Mike Bickle emphasizes God's superior love for us, illustrating that His affection is more profound than any worldly pleasure. He discusses the importance of understanding God's love, especially in our weaknesses, and how believers often struggle with feelings of condemnation instead of recognizing God's delight in them. Bickle encourages believers to study and meditate on the nature of God's love, which is unconditional and not based on our performance. He highlights that spiritual immaturity is not the same as rebellion, and that God delights in our sincere intentions to obey Him, even when we fall short. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a deeper revelation of God's love to sustain our journey of faith.

...of his word. And then she turns her attention over to Jesus, here in the spiritual interpretation of the Song of Solomon, and she gives the reason why she wants the Word of God, the kisses of his mouth, and the way that she wants it. This is her supreme request in life. When she asked for the kisses of his word, the context is she's been offered the opportunity to ask anything. This is what she wants most, as we looked at in session three and session four. She goes, the reason I want the kisses of your word is because of this, real clearly. I understand that your affection for me is more powerful than the wine of this world, the good and the bad pleasures in this life, the legitimate and the illegitimate ones. In this session, we're going to look at seven principles that describe how Jesus's love is better than the wine of this world. We're not going to be able to look at them in detail, obviously, but we have the notes, and the notes are on the website, and anybody can have them that wants them. They're there right now. And these are only introductions, these principles, but I'm going to urge you to, in the months and years ahead, to ask the Holy Spirit to bring you deep in these principles. And there's more principles that we could add to the list as well that would be important ones. These seven foundational principles are essential in understanding God's affection for us, specifically in our weakness. That's where people trip. People don't, most people don't find it difficult to think of God loving us when we're in the perfection of the resurrection in the age to come. Matter of fact, it seems kind of normal to some people. Well, of course God would love us. We're in the very perfection of holiness. The difficulty that people have, believers, I'm talking about sincere believers, is understanding that God has affection and enjoyment of us now, even in our weakness. This is what the devil will take advantage of, and he will exploit this lack of revelation in the lives of countless, hundreds of millions, and he fills them with condemnation. Often when people come for a training program or the Bible school here at IHOP, that is one of the first things that I hear, is that it's, it's jolting, it's hard to get a hold of. We're so used to condemnation. We're so used to standing in God's presence, unsure how he feels about us. It takes a while to switch over. It really does, because we've so programmed our mind with our unrenewed thinking before we were saved, and then through ineffective or even wrong teaching from the scripture after we've been saved. 1st John chapter 3 verse 1, John urged them to take the issue of the love of God very serious as an issue of of their study. He goes, I want you to behold, or you could put the word study it, behold, be amazed at the manner or the quality of love that the Father has for you. Beloved, it is stunning. It is amazing. It is past our human comprehension. It takes revelation to grasp this, the manner of love, or you can put the word the quality, the way God loves us, the manner, behold. Or be alarmed, be alerted at its vastness, at its difficulty of grasping it. That's, those things are implied by the word behold. It's going to take some attentiveness to get this. And of all the subjects in the word of God, we would think the love of God would be the simple one everybody likes, but it's a subject many refer to a little bit. It's a subject that most Christians have kind of at the back of their mind a little bit, even here at IHOP, a lot of people talk about it, but it's not the premier topic of their personal life meditation and study. It's still something on the peripheral. It's at the side. They know it's true, and one of these days they're going to connect with it and really get on with it. And one year turns to two, and two years turns to ten. My point is this. We must behold the manner of this love now. Not in a message, not even in a series. I'm talking about it needs to be the premier subject in your personal devotion and meditation time with God, in your personal prayer life. In session five, we looked at the fact that God loves us in the way God loves God. This is remarkable. Jesus said, in the way that the Father loves me. John 15.9. This needs to be