Mike Bickle emphasizes the paradox of grace in his sermon, illustrating how believers can acknowledge their dark hearts while simultaneously being lovely to God. He explains that spiritual growth involves recognizing both our sinfulness and God's unwavering love for us, which fosters humility and confidence in our relationship with Him. Bickle uses the Song of Solomon to depict the journey of the believer, highlighting that understanding our weaknesses does not negate the reality of our beauty in God's eyes. He encourages believers to embrace both aspects of their identity to cultivate a deeper relationship with God, free from shame and filled with gratitude.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, and Lord, we ask you for understanding of your heart. I ask you, Father, that you would grant understanding to everyone that hears, Lord, the teaching from Song of Solomon chapter 1 as to how you feel towards your people, even in their weakness. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, in this session, session 9, we're looking at Song of Solomon chapter 1, verse 5. We're covering the studies through the book of the Song of Solomon in 24 sessions, and we're applying it spiritually as King Jesus as He woos His bride to bring her forth in holy and mature love before Him. Now, the Song of Solomon is properly understood as extolling and magnifying the beauty of married love. That's how the song was written, as a natural love song. But by the Holy Spirit, who glorifies Jesus everywhere in the Scripture, we know that He's glorifying Jesus in the relationship of a believer before Him as the King of kings and as the bridegroom God. Roman numeral 1, as we look at the notes, and if you want the notes, you can get them on the website. They're available right now. Song of Solomon chapter 1, verse 5 and 6. The bride says, I am dark, and she's speaking of dark in her heart, but lovely to God. Oh, daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Keter and like the curtains of Solomon, do not look upon me because I am dark. In this passage, the bride's spiritual journey's just beginning. We have looked the last several sessions on the introduction and the bride's life vision of running with the Lord and being drawn to Him in chapter 1, verse 4, and the theme of the song in chapter 1, verse 2. Now we're actually looking at her spiritual journey and what she experiences with the Lord as she walks with Him, starting here in chapter 1, verse 5. And her journey begins with a spiritual crisis. Now, this spiritual crisis is common to every believer who's fervent for the Lord. And we see this spiritual crisis in the twofold confession that she's giving before the Lord, that being that she's dark in her heart. That's one part of the confession. She acknowledges her sinfulness, but then she declares boldly, but I'm lovely before you. Now this is what I call the paradox of grace. And at the beginning of every believer's journey, they run into this conflict, this tension of the paradox of grace, where we discover how dark we are at the heart. And that's a growing revelation. That's a growing discovery. When the light of the Holy Spirit begins to shine, we only see a little bit. And the more light we receive and the more light we obey, the Holy Spirit gives us more and more light. The analogy I've used over the years is like looking at a slide under a magnifying glass or under a microscope. And the slide, you can get it all cleaned up, and then they turn it up to 10 power, and then the slide looks dirty again. Get it all cleaned up, and then they can turn it to 100 power. And the more magnified power, then the more we see what we did not see before. That's the same way it is with walking in the light of the Holy Spirit. The more light we have, the more light God gives us. He keeps moving the magnifying power up tenfold, and the more mature we get in the grace of God, actually the more darkness we see in our life. So we think it'd be opposite, that the cleaner we are, the more unaware we would be of our sin, but it's exactly the opposite. Now it's essential for our spiritual growth that as we grow with a greater revelation of our pride and our sin and our darkness, we must grow in an equal revelation of our loveliness before the Lord. Now it's the combination of these two truths, the darkness of our heart and our loveliness before God that produces spiritual growth. When we see the darkness of our heart, then we feel gratitude before the Lord. And we feel, I mean, we feel humility before the Lord when we see the darkness of our heart. It causes us to walk lowly of heart and to walk poor in spirit. But then when we see how lovely we are before God, that gives us confidence and gratitude in our spirit as well. Now some groups and many groups focus on the darkness of heart and some holiness groups, and they really emphasize how dark the human heart is. And I think that's a very important emphasis. But if we don't emphasize equally or even more so how lovely we are in God's side, then our confidence is destroyed in our relationship with the Lord. And it produces shame in our life instead of confidence. And what the Holy Spirit is after is producing believers through each season of their life where they have confidence before the Lord in love. They have confidence that God loves them no matter what stage of growth they're in. But they also have confidence, secondly, that the love they have is genuine and the Lord sees it as real even though it's weak. It's not enough to only know that God loves us. We want to know that our love is real because our love is weak does not mean it's false. Because our love is flawed does not mean it's hypocritical. It's real even when it's weak and young and new. Now some groups that get really focused on particularly upon the darkness of the heart and that's all that they focus on. And they're very zealous for the Lord and I honor them for that. But the people end up becoming paralyzed by shame in their relationship with the Lord. They're just overwhelmed with