel, what I think about his calling. And so let's, let's, uh, read this in first Samuel 13 verse 14. It says the Lord sought for himself, and that's the key phrase for himself, a man after his own heart. I'm not looking at the man after his own heart part right now. I'm looking for the phrase God sought for himself a man. And then God commanded this man to be the leader of his people. He commanded him to be commander. And so when Samuel would get to know David and they became good friends, because in a time of, of anguish in David's life, he ran to Samuel. Samuel became like a spiritual father. It's not like they hung out all day, every day together, but he went, went, went, went, uh, when he was in a time of great confusion with Samuel, I mean, with Saul the King, when Saul the King was trying to kill David, he ran to Samuel and said, make sense of this for me, please. He goes, help me. And, and it was in the dialogue. So we don't know how many dialogues they had, but they had conversations. Samuel would sit down, the aged prophet, the old prophet would sit down and say, David, the Lord told me something about you quite profound, several things. It says that when he was looking for a man across the earth, he was looking for a man that would be for him, that would belong to him. And he found you, David, God called you first for himself. God likes you, David. I could see David's tears, welling up in his eyes. And he's going, tell me that part again. He goes, he didn't say I'm looking for a King. He said, I'm looking for a man for myself. You have a tender place in God's heart, beloved in Christ Jesus. We all have that place. And David was just a young man. He'd say, really? He goes, how does he feel about me? He goes, oh, David. He goes, when the anointing of the spirit first came on me and he told me about you, I felt the power, the love and tenderness of God, like course through my being. He goes, I could feel it as though the Lord was right here himself, feeling it through me. Oh, David, he likes you so much. And David would say, tell me that story again. Okay, David, when the Lord told me about you, he said he wanted a man just for him. David goes, I love that. I believe when David, when David heard the story over and over from Saul, I don't believe David said, tell me the part of what am I going to be again? You're going to be king. Say that part because that's how most people would ask the questions to Samuel. Tell me the part about being king. David said, tell me the part about God wanting me for himself. And then David says, well, let me tell you, I mean, Samuel, the prophet said, David, let me tell you a little bit about what God told me about your calling. He's commanding you to be leader. He's commanding you to, there's going to be days, David, when you really like being leader, you like being king of Israel. There's going to be days when you don't like it, but the Lord's commanding you to do it. And the thing that made David, David wasn't that he focused on the fact he would be king. David focused on the fact that God commanded something of him. And that's what got David's attention. I believe if God would have said, David, you're commanded to dig ditches. He would have been as enthusiastic because it was the command of God's heart, the God who wanted David for himself that captured David. When people read, you can always tell what kind of person reads the life of David. One person reads the life of David and they salivate to be king. Another person reads the life of David and they salivate to be this person that is holy for God, who does whatever it is God commands, whether high or low. It's the fact they're consumed with doing what they're told to do. That's what grabs them. And you can tell, you can take a little spiritual thermometer, put it in your heart and tell which where you're at by the way you read the first and second Samuel. Some are searching, oh, how can a king finally be king? Another young man or woman is searching, how can a heart be filled with obedience and lost in love? Two different ways to read the life of David. One is a David reading it and the other is a Saul reading it. Both different, two different people reading the same life of David. One's a future David and the other's a future Saul. The Lord said to Samuel, let's look at the next one, 1 Samuel 16. David had several times and 1 Samuel 15 verse 28 is another one. I'm not going to go to that one. But 1 Samuel 15, there was three times God spoke to Samuel the prophet about David. And David, when he would get with Samuel in time of difficulty, he goes, tell me the story again about when God told you about me. Samuel says, well, let me tell you the day I came to your house, David. We're going to look at that more in depth next week. We're going to actually get into just the chapter by chapter, the events of his life. And we're going to probably go a few weeks past the limitations of our course. We're going to stay with it a few weeks for those that are taking the class because we're not going to finish it in 10 weeks. The Lord said to Samuel, fill your horn with oil and go to Jesse. Jesse was the name of David's dad, the Bethlehemite. David was from Bethlehem. That's why Jesus was from Bethlehem, because he was from the city of David. And here's what the Lord told Samuel and Samuel goes, go to Bethlehem. He goes, what's in Bethlehem? Here he goes. It's that same subject. I have provided myself a king. I have a man that will rule. That's the secondary point I have chosen for myself. There's something that's dear to me. There's a young there's a there's a man there. Samuel didn't know he was young yet, but there's a man there who's dear to me. I've chosen him for myself. Because he pleases me, touches my heart and I'm going to touch his heart. And I'm going to release the music of heaven through him and I'm going to release the music of my heart through his heart. I'm going to let him feel what I feel when I look at him. They'll sing it and multitudes will be swept into it. He says, I provided myself. Now we can just read this story and I've read this story for years and in the first, you know, years I read the story, I'd go, I provided myself a king. And now I read, I provided for myself a king or somebody to do something. Oh, I want to be that man that's for you, Lord. The man that touches your heart, that gets lost in the swirls of your love from you and back to you, gets lost in those air currents of you loving me and then empowering to love you. And just this, this, uh, this symphony of love from him back to him, this air current of heaven called the Holy Spirit. He tells, uh, he says, uh, he goes in verse three, he goes, go invite Jesse, go to Bethlehem and have a sacrifice and tell Jesse, he's the father and his sons to come. He goes, and here's what you're going to do. Verse three says again, you're going to anoint for me. There it is for me. I am sure that's the part that captured David. Again, another man would read it. Another woman would read the story and say, go anoint the king. But when David read the story, he said, tell me the part about being anointed for God. I want to be anointed for him. Go anoint for me a person in a certain position. Beloved, do you want to be anointed for him? Do you want to achieve a task or do you want to be a, you want to enter into an anointing for him? He says, anoint for me, beloved. We could take those phrases and spend the rest of our life staring at that grand jewel, the mystery of being anointed and the grandeur of being anointed for God. The anointing of love is what I call this verse four. So Samuel verse four and five, God, the family there, and he invited Jesse and all of his sons to the sacrifice. And he looked at Eliab, the oldest son, because there's eight sons, eight sons. David's the youngest. Most of you know that he looks at the older one. Samuel said to himself, and I could just tell here, Samuel telling David the story. And when I looked at your older brother, here's David, the, you know, the little baby, the family, oh, my older brother, my hero. What did God say? When you look at Eliab, Eliab is so cool. I always liked Eliab. I mean, he was the main guy. I know that's what I thought too. But when the Lord looked at him, he said, no, no, this man, he's not my, the one I've chosen. He'll never do it for me. If I give him power, he'll do it for a whole bunch of other reasons. He won't do it for me. He won't pluck the strings of my heart if I put power on him. Okay. Wow. Eliab's a good guy, isn't he? Oh, your brother, the Lord loves your brother. The problem is your brother doesn't love the Lord so much. Oh, well, I think he's going to have a good future, won't he? I can hear young David talking about his hero, his older brother. Verse seven, and the Lord said, he goes, David, the Lord told me, don't look at Eliab's appearance. Beloved, do you know what we look at? We look at appearance. We look at performance. We look at accomplishments. We look at position. We look how high they are on the org chart. You meet the man or the woman and we find out he's got a TV ministry and like, oh, yeah, I'll meet with him. You find out they run the big corporation. I was real busy today. I'll meet with him. We find out that they've achieved great things. Oh, I'll meet with that person. I'd love to. I'll do anything. I'll go way out of my way to do that. The Lord says, I don't look. I don't measure a man when it says I don't look at him because I don't measure a man by his achievement or his performance or his position. I don't look at a king and go, wow, he's a king. It says when I look at a man and in the word, the phrase, look, put the word measure. He goes, I measure a man very differently, and I can imagine the prophet Samuel telling this to David. David, when God measures you, he doesn't measure you by how big your kingdom is or how big your army is. He doesn't measure you by how good your songs are. He measures you by the movements of your heart. And David might say, well, nobody does that. And then Samuel would say, that's what the Lord told me. The Lord does not see as man sees. The Lord does not measure like a man measures. A man measures external performance. A man measures accomplishment. A man measures wealth. God measures the movements of the human heart under the anointing of the spirit or under what I mean by the anointing of the spirit, the influence of the grace of God. Beloved, when you and I stand before God. He is not going to measure us by our ministry or money or our friends is going to measure us by the movements of our heart. That's the only thing that I will take with me is the movements of my heart that touch God's heart. That's all that I will have for my years on the earth. And I stand before him. He will say, Mike Bickel, come forward, pull out the record of the movements of Mike's heart. Let's look at them. And yes, the Lord can see the negative movements, but ah, look at this. Those negative movements. He repented of them. He declared war against them in the blood of Jesus. They're canceled. They don't make the record. Boy, I knew those verses Lord, but I'm really glad they're true. They don't make the record if they're repented of because of the sufficiency of the blood of Jesus. So the Lord will say, you see that area of your life where you were stuck? Look at the movements of your heart. You were on your bed at night, crying and crying out to me for a way to get your heart free. How to flow in love. Look at that. Every single movement of your heart is written in my book. And I measure you by the movements of your heart towards me. I measure you by the delight you have in the way I feel towards you. And Sammy would say, David, no matter what happens, don't measure yourself the way Saul does. David, whatever happens, don't count the army, David. Don't measure how much territory you have. Measure the movements of your heart. When God loves you, it's how you respond back to God. Measure that. Measure the amount of how God feels about you. And that will be the measure of who you are, David. He says, David, he says, for man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. And so God, Samuel, anointed David and the spirit of the Lord came on him from that day. E, look at 2nd Samuel, chapter five, verse 12 and E. David, this is one of the grand verses. This is one of those double, triple highlight verses. You know, at first I put it in yellows and pink and an orange, and then it's all black anyway. You know, I underline it so many times it doesn't count anymore. I lose the verse, so don't overdo it. But this is a triple highlight. This is a triple highlight verse. 2nd Samuel 512 is one of the high verses of the life of David. It's 20 years later after David was anointed by Samuel. It's a 20 year perspective later. David's 30 because he was about 17 when David, when Samuel the prophet visited him. Now he's 37 when he's king of all Israel. He was king over Judah when he was 30. Now he's 37. He's king over all 12 tribes. It's 20 years later, almost nearly exactly. Could be a year plus or minus a year. It says this David knew 2nd Samuel chapter five, verse 12. David knew that's the phrase the Lord had made him king over Israel. David didn't have to strive because he knew God did it. But that isn't the strength of the verse, although that's a powerful point. And that what David knew is that God exalted God's kingdom for the sake of God's people. David had this lodged in his spirit when he was 37 years old. He said, I know God put me in the position for God's kingdom, for God's reasons, for the good of God's people, not for my fame and my honor. He goes, God did it for God. And the part that's exciting is David knew it in his spirit. And when David was went through the difficulties, he knew that if God was pleased to let the the diminished come or the increase come, that God did what he did for God's own sake and God's own name. And David says, as long as I know that God is delighted at the increase and in the decrease, because it's in his hand, as long as I know it's not about me, it's not I am not being reevaluated, remeasured because it's not about me. It's for God and his people. And I trust his wisdom if it gets big or if it gets little, because God's doing it for God and for his people, not for David. Beloved, when we build a ministry or a business or anything, when we do it mostly for us, even though we don't like the language, we don't like to say it, but we know by the pain that's involved when it increases or we're exhilarated, it decreases, we're depressed. Believe me, it's mostly for us. If it increases and we're steady and it decreases and our prayer life is unmoved, I guarantee you it was probably for God. David knew David knew it was for God that this thing was taking place. So David could stay steady all the way through. Go to page two. F. David first saw himself and the key word is first. He saw his primary success in life spiritually as before God. But that's not the only way David saw himself. There's the way that we look at ourself is more than just through one angle. That's the primary way David looked at himself. But there's a secondary way as David looked at himself. He looked at himself as the one God made him to be before men. See, in a personal way, I'm not just who I am before God. I am who God made me before people. He says, Mike, I want you to do this and that. I want you to be an intercessor. I want you to lead intercessors. I have a divine assignment. You have a divine assignment and part of our identity. It is second. It cannot be first, but it's still a part of the mosaic of who we how we see ourself. It's who we see ourself in the way God assigned us to relate before people, the position of life. And that's not unimportant. It has to be second, but it's not 10th. And the way first many of God's people, they stumble over this idea of seeing themselves in God's sight. They never even go there. It's something they know nothing about. And then when they see themselves as how God made them before others, they miss it on that point, too. In other words, reading here in the notes, whether David was a shepherd for his father in the days in Bethlehem, or whether he was an armor bearer for Saul, and that's what he did next in Gibeah, or whether he was a fugitive serving the 400 men in Ziklag, or whether he was king over Israel, David had a different divine assignment in each season of his life. And David cared about that assignment. Now, what many people do is they only care about one assignment, the grand one they dream of that they've never experienced. And many times they never do. And that's the only assignment they ever cared about was the grand one at the end. And more times than not, when their life is over, it ended up fantasy. It wasn't even a divine assignment. It was an assignment made of their own vain imaginations. And that's the one they serve their whole life. I have seen so many people in my 30 years of ministry serving a vain imagination of their assignment that wasn't real at all. And they were believing for it. And 10 years later, I believe for it. I said, why don't you shift off of believing for your assignment that's grand and ask God for the assignment that's now. And if it's digging ditches as a fugitive, running from place to place, taking care of 400 other fugitives like David did in Zik, like do it with all of thy might and do it with success and the feeling of God on your heart. Beloved, the only assignment that you have is not the grand one at the end. You have an assignment all the way through. And the most significant assignments in our life are not always the big ones that people write books about. There are some people, the greatest assignment of their life is to take care of one person who's maybe an invalid or one person who needs total care. Maybe a person's main assignment is to help two widows over in the side for this five year season of their life. And they're so distracted by a grand assignment that will make them famous or give them honor the eyes of men. They can't even enjoy God in the true assignment of their life in the present tense. And in some people, it's really true, it is a grand assignment and it is long and coming, and that's biblical. And there is a lot of ups and downs getting there, like David's an example. But David entered into the assignment of the season he was in as in it was as important to him as the grand one way down the road. It's not like I'm going to endure God and endure now. I'm going to put up with God and now so I can be famous one day and powerful. God says, why don't you enjoy me now and my assignment and trust in its wisdom that I'm building something in you far beyond your life in the grave? Why don't you enjoy me the anointing to love me and enjoy the assignment I've given you right now? I believe in and having a vision for tomorrow, but when our vision for tomorrow cancels us out today in our faithfulness, it cancels us out today in the ability to enjoy God in the mundane or to see the value of the mundane, the value of the mundane, not just enjoy God and to see its value, its connectedness with tomorrow in the heart of God. God so delights in the student who studies hard and the guy who's working the weekend job at the at the fast food restaurant in the will of God. God so in God doesn't tolerate that because the person does. God actually has an assignment for them in that part of their life. So I find that many, many people, they lose out in reality with God because they don't have their their identity is not based upon who God loving them and the loving God and their identity is not secondarily based on their divine assignment in the present tense. Their identity is based upon a mission far down the road or more times than not a vain imagination that is that is not even truth itself and their life is based on it and their emotions go up and down in mood swings decade after decade as the slave of that task master. The Lord says, I never ordained that for you. Why are you doing that? You have you have been seduced by the spirit of this world that your life is mostly about fame and honor and money. And David had more honor and more money than any man in Israel. But