Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of loving God wholeheartedly across four distinct spheres: heart, soul, mind, and strength. He explains that true love for God involves not just feelings but concrete actions and obedience, aligning our definitions of love with God's standards rather than cultural norms. Bickle encourages believers to actively set their affections on God, express their love through their personality and speech, engage their minds with His truth, and utilize their strengths in service to Him. He warns against the distractions of secular definitions of love and the necessity of loyalty to biblical truth in our expressions of love for God. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a radical commitment to love God with every aspect of our being.

Father, we thank you in the name of Jesus for the Word of God, and we thank you for this glorious promise, this commandment with a promise to love you with all of our heart, and that you would anoint us and enable us to walk this out. We thank you in Jesus' name for the Word of God, and we ask you to release inspiration on our spirit tonight in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, tonight we're on session three on the first commandment course. The first commandment restored to first place. We're taking 12 sessions on the first commandment. My spirit is so exhilarated just looking at these very fundamental truths, but just believing that the Lord is smiling over us saying, this is what I want to talk to you about. This is what's on my heart. This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking to you. Are we talking about the same thing? And I say, yes, Holy Spirit. We're having the same conversation. Paragraph A, God created us specifically to love Him in these four spheres of our life. With all of our heart, that speaks of our affections and emotions. With all of our soul, that's our personality, which the way we express ourselves. With all of our mind, that's obviously thoughts. And with all of our strength, that's a reference to our resources. That if we use our resources in the right way in relationship with the Holy Spirit, it will actually enhance our ability to feel love and to return it back to God. But often people use their strengths in a way that's not in relationship with the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about believers and the very blessing of God that they have actually results in their spirit is dulled and diminished in their ability to feel the love of God and return it back and then to overflow to others. So this issue of strength is a very important one. It's our money. It's our time. It's our influence. We'll look at it in a few moments. Jesus said, you shall love the Lord God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind and all of your strength. Now whenever God gives a commandment, it is the promise of the enabling to walk it out. Now it's only Jesus. He's the only king who gives a commandment that is, leads to the benefit and the greatness of the people who obey the commandment. It's a requirement that leaves us with great benefit and with greatness. Our debt of love is our gift. It's the very debt of love that we have to Jesus. When walked out becomes the gift that he gives us on how to live our life and to carry ourselves before him. In this session, we're going to look at some of what it means to express our love to God in these four spheres of life. Obviously at best, it's a faint, mere introduction to a very vast subject. The question, paragraph C, what does love look like? This is the question of the hour. Now we know this, love is much more than sentiment, than religious sentiment. Love is much more than extravagant expressions in a worship service, though those are cool. The reason I think it's important to mention this is some people think, bride of Christ, I want to be wholehearted. And what they're imagining is kind of something ethereal, maybe just smiling and thinking about love. But they don't, when I've pressed people over the years, they don't have concrete answers to what that looks like Monday to Friday. And we have to have clear, practical answers to what it looks like to love. And it's more than extravagant expressions in a worship service, you know, real energetic. And then afterwards we go on to business as usual. But we did love God that night. It's much more than that, obviously. To love God in a sentence, true love requires heart responses with follow-through. True love requires specific heart responses with follow-through. Now not perfection in the sense we never fail. We can have true love and still stumble as we're reaching to give ourself to God in these concrete heart responses. Now these heart responses are defined by God, not by the culture. It's a really critical point we'll look at in a moment. We are not content with love for Jesus. That's just rhetoric. It's words. You know, it's banners. It's posters. We love Jesus. We're radical. Ra, ra, ra. If it doesn't have concrete, daily expression. And again, I don't mean perfect expression in the sense of the absolute sense where there's no failure. But love must be on God's terms and must be more than a slogan about being on fire. Obviously you all know that. Roman numeral two. Loving God on God's terms. There's many definitions of love, liberty, freedom. Freedom in the spirit. What does freedom mean? Many definitions of grace in our culture. But in a secular culture that our nation is steeped in, much of that secular culture finds its way into the church culture. And I find that there's too much, there's a confusion in defining love that has its roots in secular culture, not in the revelation of the Word of God. One of the core issues at the end of the age and the generation the Lord returns is how love is defined. Because everybody will use the term love. The people who love according to God's definition and the people who don't will all use the term love. The people who walk