Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of beholding God's beauty and understanding His emotions as a means to deepen our relationship with Him. He highlights that the revelation of God's emotions is essential for a vibrant prayer life and for resisting sin, as it captivates our hearts and transforms us. Drawing from the examples of King David and Moses, Bickle encourages believers to seek a deeper understanding of God's character, which in turn awakens love and passion for Him within us. He asserts that the New Covenant offers a greater glory through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to experience true liberty and transformation. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a shift in focus from merely seeking God's power to seeking a heartfelt connection with His emotions.

Let's pray. Father, we ask you for a spirit of living understanding, God, that our hearts would be awakened, that our minds would be illumined by your word, by the spirit of revelation. And so, Holy Spirit, we invite your presence. We ask you to come and stir hearts and stir minds in this two and a half days as we sit before you as a people together in this conference. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to talk about beholding the glory of the Lord or the beauty of the Lord, and specifically the revelation of God's emotions, which is such a essential. It's an essential emphasis of the Holy Spirit in the generation the Lord returns is to reveal the emotions of God, to reveal the beauty of God. And that's a familiar theme to many of you. And to some of you, it's a brand new thing. The idea of God's emotions, not just the power of his hand extended in miracles, but actually his inner life, how he feels. King David emphasized this 3,000 years ago. Psalm 27 verse 4, which is the verse the Lord gave us back in 1983 when he said, do 24-hour prayer in the spirit of the tabernacle of David, when he spoke that audibly some many years ago in the 20-some years ago, he spoke Psalm 27 4 at the same time. He said, this is what Psalm 27 4 is. And we didn't really understand it much, but here's what King David said. He goes, this one thing I have desired that I will seek, that I would dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. And here's what David once committed himself to do, to behold or to gaze on the beauty of God. And secondly, to inquire in God's temple. So David wanted to behold, he wanted to gaze and inquire. Those were the two things that he set his heart on doing. The subject of the beauty of God, I call David the theologian of the beauty of God. David unpacked this in the Old Testament, this doctrine, this reality, second to none in the Old Testament. And Isaiah would have come alongside him maybe 300 or so years later and emphasize the same thing. The book of Isaiah is a book about the glory of the Lord or the beauty of God. That term is in many places in Isaiah, not all of them, many places it's interchangeable. Glory and beauty is an interchangeable word often in the book of Isaiah. Why do we need to understand the beauty of God? Paragraph A. Well, many reasons, but just going to highlight one. The Spirit is orchestrating, the Holy Spirit's orchestrating a worldwide prophetic worship movement that is essential in releasing God's power in the nations. The power of God's not just going to break out in the great harvest happen before the second coming. God's power is going to break out in relationship to a global prayer and worship movement. It's happening right now. It's all over the world. But here's the key point here. This movement is fueled by the revelation of the beauty of God. David's prayer ministry was fueled by the revelation of the beauty of God. David had 4,000 musicians that were full-time. He had 4,000 full-time musicians. 1 Chronicles 23. Can you imagine the government funding 4,000 musicians who worshiped God as their number one occupation in life? He had 288 prophetic singers who were trained and undoubtedly hundreds of prophetic singers coming up through the ranks being trained. 288 trained prophetic singers. He had choirs and they ministered before the Ark of the Covenant. They ministered before the presence of God. And David tells us something very important is that this ministry unto God, it's not only fueled by the beauty of God, but a significant thing, reality that fuels the prayer movement in this day is the unveiling of God's beauty, touching our heart, fascinating the heart of the people of God, exhilarating us with God Himself. At the end of paragraph A, Isaiah prophesied that the revelation of the beauty of God would be prominent in the generation the Lord returns. Isaiah chapter 4 verse 2, one of my favorite end-time prophecies, he said in that day the branch of the Lord which is an Old Testament designation of the Messiah. It's used six different times in the Old Testament. Jesus is called the branch of the Lord. It says that in that day the Messiah will be seen as beautiful by the people of God is the idea. He will be understood as beautiful. He always has been beautiful. He doesn't become beautiful, but he's seen as beautiful. And that's what Isaiah prophesied. Paragraph B, David both gazed on God and he inquired of God, which speaks of the prophetic anointing. And we gaze on God and we seek God. We inquire on God. We inquire of God best. We do this best when we have a paradigm of God who is a beautiful God. We gaze on Him best and seek Him and we inquire of Him best in this paradigm. And David understood that. Paragraph C, the revelation of God's beauty is essential in our quest to live holy. We resist sin far better when our hearts are fascinated by God. There's no greater pleasure than when God reveals God to the human spirit. And when God the Holy Spirit reveals God this Father and the Son to our hearts, our hearts become fascinated and exhilarated with God. And there is no greater pleasure in the human experience than when God reveals God to the human spirit. And this is what God the Father has planned. It's one of his main weapons against the increasing escalating sin that Satan has scheduled for this hour of history. He's going to raise up a billion people fascinated with God all over the earth. Paragraph D, understanding God's beauty or His glory. Again, you can use the terms interchangeably in most places, not 100% of the time, but most times. We understand God's beauty. This involves looking at His emotions. The beauty of God, His glory, involves His emotions. It involves looking or understanding. In other words, you could use understanding His power. When we understand God's power, we understand a little bit of His glory. It comes when we understand His wisdom, when we understand redemption, His creation. When we look at Genesis 1 or just look at the created order, we see God's beauty. We see His glory. We see it in His leadership through history. We see it in