Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of recognizing the cherishing heart of Jesus as He affirms the budding virtues within us, even after a season of discipline. Through the lens of Song of Solomon 4:1-8, Bickle illustrates how the Holy Spirit is actively working to restore the first commandment of loving God with all our heart, mind, and strength. He highlights that Jesus sees our sincere desires to obey Him and defines us by our longings rather than our struggles. This revelation encourages believers to respond to God's love and affirmation, leading to a deeper commitment to follow Him, even in challenging areas of obedience. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a shift in perspective, urging us to focus on how Jesus cherishes us, which empowers us to grow in our faith.

This class we're going to cover Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 1 to 8. It's session 16 or class 16 and the overall studies in the Song of Solomon we're covering 24 classes or we're covering the entire book through 24 classes so if you miss them you can get the notes on the website from 1 to 24 if you want to follow along this study outside of this session right now. The premise of this teaching is that the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit right now is working sovereignly across the earth to raise up the body of Christ and to restore the first commandment to first place. Let me say it again, the Holy Spirit is restoring the first commandment to first place in the body of Christ worldwide so that before Jesus returns the whole body of Christ will love God with all of their heart, all of their mind, and all of their strength and the strategy of the Holy Spirit is to reveal the burning passions of Jesus's heart as a bridegroom king and the revelation of his passionate heart will awaken and impart love into our spirit in a supernatural way. The Holy Spirit when he reveals the passion, the burning passion of Jesus's heart he will supernaturally awaken love and impart love into our spirit that's what this passage Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 1 to 8 is all about. Let's give a quick review those of you that have the notes and if you don't have the notes you can get them on the website they're available. Review Song of Solomon chapter 2 verse 8 to chapter 3 verse 11 the last two chapters Jesus is calling the bride out of the comfort zone to the mountaintops in chapter 2 verse 8 Jesus is seen leaping effortlessly with power over the mountains and he says in verse 10 rise up my love my bride and join me in the mountaintops in other words leave the comfort zone but in verse 17 it's clear she refuses him she says no then what happens in chapter 3 verse chapter 1 I mean chapter 3 verse 1 she comes under a season of divine discipline where the Lord removes his manifest presence from her it says in verse 1 of chapter 3 by night on my bed I sought the one I love and in chapter 1 and 2 whenever she sought the one she she loved which is Jesus she found him but this time she doesn't find him because she's in a place of disobedience and compromise then what happens after the time of discipline paragraph c is that Jesus reveals the Holy Spirit reveals the leadership of Jesus in a new way to her and she sees him as the bridegroom king and she sees that she can crown him with her love by loving him she can crown him in her own personal way by voluntarily giving her love to him and she sees that when she does this it fills Jesus's heart with gladness and it's this revelation of Jesus's heart as a bridegroom king filled with gladness over the fact that she loves him she has a revelation of his leadership over her life and this is what causes her to respond to the Lord in an entirely new way which is what the theme of song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 1 to 8 is all about so let's go ahead and look at that real brief and then we'll break down some of the verses line by line later on in the teaching now some of this teaching I'm just going to leave it to the notes and so you're going to have to get the notes to break it down instead of proving and explaining what all the symbolism means I'm just going to leave that in the notes and I'm just going to declare the conclusions of it and give the real basic themes that I believe are on the Holy Spirit's heart in this glorious passage of scripture let's look at it real brief song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 1 to 8 verse 1 to 8 the Lord is speaking remember she's just come out of a season of discipline he has just revealed his leadership to her in chapter 3 and now his first words to her are shocking to her he says behold you are beautiful and I love you he says behold you are fair my love which means you are beautiful to me and I love you he sees her spirit he sees the movement of her heart towards him and then he goes on and describes an agricultural language because that's the language of her heart that's the language of which she lives she she's a a farm girl who works on out in the vineyards and she tends the sheep so she understands this language really clear now it's odd to us in the western world and so we kind of trip over it but to somebody with an agricultural paradigm of life this is actually very normal and easily understood language and it's interesting that whatever language or whatever paradigm Jesus would use to convey truth the agricultural paradigm is the one paradigm that is true in this age and even in the age to come in the millennial kingdom that there will always be flocks that are growing in size and number and there will always be vineyards that are planted and are growing and so Jesus uses in the word of God a timeless metaphor when he uses the agricultural one I've often wondered why he did it because it appealed to the people thousands of years ago and even people a thousand years from now will still understand this in a real way now he uses the agricultural metaphors and symbolism and all this symbolism is made clear in the word of God what it's meaning because the word of God always interprets the word of God better than anything else does so whenever we're struggling we're trying to figure out what symbolism means always go to the word of God to figure out what the word of God means well he says he begins by saying behold like a trumpet blast you are beautiful and this shocks her because she's just come out of a season of divine discipline she's not expected expecting Jesus to say you're beautiful and I love you I think she would maybe be expecting him to maybe give warnings not to go back into this you know this area of compromise that was based in her fear and then he goes on and he says your hair your teeth your lips your mouth your temples etc he gives eight different features of her body that describe now he's talking to her in the love language of that day but spiritually speaking all of these eight aspects of her body speak about spiritual qualities that are clear when again when we compare the word with the word then in verse six she responds to this love affirmation from God's heart to her and she says I will go my way to the mountain because remember back in chapter 2 verse 8 to 10 he said come to the mountain and she said no and so then she's disciplined and now she's receiving so much affirmation from the Lord she goes I will go to the mountain and verse 6 is really the turning point of the whole book she goes that which I was afraid to do previously I am now I have boldness and confidence to do because the mountain speaks of the difficult place of faith and obedience it's life outside of the comfort zone and then Jesus responds to her and he brings his affirmation up even to the next level he says to her you are all together beautiful and the new king James when it says you are all together fair or all fair it the word that's normally translated in other bible translation is the word beautiful he says now that you're prepared to go all the way in full obedience he goes I see your heart and he says you are all together beautiful in verse 7 and he says there is no spot there is no conscious area of resistance to my leadership anywhere in your heart paragraph a the power of this passage is that this comes right after a season of divine discipline this these words of affirmation are spoken to the bride or to the young maiden she's a a bride that's maturing while she was yet immature now that's the power of this passage don't get lost in the symbolism although the symbolism is actually not that difficult these eight facets of her body that speak of different character traits different virtues again they're they're quite straightforward when you put the scripture with the scripture but the larger point the bigger point that's on the holy spirit's mind is the fact that she hasn't matured she's only determined to obey him she hasn't even acted it out yet she hasn't walked out the obedience she's only set her heart to do it and jesus is moved deeply by the movement of her heart towards him and she says I will go all the way to the mountain there is nothing that I will withhold in my full obedience from you and then that moves the heart of jesus and he goes that decision in your heart is so beautiful to me he says I see no area no spot or no area in your life that you're resisting or that you're consciously resisting the holy spirit's leadership in your life paragraph b i look at the eight character traits that god wants to bring forth in the bride of christ in their symbolic way and i just give a quick uh overview of it and later on in the notes we give more detail as to the these specific eight virtues but that's not going to be my focus in this class the virtues themselves we'll mention them briefly but it's really the cherishing heart of jesus that's affirming her before she's matured he sees the movements of her heart he sees these budding virtues in her heart and he calls things that are not as though they are he speaks about these things as though they're mature when they're only beginning to bud in her character and that's how his leadership brings forth the bride of christ to maturity there's no one in the in history that causes who brings forth a people with this kind of unrelenting affirmation like jesus does chapter uh let's look at top of page two roman numeral three paragraph a song of solomon chapter four verse one to five jesus reveals his cherishing heart the fact that he cherishes her in ephesians chapter five verse 26 describing the end-time church paul the apostle prophesies and says that jesus is going to cleanse the church with the washing of the water by the word of god now jesus is going to cleanse the church by by revealing and releasing the word of god with power upon the church globally this is a prophecy why is he going to do this verse 27 so that he can present the church filled with glory as a glorious church he's going to wash the church and fill the church with the spirit of glory now verse 29 gives us the key to this paul went on to say for no one ever hated hated his own flesh but every person nourishes and cherishes it in the same way that jesus nourishes and cherishes the church and here's the point jesus is going to wash the church and fill it with glory by nourishing it and cherishing it now this is his strategy for the church worldwide but it's also his strategy for your individual life the way that he's