great humility as to how bad they are. But there's more in our relationship with God than having humility and the knowledge of how bad we are. He wants us confident in love. He wants us grateful before him in love and bold in our spirit before him. Paragraph C, Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9. Jeremiah gave us tremendous understanding of the depth of the sin of the human heart. And when I was younger in the Lord this verse seemed a little bit out there you know. I seem like wow I'm sure it's true but it seems a little intense. I mean when I was you know 17, 18, 19 I felt I was so devoted to the Lord and going so strong and I knew I had some issues but I thought well those things will be behind me in just a minute and and man I'm just going from glory to glory and there's a truth of that. But I didn't understand I would see more about my own heart as time went on. Jeremiah said the heart is deceitful above everything else. There's nothing more deceitful than the human heart and your own heart will deceive you. It's desperately wicked and he gives the the question who can really know their full capacity for darkness? Who can really understand what they're capable of if the if the grace of God was not restraining them? Now that seems like yeah I think that's probably true but as I've watched the years unfold and and have seen things in my own heart and seen it in the lives of others I believe this verse more and more as the as the years even now the decades are unfolding one by one. It says in Ephesians 4 Paul called the lusts of the heart deceitful lusts because they deceive us. When we think they're under control they rear up and when we think that they're not about to reach out and grab us those lusts of deceit those deceitful lusts work their their terrible work in our emotions and then of course then in our lifestyle. Now Paul the apostle described himself as chief among sinners. Now here he is a mature apostle and he said Jesus came into world to save sinners of whom I am the chief of all the sinners in 1st Timothy 1 15. Now oh come on Paul you don't really mean that as a mature apostle. Surely you're exaggerating with a little bit of false humility in there. That's not really what was happening. Paul had more light than was common and any time in history I'm sure I'm sure there's very few that's entered into the the level of relationship with the Lord that Paul walked in but the more light that he had the more clearly he saw the darkness in his heart. Now it is true that our flesh is weak our flesh is sinful but having a dark heart and dark desires that is not the whole truth about you. It is true but it's not the whole truth. There is something that's equally true even more even more powerful in terms of its impact on us it's how God sees us and what God has made us to be in his sight by the grace of God. So when someone talks about their sin it is true and it's probably their problem is far bigger than they understand but it's not the whole truth about them and it's not even the most powerful truth about them and yet that's the truth that the enemy magnifies in our heart and of course that's the truth that that those that are near us are quick to point out and beloved we need to be quick to point out how God sees those that we're relating to not just not just the truth about how bad they are but also the truth about how beautiful they are in the presence of God. Now I remember in my early days I was among a group of young people 16, 17, 18 we were all going to be missionaries and and go you know go to the mission field and praying for revival or believing God for great things to say it that way we didn't really having too many prayer meetings but we were just really had a big vision to touch the nation and so just a lot of young people on fire and I remember as as I became 18, 19, 20 went you know to school and to college university I was just surprised at at things that happened in my heart I was just surprised that at lust and anger and confusion and and disappointment at God and lack of trusting him just all kinds as many categories of darkness that work in the human heart and I thought that as I was surprised by these new dimensions of sin which incidentally when you're surprised by your sin that's a that's a statement about your pride you know he that is most surprised is most proud it should not surprise us but it did I said oh Lord can you believe it you know and so the Lord was going to say you know well in your case I can't but I'm sure the Lord could have said if something like where that came from there's a lot more there don't worry there's a lot more where where that came from but anyway I had this certain emotion as I grew in greater understanding of my my darkness that God must be surprised when I'm surprised and and it had a an interesting way of thinking about it because I thought oh no with this new information that just came across the you know the the ranks of heaven you know Bickle is worse than we thought Mike Bickle he's worse like oh no with the new information that God was going to renegotiate my entire relationship with him based on the latest info and that sounds funny but it's a it's it's strange how that gets a hold of us and the truth is that God knew how dark our hearts were before we ever were born again before we ever responded to him and he wanted us with a lot greater knowledge of the darkness that we had then and even a lot greater knowledge of our capacity for sin than we have and he wanted us he's not going to change his mind in midstream God doesn't look to us to supply the motivation for his passion for us he is motivated by him by his own character and his zeal for us he doesn't need me to bring something to the to the relationship that makes him go that seals the deal now for sure I love you he loved me when I had no concern for him whatsoever now if we're going to grow consistently in the grace of God we have to have both sides of this paradox both dimensions of this of this truth we have to know that we are