His leadership as prophesied in the end-time scriptures. God's glory or beauty is revealed in many of these different ways. But we want to become students, paragraph E, we want to become students of God's emotions like David. David was called the man after God's own heart. He was a student of the emotions of God. I like to say David was captured by the what of God, not just the why of God. I mean captured by the what of God, but even more by the why of God. David loved what God did. He loved creation. He looked at creation and he saw what God did. He pondered redemption even through the lens of the old covenant. And he loved the fact that God was about redeeming His people. He loved what God would do in power in redemption. He loved what God did in revealing His power and His leadership. But David had something on his heart that was even more powerful than what God did. It's why God did it. Do you know why God created in Genesis 1? Because He was burning with desire for human beings. I mean it's awesome what He did in Genesis 1, but why He did it is even more powerful on the human spirit. What God does in redemption is dynamic. I mean Jesus becoming human and being crushed by the wrath of God and we're exalted into the in the glory of God. I can't imagine anything more powerful than what God does in redemption except for one thing, why He did it. Because He burns with desire in longing for His people. The most effective way, paragraph E, to become students of God's emotions is to fill our mind with information about His emotions. This has been a track I've been on for some many years. I'm a student, I'm a specific intentional focused student of God's emotions because I believe David was. I want to be a man after God's own heart. We do this by meditating on the Word of God. Paragraph, I mean Roman numeral two, the highest manifestation of God's glory is the revelation of His emotions. Not the only manifestation, but the highest. The highest manifestation of His glory is when He reveals His emotions to His people and we understand them. We understand the why behind the what. A little bit of it. I don't mean we understand it fully, but a little bit of what moved His heart that made Him determined to do the things that He has done through history and what He's going to do in the future. One of the great experiences of Moses in Exodus chapter 33, verse 18 and 19, Moses said urgently, please, I love the urgency, show me your beauty, show me your glory, God. Moses is there in this very dynamic experience. You can read in Exodus 33 on your own and this thing has captured his spirit. Please, I mean this isn't a domesticated prayer request. He's alive with this. He's pleading with urgency. God, one thing, I want to see your glory. I want to see your beauty. So the Lord answers and He says, okay Moses, verse 19, here's what I'm going to do. Two things. I'm going to make my goodness pass in front of you. You're going to see my goodness. Secondly, I'm going to preach God to you. God says, I'm going to proclaim my name to you. It's God preaching God. I mean, you can't imagine anything more powerful than God preaching God to the human heart. He says, I'm going to tell you my name. Paragraph A, Moses prayed to see God's glory and God answered him and he said this, I'm going to proclaim my name to you. And God, when God proclaims His name, He's proclaiming His character or His personality. Most of you understand that, that the name of God represents His personality, His character. In other words, God promised to preach to Moses about His own personality. And this is the way in which God reveals His glory to Moses is by revealing His heart, His personality to Moses. Imagine the privilege that Moses received as he heard God preaching on God. And beloved, God's going to preach on God, if you allow me to use that kind of a funny little phrase. He's going to do this forever. He is going to exhilarate us with Himself a billion years from now in the sea of glass like crystal before the throne, when all the saints gather in those holy convocations before the throne on the sea of glass like crystal that's mingled with flaming fire, Revelation 15 says. God will preach on God and tell us more about Himself and He will exhilarate and fascinate the saints forever and forever and forever and forever. Paragraph B, we see Moses' great urgency as he prays, please, please do this. Beloved, we need to ask God, the Spirit, to give us the same urgency Moses had. Beloved, the church today in the West is very urgent about increasing their ministries. They almost do anything. Some will seemingly sell their soul if their church can just grow and be big. They'll do almost any form of compromise or almost anything just to get their ministry established and see it grow. There's a great urgency in the land to increase our ministry sphere. And I'm asking the Lord, and I know it's in His heart, to give us the urgency Moses had to see God's glory, to see it, the urgency David had to behold His beauty. Moses said, please, and David said, this one thing above all things. Can you imagine that? This one thing above all things, I seek your beauty. David's hands were occupied in running a kingdom. I mean, he was the king. He was running an entire kingdom. He was the head of the army. I mean, David's hands were occupied, but his heart was preoccupied with the beauty of God while his hands were occupied in the assignment God had given him. Paragraph B, continue, God has the best personality in the universe. We want to see it. He's kind. He's good. He's pure. He's really smart. He's mysterious. He's extremely passionate, yet he's gentle. He's bold. God's really bold. He's humorous. There's many dimensions of his personality. Beloved, we want the urgency of Moses to see the glory of the Lord and the emergence in the urgency of David to make it the preoccupation of our heart while we're on the earth. And it certainly will be when we're before him in eternity. Paragraph C, top of page two, God revealed His glory to Moses by proclaiming His power and His wisdom for sure. He showed him His goodness. He said, I'm gonna let you see my goodness. And he saw the goodness of God's power. He saw the goodness of God's wisdom. And he saw the goodness of God's emotions, all three dimensions of God's goodness. And then the very pinnacle of God's glory, paragraph C in the top of page two, the very pinnacle of God's glory is when he reveals his emotions. A few verses later, same experience. The Lord stands before him and now he fulfills the promise he told Moses. He told Moses, I'll proclaim my name to you. Now a few verses later in chapter 34, 6, the Lord passed before Moses. The Lord passed in front of him. And he says, and he preached his name. He preached about himself to Moses. Now, what would God preach about himself if he was going to reveal his glory in his name? Well, we know, Exodus 34, 6, if God was