going to remove the stain of sin and the stain of shame out of our hearts out of your heart out of my heart out of the church worldwide is by cherishing the church not mostly by rebuking and warning the church his rebukes and his warnings are very important but they are not his primary strategy to transform the church that's responding to his leadership i would say that again his rebukes and his warnings are very important but the rebukes and the warnings are often uh they go unheeded by much of the church when he gives it to them but the church although he has a very specific reason for them and i don't want to go into that right now but my point is this to the responsive church to the church that's saying yes to him he will nourish and cherish them as his primary strategy to wash the church and to fill the church with glory and what he does corporately to the church worldwide this is his strategy of how he's going to transform our lives so if you want to grow and you want to see the stain of sin and shame removed begin to fill your mind with the revelation that jesus will cherish you and nourish you by the word of god because that is where the spirit of glory is going to be released in the greatest measure that's what paul says here in ephesians chapter 5 verse 26 to 29 god's primary method to change us is to is to cause us to feel cherished while we're seeking to obey him even in our weakness because when we feel cherished we feel confident in love even in our weakness we feel confident we are confident that he loves us and we're confident that he takes our love serious towards him he doesn't write us off as hopeless hypocrites we have confidence that our love is taken serious by him even though our love is weak because beloved weak love is not false love weak love is simply that it's weak but it's still genuine love now this is the power of king david's life that king david felt cherished by the lord one of my favorite verses from the psalms that king david wrote is psalm 18 verse 35 after david comes out of 16 months of compromise in the city of ziklag or related to the city of ziklag from first samuel chapter 27 to first samuel chapter 31 g david comes out of a season 16 months of compromise and on the day that god delivers him david says this about why god delivered him he said god's gentleness has made me great he goes it's because god's gentle he treats me gently i will grow up spiritually to be great in the fear of the lord i'll be great in the things of god it was the revelation of god's gentleness to david that gave david confidence after 16 months of compromise to go hard after god with an open spirit without drawing back at all that's massive the power of david's life was that he felt loved by god now the way jesus cherishes us is that he causes us he treats us in gentleness and he affirms us even in our weakness now i don't mean he he affirms our our weakness and says your weakness is okay that's not what i'm talking about he sees the budding virtues of love in our heart he sees in this bride these eight virtues none of them are mature but every one of them he calls forth and he honors the movements of her heart the desire in her heart to be mature in these eight areas see we do it opposite when somebody is is immature we call them immature we don't see the seeds of dedication we only see what they don't have instead of what they do have and jesus sees what we do have he sees the commitment of our heart before the commitment is mature paragraph e good news he does not define us by our struggles did you know that he sees more than your struggle he sees the longings of your heart he sees what you set your heart on many of you you've set your heart in your private life lord i want to love you i want to obey you in every area he sees that longing in your heart he doesn't only see your struggle and your failure he doesn't only see what you actually have a victory in he sees the longing of your heart to obey him in the areas you do not yet have victory in and he defines us by our longings not only by what the victory that we attain to see we often only define our life by the area we get victory when we get victory we say hey there we are but beloved victory in our life outwardly starts by a longing to obey god in that area of our life long before there's outward victory and jesus sees that and he values that and he esteems that very highly now the way that jesus defines us and how we understand that determines how we feel about ourselves now when i see that jesus sees the longings of my heart to obey him and he values them and honors them it makes me value my spiritual life even before i have victory in every area that i seek to have victory in but when we don't see how jesus defines us then we end up defining ourself only by our struggle and our failure when someone says how are you doing with the lord and we think of only the bad things that are happening and that's how we sum up our relationship with him only by our struggles and our failures well gideon and judges six was in fear hiding in the wine press because the midianites were coming in his faith you couldn't see any evidence of faith whatsoever he was hiding from the enemy but the angel of the lord appears to him this man shaking like a leaf you know in the wine press because the enemy are surrounding and the angel of the lord appears and says to to gideon oh mighty man of valor you know gideon looked around and says mighty man of valor i'm hiding because the lord saw in gideon even what gideon did not see in his own heart the lord saw the seeds of courage and the seeds of faith that were virtues that were just budding they were just beginning to come forth in his life the lord saw the seeds of courage in gideon that he was not even operating in yet and the angel called it forth in romans chapter 4 verse 17 paul the apostle says god calls things that are not as though they are god calls things that are not in the natural they're not manifest in the natural before they're manifest in the natural he calls them forth before they're manifest and evident to others and that's how he leads our life he named gideon according to what gideon would become in the future not according to what gideon was walking in that day this is part of the way he cherishes us he tenderly sees the cry of our heart and he goes i'll relate to you based on the cry of your heart and i will affirm that and i will call it forth and that cry will grow in you stronger and stronger and in time the cry of your heart will actually be what you walk in outwardly the area you're longing for obedience and you will walk in obedience in that area in due time another very prominent example is peter jesus called peter the rock matthew chapter 16 verse 18 and jesus knew peter was going to deny him in a short amount of time but he called him the stable one the rock the one others could count on well peter denied the lord three times and once before just a just a young girl by by the fire peter didn't look like the rock to the disciples he looked like a compromiser he looked like a fearful man but jesus said you're the rock peter that's how i see you peter's instability was manifest again in the city of antioch let's read this in galatians chapter 2 this is paul speaking when paul rebuked peter for his compromise and his hypocrisy he said i went to antioch and i had i stood up to peter face to face publicly because he was guilty he deserved this he drew back in hypocrisy and fear and he goes on to describe he says that before certain men came from james who was the leader of the jerusalem church peter would eat with the gentiles but when these guys from jerusalem came up peter withdrew and he wouldn't eat with the gentiles he wouldn't fellowship with them because he was afraid of the opinion of the jewish leaders in jerusalem he says that he feared them he feared their opinions now peter's the rock here here he's a chief apostle what is he doing fearing the opinions of other people so much so he wouldn't even eat with his gentile brothers and the gentile brothers were all confused by this peter's wavering in hypocrisy paul goes on to say and even others joined peter in that hypocrisy now wait a second now is peter the rock or is peter a hypocrite well peter had a had a had a a moment of hypocrisy and fear he drew back in fear again just like he had fear when he denied the lord sometime earlier but it doesn't change the fact the lord called him the rock beloved the lord calls us forth according to this to the virtues of the characteristics that we long to have that we've committed our heart to but we haven't yet fully walked in outwardly let's go to paragraph j the top of page three god's testimony of david i mean david really messed up right many times i gave a message once where i gave 10 of the failures of david's life sinful failures i'm sure you know when i meet david in the eternal city he might go hey you know why'd you like make all that attention about how bad i blew it you never know he may have a different opinion he may say oh man it was worse than that but here's what god said about david a thousand years after david died it says that god's testimony in acts 13 verse 22 god testified about david he was a man who did all the will of god and i go wait a second david didn't do all the will of god and the lord says through my editing process he did i go well if lord if you read david's life that way then i have a good chance to do good and the lord he does he it's through the editing process of faith where he looks at us through the grace of god and he sees the cry of david's heart and he defined david by the cry of his heart not only by the issues that he struggled with in his life paragraph l the devil calls us hopeless hypocrites he wants to wear us down with condemnation accuse us you're a failure you're failure you're never going to make it he wants us to give up he tries to confuse our spiritual immaturity with rebellion he says you're you're a rebel you're a rebel and the truth is you're not a rebel you love jesus but you're struggling with an issue or two in your life the devil wants you to confuse these issues why so you give up and quit following the lord we spend excessive amount of emotional energy many believers do fighting the fires of condemnation and guilt and shame i might as well just quit i'm no good i'm worthless all this baggage of rejection and condemnation do you know how much energy it takes to manage all of that baggage we get so preoccupied with our shame and failure that we don't have focus on the lord because we're constantly managing how bad we are and how much we're rejected how much we feel rejected by the lord and it's not even true what the lord wants us to do is focus our attention upon him and what he's saying over our lives what the enemy wants us to do is to focus all of our energy upon our rejection and our failure and our condemnation so we can't connect with the lord because we're so preoccupied with our failure and our struggle paragraph n many people focus on measuring their spiritual attainment meaning they put a lot of energy and they try to measure am i am i more spiritually mature this month than i was last month they're constantly measuring their how far and fast they're growing beloved you can't do it it's impossible to do it or worse than that they compare themselves with somebody else well he's doing better than me or i'm doing better than him and whenever we measure our spiritual attainment how much we're maturing it's going to throw us off what i recommend you do don't focus on measuring how much you've changed may focus on setting your heart to obey him no matter what you did yesterday good or bad focus your heart today on being fully obedient and don't worry about if you did if you're better or worse than yesterday or better or worse than someone else lock in i try to spend my days when i come before the lord i don't do a review of yesterday i don't even care about yesterday after after yesterday i just push delete on it good and bad i push delete i start today i have one focus not to be better than yesterday to be fully obedient today that's it end of story and to enjoy his presence because if we measure how our spiritual maturity how much we've attained how much maturity we attain if we try to measure it only two things can happen and both of them are bad number one we measure our maturity and we're we think we've done good then we end up proud and when we're proud about how good we're doing we end up criticizing other people if you want to know how proud you are about your attainment it's exactly the measure of what you criticize others for failing and that's the measure of your pride about how far you think you've gone when when i look at someone and say i haven't done this for a long long time many years but i remember my early days i said that guy doesn't have a prayer life the holy spirit whispered in my heart i said so you think you do then don't you you're pretty proud of your prayer life and our criticism of others failure is directly related to our pride in our own attainment so you know so says well he's really critical i go you know what i'm i'm not even going there i don't even want to measure where i'm at on that i don't even want to go there well the other bad thing that can happen if it's if you're doing good you get proud and you criticize people but if you're doing bad you get condemned and you want to quit there's absolutely nothing good that happens out of measuring how how well you're doing i lock my heart in on one thing i want to obey him and experience in him right now today that's it i don't measure anything from yesterday a paragraph p here i want to encourage men whether uh you're married or going to be married in the years ahead if you want to change your wife or your children the most effective way to change your wife the biblical way is to cherish her or cherish your children see the budding virtues in their heart that they're not mature on and call them forth define the things they're seeking to do well that they're not quite they're not yet doing well but it's in their heart to do these things begin to call them forth and define and affirm those budding virtues in their life and that's the biblical way to bring forth change in somebody that you have leadership over it's not the only way jesus does use warnings and rebukes but it's not his primary way to somebody who's responsive parents often don't do not rightly interpret the budding virtues in their children's heart they will look at their children and they will see uh all kinds of negative things rather than seeing the budding virtues of dedication and success that are in their children's lives but the good thing about the lord is the lord sees what we long to be not only what we fail to be outwardly he sees what we long to be and he identifies us as he's doing this bride in these eight different ways in chapter four the stunning part about this chapter about this passage is not the definition of the eight virtues those are interesting and they're important but the stunning part is that he calls her he defines her and describes her as having these virtues when she just came out of discipline she doesn't have these virtues yet and he says yes she does she has them in her heart and i see them and i'm going to begin to affirm them and i'm going to begin to relate to her on the basis of these being reality in her life i tell you i can relate to anyone who will relate to me that way how about you i mean if someone says you know what outwardly you're struggling but inwardly i see the desire to do right in this area and i see that and i'm going to relate to you on the basis of your desires to to give yourself to me i mean who does who would not want to run into his arms and to give themselves fully to the lord in that kind of context and that's exactly exactly exactly what she does in verse six she goes in that case since you say i'm so awesome i will go to the mountain there is nothing that will stand in the way between you and me so let's look at just a moment here at that at some of the uh verses here in chapter four verse one to eight the lord is speaking he starts off jesus is speaking right after her divine discipline he says behold you are beautiful this is like a divine trumpet blast you're beautiful and he says you are my love and i love you you're beautiful and i love you you're beautiful and i love you well what's beautiful about me she might say and he's going to now give eight characteristics of her character and i have no doubt she is struggling in every one of these eight areas in terms of the outward view from the natural eye and the lord might could have easily said yes it is true that outwardly they're not mature yet but inwardly you've kicked you've committed yourself to to obey me and love me in these eight areas and he says these are beautiful to me even the budding virtues even before they've matured and he goes on to say you are my love or i love you i'm not angry at you while you're growing beloved if you get nothing else from this session the fact that god calls the budding virtues in your heart that are not yet mature he sees the longing of your heart he calls it beautiful instead of despising it because it's weak he affirms it as beautiful because he sees it perfectly well and then he says i love you i'm not angry at you i may discipline you but it's not because i'm angry at you is actually because i delight in you and i want you near me that's why i'm going to discipline you let's go to roman numeral of uh five now jesus he equips us against the accusations of the devil by these affirmations we need to find out what jesus says about our heart not what everybody else says about our heart and not what the devil says about our heart because the devil will always tell you just to curse god and die and give up there's no point you're so hooked on this and so addicted to that you have no hope and god has no interest in you and i tell you beloved that is the opposite message of the cherishing heart of jesus that's going to fill the church with glory by revealing how he feels about his church even in her weakness but the key phrase here this isn't just the church overall this is the church that is sincerely desiring to obey him but is still weak see there's a part of the church that does not sincerely desire to obey him that's a different story that's a different message i'm talking about people like yourself where you're very aware of your weakness but you're you're really trying to obey him you wouldn't be here if you were not trying to obey him so the difference is how he views people who are sincerely trying to obey him but are still stuck in their weakness he call he sees the budding virtues he calls them beautiful and he says i love you the people that don't have regard for what he wants and they use the name christian and they don't have an interest in the holy spirit's leadership that's not his attitude towards them it's different now he goes on and he talks about the eight different virtues her eyes now her eyes he says you have dove's eyes now the dove was i have the different characteristics of the dove here in the notes we're not going to go through this but i want to say this when we see differently we feel differently the key to having different emotions is having different mindset do you want to change the way you feel change what you believe and i don't mean just you believe jesus is god and the way to salvation is through forgiveness to jesus i mean more specific than that as a believer begin to fill your mind with what god says about how he feels about you and when you think different you will feel different top of page five her hair her hair speaks of dedication the the vow of the nazarite they they did not cut their hair when they cut their hair they broke their vow the hair speaks of dedication now obviously she's had lack of dedication she's just come out of a season of discipline but the lord calls her a dedicated one through this symbolism beloved imagine the lord calling you a dedicated one right after you've come out of a season of discipline he says i see that you you have a a new zeal for me a new commitment to me and i'm going to relate to you on the basis of that dedication he talks about her life in the word her lips her mouth he talks about her emotions their her ability to nurture others let's go on the top of page 7 roman numeral 13 we're gonna bypass the eight characteristics and they're very important but we just can't cover them with any kind of detail in a short class like this but the point being is that in every one of these virtues these character traits outwardly she clearly was not manifesting what these traits spiritually speak of when we give the spiritual interpretation of the song because she's just still immature she's coming out of a season of discipline but the lord calls that which does not exist as though it does romans 4 verse 17 then her response to the lord's eight affirmations he says you're beautiful then he gives her eight specific examples as to why her heart is beautiful in his eyes now again in the natural love song king solomon to the shulamite was talking about physical features that wowed his heart but in the spiritual interpretation which the holy spirit wants us to understand it's eight character traits that are the forming of character in the heart which are expressions of our devotion and love to jesus look what she says she is so encouraged in her weakness and her immaturity she goes i will go my way to the mountain of myrrh into the hill of frankincense now that is what he originally commanded her to do was to go to the mountain of myrrh remember back in chapter 2 verse 8 to 10 he was leaping on mountains he says come on the mountains with me and in verse chapter 2 verse 17 she said no chapter 3 verse 1 and 2 she's disciplined and now she goes i'm ready to go what happened between chapter 2 and chapter 4 well she had discipline for sure but that's not all she saw a new revelation of jesus's leadership and in chapter 3 verse 1 to 6 we looked at in the last class but chapter 3 i mean 6 to 11 but more specifically the affirmation of jesus of to her heart that he saw her sincere desire this gave her so much zeal and encouragement to give herself totally to the lord she's ready to go to the mountain of myrrh top of page 8 now most of you know that myrrh in the new testament and old testament it's a burial spice she's going to the mountain of myrrh myrrh is a fragrant burial spice it spoke of death myrrh spoke of jesus's death she goes i'm going to go to the place of costly obedience now beloved every one of us in this room and all those that are viewing this class this this uh bible teaching on the song of solomon all of us have areas the holy spirit is wooing us to