in grace according to biblical definitions and the believers who claim grace but don't walk in it, they will still use the same terms, grace. Everybody says freedom, grace, compassion, and love. But only a small percent of the human race is actually walking it out in a way that God agrees with. My goal isn't to point out how bad the other groups are doing it. My goal is to see to it that we're walking in truth, in reality, and not being distracted by the definitions of the secular culture that are inundating the church world at this time. We define love on God's terms. Now this is, this is radical. The reason I'm saying it's radical, I don't mean that I have it clear, I understand it all. I just know that God's terms are far different than man's terms. They're radical. The terms of Jesus is bearing a cross and denying ourself, saying no to the flesh. It's humility in a way that heaven agrees with, not in a way that you get the reward at the banquet for. It's love that has allegiance to Jesus. It's a definition of love that is an obedience to the written Word of God. So we renounce all paradigms of love that are emerging in the church in this very hour. We say no. We're not interested in it. We're not pressured to make sure that everybody's happy with our definition of love, as long as it's biblical. Because much of what's called love is in fact other than what the Word of God is calling us to. A lot of folks are pressured by that and they just want to, they get swayed by the fear of man. Paragraph B. I'll just give you a real specific example. Nothing more clearly brings false views of love and grace to the surface than the biblical view of salvation. All people, I don't care who they are, regardless how much they seem to love, everybody goes to hell forever except the gift of God through Jesus on his terms is received by them. That is the definition of love. Sincerity and seeming love. There's a lot of confusion and darkness in it and we don't need to define it all, all the different expressions of it. We are just committed to Jesus's terms of love. For example, people look at suffering and they think that somehow suffering or even humanistic efforts to help others, which is good in itself as long as we don't trust in it, they think that somehow that plays into their salvation. The famous movie of Schindler's List. The man that saved the Jews from the concentration camp. Let me say this tenderly but clearly. If he didn't know Jesus and if the Jews that he saved did not know Jesus from the death camps, they will be in the same hell that Adolf Hitler's in. Because it's an issue of justice, not an issue of goodness. The only reason that I'm saved is because an innocent one, Jesus, took the role of the guilty and paid the debt. And only because my debt's paid, not because I was good or sincere, my debt was paid. It's an issue of justice. That justice is so exacting and so clear that the, if Adolf Hitler on his death, the day of his death, accepted him, he would be in the same heaven that Paul is in. That's how extreme and how powerful the gift of salvation is. Paragraph C. We have to define love on God's terms. And I tell you there's more and more people in the church that are letting go of, that get swept into humanism in the church with Jesus' language. And again, I'm only interested in the kind of love that holds steady when I stand before the Lord on the last day. I'm only interested in the kind of love the Holy Spirit is excited about, as he looks over the earth. Lord here we are. We're working together with you in truth. And believe it or not, the true definitions of love will actually get you in trouble and in conflict, even in the context of the professing church, the church that names the name of Jesus. God's definition of love doesn't involve accepting everybody. We respect everybody. We have respect for believers and unbelievers, for sinners. We respect their humanity. But we don't tolerate and accept their false standards. And I don't mean we go beat them up. But we don't pretend to accept them as though everybody has their own way to truth. No. We respect them. We're tender. We serve them. But with a clear witness that they're in error and they're in deception. Not that you have to say that in every conversation with them. But I mean, that's the premise. There's a lot of definitions of love that have romantic notions of just being happy in God. And there's truth to that. We will, our spirit will be happy in God. But there's more than just kind of humanistic romantic thoughts about being happy in God. Though there's a lot of truth in that notion. Jesus is not our boyfriend. As the bridegroom king, he's nobody's boyfriend. He doesn't want to be your boyfriend. He doesn't want to have date nights with you. He really doesn't. I mean this. In the bridal paradigm. And neither is Jesus a humanistic hippie who kind of chills out and lays back. His definition of love is rooted in the Word of God. And that's the definition we're going with. Top of page two. We're going to look at four different premises. Now these are not the same as the four spheres of love we're going to look at in a minute. Four premises of love we're going to look at. These are not, this is not comprehensive. You could lay out several more. Premise number one. Biblical love requires the pursuit of obedience to Jesus. Requires it. You can write poems, do dances, have outreaches. But if you're not pursuing obedience, you do not love Him. It's, it's a pursuit of obedience. It's not the attainment of it immaturity. Because we could love Him in our immaturity and our love's real. But the reach to obey is real. I have been reaching to obey Jesus for many years and failing many times. And every time I fail, does it mean my love's false? It means it's weak. But when I call it sin and I repent and reach to obey again, then it proves the genuineness of the love even though my love is immature. But some folks imagine that if they sing songs and do plays and have