David never. So that was a good thing. But David never measured his heart or his life by his money and his honor, though he had more than any man in Israel, any person. But David said, I'm for him. I can imagine David in the and the twilight of his life and ministry. He would rehearse. Oh, I love it when Samuel said God chose me for him. I love it when God said, I'm his king. I'm for him. And that's the way that David carried his life. There's so much of the spirit of the world baptized in Christian language. Burning out and breaking God's servants who God made to be invigorated in the present tense while they're getting ready for a future in this age and a future in the age to come that they cannot properly even understand. Look what it says here in First Corinthians, chapter one, verse twenty five. It says the foolishness. First Corinthians one twenty five. The foolishness of God is wiser than man. The weakness of God is stronger than man. God has chosen the foolish things and the weak things to shame them. God has chosen more people to be assigned in a difficult spot today because it is impacting his heart and it's impacting the world in a way they cannot do the math on right then. It's making an impact that they can't figure out upon God's heart and God sees in a way that man does not see. It's also impacting their future on the earth and their future in the age to come. It's impacting at all these levels. And because it's weak. And because it's small, though it's glorious to God and meaningful to God, the human heart can't endure it. And that which was made to adorn them with beauty and pleasure actually becomes a stumbling block to them. I've had assignments in my life that are really hard. Some some are hard, some are boring and some are exhilarating in the natural sense. It's great amount of this and that and the other. And I haven't done this by any means perfectly right by any means, but I've sought for for some years now to say, Lord, when I'm in the tough out of the way, nobody showed up. It's broke and it's falling apart. I want to be there with my heart seeing that you like that I'm here. It means something to you. It matters in a way I can't fully understand. I don't need to. I trust you. It matters on who I'm going to be tomorrow in the decades to come in tomorrow and in the age to come. All this matters. I'm going for it hard now when there's no where there's no crowd applauding. It's still powerful to God. And if I can get a hold of that, it's powerful to me. This is called spiritual identity. Paul, the apostle, would say the same thing as 2 Corinthians five. He says the love of Christ compels us. 514, the love of Christ overflows us. The love of Christ over overwhelms us. That we should live no longer for ourselves because we're under this anointing of the love of Christ. We're compelled. It's the anointing of love. Therefore, we regard nobody according to the flesh. Paul says, I don't evaluate anybody according to what he achieves. I don't evaluate anybody according to his pedigree, his station in life. I don't evaluate anybody according to how much degrees he has or how intelligent or how gifted he is. I evaluate a person according to the movements of his heart in the grace of God, which I cannot see that much of, except it reflects itself in meekness. We can only see the movements of somebody's heart in the good sense when it walks its way out in meekness. And Paul would look at a man with meekness. He might be the billionaire of the earth. And if he had meekness, Paul esteemed him. I mean, esteemed his accomplishments, esteemed his impact. If he did not have meekness, Paul looked at him. I don't mean he wrote him off as an unimportant human being, but he did not esteem the power of his position. But he esteemed the accomplishment in the flow of meekness in his spirit. We regard a man as he walks in the likeness of Christ. That's how we evaluate. We regard we measure our own lives and regard one another in this way. Look at G. Like David, we must resist two common temptations and walking out our divine assignment and the changing seasons of life. You know, in the changing seasons of life, our divine assignment changes all the time. I don't mean every month or year, but every five or 10 years, your divine assignment might change. The Lord may want you to be a student for five or 10 years. Made 15 to 25 in there. He may want you to be a student later on. He may want you to run a business for 10 years. He may want you not to run a business to run a mission station for 10 years. Your divine assignments always not always different, but oftentimes it changes over the decades. And here's what we must do. Like David, we must refuse to seek a position that gives us more honor, even if it's out of the will of God. When somebody offers you a position, your question isn't, do I get more honor and money? Your question, is it the will of God? That's what I care. I care about the will of God. You will become more famous. You will become more well known. I'll tell you something that means nothing to me, but