obey him and and some of the areas are not so hard to obey but there's that one or two areas that are the mountain of myrrh that the costly areas that oh no if i obey you or believe you at that level i will die it is truly the mountain of myrrh it's not the mountain of comfort it's the mountain of myrrh again myrrh is a burial spice it's the mouth you know it's a embalming fluid of today's world i don't want to go to the mountain of myrrh it's a mountain it's not a hill it's a mountain it's really costly she also says that she's going to go to the hill of frankincense now frankincense paragraph c speaks of prayer all through the the scripture incense frankincense and incense which is the same it speaks of the life of prayer and here's what the message is we can only have strength to go to the mountain of myrrh if we live on the hill of incense if we we have to have some communion with the lord if we're going to get strength to obey in the costly areas what some people are trying to do they're trying to go to the mountain of myrrh they're trying to get victory in the those big areas that cost them that are painful but they're not living on the hill of frankincense they aren't developing any kind of communication with the lord where they're asking the lord for help where they're fellowshipping with the holy spirit their fellowship with with the lord in the now when peter was in the garden of gethsemane jesus said pray i have the verse right there matthew 26 he said pray and if you pray you'll have strength for temptation because you have a big temptation around the corner and beloved when we're praying it's an amazing reality the divine economy it's only a hill that's only a little bit of prayer will prepare us for a mountain of obedience it's really true if we will pray a little bit it's like well i just cut down the prayer ministry if you know telling people pray a little bit's okay now most people don't really pray about those issues in their life they complain about them and they and they moan over them but they don't actually pray about them and a little bit of prayer makes a huge difference over time we can conquer the mountains of myrrh of costly obedience through the smaller hills of frankincense a little prayer really does connect us in these areas to the lord and to the holy spirit strength now again i'm a prayer guy i'm not trying to get you to pray less but i assure you a little bit of prayer in these areas will have a whole lot more impact than you might think i talk about the value of 90 second prayers i believe in 90 second prayers i'm not saying that the big areas of your life limited to 90 second prayers but i would pray them 90 seconds five or ten times a day as long as some longer periods of five or ten minutes you don't have to pray for eight hours over an issue pray 90 second prayers all through the day and you might be surprised over a period of time what will happen inside of your heart to give you courage to do that she says in paragraph e she makes this strong decision to leave the comfort zone i am going to obey god in that area you know it's a glorious moment in your heart in your relationship with god when you you know kind of put your hand down and say i will go to the mountain of myrrh this issue that is troubling me that i am holding back my obedience to god in i'm going to go to the mountain it will cost me i will obey you it really moves the heart of god when we make that decision now even before she walks it out the very decision itself moves god's heart i mean he tells her in the next verse you're all together lovely you're beautiful the very fact you decided this i mean she hasn't even walked it out yet she only determined and committed her heart to do it and it moved the heart of god in a deep way now one more point here she says here i'm going to go my way to the mountain of myrrh now my way when she says my way that doesn't mean opposite of god's way because it because it has to be god's way so it's not my way verse gods that's not the point of contrast it's my way for somebody else's way what i mean by that is you might talk to somebody and they give you counsel and they tell you what they did and you might say well i'm going to do exactly what you did exactly and the lord says no i have a tailor-made way just for you it's personal it's tailor-made you know sometimes uh when i talk to young people they ask me exactly how many hours do you do this and how many hours do you do that and what about this what about that and i i typically don't like to answer that because there's a certain type of young person they will just uh imitate it exactly but that's not exactly god's way for them at that season of their life and i know that the only way to the mountain of myrrh is in that tailor-made unique holy spirit led way because the lord only the lord knows the unique dynamics of what he's preparing you for so you have a tailor-made way to the mountain of myrrh and of course when she did it verse seven the lord's response for the very first time in the song of solomon he adds to the word you're beautiful you're all together beautiful he says you're all fair and it doesn't mean she's perfectly mature but there's no area in her heart she's resisting the leadership of the holy spirit beloved that moves the heart of god but if we knew the heart of god was moved even before we get the breakthrough he sees the virtues in our heart while they're budding and he delights in us he wants us beloved that knowledge makes me want to run to him instead of from him while i'm growing up in the faith amen and amen let's just end with that i'm gonna have you stand for more free downloads from 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