dances and have outreaches, somehow they can disregard the Holy Spirit's leadership in the areas that He's focusing on their life. And somehow they equate it with love. It's not love. It is deception. And Jesus's definition of love is the one that will exhilarate us and it will liberate us and it will make us powerful and it will make us great in God's eyes forever. This is the only safe definition of love. It's not a cruel one. It's not a mean one. It's the only good one. I trust His leadership. So I'm saying I'm going for your definition. I don't get it all. I have an unrenewed mind in various areas. I trust you. What you say is love is good and I'm going for it. And that's the confession of the church of Jesus Christ. But here's what He says. Look at John 14 verse 15 to 23. He says it three times in one passage. If you love me, keep my commandments. Verse 15. Verse 21. He who has my commandments and keeps them, this is the one who loves me. The next two verses. If anyone loves me, he keeps my word. There is no such thing as loving Jesus that doesn't seek diligently to obey the Word. Again, we have immaturity in our love, but our love is reaching. We're seeking to do it for real in private. Number two. Jesus defined love and just if you want to get it real clear, it's the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle. Matthew 5, 6 and 7. That's the clearest definition of love. If you're doing that, you're reaching for that beloved. You're walking in love. You don't reach for that. Yes, reach and fail. That's all part of the growth process. But reaching for it is the critical point. We must deny lustful desires. And lust, there's many categories of lust beyond sexual immorality. Some people think of lust. They think of immorality. That's it. No, there's lust in many different arenas of lust. Galatians 5 talks about the 19 expressions of the flesh. Those are all dimensions of lust. Anger, pride, many different forms of lust of the flesh. But the denying of lustful desire, whether it's anger, bitterness, pride, immorality, covetousness, whatever it is, to deny it, because you love him, you're trying to obey him, is the theater. It's the stage in which Jesus chose that we express love to him. He says, now that is love to me. Lord, I want to do this. But your word says, do it the other way. Ah, I really want to do it my way. Any one of these types of lust. But I'm going to deny it to obey you. I really don't want to obey you, but I'm going to. The Lord says, I take that personal. It's the theater of which you show me your love. Now everyone in this room and every believer in the earth, we all have a different struggle according to our personality and circumstances. Everyone has a unique circumstance or personality. It's your assignment to show him your love. That's, he says, I've given you this assignment in this season. That's the stage. That's the theater of which you show me your love. And I take it personal when you obey me. And he writes every decision for love in his book. Maybe it's the person. It's the immorality. Maybe it's the covetousness. Maybe it's the laziness. They're saying, you know what, I'm going to rise up and obey. Nobody may ever see the movement of your heart. But he sees it and it moves him. And he calls it love and he writes it in his book. Premise number two. So it's not, first it's the pursuit of obedience. Number two, it involves adoring trust of this man. It's not just disconnected obedience. It's feeding our mind and our spirit in a way where we learn who he is, where our adoration increases while we're obeying him. It's not disconnected obedience. That is slavery. But it's adoration and trust. Now that adoration of trust grows over time. But that in itself is part of love. As I feed my spirit on who he is, I read the Word of God and my adoration and my gratitude increases. I, Jesus, I really like you. You're, you're like really amazing. And he goes, I like that. I like that that moves you. I go, wow, you are treating me so much better than I deserve. So much better. Why? You're so kind and you're so amazingly brilliant and powerful. And I trust you. I want to, I want to obey you because of who you are. There's an adoring trust that's a feature of love. You want to develop that part of your spiritual life. It says in number two here in Psalm 45, the psalmist said, my heart overflows with a good theme. And she, he and the psalmist was talking about Jesus. My heart overflows. I write my composition concerning King Jesus. My tongue is like an enthusiastic pin of a ready writer. I'm exploding with enthusiasm, with, with admiration and gratitude is what he's talking about. Having a tongue like a ready writer means I am ready. I'm enthusiastic. I'm exploding. I have so much adoration and I have gratitude because you are fairer than the sons of men. You are beautiful in your splendor, your wisdom and your kindness towards me. And so there's a dimension of love that is enhanced as we develop this adoring trust, this awestruck affectionate love. That's what I like to call it. The way we're going to love Jesus forever will be awestruck gratitude. Our love in eternity forever will be motivated by awestruck gratitude. Forever we'll say, oh you're amazing. And thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you. Oh you're awestruck. You're amazing. Adoration. Thank you. Gratitude. Therefore I love you. Top of page three. Premise number three. It's more than obedience and being awestruck love or adoring trust. Love requires loyalty to the truth. The truth as we understand it, again as the months turn to years and the years turn to decades, we get more light in our truth, our perception of truth increases. But truth as we know it, in the Word of God, He requires us to be loyal to it. And the Word of God is politically incorrect in the eyes of men. The things that Jesus promises, what He requires and what His plans are, what He's going to do in the earth, let's read the book of Revelation, is politically incorrect. And much of the church, and I don't know what I mean by much, I don't know what percent that means, but too much of the church, whether it's, you know, a small percent or a big percent, it's too big of a percent. Too many are siding with secular humanist thinking and they're distancing themselves from the political incorrectness of His truth. Politically incorrect. I'm talking about to the unrenewed secular mind. He requires loyalty to truth as an expression of His, of love, of loving Him. When I know something, I don't have to say everything I know in every setting, but when I know something, He says, I really take it personal if you don't stand for it when I've revealed it to you. Well Lord, those guys don't really believe that. And the Lord would say, but I believe it. And I've called you to stand with me in it. Do you love me? Yes, I love you. But they will get mad at me. Do you love me? Yes. Then be loyal to truth. Great conflict. And the generation Lord returns over the truth of who Jesus is and how He defines love. Beloved, I want to say by the grace of God as a people, we want to be loyal to that which we understand. And our understanding will increase as the years unfold. But we're determining we're going to show love to God on God's terms and that's being loyal to the truth. And I just want to say again, the truth is politically incorrect in many arenas of life to the unrenewed mind. Paragraph three. There's three truths. Well there's more than three, but these are the three I run into often that offend the humanist mind that's even in the church. Number one, His deity. He has the absolute right to define the standards that He holds every city, nation and person accountable to. He has the right to define those standards as God. Well you never know everybody in their own way and everybody according to what they see. No. There's one man who has total right to declare what's right and wrong. Because He's God. He's not God and that's a different story. He's God. Number two, He's the only way of salvation. And number three, He possesses the wisdom to judge the nations. And the judgment of Jesus, His loving judgment, His judgments are released to hinder everything that, that, uh, I mean to remove everything that, that, that hinders love. His judgments are an expression of His passion for purity and greatness and glory of His people. But the issue of Jesus's judgment comes into great conflict. Because the people began to debate about this group of innocent people in the earth. Beloved, there are no innocent people on the earth. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Everyone deserves not to live and everyone deserves to go to hell. There is no such group as innocent people who die. Before God we're all guilty and by His kindness we have life. By His kindness our life is extended and by kindness we have eternal life. End of story. And under His leadership and His judgments that will cause the premature death of multitudes in the generation He returns, there is no innocent group that has the right to challenge His leadership as being lacking in love and justice and wisdom. Premise number four, that love is consuming desire. There's a, a dimension of being abandoned, being lovesick. It's not passive. It's not just laid back passive. Now I'm going to talk about personalities. Different personalities are more energetic and some are more laid back. It's something I'm talking about. Because all, all the different personalities that the Lord has is playing the symphony through all the thousands of personalities, different types, whatever the number is. But I'm talking about whether your personality is quiet or loud or extrovert or introvert. Love isn't passive at the heart level. He wants us engaged. He wants us caring and given and abandoned in our pursuit of Him. He's lovesick. He wants us lovesick. He wants us to want Him more than anything else, more than a bigger ministry. He wants us to love Him more than looking good to the people that we love. He wants us to love Him even if we humble ourselves and lose out in the arena of man. He wants us to love Him more than increase. And the increase will come and it will go in seasons. The point isn't whether the increase is good or bad. The point is He wants something bigger on our heart than having our circumstances set up in the way we want them. When I get the guy I'm going to marry, or the girl, and I get the ministry, and the house finally lands, and I get it lined out, then I'm going to kick into a whole new gear. No. We kick into a whole new gear now. And if he or she comes, now or then or never, and if the ministry flourishes or never takes off, or you get the house, or you get it and lose it, we are in this thing for love. There's something bigger than having everything laid out just right. We're in it for love. That's part of loving God with all of our heart. Top of page four. Now let's look at these four spheres of life. Four spheres in which we show Him our love, that has obedience in it, that has adoring trust, that's loyal to truth, and that is, has awakened desire in it. Matter of fact, I want to recommend a book by Dana Candler called Entirety. Dana Candler just finished a book called Entirety. And entirety means loving God entirely, with the entirety of your being, with all of that you have. She's going to be teaching several of the classes here on this course, this first commandment course. But this book Entirety, I want to recommend it. It's, it's taking the word all, love the Lord your God with all. And she develops it. It's brilliant. She's got another book called Deep Under Deep. It's about hunger and desire for God. And she's got another really good book on fasting. Okay, we'll move on here. Roman numeral four. She wrote a book on fasting. Okay, sphere number one. Love God with all the heart. Now the heart, now these, the heart, the soul, the mind and the strength, Jesus meant them to be distinct. Now there's some verses where they overlap. But when Jesus laid it out here, He gave a command with the promise of the anointing to do it. This was very deliberate by the great psychologist of the ages, though the one man who truly understands the nature of man. He wasn't just giving kind of a definition of the makeup of, of a person's life in these four areas, in a general kind of, well, you know, they all kind of mean the same anyway. I've read some commentators. They go, well, he's really saying the same thing. I go, I don't think so. Now they all overlap in some ways because they're all, because the human is one person. Our, our, our humanity, our life has a wholeness and a oneness about it. But these are four different spheres of which we are challenged and anointed to love God in if we want to. I look at these four areas and the Holy Spirit's like, Mike, I'll give you more in this area if you want it. I go, of course I want it. He goes, come after me then, in this area of love. The loving with the heart is the affections, the emotions, the longings, the very impulse of desire. It's that, like that current in our being that determines just the way we see life. It's desire on the inside. We have such powerful desires that move us. Now we can't define all of our desires. Some of them we can define very clear, others not so clear, and others we don't have language. But those desires in every human being are very powerful and Jesus wants to be loved from that part of our life. Paragraph B. The psalmist says this. Because he, talking about the man of God, has set his love upon God, because he has set his love upon me, the psalmist writes, speaking for God, therefore I will deliver him. Here's the point I want to make. Our love can be set within the human makeup under Jesus's creative genius. He created us. We have the power to choose, to set our affections, to set our emotions. Or to set our heart is, is a better way to say it. And our emotions will eventually follow wherever we set ourselves. We determine, paragraph B, we determine the course that our emotions will eventually develop in. Now you can't today, seven o'clock in the evening, will that your emotions will change within an hour. Then suddenly your emotions are changed. Doesn't work that way. But you can set your heart on something and in the next months and years your emotions will follow the course of that setting. It takes time, but your emotions will follow where you've set your soul. It's years later and the guy, the gal, is still stuck in a huge unsettled issue. It's not a month later. It's not a year later. It's many years later. The Lord's saying, I want you to set your heart to love me in that area. You will get victory in time, but there needs to be a more clear setting. Not victory won't necessarily come in a day. But beloved, the way the human makeup is made, there is such a powerful dynamic that's part of the dignity of the human spirit. If you will set a goal, you will set your goal. And I don't mean a goal like I'm going to make this amount of money next year or lead this many people to the Lord. I don't mean goals like that. Those are good goals. I'm talking about a goal that says, the goal of my life, my being exists to obey God with obedience and affection and trust and desire. And I want to be loyal to truth. I want to obey you in these ways. It's my goal. I'm going for it. It's the consuming goal of my life. I tell you, whether it's months or years, your emotions will begin. I mean, it doesn't take years. The process gets stronger and stronger in a positive sense. Your emotions will follow the course of the setting of your heart. And whatever emotions you have today, there might be some exceptions. Emotions related to chemical or physiological reactions or situations of people's bodies. I'm not being strict in the strictest sense when I say all of our emotions. But generally speaking, the emotions we have today are the fruit of the setting we had 10 years ago. Whatever you set your heart on five and 10 years ago, you're living in the crop of it right now. I was only 10 years old 10 years ago. It's still the same. The human spirit, under Jesus's leadership and his creative design, has the ability to determine the course of their emotions under the Lord's leadership. It's a, it's a marvelous thing. You change your goals, your emotions will change in time. Paragraph C. We set our love on Him, our affections, to love with all of our heart or all of our affections. So when I put here and see the setting of love, I'm talking about the setting of the heart, the affections. In this setting, we want to remove everything that diminishes our affections. Meaning I want to love God with all my emotions, while other emotions, other various lusts emerge. And the Holy Spirit would say, those other emotions you must declare war on, because they will hinder and diminish your capacity to feel love for me and return it back to me. Beloved, it's not a matter of just setting our love, our heart to have, to walk in love. We have to declare war on the emotions that come and choke. It's the weeds, in Matthew 13 of the parable, Jesus said, it's the weeds that choke the seed. So you can plant the seed, but you have to address the weeds going around it. You can't have your eyes being involved in that which incites immorality. You can't have your heart inflamed with covetousness, or your tongue into slander and complaining, and somehow have your spirit end up buoyant in love. So I look at these negative emotions as enemies to love. I go, these things are enemies. They're coming after me. They're going to destroy love in my spirit. They're a part of attacking these enemies, is a part of setting your heart to love God with all of your emotions. It's not enough they say, I want to love you Jesus. I want to love you. I want to love you so much, I'm going to resist that which quenches my ability to love. Paragraph D. King David said it. David really got this point. David said, I will love you O God my strength. This was not just a statement of, of a experience. I do love you. He said, I will love you. Now David loved God in that moment, but David's coming out of zig lag. For those of you that know the life of David, he's coming out of 16 months of failure in his life and compromise. It's the, it's the roughest, most negative season in David's life, spiritually, in his walk with God with the zig lag years. And it's the day after zig lag he writes Psalm 18 and he goes, I will love you. I don't feel it like I'm going to, but I've set my heart. I mean, what a powerful statement the day after he was freed out of that 16 months of compromise and zig lag. We can decide things that form our emotions. Now our decision by itself is not enough. It's not enough to say, I will love, I will love. It's not just the force of, you know, self-determination. I will, I will. It's an important indispensable part of growing in love, but there's more to it than the decision. But the decision is indispensable and no one can make that decision for you. So I go, Lord, I want to love you with all of my heart. And the Holy Spirit might say something that's critical, that you maintain that goal. Because some people have that goal for a few months, then a year or two later they don't have that clear goal. They remember having it and they're thinking, well I guess I still do. I mean, I never changed anything that I know of. Beloved, you're changing every day and every week. You're either growing closer or you're growing further. There is no static. Meaning, there is no place in God where once you get it, you keep it. You're gaining ground or losing ground. And the only way you'll keep the ground you gain in the Spirit is by taking new ground. The only way I can maintain the love I've walked in for Jesus over the years is by increasing it. If I want to keep it the same, it will decrease. I have to increase the scope of my life that's coming under obedience for my love to stay even and to increase. It has to increase to keep from decreasing. There's no such thing as neutral ground. So the decision is critical. It's indispensable, but it's not enough. There are other factors involved in loving God besides the raw decision itself. But the decision is powerful. David went on again in Psalm 37. He said the same point. He said, delight yourself in the Lord. He will give you the desires of your heart. What a powerful understanding that David had of how the human makeup works under God's leadership. Delight yourself in the Lord. That doesn't mean that today you can just have busting, overflowing desire. I'm going to desire you today and today before I go to bed tonight, I will have new desires. No, that doesn't work that way. That's not what delight means. Delight doesn't mean manufactured desire. The desire is the, is the, is God's action after David delighted. The delight is David's part. The new desires imparted and injected into his spirit is God's part. You can't by a force of will create new desires. But David said, I delight. Meaning I'm setting my mind to give myself fully to you. You are my delight. Not my kingship. Not my relationships. Those are, those are the, the issues that have God's blessing on them. Whether it's possessions or position or relationships. God's blessing. It's good to delight in them in that secondary sense. To enjoy them and rejoice in them. But they can't be the delight of our heart. They cannot be the premier delight of our heart. In Job 22, verse 29 and 30, Job said, take your, your gold. Throw it down in the dust. Make God your gold. That's a decision. That's what it means to delight in the Lord. Job 20 verse 29 and 30. Make God your gold. Whether you feel it or not. It's the guy or the gal that says, you know what? I'm going to choose righteousness. I'm going to turn off a bunch of stuff and I'm going to downsize some of the activity in my life. I'm going to go after him. I'm going to fast and pray and go after him. I don't feel anything. I don't like it. The Word of God's boring. Prayer is more boring. But I'm doing it. That's called delighting in the Lord and making God your gold. And David understood the power of this. I tell you, he's a successful man in the Spirit. Meaning he loved God and walked in humility. That's what a successful man in the Spirit is. I don't mean he was famous and was a king. He loved God and walked in humility. That is what success is. And he did it. You want to follow his teaching. He says, you do your part. You choose that God will be your chief delight. Whether you feel it or not and what will happen in time, he will give you, he will impart new desires to you. When the scripture says God will give you the desires, it doesn't mean whatever you want you get. It means the things you want change if you delight in the Lord. Your desires, he will give you Holy Spirit inspired desires. Don't underestimate the power of setting your heart on God, whether you feel a thing. Paragraph F. The Holy Spirit, he will honor this decision. There's power in this decision to love God with your heart. It's a decision to set your heart, your, to set your love on God. The Holy Spirit waits on us to do it and we don't do it once. We renew it and we renew it. I don't renew it every day. That wouldn't be honest. I tell the Lord I love him every day, but there's several times in the course of a year, you know, maybe five or ten or twenty times. I don't know. One year is more than the next, but it's not like every day. But there's those moments where I go, wait, wait, slow down. I got a real line and in a very important 10, 20, 30, 40 minute conversation with the Lord. I don't mean it takes all day to do it. I go, wait. My life is not about IHOP. It's not about being a preacher. It's about loving you. Wait. Stop. Everything slow down. I'm in this thing to love you. And the Lord says, come on, talk to me. Talk to me. And I do that, you know, five, ten or twenty times a year. Some years I need to do it more because I lose the connect. I'm talking about the clear focus of why I exist on the earth. I start thinking I exist to be a leader in the body of Christ. The Lord says, no, that's your assignment and I want you to do with all of your heart. But that's not the main thing. That's not your main assignment. Your main assignment is to love me with all your heart. Oh yes. Did it again. I realign myself several times a year. More or less. More some years than others. And I want to challenge you. You got to do this. Don't think the decision last month or two years ago is the final time. No. You got to renew it. You renew your love. Top of page five. Sphere number two. We love God with all of our soul. Now our soul is our personality. It's different than just our desire. And the most expressive, the most expressive part of your personality is your speech. It's more than speech. But speech is the primary issue this is talking about. Beloved, this is a big subject. It's certainly more than a three-minute point on session three in a series. This is a huge point. I'm only tipping you off to it if it's new to you. I'm not trying to expound on it and fully lay it out. The area of your speech, your personality, the way that you talk, the way you express yourself, your personality is more than your speech. But your speech is the primary way of which your soul is expressed. Not the only way, but it's the primary. What I say in the next seven days, in the next seven weeks, in the next seven months, whatever the time frame you want, whatever I say in the next week is going to enhance or diminish my ability to feel love and to grow in love towards God. It's going to do one or the other for sure. My speech and yours, James three, it's the runner on the ship that will lead you into love or lead you into a quenched spirit. And I'm not talking about not just slandering. The number one issue of our speech, all of us, is pride and complaint. Slander is, you know, down the list three or four or five. It's complaint. I challenge you. The next 24 hours, next seven days, take every phrase of complaint as an issue about your love to Jesus. Not that he's mad. Like if you complain, he goes, oh forget it. We're never going to relate to each other. I'm not saying he's mad. But what complaining does is it quenches the Spirit. And the Spirit is the key to your love being inflamed. I can't love Jesus if the Spirit and me are not in agreement. And he will not agree with complaint. That's by far the number one. It's pride. All complaint is pride. I'm talking about just the category, just the normal complaints of life. I mean there are complaints in prayer that are, you know, like the impeccatory psalms where they're crying out, oh God. There are biblical complaints. I don't mean in that technical sense. But I'm talking about complaint is pride because I think I deserve a better deal. The dog should not bark next door when my window's open. The guy should not cut me off on the highway. The other guy should not mess with my stuff. The other person should not do what. I deserve better. It is at the end of the day pride. And when we, when we bridle our tongue and we just think, and we thank the Lord, not that we thank the Lord that somebody's annoying us, but we thank the Lord, not that we're being annoyed, not that we're being bugged, but we thank the Lord that He's watching our humility and we're actually having an encounter, ability to encounter Him in that moment. I go, Lord, I really wish they would quit doing that. However, I'm not going to vocalize it. I'm giving myself to You. I'm giving myself to love. I, I'm with You, Lord. And, and my spirit feels different now. Multiply that 10,000 times. It's not like one vitamin is going to take a sick person and make it healthy, but they take vitamins for years. You do that thousands of times. Your spirit will be really different in one year, two years, and three years. Many people don't love God with their soul. They love God with their heart, meaning they, they're saying, my emotions, I want to do this all the way. But when it comes to their soul, their tongues are not under the government of the Holy Spirit. And it's not like, again, Jesus is mad and He doesn't want you in His family. But the Holy Spirit says, no, I'm going to starve you out by your dullness and barrenness till you do it my way. You have to do it my way, and then you will feel my presence. Not that you earn His presence. It's just you feel His presence when there's just agreement with our spirit and His spirit. It's not about earning. It's about coming in agreement. And our soul, radical parts of our soul. I mean, I mean a radical part of our love. The way that people carry on with members of the opposite sex, the way they promote themselves, the way they manipulate, the way they do many, many things is your soul. And most of it is about words. The Holy Spirit says, oh, I long to give you more, but I want you to love me with all of your soul too. Not just your heart, but your soul. Sphere number three. This is different than our soul and our heart. It's our thoughts, all of our mind. Now to love God with all of our mind involves a number of things. And again, this is so elementary what I have on these notes. And so limited. So don't read these notes and say to yourself, well, I got it. No, no, no. These are only like a table of contents. Take these notes and go, okay, Holy Spirit, I got an open Bible. I got you. You love me. I love you. Teach me these four spheres. I've got time ahead of me. I don't know before how long before I meet Jesus face to face, but let's get on with it and let's grow in all four areas. So I want to challenge you to go after these four things. I'm, I'm going after them. I want to go after them more. I'm not, I'm not satisfied with where I'm at in these four things, but at least I know what I'm aiming at. Thoughts. It's beloved our mind. And I have a couple important things about how the mind works here that I'm not going to have time to get into. Your mind is so precious. Well your soul is. Your heart is. Hope, so far these are three really biggies. And then the fourth one is just as big. The strength. We cannot have our mind filled with dirty smoke. It's like, you know, the, the guys in the decades ago where they had, before they had labor laws, they would work in certain environments where the environment was really dirty with smoke, or in the coal mines in certain ways, and their souls were toxic. After 10 years they found out that the horrible diseases, there's many examples of that, and so they made the labor laws. We are living in a toxic mind. It's like, I mean, it's like a guy working in a toxic mind for 10 years that they're guaranteed everybody gets the disease if they work in that mind under those particular conditions. Again that's why they made the labor laws. What we do with our minds on the internet and on TV and where we take our mind and the things, the long periods of times we spend without filling our mind with the Word of God, and the lies that we believe about Jesus, and the lies we believe about ourself, and there's so much toxic power, quenching love. We have to love Him with our mind. Our minds must love Him. The way that I want to love with my mind, I want to take the hours of my day and I want to invest it in my mind getting clean air, not the toxic air of the, you know, of working in the mines in the decades past. And I don't mean you read the Bible all day, every day. That's not what I mean. But I want to learn to speak the Word more in my heart. The prayer without ceasing. Talk to God more. And in my time where I can, when I can get the time, I want to be in the Word. And many times I read the Word, I don't feel anything. I say, the Word doesn't feel powerful. But I tell you, it's marking your mind whether you feel it or not. Say, well I don't feel like it. I'm kind of down, a little burnout. And the definition of burnout is like really confused in the body of Christ. Burnout normally means I'm in a bad mood. You don't want to throw your spiritual destiny away when you feel burnout, because that's going to be every, almost every other day for the rest of your life. Just throw that burnout thing away. Well, I'm tired and burnout. I've been tired for 30 years nearly. I really mean it. I've been tired most days for 30 years to some degree. So what? Big deal. I'm not waiting to get rested and happy before I start the kingdom of God. I'm just, I'm tired. I'm tired. Oh, I'm a little lethargic. So I know what to do. I'm going to read the Word. I don't feel anything. So it's still marking my spirit. I've learned that over 30 plus years. Don't wait to get rested. Don't wait to get happy. You'll never do the kingdom if you wait for that. I really mean that. Page six. The fourth sphere is all of our strength. This is shark-infested waters again. All of these are heavy. What do I mean by shark-infested waters? Our strengths are the areas God's blessed us in. We have a certain influence, whether it's in the family, the neighborhood, in the church, in the marketplace, whatever. A little bit of influence, a little bit of blessing with circumstances, whatever. Everyone's got a different setup. Maybe it's a physical ability. You have the giftings for that organization to where you can be distinguished because you have the gifting for it. In our setting, you know, if you can sing and play, boy, that's really important. But in the other setting, they don't care if you do that. You got to be able to do something else. You know, it's, there's many different giftings, whatever different setting. My point of it is, don't lock into here. Just think, whatever my giftings are, whatever my economic blessings, whatever my favor with men, whatever my influences, those are the areas of your strength. Whatever your energy level is, just having energy and health is one of your strengths. What he calls us to do is have a very specific relationship with him, where it's called the fasted lifestyle, where we take our strengths that we normally use to enhance our life and to enjoy. And then when we're supposed to enjoy them, and we're supposed to use our strengths to enhance our life. There's nothing wrong with enhancing your life with the five or 10 areas of strength God gives you. However, there are times where he says, now, Mike, you see that money, where you get to enhance your life, see the energy you have to enhance your life. I want you to fast this day. Oh, I lose a little bit of energy and I lose brain power. That's okay. Well, I get a little wobbly, a little weak, can't really do what I normally do. That's okay. Because you and me have a relationship. You voluntarily fast, which means embrace weakness in that area. And over time, I will give you more through my blessing than you could ever produce by keeping your strength high. You'll have more buying power if you give me a bunch of your money than if you keep it all. You'll have more influence if you humble yourself when you're attacked instead of answering back. It won't happen in a week or a but over a decade, you'll have way more influence. It's called fasting. Fasting means we take our strength. We lay it at his feet. We trust the Holy Spirit in the interaction in our relation with him because you talk to him all the time when you're fasting. When you give money away, giving money away is a form of fasting. It's giving your strength away economically. Fasting foods, you're giving your strength away. Prayer, you're giving your time away. Lord, here we are. You want me to sit in a room and tell you what you tell me to tell you? You already know it. I'm already late today. You want me to take an hour to tell you what you already know? Yes. Do you realize what I could do in this hour? Yes. You could do more. I mean even in the positive sense. And then I lose my physical energy. I can't eat. Then I get my money away. Then the guy's mad at me. I've got to bless him or just be quiet at least. And like, ah. