Mike Bickle explores the profound themes of identity and purpose in the Song of Solomon, emphasizing that the bride's true identity is found in being Jesus's inheritance. He highlights that our greatest purpose is to be voluntary lovers of God, reflecting both love and obedience, which radically transforms our lives. Bickle stresses the importance of understanding our identity as the rose and lily, symbolizing love and purity, and how this understanding shapes our relationship with God and others. He warns against seeking fulfillment in anything other than Jesus, the true source of refreshment for our souls. Ultimately, Bickle encourages believers to embrace their identity and purpose in Christ, fostering a deep, lovesick relationship with Him.

Well, in this session, session 12 on studies in the Song of Solomon, we're going to be looking at Song of Solomon chapter 2, verse 1 to 7. This is one of my favorite passages in the Song of Solomon, although I have about eight or nine favorite ones. I think that's okay to do that. And this is, the theme of these seven verses is the bride's spiritual identity, but more than that, or in addition to that, a revelation of her life purpose. And as we begin to establish this identity and come into this kind of clarity about our life purpose, as described in this great love song, it radically changes the way we view life and the way that we feel. Roman numeral one on the notes, and those of you that don't have the notes, you can get them on the website. Even right now, they're available. Roman numeral one, Jesus's identity and, I mean, the bride's identity and her life purpose, it's found in understanding that she's Jesus's inheritance. One of the foundational premises of the kingdom of God is that God the Father has been planning from before the ages to give His Son an inheritance. This is very important to the Father's heart. And obviously, it's very dear to Jesus's heart. The Father has thought through, with all of His wisdom, everything, and has determined the choice inheritance that would absolutely ravish the heart of His Son, the second person of the Trinity. I mean, this is a heavy idea that the Father has discovered, has come with clarity, is a better way to say it, the one thing that Jesus longs for that He wants. And this is the great prize of all the ages, and this is the very thing the Father has ordained to give His Son. Now, one aspect of the inheritance is what I call the mandatory obedience of all of creation. Every demon and every angel will bow their knees in obedience to Jesus. The demons in hell and the angels in heaven, every believer and unbeliever, they will obey Jesus's leadership and His authority forever. But Jesus wants more than the mandatory obedience of all creation. As awesome as that is, He wants something more. He wants voluntary lovers. He wants a people who choose of their own free will, not only to obey Him, but to adore Him and to love Him in the way that He loves them. God the Father has a plan to raise up equally yoked lovers of God. And beloved, this is the most dynamic reason for which we were created and redeemed. This is our greatest purpose in life, although many believers never connect with that reality in this life. It's something they connect with only in the age to come. But even in this age, God would that we would connect with this, and it significantly changes the way we think and the way that we feel about life. The affections of the human heart, they are the most prized possession to God. They are the only thing that God wants that He does not yet have. The affections of the human heart freely given to Him, it's what the devil is going to war with God for. Who controls the affection of the human heart? Jesus died in order to redeem us, in order to gain our affections, in order to put us in a position before God where we could receive His affections, and that He could gain ours. Now the reason that the devil is always attacking our heart, he wants to destroy Jesus's inheritance. Beloved, when we walk in darkness, the enemy is taking something that belongs to Jesus between the Father and Jesus. He's getting in the way of it and disturbing it. Of course, it's only temporary. But the great cosmic warfare is a war for the human affections. Matthew chapter 22, the last thing Jesus said in His public ministry to the people, besides the condemnation of the Pharisees. In Matthew chapter 22, the last positive thing He said to Israel, He gave them a prophecy. He said to Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. And He called this the first and the great commandment. But it's more than a commandment. He was actually declaring it as a prophecy. He was quoting Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6. Moses prophesied that Israel in the end times would love God with all of their heart. Now of course this prophecy extends beyond Israel to all the redeemed. God will have a people who love Jesus with all of their mind and with all of their strength. Now the reason Jesus called it the first commandment, because it is the commandment that has first priority to God. It is not yet the first priority in the church. Matter of fact, when somebody is zealously focused on the first commandment, it seems a little strange to the church. It's as though the the commandment to love God with all of our heart is the is the 15th or 20th