a verse that we know so well. You wake up in your sleep saying it because it's so stamped on your heart. This is no longer to be an obscure passage. This must be absolutely, you know, staples in our diet. We need to feed on this reality day and night. Jesus said, the way the Father loves me, beloved, that's the way he feels about you. He's talking to sincere believers, of course. Roman numeral two on the notes. This is one of the foundational premises that many trip over. This one issue right here. That's why I made it its own separate point. Spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as rebellion against God. This is a massively important biblical principle. Some think if you're really sincere for God, you can tell because if you're real sincere, you'll beat yourself up the worst. You'll have the highest standard, and what that means by a high standard is actually a wrong application of a high standard. A high standard often means if you're the meanest to yourself when you repent, you've got the highest standard. I would rather have just truth. The biblical standard. God has different emotions related to people's responses. I must say that. That's a very important point, and some would not agree with that. God has emotional responses to the human race that is partially based on how they respond to him. He's got more than that. That's not all of God's response, but there is a dimension of relationship that God has with the human race, with individuals on this on the planet, where he responds to them. Part of his response is based on their response to him. He responds first. He initiates. Then they respond in obedience or disobedience or partial, and then he responds back to them, and that's what we're going to look at a bit tonight. Now some are confused about how God feels, and we don't need to be because the bible's clear about it. I don't want to be presumptuous and think like, act like I know everything about how God feels, but the word can't lie. The word is true. It's eternal. We can count on it, so on the basis of that we can have confidence. But many are confused about how God feels about them. They don't know if God is mad, is he sad, or is he glad. They don't really know, and they really want to know. Beloved, I can't think of anything more important than this piece of information having clarity about the subject in my heart. It's not like every minute of every day I will have perfect understanding of it, but we need to have this settled in our heart based on the revelation of the word of God. If we think he's mad and he's not, what a waste of decades of our life. If we think he's mad and he's actually not mad, that's called condemnation. Let's go the opposite extreme. We think he's glad and he's not glad. That's called presumption, and I have no doubt. Well, there's more people who think he's mad and he's not. There's many sincere believers. He's not mad at them. There are some believers that are living in delusion. They get a little bit of these kind of messages around from different places, and they just live kind of in some kind of disconnect from reality. They're living in sin, but they're confident that God is just absolutely delighted in everything they're doing. That's called presumption and deception. So just lay a foundational point. You all know it, but it bears saying, and when you say this in small groups or in teaching, and again, as you know, our copyright is the right to copy. You can copy any of this and make your own notes out of it. Put your name on it. Put your mother's name on it. Anybody's name on it that you want. You can use it word for word in any way that you want, because I want to urge you to take some of these notes. Make your own Bible studies for groups of two or three or two or three thousand. It doesn't matter to me. Run with it. Run with this stuff. It's important that we say that we, paragraph B, we do receive God's favor and His righteousness because of what Jesus did, not because of what we did. However, it is important and necessary to sincerely repent. I want to say that again. We receive His favor or His righteousness based on what Jesus did, not based on what we do, but the attitude of the heart must change. It's called repentance. Some people are big on getting the favor of God as a gift, but they're really shy and weak on the necessity of genuine repentance. Repentance is an attitude change. There is an action that comes late, I mean, in time. True repentance is an attitude that always ends up with action later, but the attitude is the part that is critical to change. If we sincerely change the attitude, actions will change in time. But in my experience has been, and certainly as you read the Word of God, many of God's servants, the attitude changes, but the actions don't always change that minute. It's a time delay working here. But God does require that we line up at the attitude right, sincere repentance. We turn from sin, we turn to God according to the light of our understanding that He has given us by the Holy Spirit and the Word. Paragraph D, I'm saying the principle again, spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as spiritual rebellion. I've talked to people through the years, they go, I'm so rebellious. And I go, are you like trying to flatter yourself, or are you, do you read a book and you believe it? I mean, the most devoted people, because they have an area where they stumble in their life. I'm so rebellious. And if they're really mean it, it's a disastrous point of confusion. If they're just kind of carrying on, which, you know, a lot of folks do that, they don't really mean it, I'm not that worried about it. But if they really mean it, and they're sincere believers, that has disastrous implications and effect on their emotional life. At times, rebellion and immaturity, spiritual immaturity, and I'm talking about, I have a sincere believer. I'm always talking about the immaturity of a sincere believer in context to this session, session six here on the Song of Solomon. But what I'm saying here is that at times the outward conduct of an immature believer who's sincere and to someone rebellion, sometimes some of the things they do outwardly look exactly the same. Not their whole life, but some things do. Some things they say sound just like an unbeliever. They'll get angry, or they'll have bitterness, just like an unbeliever will have. Or they'll have complaining, just like an unbeliever will have. Yet it's coming from a total different heart response. Now, our actions do matter. I'm not trying to give the idea that actions don't matter. But our attitude has more impact on God's heart than our actions. Our actions are critical, but our attitude is the seedbed from which all of our actions flow. God sees the movements of our heart towards him, and he begins to, he delights in the movement of our heart even before our feet move. He actually delights in the movement of our heart even before we completely walk it out. Because there's the cry, there's the longing to obey him, and it moves his heart. It really does. A genuine lover of Jesus sincerely pursues to obey, desires to obey him. They pursue a life obedience, obviously. Now, a rebellious person just says no. They have no plans to obey in that area. You know, take any manner, any area of their life. It's not just the scandalous areas. It's our speech. You know, that's my worst area. That's everybody's worst area. James chapter three. That's the wildfire that's still in the human race. It's a wild forest fire. It's not okay to say, oh, just forget the speech thing. I'll just forget it. I'm not going to obey you. Beloved, we can't take any area and just cast it aside. We may not do that great on it, but we have to declare war on darkness in every area the Holy Spirit gives us light on. Our repentance, paragraph F, is sincere. It's important even when it's flawed and even when it's weak. Our repentance can be sincere even when it's weak. Our love, our obedience, your love for Jesus is sincere long before your love is strong. Your love isn't false when it's weak. It's still real. Some people think their love is only real when it's real mature. So that means all of their life, their love is false. And they come before God as somebody who's a hypocrite, who's living with false love. Jesus values our love for him even before the love is mature. He values the budding seeds of love in our heart for him and for one another. Of course, love for one another always flows out of our love for him. Paragraph G, the sincere intention. I'm talking about the intention now. The setting of the heart to obey is very different from the attainment of mature obedience. I'm saying the same thing I've said already. Last five minutes I'm just repeating myself in different ways. So you don't think I'm giving you a new principle. I'm just, I'm taking this diamond and looking at it from different angles. The same idea. The sincere intention. Lord, I'm going to obey you with my time, my words, with my money, with my sexuality, with my service or lack of service. I'm going to obey you in the way I serve. I'm going to, I'm going to do this. I'm going to shake off the slumber and I'm going to do this. There's something the first time an inconvenient request like, ah, I don't want to do it. I don't feel, I don't feel grace for it. And then we say, ah, I'm just lazy and selfish. I know I am, but I love you. I'm going to get a hold of this. And the, and the pursuit of obedience is different than the attaining of it. The going after it is different than, than getting there. The journey is very important to the Lord. Of course, the destination is important. I'm in no way minimizing the need to actually follow through. I'm a big follow through guy, but I'm telling you, you can feel God's pleasure in the journey before the follow through is complete. But it's only when you're sincere, the guy that says, you know what, I'm not really going to follow through. I'm going to claim that God loves me stuff, but I'm not really trying to follow through. That is falsehood. Trying to follow through and just, ah, I'm just lazy and complaining and selfish and bitter. I just am, but I'm not going to stay this way. Jesus, I'm coming after you. I'm going to get my speech under control. I'm going to, I'm going to quit be complaining. I'm going to get my time under control. I'm going to get my thoughts under control. And I mean, you may do horrible after you make that commitment, but the journey, the pursuit is really dear to him. He doesn't only smile at you when you conquer. Here's the reason this is critical, because if you don't feel his smile in the journey, you will never conquer. You'll quit. The only way you will stay on the journey is by feeling his smile. And you know that you say, how do you feel his smile? You know, I'm just talking about, I'm talking about, and the just sense of having the confidence that he's pleased with you. If you don't feel his smile on the journey, you will quit. If you think he's mad every step of the way, you may make it for a few years like that, but sooner or later, you're going to say, I can't bear him being mad at me every day. I'd rather just not try and just conclude. He's just going to be mad. And at least I'll settle the issue. Instead of reaching for obedience all the time, you have to believe he's smiling at you in the journey. You must believe this. It's biblical, but it really changes the way because who wants to go to a prayer time? I'm not even talking about the prayer room. I'm just talking about your own prayer time, whether home or on driving and praying who wants to worship before a God who's angry at you. Here it is me again. Ouch. Don't hit me. Don't hit me. I love worship that way. I'm going to read the Bible. Lord, I love your word. I just don't talk too clear. I'm a mess. I'm a wreck. You have, you can't read the words. You can't come into his presence thinking he's about to wipe you out. You have to under, this is not just a kind of a cool kind of a Kansas city thing. Well, they're kind of into that in Kansas city. I've heard some of my friends say they're kind of really into the God loves you. You know, you're lovely in your weakness. It's kind of a neat little thing they're into beloved. This is a matter of life and death in terms of longevity, going hard after God for weeks and weeks and months and months and years and years and staying steady in the journey. You have to know his smiles on you in the process. It's not a kind of a kind of one of their little weird things they do in Kansas city. This is really an important truth. The Lord is pleased with us from the time we repent long before the maturity, the obedience matures. He, he, he's smiling at us when we repent long before the maturity process takes place. He's in, he really is cares about the process, not just the destination. Now believers, you say, how do I know if I sincerely repent paragraph H here's how you know, if you're sincere that when you fail, when you fall short, you quickly renew the war against that area in your life. That's how, you know, you're sincere. So in my speech and the way I spend my time, my money, I'm, I'm out of the will of God. And I don't always know it because you only, you only have so much light, but the more you obey light, the more light you get. But when you understand you're, you're, you're, you're off the path, you're not like out of the kingdom, but she's like, ah, my speech again, it's happening again. It was the same as like an hour ago when I repented. I mean, that's how I do it. It's like, oh, it's an hour. Hey, I made it an hour. It's a record Lord. It's working. It's working. I made it an hour. The way our sincerity is, is clear is that we renew our, our repentance. We renew our, the war against it quickly. Someone goes, how quick is quick? Do I have like an hour or a day? I'm not going there. Now those are the kind of questions I get. I mean, it's quick like, do I get like a minute? Can I hang out there for a minute and a half? I go, I don't know. Just do it quick. A hypocrite, a hypocrite is not a person who says one thing and does another. That's not a hypocrite because the whole world is a hypocrite. Then a hypocrite is somebody who claims something and will not pursue it. There's a difference. We all tell as, as believers, we tell people to walk in love. Nobody walks in perfect love. That means we're all hypocrites. No, if we're pursuing to walk in love, we're not a hypocrite, even though we haven't attained it. A hypocrite is not someone who says one thing and does another. It's somebody who says one thing and doesn't pursue or go after the other thing. That's a hypocrite. And what happens often is the devil tells us in our struggle, we're struggling. We're trying to get victory in these many areas, the many categories of human life that you could, you know, most people struggle in one or two or three or four. You know, there's two or three or four that bug you or challenge you more than the other ones do, but everyone's areas are slightly different. The combinations are different, but the enemy comes in and tells us in our struggle, if we're not breaking through, we are a hopeless hypocrite. We might as well quit because if you feel like a hopeless hypocrite, you will quit in time. You really will. Paragraph J, God delights in the sincere desire. Again, I'm just saying it again. He delights in the cry in our spirit to obey. It's the same thing I've been saying for five minutes, the same thing. The cry to obey is a substantial beginning of victory. Beloved, the cry, I want to obey you is not an irrelevant thing. It is a beginning of victory. That is part of victory. The decision to obey, even though you haven't fully walked it out is already the beginning of God's work in your spirit. I mean, who talked you into obeying? It wasn't the devil. It wasn't your flesh. Where did you get this desire to say yes in these different areas came from God. It's the work of God. Victory is already working in you before it's fully manifest outwardly and God sees it and God rewards it in eternity is victory. Now I want full victory in every area, but if you make a decision to obey in every area, I mean, in detailed ways, you've already got substantial victory working in you. It's real and it will manifest in your actions in time if you're sincere. Now God doesn't confuse immaturity and rebellion. We do, but God doesn't. In the Old Testament law, they had clean animals and unclean animals. They had the sheep and they had the swine or the pigs. Now both the clean animal, the sheep, and the unclean animal, the pigs, both of them got in the mud. I mean a lot. And so the shepherd would get them out of the mud, so to speak. I mean, you know, uh, they could be taken out of the mud, but, and the, the, the sheep are in the mud and they're kicking, they're trying to get out. They got in the mud, they're trying, they're kicking and exerting energy, trying to get out of the mud. They hate it. You, so the shepherd might get them both out. And the minute he gets them both out, the pig is looking for another mud hole. I mean, within a minute searching, they go straight for another mud hole. Now that the sheep get in another mud hole, probably before the day's over, they get in another one, but they don't like it. They kick to get out and they're looking for freedom from it. They're not looking for a way to get away with sin. They're looking for a way to get free from the sin that they keep getting into. They're trying to find a way out of it, not a way to get away with it. That's a difference. You lay in your bed at night, or if you're in the nightwatch, you lay in your bed in the morning. So when you lay in your bed in the morning and you're dreaming, your dream is how can I get free from this? I'm not trying to get away with it. I'm trying to get free from it. Beloved. That's sincere spirit. That's a willing spirit. It's real. Now, God viewed the immaturity of the apostles, and they were very immature. They were trying to be over each other. They were mean to people. You know, John said in Luke 9, they won't come to our meeting. Let's just call fire down and burn the city up. And Jesus said, John, settle down. Well, they don't come to our meeting. Let's just call fire down. Let's nuke the city. Take the city out right now. I mean, that was minutes after John said, I want to be at your right hand, which translates, I want to be the greatest man over everybody forever. He said that. I want to be at your right hand. I want to be over everyone forever. And then the next scene, he wants to nuke a city. John, you're out of control. Stop it. And Jesus said it. You don't know what kind of spirit you have, which means your spirit's not right right now, John. But he became the apostle whom the Lord loved. He was the one who had more confidence in the love of God than any. He was really transformed in time. After we repent, top of page three, paragraph G, we push delete. I mean, we can push delete after we repent. We really can't. Doesn't mean we don't have to sort out why we got in that area. I mean, there's our things to think about, how we got ensnared and all that. But I'm talking about in terms of your guilt, we can stand before the Lord, and there's no point in going for three days in a self-imposed probation. Some people think, if I repent, you know, if I sin at three and I repent at one minute after three, you know, God deserves at least three days of purgatory, three days of probation before I'm happy before him. No! Push delete, and at 3.01, begin to worship him with confidence and take it serious to what Jesus did on the cross, and your repentance is sincere. Don't go into a six-hour funk to kind of get even with God. Just say no. Say this is terrible. It's creepy. But you know what? I'm not going there. I know what Jesus did. I know how God loves me. I