going to stand in front of his people and preach the highest things of his glory and of his goodness, I assure you what he would preach. He would tell you what his heart is like. And so when God preached on God, he said, the Lord, the Lord God, merciful, gracious. I'm long-suffering. I'm abounding in goodness. And there's more to it. But I just want to lock into those four things for a moment. Paragraph D, and this isn't by any means an attempt to give a Bible study on each one of these. These are, these are subjects that would preoccupy us all the days of our life in study and in meditation and in worship to understand and experience these four dimensions of God's glory. But the point I'm wanting to make is that when God reveals God's goodness and when God reveals God's glory, he goes right to his emotions to reveal his goodness and his glory to us. Paragraph D, first thing the Lord said is he's merciful. Beloved, he is tender in how he relates to us in our weakness and in our sin. He is tender. He relates to us in tenderness when he confronts our weakness and our sin. And I'm talking about to the life of a repentant, a genuinely repentant believer. We come before the Lord and we blew it. We really blew it. We don't, we don't try to cover it up. We don't try to rationalize it. We don't justify it. We confess it with genuineness and wholeheartedness. And God is tender to the people who confess their sin before him. This is the first aspect of the four things he focused, that he mentioned here about his emotions. It's the first aspect of his personality revealed because it's the one we need first and it's the one we need most. But it's not the only one we need. It's the one we need first. People often resist or they repel God's mercy in a false way with a religious spirit because they can't receive the assurance of forgiveness. I mean they can in the one sense, but then they live in condemnation when they blow it in the, you know, in day-to-day ways because they feel like God just forgiving them freely violates their sense of justice. Beloved, let me assure you, justice was fully answered when the wrath of God crushed Jesus. And because of that, we can fully receive it because it's been paid in full. It's been paid in full. We need to throw away our religious reasoning like, oh no God, I'm too bad for you, as though our sin is greater than what he did in Christ Jesus on the cross. It's not. Well, that's a favorite theme of mine. I'm going to move on. Paragraph E. The Lord is gracious. He does not give us at all what we deserve. Not at all. He gives us, he rewards us, or I like to say it this way, he pays us so much better than anything that we deserved or imagined. God rewards us. He is gracious. When he looks at our life and answers back and gives us according to how we've lived, he pays us so much better. He treats us much better than we deserve in this age and in the age to come. But in the age to come, we see it in its fullness. He is gracious. God remembers every act of obedience. It's what Hebrews 6 tells us. Every act of obedience he remembers. Beloved, this dignifies, this sanctifies every moment of our life. Every movement of our heart where we humble ourself in secret that man never sees, where we give a cup of cold water, where we do the most out of sight act of servanthood that is never recognized by man. God recognizes every one of them. Beloved, this dignifies and sanctifies every moment of our life. Every moment is something that potentially we do something, even the movements of our heart, that God will remember and reward and esteem forever in his graciousness. Our lives are so powerful. My life isn't about what I do on a platform. That's about, you know, a thousandth of one percent of my life. What I do on a platform, what I do in my heart with God is the essence of my life. And that's what he's measuring. And he says, I'll be gracious to you. If you will call, if you will give yourself to me in reality, I will be gracious to you. Oh, I love that about you, God. I love that about you. As much as I love your mercy, you will, you will, you pay so well. I've done so little, but you pay so well. Of course, that's the basis of gratitude, which is the key to breaking the power of bitterness, is that we really understand that we are being treated far better than we deserve. When that revelation touches us of God's graciousness, bitterness begins to fade away. People are bitter because they think they're getting a worse deal than what they deserve. That's why they're bitter. But when we see the revelation of God's graciousness, it's wow. Paragraph F, he's long suffering. He's long. You know, long suffering means it means suffering long. It's really what it means. He suffers long. Both of those words are important. He suffers long. He bears with us and he does not write us off. He does not write us off. He suffers long with our sinful responses. He feels them. What we do in our heart affects God's heart. God's not at a safe theological distance from his people. His heart is quenched and grieved. His heart is made glad and joyful in this dynamic relationship of response with his covenant people. He does feel related to what we do. It's a very, very powerful reality. He doesn't lose enthusiasm for us when we fail, when we repent. All of this, of course, is based on the genuineness of our repentance. Every one of these emotions I'm talking about. But it's, I'm wanting to look at the emotion of God being long suffering because God's suffering long is a revelation of his glory and his beauty. He doesn't retaliate in the way we do. He doesn't treat us in the way we treat people when they disappoint us. He treats us so differently than we treat people. And when I understand this a little bit, a little bit of this makes me treat the people who disappoint me differently. The more I feel it from God, he treats me kindly. When I disappoint and grieve and even pain his heart, he treats me in kindness. That is the power, again, of our freedom from bitterness towards people. A man that's cruel with the people who mistreated him and they hold the line and they won't let go and they're not going to forgive the fault that was done against them. That's a man that has not grasped that God suffers long with him. You know, you could try to reason a guy out of it, but I tell you that the guaranteed way to get the guy out of that mindset is reveal the long suffering of God towards him. It tenderizes our spirit. Paragraph G, he abounds in goodness. He has overflowing plans. I have Revelation 21, 22, the eternal city, on and on, what God has planned for us. My goal isn't to even give a briefest Bible study on each one of those. It was only to point out these four emotions of God and to link them in your understanding to God revealing God. To link them in your understanding that when God promises to reveal his glory, he reveals his emotions when he promises to reveal his glory. We often think his glory is when he does the great miracle. It is. But beloved, greater than the miracle, though we want to see the miracles, is what he feels when he's doing the miracle. Paragraph H, Jesus referenced this experience of Exodus 33. It's, I mean, it's the great experience of Moses. I mean, it doesn't get any better than God preaching God, you know, right in front of you. Moses referenced this experience when he promised to the disciples, well, no, actually he was praying. It was a prayer, but the prayer becomes a promise. In John 17, 26, Jesus is praying. It's the high priestly prayer, you know, John 17, the famous prayer before he would go to the garden of Gethsemane. He's crying out to God, God, I declared your name to them. This is straight from the Exodus 33 account. I have told them your name. I have proclaimed your name. I told them what you were like. He sums up his three and a half year ministry by that sentence. We did more than tell them what God's name was like. You know, he raised the dead, healed the sick, and did many things. But he says, yeah, but in the essence of all that I was doing, I was telling them what my father's personality was like. I was showing what my father felt like when I did my deeds and my works and when I unveiled his heart to them through my teachings. But it goes beyond that. It's not just that Jesus declared what the father was like. He promises by this prayer, it becomes a promise. He goes, father, I will continue to declare it. Now what's he mean? After the cross, the resurrection, the ascension to the right hand, what is Jesus doing at the right hand of the father? What is Jesus doing through the ministry of the spirit on people, on the believers, on the people of God on the earth? What is this, what is Jesus doing? He is revealing God through his people to the peoples of the earth. Beloved, if Jesus would summarize church history in one phrase, it's this. I, through the anointing, will declare what my father's heart is like through my people and through my word. My question is, is this what we're doing? Is this what we're about? And it's not the only thing we do. We do many things. We just, we do many practical acts of service and kindness and humility. And in many ways, God's revealed in those ways as well, of course. But I mean with our words now, I'm not talking about just with our deeds and our deeds preach louder than our words, I understand. But as preachers, as teachers, as those that disciple people, many of you, your ministry may not be on a platform, but you have a teaching ministry, one-on-one, one-on-three, one-on-four. You might be in a Sunday school classroom, might be in a home group. I want to ask you this question. Are you locked into this prayer of Jesus? He says, for 2000 years, I'm going to declare the father. That's what he's about. He didn't just mean in the cross and resurrection. He meant from his ascension position at the right hand of the father, the exalted to the father's right hand, through the spirit, he is going to preach the father. And I, this verse touched me some years ago. And I said to the Lord, count me in. I am going to devote my life to being a vehicle in whom you preach what the father's like through. Here's what Jesus went on to say. He goes, father, verse 26, John 17, 26, I've declared your name to them. He's praying to the father in context. He says that I'm going to continue to do it. I just mentioned that. Why? Look, so that the love with which you love me would be awakened in them. When God reveals God to the human spirit, it awakens our heart to the love of God. God wants to pour, look at this. This verse is like, it's beyond exaggeration. Jesus said that the love with which you love me, beloved, what is the love with which God loves the son? Jesus said the love wherein you love me with will be awakened in them when the knowledge of God touches their spirit. I wrote a book called Passion for Jesus some years ago. And people ask me a lot, you know, they say, hey, how do you get passion for Jesus? Didn't, aren't you the guy who wrote that book on it? I go, yeah, I can tell you for sure how to get passion for Jesus. Study Jesus's passion for you. When you understand God's emotions, it awakens passion in us back for him. It's very, very powerful passage here that Jesus summarized his strategy of church history. He goes, I am going to speak about your heart to them. And when I do it and when it connects with them, here's the key. When it connects with them, it will awaken them in extravagant love back to you, God. And back to me, they will love me like you love me. God, the father wants the end time church to love Jesus like the father loves Jesus. And I tell you what the answer is. It's the revelation of the knowledge of God to the people's spirits. Obviously it's in context to all the other issues of the kingdom, but that's the primary issue. Paragraph I, Paul prayed the same thing. Paul prays this very same prayer of Moses. He taps into it. Let's go to Roman numeral three, top of page three. We want to be people who are preoccupied with revealing God's heart to people, but we got to experience it a little bit ourselves. Obviously we want to awaken love in people by the Holy spirit. And we do that best in the way that Jesus prescribed, but it's not just a ministry focus. I want my love to be awakened. This, this is, this, uh, conference is called passion for Jesus. We want to be awakened in passion for Jesus. I can tell you how to do this. Feed your spirit on the knowledge of God. It will awaken in you the love for Jesus that the father has for Jesus. How would you like to tap into more of the love the father has for Jesus? How, how'd you like to have more of that, uh, flowing through your being? Of course, that's what we're all about. That's why we're here. I'm not here to convince you about that. You wouldn't be here if that's not what was on your mind. Roman numeral three, beholding the glory of the Lord. Again, his, his glory is his emotions, his power and his wisdom. It's not just his emotions, but it, but we typically think of glory is mostly his power. And every now and then somebody will come along and emphasize his wisdom as part of his glory. But I want to say to become students of God's emotions is the pinnacle of God's glory. When he was revealing himself to Moses, second Corinthians chapter three, this passage also is directly related to Exodus 33, the passage we started with, with Moses saying, Lord, show me your glory. Paul is actually going to go back to that passage and develop principles from it. He's going to compare the old and the new covenant together based. I mean, with that as a reference point, Exodus 33, Paul says this, let's read it. Second Corinthians three. He says the letter of the law kills, but the spirit is giving us life. If the ministry of death was glorious, Paul's calling the old town, the old covenant, the ministry of death. How will the ministry of the new covenant not even be more glorious? Verse nine, the ministry of the new covenant exceeds much more in glory. Verse 11, it's much more glorious. You can read it more slowly later. It's much more glorious. Paul says it over and over. The new covenant is much more glorious than the old covenant. Now he's going to get to the essence of why it's more glorious. Verse 17 and 18. Verse 17 and 18, give us the answer to why the old, the new covenant is exceedingly more glorious. Verse 17 is, here it is, because where the spirit of the Lord is, it's talking about living inside of the human heart. Yeah, I, this verse is mostly used, which I like. It's, it's good and it's, it's, it's a biblical use of it, but it's not the primary use. We, we use this verse mostly to talk about, you know, doing, uh, having more freedom in worship in a corporate gathering. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. And because the spirit of the Lord's moving on the corporate gathering, that's a biblical application of this verse, but where the spirit of the Lord is, is inside of the believer, which is the essential difference of the old and new covenant. Because in the new covenant, the spirit of God is inside of us moving and acting. If we yield ourselves to him, Paul's now going to develop this essential difference of why the new Testament is more glorious in verse 18, verse 17 says it in one sentence, verse 18. And he has about seven or eight really key phrases. And we'll look at, uh, most of them just for a, just a moment, each one of them for a moment. There's seven or eight really key phrases because verse 18, he's going to give the details of how to experience the new covenant, which is summarized in verse 17. The, the greater dimension of the new covenant, because the spirit of liberty is touching our heart. Paragraph a and second Corinthians three, Paul compares the old covenant with the new. I know I've said all this, but just repetition help you get it. If these ideas are new to you, he refers to the old covenant as the ministry of death. Why, why does he call it the old covenant ministry of death? Because it's emphasis it's emphasis of the righteous standards of the law without the spirit's power to enable the heart to obey. It kills the heart because the old covenant emphasize the righteousness of the law, but there was no power living inside of the believer. So it would only frustrate us and condemn us when we tried to obey it because it did not give us power to do it. Therefore it's the old Testament is said to kill the heart. Verse six, it kills us. It leaves us condemned and frustrated, really frustrated. Like this is not working. Of course, God could whisper. It wasn't supposed to work until Jesus came and he gives us the spirit in the heart, which brings liberty to the spirit, to the heart. It brings liberty to the heart. Let's look at the last sentence of paragraph eight. The old Testament had glory, but the new Testament, I mean the new covenant has much more because it allows us to encounter the heart and to experience liberty from the spirit of dullness and the spirit of bondage on the inside. Now the part that burdens me for my own life and for your life and for the people of God in general is that the new covenant's been established, but we press into it so half-heartedly. The spirit, the essence of the new covenant is liberty. The heart would be liberated from the spirit of dullness and the spirit of bondage to sin. But beloved, it's not, it's not enough. It's not enough to have this as a legal right. We have to engage the spirit. We have to encounter God. We have to give ourself to the spirit instead of living in a way that more often than not quenches the spirit. We need to live in a way where we're inviting the encounter and participation of the spirit in our inner man and our hearts will become, will be, will be increasingly liberated. Now I'm thinking of, just let me just make up this scenario. It's a panel discussion. It's a panel discussion. Now Paul the Apostle's on one side and the Old Testament guys are on the other side. And Paul stands up, you know, and he says, the new covenant is far more glorious than the old covenant. You know, David and Elijah and Moses, these guys are there, they go, oh really? And somebody goes, why? Why is it more glorious? And somebody says, well because in the New Testament we have the power of God. I picture Moses lifting his hands. He goes, I'll take care of this one. He goes, I parted the Red Sea under the old covenant, the unglorious covenant. And so the guy on the other side says, well, you know, uh, hmm, we haven't parted the Red Sea in the New Testament. Another guy says, I know why the, the new covenant's better because we move in the spirit of prophecy. Elijah raises his hands. He goes, I'll answer that one. Another guy goes, no, no, that's not the essence. The reason the new covenant's better because we have forgiveness. David goes, I'll take this one. He goes, I committed adultery and murdered a man. The Lord forgave me entirely and restored to me a willing spirit and a free spirit. Another guy says, oh, I know it's because in our worship gatherings we have prophetic worship and music and the spirit moves. David goes, hey, I'll answer that one too. We had prophetic, we had the prophetic spirit in our gathering. We had 4,000 musicians and trained prophetic singers. Could go on and on and on. Maybe some guys say, yeah, we really have anointed meetings. Solomon says, I'll take care of that one. Remember when Solomon dedicated the temple, the glory came in, nobody could stand up to minister that the whole lot of them were slain in the spirit. Beloved, the new Testament is not more glorious because of forgiveness, because of power, because of prophecy or because of anointed meetings. It's more glorious, exceedingly more a glorious because it brings liberty to the human heart in a way they did not have. But only if we engage the Holy Spirit in a biblical way. And I find when I look at the church, I look at it around the world, I said, we're not, we're not, we're not going for this thing. We're living like old covenant believers. We want a few miracles. We're going for the miracles. It's good. We're going for forgiveness. We're going for the prophetic anointing. We're going for power. Beloved, that's old covenant Christianity. That's old covenant religion. All of that's old covenant. They did all that in the old covenant. It's good. We're supposed to keep doing it. It's biblical to go after those. But the one uniqueness is verse 17. The spirit of liberty enters the human heart and gives us the power to encounter God, every one of us in a whole different way. Paragraph C, Paul now begins to unpack this thing. He says, we behold the glory of the Lord. You know, I'll, I'll, I'll read all of verse 18 because I didn't