lovely to God it's critical we know that I don't just mean the terminology you know people here at the International House of Prayer they hang around for a few months they get the terminology down that doesn't mean it's rooted in their heart it is not enough to have the terminology that we're lovely to God even in our weakness but when that revelation touches us as we're in the the process of discovering more of the darkness of our heart it profoundly touches us again it produces great humility when we see the darkness and great confidence and great gratitude when we see our loveliness before him some are so extremely sincere in their repentance I mean they are so sincere they couldn't become more sincere but they don't they don't experience as Song of Solomon chapter 1 verse 3 says or verse 2 love that's better than wine they don't experience the exhilaration or the delight of their relationship with God because though they're very sincere they only have one half of the equation they cannot feel the pleasure of walking with God even in their immaturity their their hope is that one day in the resurrection they will feel good about their relationship with God but between now and then they will feel bad each step of the way to prove their sincerity Roman numeral two we are beautiful to God even in our weakness there's four reasons why we're beautiful to God and I'm just going to barely touch these and again you can get these notes and the verses and the explanations on the website any of you that want them number one reason why we're beautiful to God because we receive the gift of righteousness Jesus literally gave his righteousness to us did you know the righteousness that you received the day you were born again cannot be improved upon it's the righteousness of God it's not the righteousness almost like God it's the righteousness of God and God's quality of righteousness cannot ever be improved upon and you received all of it the day you were born again as a gift do you know a billion years from now in God's sight you will not be more righteous than you are right now in terms of your standing before him do you know that Jesus is not more righteous in God's sight than you are that's the stunning reality of the gift of righteousness it's his gift it's his righteousness he gave us the second reason we're lovely we're beautiful to God even our weakness because we have a willing spirit when we were born again the Holy Spirit worked in our heart and the Holy Spirit imparted to us a desire to say yes to God it's a sincere desire to obey him it's a yes in our spirit every movement of our heart towards God God delights in it now this yes that's in your spirit where did that come from it didn't come from the devil it didn't come from your flesh it is a supernatural work of God and when God sees that yes in your spirit that longing to be to obey him and trust him and to do the will of God it moves him when he sees that yes in your spirit when he sees a willing spirit the third reason that God we are lovely to God even our weakness it's the nature of God's personality it's our beauty to God is partly related to God's personality the fact that though his emotional makeup the very affections that burn in him the desire he has for us because of his personality because of his emotions that's why he has the capacity to look at us as lovely before him never has it been more true the statement beauty is in the eyes of the beholder the the beholder the one that's looking at us has got such a heart filled with passion and tenderness and love and it's through the eyes of such a God that he esteems us as beautiful in the gift of righteousness now if God was mostly angry he does have anger in his personality but if God was mostly angry no matter how much of a willing spirit we had he would not view us as lovely he would be mad at us but it's because of who he is he just sees things so totally different than we see things that's that's awesome it was the prophet Samuel that told King David's father when they when they were uh selecting the new king of Israel Dave was just a boy about 17 years old and when Samuel chose David's older brothers he had seven older brothers and Samuel chose each one of them and David was the final one and here's what the Lord said to Samuel he goes Samuel don't look at his appearance because God doesn't see the way man sees that's a radical statement man looks at the outward appearance i'm going to add a word man looks at the outward performance but God looks at the movements of the heart that's what God looks at is the movements of the heart so God and the reason he looks at the movements of the heart is because of the type of God he is that's why when we study the emotions of God it gives it gets us more established in the truth that we are lovely to God because we begin to see a happy God filled with delight there's a chance he will have delight towards us but if all he is is angry and distant and railing and ready to smash us and all he sees is darkness in us there's not a chance we're going to have confidence in our spirit before God i just know so many sincere believers in 30 years of ministry i mean as sincere as can be and they just have almost no confidence when they stand before God they're sincere but they're kind of waiting between now and the time they meet the Lord on a spiritual probation just hoping God will be nice to them because they don't understand his heart now the fourth reason we are lovely to God is that God sees us through our eternal destiny as the bride of Christ in other words the Lord doesn't just see who you are today and next week in the last month or two or year he sees who you are through the through the lens of a billion years 10 billion years a billion billion years when he looks at you he doesn't only see what's going on in a short time frame he sees the whole of who we are and what we do before him and it's an understatement to say that he has a grasp of the big picture he sees the big picture he knows who we are to him forever and it moves his heart even now roman numeral three i'm going to look at just a moment at the life of peter the gospel of matthew well it's it's in all the in the gospels peter's struggle in his early days i mean it's at the end of of jesus's three and a half year ministry it's right at the time of the cross when peter denies the lord three times but it's only the beginning of peter's ministry on the earth he goes on for many decades more and this struggle begins in luke chapter 22 when the lord tells peter he goes peter satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat like peter's lincoln wow that's a that's a strange feeling that satan is as is demanding requesting but it's a stronger word than requesting permission to sift him to test him to the core of his being and jesus says you will deny me three times peter doesn't like this at all he says but your faith will not fail now wait a second if you deny the lord three times doesn't that equal your faith failing and the lord was looking at peter through the through the lens of peter's whole life and peter's heart before him and he knew that peter would stumble that very night when he was telling him that and so he gives in the garden he gives peter a two-fold understanding of peter's heart or even the heart of the redeemed how how our heart works as a believer he looks at peter and he says peter the spirit and he's talking to him because he says you're you know you're you're going to be tempted you're going to deny me tonight your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak peter did not like this he didn't even pay attention to the part that said your spirit's willing he said whatever that means i am my flesh is not weak i am not going to deny you now i want to assure you of this one of the holy spirit's missions one of his goals in your life is to convince you of the weakness of your flesh so you don't trust in the flesh nor do you boast in it even in your attainments in god and many have done that through the years they they they uh the lord uses them to make an impact in ministry or even a certain their life seemingly gets together in a certain way and they boast in it in the flesh as though it was just purely their dedication and it was their awesome discipline and they boast in their flesh now one of the spirit's goals is that we would not trust in our flesh nor would we boast in it when we make an impact or even when our life gets disciplined and in order so he tells peter your flesh is weak now the the issue of the hour here in the song of solomon what is the bride going to do what are you going to do when you discover the weakness of your flesh that's the great crisis point of of every believer because so many believers when the crisis comes and they see the weakness of their flesh because they really love god so it's a crisis if you don't love god seeing that your flesh is weak it's not a problem so what but if you really love god and you do finding out how weak you are in your flesh it is a scandal to your heart you hate it you hate it like nothing else in life it is a full it's a full crisis in our life when we have this and if we don't understand what god is thinking when we when we have a growing understanding of the weakness of our flesh we will run from him instead of to him and of course that's just what the devil wants he wants our heart to be shut down filled with shame paralyzed with shame condemnation so we close our spirit from the lord and though we love him we won't have confidence because beloved if we feel dirty we will live dirty it's really true you get a person who's had the most horrible you know week or month or years and they're they're ready to repent they still feel dirty it is critical that we we help them through the word of god and by the to feel clean because if you live if you feel dirty you will continue to live dirty when you feel clean your spirit gets bold and strong this is not just a nice doctrine this is a issue of life and death this doctrine well peter denied the lord as you know three times and peter is is absolutely overwhelmed with grief the sense of the betrayal of his own heart to himself i mean more so his heart his sense of betrayal to the lord but he just i can just picture him going i can't believe this this is not possible my whole life is over my whole life is ruined everything i believed in i've just i've done the opposite of and then in john chapter 21 verse three it's a very interesting uh passage it's a very significant one it said it says in john 21 3 peter said to the rest of the guys there he said i'm going fishing and they said we're going with you and they went out immediately got into the boat and that night they caught nothing now the question of the hour is why is peter fishing he's not fishing for money it's only eight days after the crucifixion of jesus they had so much money that judas was stealing it and they didn't even know when he was gone it's only a week later they've got plenty of money they're not fishing for recreation because they're fishing all night long they're working this isn't a sunday afternoon you know kind of a little time out to go fish or you know something like that no it's not recreation peter is going fishing because he's resigning from his apostolic leadership to take up the family business again this is a full uh resignation in his heart before god when peter said i'm going fishing that was he was making a huge statement let's get the boats back and let's start the business up meaning i love him i love jesus but i am completely disqualified to serve him in the way that he's been talking to me about the last three and a half years i'm going to return to the family business he was actually changing occupations is what he was doing now there's nothing wrong with leaving the ministry for an occupation in the marketplace there's nothing wrong with that but it was for peter because he was called by jesus to be an apostle so the the lord has many of his chief leaders assigned to the marketplace so it's not the fact he went from quote professional ministry the marketplace that's not it it's the fact it's why he did it he said i can't bear the i can't bear this anymore i am so unfaithful to my leader in my leadership i i'm i can't do this again if i can't bear up under the pressures of a little servant girl and i deny the lord i will never ever be able to trust myself or i'll never be sure that i'll be steady in the presence of god i'll be faithful how can i be faithful for a lifetime if i cannot even be faithful to jesus you know a little six or eight year old girl says i think you know jesus no i don't no i don't it says he and he began to cuss and curse he is so wounded by his failure he is so disappointed in his heart and the in the feeling he has in his relationship with the lord he doesn't want to face the lord he he has so much grief i mean the crisis of the weakness of his flesh has overtaken him now what happens in the crisis of the weakness of our flesh when we discover it in you know in in a huge failure and and many people have a huge failure a couple times in their life i'm not prophesying that to anybody i'm not saying we have to but i'm just saying i've watched so many do it i'm not saying most do it but many many believers in the course of 10 20 30 40 years they have a couple huge failures in their life where they didn't do the holy spirit was really uh pressing their heart to do now what happens it's that when people fail they they resign from their high vision in god what do i mean by that well our the the highest vision we can have in god isn't that we're gonna fill the stadium and win the city that that that's a good vision if the lord if it's the lord the highest vision that you can have for your life is that you would love the lord your god with all of your heart and all of your strength and all of your mind that is the highest vision the human spirit can have the highest vision isn't how radical of an impact in doing the strangest thing and believing for not a billion 10 billion you know that that's not the highest vision that might be right and it might be wrong different uh ideas that people get but there's nothing that will replace the vision of our calling to love god with all of our heart to be wholehearted lovers of god we would love the lord our god with all of our mind all of our mind and all of our strength now what happens when people fail in god is they get rid of that part of their vision and it's really painful i've watched people do this over the year they lower their vision so they don't have the pain of reaching to go all wholehearted for god all out for god and when they reach they fail and come up short sometimes and when they come up short the pain is so great and the disappointment so severe they would rather not reach and fail they would rather just settle in to a lower vision in god watch that i mean so many times i i'm sad the multitudes of times i have watched people on fire for the lord for five or ten years and then the next 20 years they still love the lord they're still born again they still value the word of god they don't read it much and they still have a remembrance of being fiery in their spirit but what they kind of lose sight of it's been 10 or 20 years they were thinking maybe it was just a few years ago it's been a long time and the reason that they do this is because they settle in and they accept being a second class citizen so to speak in the kingdom there is no such thing but they they settle into this because they say this idea of reaching and i'm going to be disciplined and focused and i'm going to bridle my eyes and my tongue and all my money belongs to god and all my time and they come up short so often they just acclimate to a whole second class status in their own thinking and they go you know i'll just fund the youth group and i had zeal when i was young and i know what it's like and i'm just going to sit back and be a cheerleader for others and it's not that they don't love god they do love god they love god they love god as much as they did in those early days but it's it's the old saying you you you you've heard it said that it's i'm gonna mess it up uh it's better to how's it go it's better to love and lose no one of those ways love and lose or not love at all something like that i'm completely messed up on it yes i got it it's better to love and lose than not love at all that's it the the pain of reaching for love has in it the risk of losing and many people in their relationship with god they would rather not love with all their heart because they're afraid they might lose so they draw back and they just settle in they don't have a vision for a spirit of prayer they used to they don't have a vision to know the word they used to they don't have a vision to believe god with their finances they just keep all their finances and throw you know just a little bit here or there they give away and it's not because they don't love him they can't face the issue of failing him and what do they do they just go fishing and i'm not talking about occupation they get into a mindset where it feels safe but they acknowledge they've lowered their vision because they think god's angry at them and disappointed now what happens in paragraph g and john 21 right in the bottom of page 4 jesus meets peter right after this fishing is uh this incident right there on the and he asks him the same question three times in a row he says peter do you love me says in verse 15 john 21 do you love me more than these and when he said do you love me more than these jesus was not pointing at the eight disciples that were there he's not saying do you love me more than them he said are you kidding i denied you no i absolutely not he points at the fish and he goes do you love me more than these do you love me enough to face your failure and trust me to uphold you in your failure that's the critical question do you love me more than giving up to find a comfort zone in the spirit that is a disaster for your life or will you trust me in your failure to hold your heart and to be