love God. This is not who I am. This is not what I'm about. I want to be yours. I tell you, get right back in the place of the first class, the first class citizen, and bold in God's presence. I mean within a minute. Maybe take two if you're new at it. I'm talking about get back in the game. I really mean that. Stand before him bold. Roman numeral three. Principle number one. And these are simple principles, and again you can read them a bit more on your own. We're just going to go through them quite fast. Just kind of mention them. God loves and blesses unbelievers. Of course he does, but we have to make a distinction in a minute, and that's why I'm putting this as a principle one. God loves unbelievers even when they rebel against him. God so loved the world. It says in the next, in paragraph B, he blesses evil people. He causes the sun to rise on the, on the wicked, on the evil. However we are not to mistake his blessing for his approval. He loves evil people and he blesses evil people. He does not approve of evil people. It's a huge difference. Because the humanistic spirit, they have God loving, they mistake God's love of everybody with his approval. He does not approve of people who have chosen to live a life of evil. He's really against it. They will go to hell if they don't repent, though he loves them and blesses them throughout their life. See, he's angry at the rebellion. He's angry at them, though he loves them. Though he blesses them, he is angry at their rebellion. He will actually refuse to forgive them, even if they ask him to, if they don't repent. And that's kind of startles some people. Say, if we pray the prayer, he'll forgive. No, he forgives us when we repent. That's what he said in Matthew 7. Many will say to me, Lord, Lord, on that day. And he'll say, I don't know you. They'll say, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, I, I talked to you. I did miracles the whole day. He goes, no, I did not accept it. So, but the, the interesting thing is that he does love them and he blesses them. Principle number two. He more than loves believers, he actually enjoys and delights in them, but even in their immaturity, even in their immaturity. God loves unbelievers, but he enjoys, he only enjoys believers. He loves unbelievers, but he does not enjoy them. Big difference. Luke 15. Jesus, the story, most of you know, the story of the man who lost the 99 sheep and the one who went away. He went after the one. It says in Luke 15, verse four to seven, he put the one, the sheep on his shoulders. He came back. It says in verse five, he put him on his shoulders rejoicing. He calls his friends. He says, rejoice with me. And then in verse seven, he goes, there's more joy in heaven over this one center who repents. The guy is only repented for one hour and Jesus is already delighted in him. Now, somebody says, as long as it's the first time they repent and they just came the first time, the altar call, this works. And then a year later, if the guy repents, he needs to go into probation for six months to get before God's happy. No. When the repentance is sincere, if it's a brand new Christian, an unbeliever that just gets saved, or it's a believer who repents anyone that lost their way, he is rejoicing, carrying you back to the main highway. He's rejoicing and he's telling all of his friends. He repented. She repented the repent, the rejoicing begins immediately is the idea. Paragraph B. It's the story of the prodigal son. It's the same chapter, Luke chapter 15. Luke 15 is the main chapter in terms of a whole chapter on this subject. It is fantastic. Luke chapter 15, the prodigal son in paragraph B, the prodigal son repents on the day he repents. The favor is restored that day. Now the older brother said, father, you know, at least, you know, I mean, he didn't say it, but let's give him some time to see if it's real. And Jesus was talking about the way the father feels about people. He goes, the day you repent, he is willing to put the best robe on you. Not a month later, not after you go through the recovery program, he is willing that day to put honor on you in his presence. It is amazing. It's the day, it's when the prodigal came to his senses. Paragraph C. God enjoys us in our immaturity. He doesn't enjoy our immaturity, but he enjoys us in it. King David said on the day of his repentance, Psalm 19, it's one of the most dynamic statements of David. I've preached on this so many times in the last 25 years that I love this verse. Maybe it gives insight into my life, but David said this, he said, God delivered me because he delighted in me. And this is the day David repented after 16 months in Ziklag, which is another story. But my point is David repented this day and he understood God's delight in him on that very day, the day he repented. It's an amazing reality. Let's go to principle number three. God's enjoyment of us is not the same as his approval of us. God actually enjoys us. That doesn't mean he approves