read it. Verse 18, it says, we all with an unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord. That's a very key verse. That's giving us the details of how we experience the liberty of verse 17 on the inside. So number one thing we're going to look at, Paul, the essential thing is we behold the glory of the Lord. Paragraph C. All right, I'm going to use David's term, the beauty. How do we behold it? Well, to behold it means to look, to, to behold the Lord means to look at or gaze on the Lord, to encounter Him. To behold Him is to encounter Him, to look on Him, to gaze on Him. We do this by looking at God's emotions. We do this by looking at God's power and His wisdom. I mean, the, the whole gamut of what we talked about already. We study what God does and we study why He does it. We just, we see the what of God in redemption and creation and what He does in His leadership through history. But then we go beyond that. We study why He did it, what was moving in His heart when He did these great things. Beloved, when we gaze on or we look to or behold His beauty or His glory, it transforms the human spirit. It activates the spirit of liberty on the inside of us. Now the most effective way, I'm still in paragraph C, the most effective way to do this is to fill our minds with information about God's glory, about His emotions. Now we fill our minds with information about God's power and wisdom too, but the ultimate sense of how David did it and even Moses, they filled their minds with the, with information from the Word of God on God's emotions. I mean, I just want to challenge you to, to do this. I am so grateful. I love to tell the story of Alan Hood, who you'll hear him tomorrow night, who's the president of our Bible school and the associate director of our missions base here, that Alan was 22 years old. He's 30. How old is he? Seven. Okay. He keeps getting older. Okay. I thought I was gonna say 32 or something, but he's 37 now. He's up there. He's 37. And Alan was a young college student here when he's 22 years old, he's sitting right over there in those orange chairs, same old orange chairs. And I preached a message on becoming a, a student of God's emotions. So, you know, when he was 22, he's 37. So, you know, some 15 years ago, and he said there, and I said, I go through the Bible and I encourage you to do the same thing. And I went from Genesis to Revelation, take you some time, but Hey, what better thing is there to do? And I located every verse in the Bible that I could grasp, understand on God's emotions. Beloved, there's a ton of verses on God's emotions, every verse in the Bible that, that identified God's emotions. I said, just put it a different color. Now with computers, we can just put them all, you know, on, on pages. And, uh, Alan was 22 years old. He says, I went home and I said, I'm going to do this. And he spent the next year or two finding every verse, Genesis to Revelation on the emotions of God. And I said, now take them, take that list, go before God, begin to speak these things back to God, declare them back to God, throw in fasting and prayer, throw some, I love yous through the whole prayer. I love you, God, show me your heart. And I said to just do this for, you know, for the rest of your life. And you will be really, really on track with what God's doing in the end times. You will be ready. Your spirit will be ready to receive anything that he wants to tell you. And so it was 15 years ago, Alan said, I'm going to give my life to this thing. And, you know, he tells the story. I love it. I love to hear that story. It just blesses me. But I challenge you all the same thing. Become like David, become like Isaiah students of God's emotions. We do it best paragraph C towards the bottom by meditating on his word, but it's not just studying the word we got it. We must turn the word into an active dialogue with God. We do our part. God will do his paragraph D the beholding and becoming principle because Paul, the apostle says, beholding the glory of the Lord. Here's the principle. Whatever we behold in God's heart towards us like his love, his mercy, his graciousness, his bounding goodness, whatever we behold, whatever we see about God's heart towards us, it awakens in our heart back towards God. When we see God's passion and love for us, it awakens passion and love in us back to God. Whatever we behold about him is what is awakened and we become before him. And if you understand this and if you buy into it, it changes what you do in your personal prayer life. Our prayer life continues to have things, you know, for God to extend his power. But I think many people are content with a prayer life that is mostly focused on God doing things, even breaking it with revival. I love it. It's one of my most important prayer requests, breaking with the revival. Lord, supply, direct, protect, do things for me and us. That's very biblical to ask God to do things. But when you buy into this principle, the shift of your prayer life, asking God to do things stays there, but it becomes second, asking God to unveil to you what he feels becomes the primary focus of your prayer life. If you know that what you behold about him is what is awakened in you, you become it in your heart before God, what you see in his heart towards you. When that connects with you, you begin to spend your time with God differently. You, your conversation is different. It's not only about God, do things, protect and direct and guide and break in. It's about God. Show me how you feel right now. Not just about things about me, about people. Show me what you feel like. Paragraph E. I'm just going to say the same thing again. Whatever we understand or whatever we encounter about God's heart for us is awakened in our heart back to God. This encounter results in inward transformation, inward transformation. Therefore, what we understand about God's heart is essential. When we have interns, we have five different intern programs and we have about near, you know, 300 interns at any given time because they go, you know, three months and six months around the year. We always got new interns coming in, always two or 300 of them at any given time. And the first thing that I want to teach interns is to identify how essential it is for them to understand God's emotions and then to give them, then point them in that direction, give them a few tools. They begin to go after understanding God's heart because most believers that I interact with and most ministries I interact with almost never reference it. They reference mercy here and there, but most ministries are focused on how better people skills, better ministry skills, better outreach skills, better how to how to get things bigger. And that's biblical to do that, but it needs to be second. We want to the most neglected subject in the kingdom of God is God. It's absolutely true. The work of God is number one. Probably the