with you and to love you and not turn my back on you and many believers would rather just draw back than trust the lord because it's so vulnerable their heart is wide open what if the lord doesn't love them in the way he used to what if they're wrong about this and so he said to him yes lord you know i love you and then jesus said feed my lambs verse 16 he said to him a second time do you love me peter's going ah you know i don't like this question i failed you jesus eight days ago you know that i know and i know that you know i know why are you doing this to me do you love me i can picture peter gulping and you know feeling i'm a hypocrite jesus i mean you want me just to say it i failed you i'm just a hypocrite he says tell me do you love me and i can still see peter kind of mumbling yes lord yes you know i love you peter i didn't hear you say it louder uh yeah yes i love you yeah yeah of course i love you peter look me in the eyes and tell me i can't look you in the eyes and say this right now lord i know what i did to you just a week ago he says tell me peter do you love me verse 17 then he came to him the third time simon do you love me he was grieved why are you telling me this i mean asking me these three times in a row you're torturing my heart he's grieved by these questions because this is getting right to the heart of his failure and what's going on i can picture jesus saying peter do you remember eight days ago we were in the gardening assembly together and i told you that you had a willing spirit but you had weak flesh see peter going yeah yeah of course i remember he says you didn't believe you had a weak flesh did you lord i'm so sorry i'm so i had no idea peter that's not what i'm talking about right now i was right you had weak flesh you didn't believe it but i was also right about another part of you i said your spirit was willing do you remember i told you that he says well yeah now that you mentioned it i never even thought much about that because a person who doesn't know how weak their flesh is the idea of having a willing spirit they kind of take it for granted jesus said peter before you even before you even responded to me i saw your spirit i saw the yes in your spirit before we ever met i saw the yes in your spirit before you ever failed me i saw the yes i see the yes in your spirit even now even now i see the yes in your spirit peter's saying lord but i failed you he says peter all you see is your weak flesh i see your willing spirit and your weak flesh so he asked him time the third time the third time he's grieved and then he's he kind of i just see him kind of coming out of it he said to the lord at the very end here in verse 17 lord you know all things what a statement you know all things and you know that i love you in other words you don't just know i have weak flesh you know my spirit you know what the movements of my heart you know everything about me and i can see jesus saying peter you you have it now you have it now but see what had happened is that peter denied the lord three times and so the lord asked peter the question three times because for each denial he makes peter say what is true about his own heart jesus wasn't asking the question for jesus's sake how many of you know when god asks a question he's not asking you the question because god doesn't know the answer every time in the scripture that god asks a question he's not looking for information the question is going to bring the person he's talking to the information the problem wasn't that jesus didn't know peter loved him the problem is that peter did not know that peter loved him and so three times he's breaking the power of shame in peter's life he's restoring peter back to the relationship of confidence that he had before he fell and beloved it's the same thing that the lord is doing in our lives he makes us declare what the bride said in the song of solomon chapter 1 verse 5 i am dark of heart my flesh is weak and that produces humility and the more we see it the more humility that we have but that's not the whole truth because peter said lord you know everything you know all things you don't know half the truth about me you know the whole truth about me and you see a willing spirit in my heart and we stand before the lord and we say lord our flesh is weak but our spirit is willing we say we are dark in our heart but we are lovely we are lovely before you that's like saying lord we know our sin but you love me and you know that i love you beloved the lord sees the genuineness of the love of a sincere believer with all of our weakness he sees it genuine and i say this all the time but it just bears repeating i've said it already a couple times in this session we think that because our love is weak our love is false weak love immature love is not false love it's just that it's weak it's still real though peter's love eight days after his failure was was real it wasn't as mature as it was going to be but it was real and the lord it wasn't enough that peter knew that god loved him peter needed to know that god believed that peter loved jesus so jesus is restoring this confidence in peter's heart and that's part of a critical part of our confession with the lord it's critical that we don't just stay that i blew it i blew it i blew it we have to go the other end but i am lovely before god now some people not very many some people go to another extreme they're so into i'm lovely before god they never acknowledge their sin and they're never aware of the darkness that's in their heart and they get so into the doctrine i'm lovely to god that they just they plan to things that are sinful they actually plan them out and they go and do them and they plan to claim the doctrine i'm lovely to god and that's presumptuous that that that is an error there's not many that do that most of them are on the other end they sincerely love god but they don't have a revelation of their loveliness to him amen let's stand for more free downloads from mike 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