of every area of our life. That prodigal that Jesus was rejoicing about and throwing the party for, there were issues Jesus was going to go after in his life, you know, if it was a real life story. God is delighting over you and I right now, but he's saying, oh, I love you, I enjoy you, but don't you think that means I approve every area of your life. Some people think the doctrine of God's enjoyment means the doctrine of his approval of every area. No. I remember when my, our two sons were young and they, many small things, or even when they were older, the principle did not change. I enjoyed them when they did things I did not like. I still enjoyed them as a person that did not change when they had an area that needed correcting. God's enjoyment is not the same thing as his approval of every area of our life. Paragraph B, God has seasons of tender patience with believers who don't repent. He actually is tender in his patience and he says to Jezebel and her disciples in Thyatira in Revelation 2, he goes, I gave her time to repent and the people who follow her teaching Jesus in tender repentance, they're, they're not in, nothing bad is happening, but they're not repenting and they, they take their repentance, they misunderstand it. I mean, they, they take the fact that everything is going okay, they, they misunderstand it and they mistake it as Jesus is, is, is approving of everything he's doing. He goes, no, tell them I've given them time to repent. The Lord gives his people time to repent. He's even a season where he's disapproving of an area and he's watching. They think, well, I'm getting away with this. My ministry is still blessed. May not be a big deal. No, you've misunderstood one of the critical principles of God's love. The fact that he is being patient with us does not mean he's happy with that area. Look at Ecclesiastes 8, verse 11. Because the sentence of, of an evil work is not executed speedily, the heart of the sons of men is fully set to do more evil. When the sentence of God's judgment is withheld, it's not released immediately, people go, well, I think it's okay then. No, don't go there. He's giving us time to repent because he cares about us. Principle number four. When God disciplines us, so he, now he's disciplining us. It, you know, the, the saints at Thyatira that he's dealing with, he's disciplining them, well, severely disciplining them sometimes. He is not rejecting us because he's disciplining us. He enjoys us, but he's displeased in an area and his tender patience, we didn't take it to count. So now he's disciplining us, but he still enjoys us. And he's not rejecting us, but he's disciplining us even severely. It's because he loves us too much to let us get away with that, which will destroy our hearts. Because it will become, it will get worse and worse as the months and years go by. A, God's correction is not his rejection, rather it's proof of his love. Proverbs 3 says, whom God correct, loves, he corrects in the same way that a father corrects a son he delights in. God corrects us in the same way as a father corrects his son he delights in. He corrects us because he likes us actually, not because he's done with us. God hates the sin, but he delights in the person he's disciplining. Look what it says in Revelation 3 verse 19, paragraph B, Jesus rebukes. He loves these believers in, in, uh, uh, the, the, uh, Laodiceans. He loves the Laodiceans, but he's rebuking them, but he loves them. So we think of rebuke means rejection. No. Well, in my house, rebuke meant rejection. Well, it's true. Many homes, rebuke means rejection, but not in the kingdom of God. He rebukes, and he went on to say, I rebuke you, Revelation 3, 19, because I love you, I am rebuking you. Some people have no grid for rebuking love in the same sentence because of their family experiences. To be paragraph C to be disciplined means God cares about us and he's not given up on us. It's a terrible thing to get away with sin for, I mean, long-term. Do you know what it means? If you get away with sin long-term, it means God's given you over to that sin. That's a horrible thing. If you could go on for years and years and God's discipline has not come through, you need to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, Lord, I'm signing up for discipline. Romans 1, 24, and several other many places, actually, there's several places. When God sees a person won't repent, he gives them over to the area and he says, I'm not even going to discipline you now. I will let the evil in your heart grow unchecked and it will destroy your life. When God does not discipline, you're given over. That's not good. It's a terrible thing. Principle five, God is grieved. If the people stay persistent, I'm talking about believers, they stay persistent. He told the Laodiceans, he said, I would vomit you out of my mouth. That doesn't mean you're repulsive to vomit out her mouth means it makes my stomach sick. It makes my heart sick. Does it mean that God's repulsed at us? It means he's pained at the heart level. He's sick at heart. Does it mean he's given us up? Some people would preach this and say, when he says to them, I'll vomit you out of my mouth, he's casting them aside. No, he goes, my heart is painting. I am sick at heart. That's what's going on. I am hurting in my stomach about you. It's not a statement of, of God casting them aside. It's a statement of his identification, his pain over them because he cares so much about them. Paragraph B, God feels the pain of those he disciplines. Look what it says in Isaiah 63 and all of their affliction, God was afflicted and he's the one that was, he was the one disciplining them. Isaiah 63, nine and all of their affliction, God himself was afflicted in his heart over them. And he was the one afflicting them. He goes, this hurts me. This, I feel this in my gut is what he told the Laodiceans. I hurt in my stomach over you, but I love you. And he still offered them his throne. He goes, if you will repent, I will let you sit on my throne when you come into the he loves the Laodiceans. Look what he says in Jeremiah 12, I have given the dearly beloved of my soul over to our enemies to discipline them. Talking about Israel in the old Testament. He said, you're dearly beloved to me. I'm not, I'm not giving you up. I'm allowing you to be disciplined because you're so dear to me. You were hurt. It hurts my stomach to do this, but I love you so dearly. You're so near. You're so dear to me. See, again, we have a grid that says, if God is allowing us to be disciplined, he must be repulsed. No, it's opposite. You're in big trouble when he will not discipline. Principle six, spiritual disciplines do not earn us God's favor. So people get real confident in God and then, and their confidence of God, they want to get diligent. And the first lie that comes, if you're diligent, you're trying to earn God's favor. And it is true. Some people try to earn God's favor through diligence, but the people who understand these principles, they want to be near him. Their diligence is earning them nothing. We don't have time to go into that. I get a little bit on that and I talk about it all the time anyway. So I just want the principle laid out there and the principle seven, just to finish with, and I want you to read these notes, this one, this is important one, but we're out of time for this particular class. Our spiritual maturity allows us to receive more from God, but not to be loved more from God, by God. When we are spiritually mature, we actually receive more, but that's not the same thing as being loved more. It's not at all the same thing. Let's look at, let's look at a point or two here. God loves all of us. He loves his whole church, yet he entrusts a greater measure of power to the mature. Now listen real carefully, because some of you are going to go right to a wrong idea right now. There's a real wrong idea just hanging in the shadows here. That's very common in the body of Christ. He loves us, but he entrusts greater power to the mature. But here's the key. The next sentence. God has determined the measure of power he's planned to each person to walk in. The measure is different. God has determined some people, they will only have one talent in this age. And so he didn't say if you're more mature, you'll have 10 talents. He's saying if you're more mature, you will enter into the fullness of that which has been ordained. See there are 10 talent men out there that are only walking in a half obedience, and they're only operating in half of what God has for them, but they have more power than everybody. I'm not saying they're obedient and mature before God. I'm saying if you're full, if you're mature, you'll enter into all that which was ordained for you. A half obedient man with 10 talents will make an impact around the world, but he's still only operating on half of what he was ordained to operate in, and God will settle accounts on the last day. Another person is a hundred percent obedient, but God only gave him one talent. So you don't look at the two lives and say more power means more obedience. That's not what I said, but that's not what a lot of people think. I've heard people say, well that guy's so blessed, he must really be obedient. I go, maybe. You don't know. It's none of our business anyway. But obedience causes you to enter into that which was ordained by God, but you don't know how much that man was ordained to walk in. You don't have any idea. So don't look at somebody who has no public ministry in terms they have no big following and think, well they must not be obedient. No, no. They could be radically obedient, but they'll walk in the fullness of what was ordained for them. At the judgment seat, everything gets switched around. I call the judgment seat of Christ the great equalizer. That's when everything comes into focus. Amen. Let's stand. Father, we come before you even now. Take a moment. Just wait before you.