it might impress somebody who's young. It's about me. Means nothing to me at all. But I only say it because it might impress somebody. I mean, impress you in the sense of impacting you to do the same. Last year, I was invited to be the main speaker, probably six or eight conferences of 5,000 people. I turned down every one of them because I wanted to be here at 6 a.m. at IHOP. No, no, that's not a big, that was nothing to me. Actually, that was not like a wow, wow. That wasn't even tempting. My point being, the Lord says, I have called you to be at the early morning prayer meetings in Kansas City. That is your assignment. You could go dazzle the world. But for now, in this season, that is not at all what I want you. I'll even bless you a little bit. But you want to know my assignment? It's right there in that room. And that isn't even noble, that's just plain old smart. I'm not talking about nobility. I'm talking about, I've been in the Lord long enough to know, not that long, but long enough to know that it's always good to do the assignment. Always better. It's somehow it ricochets back around 10 years later into something way better. And I don't mean bigger. My heart is bigger. Not necessarily my platform, my heart. And lots of times my platform is bigger. That's not the point. If my heart gets bigger, I can carry that into the age to come as well as into this life. And I don't, I don't seek, I don't evaluate an opportunity by how big my platform gets. I want to evaluate an opportunity on how big my heart will get. For real. I mean, that sounds like a neat little cliche, put it on a bumper sticker or something. But I'm not talking about, I'm talking about reality. I said, Lord, I got a few years left on the earth. And only to the measure of my heart in this age can I bring it. Only that can I bring to the age to come. And I'm desperate to have a bigger heart, not to have a bigger platform. If you give me, if you command me to be commander, then I will be. If you don't, I don't care. But I tell you one thing, I'm going to come before you with a giant heart, if possible. And a ton of gold that translates into eternity. That isn't noble. That's just plain old smart. That's just good common sense math to do that. But so many of God's people can't do the math. Somehow they're so intoxicated by a bigger platform. They cannot figure out that a bigger heart. And sometimes the Lord told me to do the bigger platform thing and I do it. But that's the platform isn't the point. The point I want to go in obedience to the heart grows. Secondly, in G is that it's, it's the very opposite pressure. And I've yielded to the, to the bigger platform and the smaller heart. I've yielded to that a number of times, by the way. And you always end up more broken five years later at the heart level. I don't mean you're in some scandalous sense, but you've always lost. If you trade the size of your heart for the size of your, of your barn or your business or your ministry, if you get a bigger barn, but a smaller heart in five or 10 years, I promise you, you've lost. I've lost. I've done that a couple of times. Sometimes it's the pressure of what others want you to be. I, in recent years, I feel more pressure to get out of the will of God by my well-meaning godly friends that want me to do stuff for them in ministry, local and abroad. I don't mean just abroad, but no, Mike, you have to be this to me. And I just say, Lord, there's only one thing I care about is your will. Because none of those people will be able to speak up for me on the last day where I'm going. They don't get a vote. I remember when I transitioned from being pastor of a large church down the road, I had a number of people say, we want you to be our pastor. I go, I don't really get the vote on that. I am so clear my mandate. And I love that you love me, but your vote. And I think of a dozen other situations as well. Doesn't count where I'm going. God likes you, but you don't get to vote on my life. Only he does. I don't either. And if you could show up and change the outcome at the judgment seat, then I'll do what you're telling me. But if you can't show up and change the outcome, oh, I love that you love me, but I'm not going there. It says here in John chapter six, I know we're way over time. So I got to end this thing. John chapter six, verse 15, it says, Jesus perceived they were about to come and make him king by force. And then he departed to the mountain to pray. Beloved people will come by force. And I mean, with, with goodwill, they, they think to make you king, to give you an opportunity and they love you. But the truth is they love themselves in loving you. They didn't want Jesus. They wanted a better life and they thought him being king could pull it off. They love themselves, not Jesus, when they were doing this. And Jesus said, no, I'm not going there. I know who I am. I know how I evaluate my life. I know how, I know how I measure reality. Well, we got a third of the way through the notes. Let's just end with that. You can just read the notes yourself.