blessing of God is number one. The work of God's number two and God, the person is not number three. He's way down the list. God is the most neglected reality in the kingdom of God. Paragraph F when God wants us to empower us to love him, when God wants to give us the power to love him, he reveals himself as a lover. Look what John said. We love him because why he first loved us. We love God because we first understand he loved us. When God wants to awaken love in me, he reveals himself as a lover to me. When he wants to awaken love in you, when he wants you to be a stronger lover of God, he tells you how much he loves you and it awakens love in you. My question, is this a intentional focus of the development of your understanding and heart before God to understand this part about God? I tell you it will awaken love in you. You could put any number of words there. We love God because we understand he first loved us. Put the word pursue. We pursue God because we first understand he pursued us. We are dedicated to God because we first understand he was dedicated to us. We are passionate for God because we first understand he was passionate for us. The way to get people awakened to dedication, passion, zeal, is to show them God's dedication and passion to them. That's not the whole message of the kingdom, but that is the rock-solid center core of the kingdom of God, is God's heart. Paragraph G. We change our heart and we change our mind and God changes our heart. We put different things in our mind and then God puts different things in our emotions. We change our mind. We feed our mind intentionally on the subject and then God awakens our heart by his power. That's how this thing works. Page four. We'll just mention a couple of these phrases and just bring it to an end. Prayer and fasting and meditation, obedience, these things position our heart before God to receive. We don't earn anything by prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting positions our heart to receive freely. These activities do not earn us God's favor at all. They position us to receive it. Here's an analogy I like to use. I think of our heart by nature is cold and stony. It's like a pound of frozen hamburger. There it is, a frozen hamburger. You know, try to cut that hamburger. It's not going to happen. You put that hamburger in front of a bonfire. A minute later, you still can't cut the hamburger. But over time, it gets softer and softer and in due time, it gets really soft. We put our heart in front of God's bonfire by fasting and prayer and the Word and meditation. We put our cold heart in front of it and it begins to thaw out little by little over time. We don't earn anything by positioning our heart in this way. We're simply, we're simply putting ourself in the position to receive the heat of God, the tenderizing of God. Paragraph I. The essence of the glory of the New Covenant or the superiority of the New Covenant is a better way to say it. The essence of the superiority of the New Covenant is liberty, freedom from dullness and bondage. That's the essence of the New Covenant, the difference. The essence of the New Covenant is for God to write God's Word on our mind and heart. Our inheritance is a fully alive heart. Look at this. This says it. Oh, what a powerful sentence from Hebrews 10. This is the covenant. This is the promise I will make with them. Here's what God said. I will put my Word inside of their heart. I will put my Word in their emotions. I will put my Word in their minds. I will put it in them and I'll write it with my finger on their mind and heart. God has promised. This is the spirit of liberty at its best. God the Spirit, like it says in the Old Testament, He wrote with His finger on the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments. He wrote with His finger. But here it says He's going to write with His finger but on the heart. And when God writes on the heart, He awakens our emotions to feel the power of His Word, the power of His law. We feel it. We love it. We don't repel it, but we feel its power. We go, oh, I love to love God. I love righteousness. Something's changing on the inside. That's God writing His law on your emotions, your heart. That's the essence of the covenant. This is the essence of the superiority of the New Covenant. He does it on the mind too. He promises to release understanding, to illumine the mind with the spirit of revelation. K. In this very passage, Paul, I mean, right here, you know, it's earlier in this passage, 2 Corinthians 3, that's the passage we're on. He talked about God will write on the tablets of the heart. That's the essence of the New Covenant. He writes on the tablets of the heart with His finger. We feel different on the inside. My premise is that most believers live like Old Covenant believers. They're focused on miracles, forgiveness, power, which is good. But there's something more. It's our internal connection with the Holy Spirit according to the Word of God. I mean, by meditating on the Word. Because some people get really into the Spirit, but it's the Spirit without the Word, and they get way out there in weird ideas. The Spirit told me this. No, no, it's the Spirit and the Word. They go together. The chariot that the Holy Spirit rides best in is called the Word of God. It's the Word and the Spirit. It's not one verse to the other. Paragraph L. Paul said, we behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. That's interesting. We behold God's glory as in a mirror. What's that mean? The quality of a mirror in the ancient world was the fact it was dim. A mirror today is an exact reflection. You know, it's kind of like what you see is what you get in total reality. What you see in the mirror is real. But in the ancient world, 2,000 years ago, they looked at a mirror that kind of was, you know, was polished metal. They couldn't see clearly. Try to get a better light. I can't quite see. So an ancient mirror was a dim beholding. This is a very critical point, because we all by nature gaze dimly. In our efforts to meditate on God's Word, we lack clarity. We lack vitality. We lack focus. Our gaze is dim. When we gaze on God's beauty, it's a dim gaze. It lacks clarity and focus and vitality. And we go, I can't quite connect with it. And that's a dim beholding. And Paul the Apostle would say, that's the only kind of beholding God ever required was a dim one. Isn't that good? We have this idea that only when the Lord is so clear, it's so clear, that's when it works. No, beloved. This thing is working in our spirit. It's kind of like, you know, the, you know, a person goes in for x-rays. They can't feel anything, but the thing is touching them on the inside. When we're meditating and praying and fasting, we don't feel much. But I tell you, something is going on the inside of us. It's touching us on the inside. And if you stay under the x-ray long enough, your insides are going to change negatively. But you stay under God's x-ray in His presence, something is going to change. You may not feel it because it's a dim beholding. The person may say, hey, how was that x-ray treatment? Was that really tough? I didn't feel a thing. Same thing. How was your prayer time? I didn't feel a thing. That's okay many, many times. Many, many times. In time you will. It's a dim beholding. You don't feel a thing many times, but it's still affecting things on the inside. A dim beholding is a sufficient beholding. Paragraph M. Paul says, we all come with an unveiled face. We need to come with boldness and without shame. We come with an unveiled face that speaks of boldness. We need confidence in the grace of God. One of the great problems is that people worship God with a spirit of shame. They worship God with the spirit of condemnation. They worship with a veiled face. The face of their heart is veiled. They have, they worship God without confidence that God really has forgiven them. So they come, I love you, I love you, but their heart is guarded and they're sure God is angry at them. They come, the face of their heart is veiled. It's not unveiled. It's, it's, it's, it's drawing back. The eyes are looking down saying, oh God, don't be mean. I promise you this is the last time you can forgive me one more time. It's a spirit of negotiation, of religion, and it's, we're coming with a veiled face at the heart level before God. And God says, no, come with an unveiled face. Come bold. Come bold in the knowledge that I have received you in Christ Jesus. And I'm talking to people that are sincere about walking with God in reality. I'm not talking about people that are looking for a Bible verse to justify more sin and more compromise. Paragraph N. Paul said, we, we are transformed by the spirit This is the key. This is key. We're transferred by the spirit. Beloved, it requires a supernatural work to move the heart. The human heart is only moved when it encounters a supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit. And the reason I'm saying that is to say this, we have to cooperate with the spirit. If we live quenching the spirit, our hearts won't move. The only chance of the inward heart moving is if the spirit's moving. If we quench him, if we don't pay attention to him, if we disregard the promptings of the spirit in our heart, we can't be in a place where our spirit moves. Our, I mean, our heart is moved to change. We're only transformed by the, by the lively activity of the spirit in the present tense. We need him. We can't do this thing with just bigger meetings and, and, uh, you know, more miracles we need or whatever so many are aiming for church growth and ministry growth and more blessing and more money and more friends and more comfort. We have to have a vital present tense encounter at the heart level with the spirit. I don't mean we have to feel it powerful because it might be many times like the x-ray. It's moving us on the inside, even though we don't feel it. We need a continual active encounter with the spirit. If we quench him by what we do and how we talk, we don't have a chance for our heart to move. We don't have a chance. We don't have a chance that our heart would move. A lot of folks, uh, they, uh, want to live quenching the spirit. They're so used to a dull spirit. They don't even know they have it. They're so used to being dull. They don't know they're dull. They're so used. They've so acclimated to a quenched spirit. They've made peace with it. So they come up to a prayer line and they want somebody to lay hands on them and cast out of them what only a lively, continual relationship with the spirit will cast out of them. Now, I believe that we can pray and things can change in people's inner prayer line, but beloved, a prayer line is not going to solve all of our problems. We need a day-to-day exchange at the heart level with the spirit, or the heart won't move. You know, the guy says, I've been walking with the Lord 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. I'm much the same. I can tell you the problem. The spirit, who is essential for transfer, essential for transformation, you've been living grieved, the spirit with this grieved spirit, and your own spirit's been grieved. And you got so used to it, it doesn't bother you. You're actually called one of the on-fire people back home. Because at least you do some of the outward stuff different than so many others. But that's not, we're only transformed with the spirit moves on the inside. I can't afford to live with the spirit grieved in my, in my spirit grieved. Even a little bit, even if I get used to it, it doesn't work because our hearts quit moving. Our hearts do not move except the spirit moves. That's the essence of the new covenant. Paragraph 0, we're transformed to do the same image. The character traits we behold is the character traits that are awakened in us. We see his mercy, we become more merciful instead of bitter and angry. We see his graciousness, we become more grateful to God and therefore to other people. You can't just become more grateful to people by sheer willpower. You're more grateful towards people by understanding your, I mean, in your gratitude towards God by knowing how he's treated you far better than you deserved. We could go down many of the gifts of the spirit, I mean, the fruit of the spirit. When we see this dimension in God's heart, it awakens in our heart according to the same image. Almost, mostly you can look at a person. You can see their character. Again, an ungrateful, bitter person is a person who doesn't see God's gratitude, that doesn't have gratitude with God. They don't see what God did for them. We can rebuke them all day long about their lack of gratitude. Let's go the other way. Let's feed their spirit on the gracious God. Paragraph P here, it says we will grow. Paul said glory to glory. It's step by step. It's little by little. God normally gives baby steps. Every now and then he gives giant steps. You know, when you were a kid, you played Mother, May I? Yes, baby steps, giant steps. Mostly God gives us baby steps. And a lot of folks are like, well, God, if you get serious about really downloading something heavy, I'll be there ready to walk with you. God says, no, I'm not changing the way of my kingdom for anybody. The way of my kingdom is incremental. It's step by step. It's glory to glory. It's progressive. We want to be in a one position and suddenly we're in full glory the next minute. No, it's glory by glory. It's incremental. In paragraph Q, Paul says we are all to behold the glory of the Lord. He says we all with an unveiled face. This isn't just for the, you know, anointed prophets. This isn't just for the famous, you know, ministries. Beloved, this is for the newest believer. This works on the darkest heart of the newest believer. This works for everyone. It's your inheritance.