commandment. Jesus declared it clearly. It is the first one. It is the commandment that God cares most about. It is the highest priority of God in your life and for your and God's plan for your life. This is the highest priority in his plan for your life to develop this reality in your heart. It's the highest way to live. You know, as believers we we want to be the most radical. We want to, you know, we want to go for broke. We want to do it all. You know, we want to go all the way. Beloved, there is no clearer revelation of what radical Christianity is, of what going for the highest there is than this commandment. And yet it seems weak. It seems, uh, it seems kind of strange to me in the body of Christ that that we would put this kind of priority upon it. It is an end in itself, meaning if you did nothing other than love God with all of your heart, which is impossible because if you love him with all of your heart, you'll overflow in loving people and loving the lost and a lot of other things. But it is in itself an end. It is good enough in itself. And again, it's the highest lifestyle though that we can live. It's called the great commandment because of its great impact on the heart of God. Jesus as God told us that this is the commandment that is greatest to God. It's not only the greatest and impact upon our heart, it is upon our heart as well. This will have the greatest impact on our life, on our heart, our emotions, on our ministry, on our eternity, but it also has the greatest impact on God's heart himself. Well, getting to Song of Solomon chapter 2 verse 1, she stands before the Lord with this grand confession. It's a twofold confession. She says, I am the rose of Sharon. That's part one. Then number two, she says, I am the lily of the valleys. So she is picturing herself standing before God as a beautiful rose which speaks of her love for God and as a pure white lily which speaks of her obedience to God. Now the rose is chosen in this poetic love song because of its beauty and because of its fragrance and the rose is clearly the love flower in history. People celebrate marriage with a rose or an anniversary. They celebrate love. When somebody is, you know, wanting to make an impression upon a upon a woman, even in a secret way, they give a rose to them and they make them wonder. I never gave a rose to my football coach. It just never happened. A rose is clearly the flower that communicates love and it's meant to and it speaks of the beautiful fragrance of love that God sees when we love him. She goes, I am the rose. I know what my identity is. I know what my purpose in life is, is to function before you as the rose, but not only as a rose. She also is the lily. The lily speaks of purity. She walks in purity. She doesn't only set her heart to love God. She sets her heart to walk in purity before God. Now there's no distinction between those two in God's sight, but in man's sight and in theological circles, those sometimes are really separated from one another. It's a false separation. There is no reality of loving God that does not have obedience in it. She's the lily of the valleys. The valley speaks of the low and the dark places in this fallen world. And here's what she's saying. In the midst of a dark world, not just in eternity now, I will love you by showing forth purity. Beloved, it's a miracle when God takes a person in this world, forgives us and cleanses us, and then causes us to walk pure in the midst of defilement everywhere. I mean, even in the midst of the body of Christ, there's so much compromise and defilement. It is difficult to live pure in the midst of the people of God. Those that do are often ridiculed. Obedience is often disregarded and put down even by the church. The favorite word that the church uses to dismiss purity is legalism. Anything that disturbs somebody in terms of a standard of a height of purity, it's just dismissed as legalism. That's the great word to dismiss, the crying out and the longing for purity. Well, I want to say by the grace of God, we will be a people that will live as the rose that offers fragrant love and as a lily that offers fragrant purity. We are not ashamed of purity, even though purity is not popular in the church today. You will be ridiculed for standing for purity. It's far more cool to drop the standards and to be accepted in the church. And we would think that the battle is in the world, but there's a bigger battle to stand for righteousness inside of the church of Jesus Christ. Song of Solomon chapter 2, verse 2. The king, well this is Jesus spiritually speaking, it's King Solomon in terms of the natural love song. He affirms this confession of the bride. He says, you are like a lily among the thorns. She said a lily among the valley in terms of the low spots of this fallen world. But when the king says it, he says, you're like a lily in the midst of thorns. And of course throughout the Bible, thorns in a number of places speaks of the curse of sin. Even in the midst of sin and sinful longings, it's not just temptations, it's our own longings in the midst of the thorns of this world. Jesus sees our, the setting of our heart to live in the purity of a lily in the midst of hostility, in the midst of contrary desires. Peter said that lust wars against our soul. It wars against us, but he says, you are seeking purity as one that is among a life in a world of thorns. And beloved, the Lord, he honors this. The Lord esteems this. Paragraph G. We are the rose. We are the lily whose love and obedience arises like fragrance and it intoxicates the heart of Jesus. It's the only thing he longs for and waits for. It gives the clearest definition to the meaning of our life and for the purpose of our life. I often ask people, what's your life vision? And almost always they describe a future function in the marketplace or in ministry or having a certain kind of family. Almost never have I heard somebody, when I ask them what their life vision, almost never have I heard anybody describe their life vision in terms of the development of their heart. And that is the primary vision God has for our life in this age. We want to think first as a rose and a lily. And secondly, what our function and what our assignment is, what we're going to do with our hands. We're first going to think about what God has called us to do with our hearts. Paragraph H. And again, if you want these notes, you can get them on the website. They're available now to anyone that wants them. The bride's first confession in the song of Solomon was in chapter one, verse five. She says, I'm dark in heart, but I'm lovely to God. In other words, she was beginning to have confidence before God, even in her weakness and her spiritual immaturity. She understood God saw her as beautiful through the cross of Jesus so that she could be weak in her brokenness. Now, I mean, she could have confidence in her weakness and brokenness that God was delighting in her while she was maturing. But here is her second confession. It is far, it's a far greater revelation. She's not saying I have confidence in mercy when I fail. This is a far greater thing. She goes, I know who I am. I understand my identity. I understand my life purpose. I know why I exist. I know why I'm on the earth now. That's what she's declaring when she says, I am the rose and I am the lily. Some commentators say that Jesus is the rose of Sharon. It is clearly the bride of Christ is the rose and the lily. Evidenced by the very fact in chapter two, verse two, I already look at the verse. Jesus affirms to her that she is the lily and the rose and the lily are clearly the same person or the same people. Paragraph I, Ephesians 1, 17. The most prayed, the most used prayer at IHOP. That the father of glory would give us a spiritual, a spirit of revelation. Why? Well, it's for three things, but we're only going to look at one. That it takes the spirit of revelation that we would know the wealth of the glory of being Jesus's inheritance. Beloved, when we see the wealth of this reality, this revelation, it radically reorders our inner life. The problem is that many people, their main vision in life is something they're going to do or something they're going to have. They're going to have a big house or a big ministry or be known, or they're going to have fun or do things or have things when we can never understand the mystery of our own dilemma and struggle in this world until we understand the revelation that our primary reason for existing is to be the inheritance of Jesus. To be loved and to be a lover. Paragraph J, we can't separate love and obedience. And we don't ever want to try by theological, you know, craftiness as though I've seen it many times over the years. Jesus's inheritance is a people that walk in purity. Here's what I want you to feel the weight of this. This is a very heavy statement. At least I feel it in my own heart with God. Our life choices, our life choices are a real part of the father's plan of what he has committed to give Jesus. The father cannot give Jesus your heart if you don't agree. Nobody else can give God all of their love. Only you can give God your love. The father made a significant investment in our lives individually. He is investing in us as he's cultivating in our life and in our heart this rose and this lily that he will present to Jesus, his son, as the great reward of his suffering. Beloved, your choices this week and next week and this year and next year are a significant and real part of this drama called God's inheritance for his son. It takes revelation to see that. And Paul's the one that prayed that we would need revelation to see it. He said the riches of the glory of being Jesus's inheritance. Another way to say it is the wealth of the glory. The wealth, the wealth of the glory of understanding this identity in this life purpose. Paragraph K, our identity. We go over this all the time here at IHOP, in the Bible school, but I think it needs to be said over and over and over and everybody needs to know how to say these few sentences. Everybody needs to teach them whether you're teaching one-on-one or one-on-a-hundred or one-on-a-thousand. Our identity refers to the way that we define success, the way that we measure and define value and success in our life. That's what our identity is. And it's most natural to measure success and to measure value in our life by what we do with our hands. How big our ministry is, how much money we have, how much influence, therefore we have more importance. The question of who I am and how am I really successful is one of the most significant questions you can ask yourself and we need to ask ourselves that question regularly. But the Word of God gives us a clear answer. Paragraph L, when we confess. I love to give this confession. I've said it 10,000 times, way more than that, in the last 20 plus years where I begin to use this sentence. That when things are going hard, things aren't working right, there's difficulty, I ask the question, Lord why am I even exerting so much effort to press in, to reach for the highest things in your heart, and so many things aren't working in the way I thought they should work? And everybody can identify with that experience. Why not just draw back? Why not just settle down like others? And I've committed to go hard, to exert energy, to press into God with all the different negatives of life and emotions and body and circumstances. And here's where the confession I've used for many years. I say I am loved by God and I am a lover of God. Therefore I am successful regardless whatever happens in ministry or in circumstance and finance. None of that can touch the reality that I'm successful by virtue of the fact I'm loved and by virtue of the fact I am a committed lover of Jesus Christ. And if things don't work right, the effort is worth it because that's what determines success before God. In God's eyes, that's what makes you successful. You can have everything you touch break, but if he loves you, which he does, and you're responding back, and maybe not even in a way that is satisfying your heart, but you're exerting yourself, beloved, you have ultimate success in this life. I've used that confession so many times over the years. I am loved and I am a lover. Therefore it's all worth it to press in hard and to stay steady through the years. And when you have that sense of success while you're in the journey, even though nothing is working in circumstances, it makes your spirit alive. It invigorates your spirit. We are most successful because God desires us and because we have chosen to love him. That is why we are successful. Our greatest success will always be in terms of that reality. When I stand before God, he's not going to ask me how big my conference ministry was, how many books I sold, how many people I touched on television. He's not going to ask me any of that stuff. He's going to ask me if I understood that he loved me and did I love him in return. That's the measure of my life and that's the measure of your life. And you can do that on a sickbed. You can do that in prison. You can do it with a minimum wage job. You can do it without a job and unemployment. You can do it regardless of the circumstances. You can grow in understanding you're desired by the King of Kings and you can set your heart to love him and obey him. And beloved, no matter what else happens, you are a profound success compared to the human race as before God's sight. Top of page three. Roman numeral two on the notes here. We're going on to verse three. I'm going to spend most of my time in verse one. I love that verse. I love that confession. I am the rose. I am the lily. And the Lord affirms it. Yes, you are the lily among thorns. I see the cry in your heart to say no to sin, even the desires within your own heart. You're resisting them and I see that you are the lily among thorns. I affirmed that. Well, anyway, we're going to Roman numeral two. We got to move on. We're almost, you know, we're running out of time here and I got a few more verses to cover. She says, like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons of men. She's saying that Jesus is among all other human beings, the apple tree compared to all other human beings. And then just a couple of verses later in verse five, the apple tree is clearly defined as that which refreshes there in chapter two, verse five, just a couple of verses later, the bride is, is having a revelation. This is a significant revelation. This revelation will change your life, your ministry, your marriage, your business, your friendships. This revelation will change everything in all of your relationships. It will change every relationship if you have this revelation. And if you don't have it, every one of your relationships will have a certain amount of, of, uh, damage in them because of the lack of this reality, all of your close relationships, I'd rather say. The revelation that the only one, the primary source that satisfies the human heart is the God man himself. It's not your spouse. It's not your flourishing ministry that is yet in the future that you can picture. It is not your best friend. That person cannot satisfy the deepest place of your heart because God created you in a way it's impossible to paragraph C. There's only one who refreshes the human spirit at the highest level. And when we see him as the apple tree, the primary source of refreshment, then we seek him in a whole different focus. The reason many seek the Lord with such a deluded focus and compromise because they see another as the apple tree in their life. How many times I've seen this in 30 years of pastoring, how many young couples they're seeking God and they're going hard. They get married year two or three, there's disaster because what they did, they make this unholy transfer man or woman. It goes both directions to their spouse to be the all in all to them. They know better than to do that. I've seen it happen timeless, timeless times. How's that? Time without number, something like that. Where they're, they're seeking the Lord, they get married and all of a sudden this strange unholy transfer happens and now the wife sees the husband as that which is to supply her deepest needs. Absolutely outside of the boundaries of the word of God. A man can never do that. I know he's cute and I know he's cool. He doesn't have that much power. He's not God or it goes the other way around. The man looks to the wife to supply that or it's the best friend or it's the guy in ministry or the gal expecting the ministry prosperity to somehow meet that need in their heart or it's the guy in business or the woman in business and there they are. The thing explodes and they're as empty as they were before. There is only one apple tree among all the trees of the woods. There is only one. There will forever only be one. This revelation of Jesus as more than a savior. He is more than a savior who forgives you. He does do that. Thank God. He's a savior who forgives. He's more than a healer of our bodies. He is more than a provider for finance and open doors and direction. He is the satisfier of the human spirit. He is the apple tree among all the trees of the of the woods. He is the only one among the sons of men of the human race that has the power to touch the depths of the human heart and fulfill it. So beloved, we have so many young couples getting married. Don't injure your marriage by this unholy transfer. Don't make your wife the apple tree or your husband cause Jesus. Understand that there's no possible way another person could do this for you. Paragraph Roman numeral three. The bride enjoys God's presence. This is critical. We have to enjoy God's presence and here's why. I mean we have to. If we don't enjoy God's presence, we will not stay steady with God for decades. I've seen people stay steady with God for five years by the hope of revival and more specifically the hope they will be the leader of the revival or really significant. I've seen guys hang in there for five years fiery in intercession because they picture five years from now they will be the center of things. That's not enough. It always ends up a bit different than we picture it. The only way I've ever seen anybody stay steady for 10, 20, 30 years. I haven't seen very many. What I mean by steady, I mean seeking God, fasting, prayer, reaching for him with a with a vitality and a vibrancy of their faith and of their passion. I've seen very few do that for decades and it's because they enjoyed his word and his presence. This is not a small thing and it's the picture of the bride. The secret of her endurance, the secret of her steadiness is she enjoys him and his word. It's not a small thing if the word of God is boring to you. If the word of God is boring to you, I would take that as serious as having cancer in my body. Many people, the word of God is boring to them. It doesn't even register to them as a problem. They think, well I wish it was. Beloved, that's more serious than cancer is to your physical body. You want, you want to have a vision because it's your inheritance to be a person that enjoys and feels the presence of God. Not that you'll feel him all day every day without ever a break but there is no way we can go, I don't mean steady in the one sense, kind of the even kill sense, I mean steady in terms of our passion decade after decade after decade going for the deepest things of God's heart. You will never do that if you don't enjoy his presence and enjoy his word and everybody can enjoy his word. It's the inheritance of every believer. It has nothing to do with intellectual capacities. I'm not talking about the ability to memorize scripture or to know where Bible verses are. I've had people say, well I don't know where that verse is. That's not at all what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to feel the presence of God in the word of God and if you don't, which most believers don't, that needs to be ICU unit, intensive care unit. You are sick, about to die, alarm, alarm, turn off the movies, turn off the phone, turn off the computer. With all of thy getting, get the presence of God in your life and a love of the word and if you don't, be nervous, be troubled, be disturbed by it because you will get off course in a short amount of time if you don't break through in this short amount of time, meaning some years. I mean the years go by pretty fast. I don't want to make myself the hero of my own story, but I will. It's that in my early years, 18, 19, 21, 22, I was deeply disturbed because I did not like prayer in the word. I did pray in the word, but it was so boring. I hated it to be honest. When I was 18, 19 years old, I hated Bible study and I hated prayer meetings. The only thing I hated more, spiritually speaking, was fasting and if you would have told me back then, I would have led a prayer movement someday. I said, no, possible. I hate prayer meetings, but I was troubled by it. I was 21, 22, 23, I said, God, I can't live this way and the Lord was saying, I didn't hear him say it, but I could imagine now, come on, come on son, come on, you're doing it right. I go, I'm sick about this. Good, that's your safety. Be sick about this. I remember a lot of my friends, 22, 23, oh, Bickles, calm down, it's legalism, it's religion. I go, I'm sick about this. I don't feel God. I don't feel his word. I don't like his word and I can imagine now, looking back with the understanding I have now, the Holy Spirit going, this is good. This is your life. This is your safety, what you feel right now. Anyway, be troubled. If you don't have a love for the word, you'll have it in time if you stay troubled about it, but if it's the sort of thing, well, I don't, well, that's just how it is and you just go on and all your entertainment, recreation, business as usual, you know, kind of, you know, loose speech and, you know, a loose, I mean, just compromise, small compromises. You'll never love the word of God. The presence of God will never be strong in your heart and the word will always be distasteful. Paragraph B, like Mary of Bethany, we must sit before him and experience his refreshing shade. She says this, this is one of her confessions. She says, I sat down in his shade with great delight. What an amazing statement. I sat down in his shade with great delight. His fruit was sweet to my taste. She's talking about the pleasure of the word of God and beloved, this is the inheritance for every single believer to have the delight and the sweetness of taste of the word of God touching your spirit. Let's go to Roman numeral four. She goes to the next confession, chapter two, verse four. He brought me to the banqueting house. His banner over me was love. Incidentally, there are seven different confessions the bride makes. I have it on the, on the end of the notes. I, the last paragraph, I have them all written out. There are seven distinct confessions she makes or declarations, confessions of faith she makes when she worships, or you can make these seven confessions when you're being tempted with sin or tempted to quit and just to give up and give in and just be kind of a normal kind of run-of-the-mill kind of Christian experience where you're content with very little. And when I feel tempted or I want to draw back and slow down, I declare these things before God or when I worship, when my heart feels alive, I declare these statements of the these are the bride's confessions before the sun and tremendous power these things will have in your heart over time. There's seven of them here in chapter two, Song of Solomon, chapter two, verse one to seven. Again, they're the last paragraph on the notes. We can look at those later. But here's another one of her confessions. Chapter two, verse four. He brought me to the banqueting house. His banner or his leadership over me is love. That's what she means by banner. And I have that described in the notes. I won't go into that right now. But here's what she understands. That Jesus is bringing her somewhere specific. Did you know that God has a wonderful plan for your life? You've heard that. There is a very specific plan that God has for your life in this age. And I can tell you what it is. He's bringing you to a banqueting table. And this banqueting table is a token. It's just a picture of the marriage supper of the lamb, the ultimate banqueting table at the end of the age. But he is going to by the word and by the spirit, he's going to feed our heart on the truths related to the banqueting table, the marriage supper of the lamb. Again, I have more details on the notes. I'll just be brief on this. And here's the point I'm saying is that the marriage supper of the lamb or the banqueting table is the truths or the place where we celebrate his love for us and we celebrate our dedication and love back to him. That's the arena of truth that is identified with the banqueting table or the marriage supper of the lamb, the wedding table. That's where he's bringing you to a greater discovery so that you would feast in that reality. Now here's the difficult thing. A lot of people think that where he's bringing them is to personal comfort and greater riches. And they get really confused when the riches and the comfort don't come in the timing and the way they think. Now God does give comfort and riches, physical comforts I'm talking about. But many imagine their whole Christian life mostly in terms of this. It didn't say he's bringing me to ease in the American lifestyle. He's bringing you to a wedding table, a marriage table. He has a plan and he's taking you to the place where he will reveal love to you, his love to you, and impart love to you that you would give back to him. That's where he's bringing you. Have no confusion about it. God's plan for my life is not about the size of my ministry. That's a secondary reality. His primary plan for my life is he's bringing me to a banqueting table in this age to prepare me for the age to come, the ultimate one. He's feeding my spirit on how he feels about me and he's feeding his spirit, I mean he's feeding my spirit with impartation that I would love him like the rose and I would live in the purity like the lily. This is what is, this is what his plan for your life is at the highest level. His banner over you or you could put the word his leadership over you is love. What does that mean? His leadership is to reveal love to you and to impart love to you. I thought his leadership over me was to make my ministry big and to make life easy. That and he does that sometimes. Typically for seasons and then the next season things get a little bit different than we anticipated. We call it warfare and but then the next season there's all these different seasons and I and I really love blessing. I love physical circumstantial blessings and I like things easy and big and growing. I really do. I vote for that every single time. But I could tell you one thing, his banner over me is not mostly that. It's mostly to reveal his desire to me that he has and to impart it to me that I have it back for him and overflow to others. The goal of his plan for my life, the goal is to cause me to mature in love. Okay let's go to Roman numeral five. Roman numeral five. Well she's been at the wedding table. She's been under seeing the delight and the sweetness of the word of God. So what does she say? She gets ravenous for God. I tell you when you have the rich get richer. When you have a little bit of God you want more of God. She's ruined. She says I'm lovesick in chapter song of Solomon chapter two verse five. Sustain me, give me more, refresh me and she's talking about the ministry of Jesus. Sustain me and refresh me and the ministry of the Holy Spirit and I can you could read the uh details of that in the notes but she's saying refresh me and sustain me I'm lovesick. Beloved when God touches our spirit it awakens a ravenous hunger in us for more of God. We were created to live lovesick for God. The fact that such a small percent of the body of Christ lives lovesick for God it's millions. Millions are but hundreds of millions are not and the millions that are sometimes are are ridiculed and different ideas and thoughts and opinions. Don't concern yourself with that. We were created to live lovesick. This is your destiny. This is the plan of God. His banner over you is love and it works in her life because love explodes in her in the next verse here in verse five. She could testify your leadership is working. You love me. I love you. You love me. I love you. It's working and beloved things on the outside may be going real good and things on the outside may be going bad but we can still be lovesick and his banner over our life his leadership over our life is still effective. Roman numeral six his left hand Roman numeral six she experiences the two-fold embrace of God. Song of Solomon chapter six verse two in this revelation of love she can now see the things she could not formerly see. Beloved when our hearts are lovesick we can see the hand of God in ways we could not see it before we were lovesick. Before we we felt this love for him we thought he was mad and angry and distant and ignoring us and when we become when we grow in love we have a new set of lenses we see his hand like we never saw it before. We see the left hand of God and the right hand of God. The left hand of God as I say in the notes you can read on your own is the invisible indiscernible activity of God in her life. Beloved the Lord has done more things with his left hand it's behind her head she can't see it. The Lord has done more things you cannot see to preserve you and protect you and to set things up for your safety that you will never know to the age to come. But the lovesick bride begins to see the left hand of God in a way she never did. Before she was just offended or mystified where's God at now she goes I see it oh my goodness you were there all along it was under my head I couldn't see with my eyes and of course she knows the right hand of God that's the discernible released blessing of God upon her life. And then the final verse Song of Solomon 2 verse 7 just for one moment because we're out of time. This is the Holy Spirit speaking here and you can read the notes to fill in the blanks on it. The Holy Spirit is speaking here I charge you he's speaking to the daughters of Jerusalem which are the undiscerning members of the body of Christ in the Song of Solomon. He says I charge you by the gazelles or the does in other words those animals whose nature was very sensitive. I charge you to be sensitive. Do not stir this bride up from the season she's in and the season she was in as we know from chapter 2 Song of Solomon from 1 to 6 she's in the place that's sitting before him at his table loving him growing becoming lovesick feeding on his word understanding her identity and here's what so many in the body of Christ do they have no value for a dedicated season a prolonged season to go deep in God they have no grid for it the only value they have is doing more activity and they will come and they will disturb anybody to get them out of the place of going deep with God to just do more. Now when we go deep with God we still do the ministry of the Holy Spirit we still do the works of God but they would rather you they think man you got a bright countenance you're dedicated if you work this much why don't we get you doing two and three times more ministry activity and the Lord says don't disturb her I have her in this season don't awaken her she is going deep and beloved it's right and biblical to have a vision to have prolonged seasons where you're going deep in the word and in God. Many men of God in the in the Old and New Testament from Paul out in the wilderness and Moses in the wilderness and David many of the great men and women of God in the word of God had prolonged seasons of going deep but the religious spirit in the body of Christ today will disturb you every time and they will try to to vex you out of it with every manner of logic and biblical mandate to get you out of a place of going deep in God and the Holy Spirit says I charge you don't disturb her don't disturb her amen and amen let's end with that for more free downloads from mike bickle please visit mikebickle.com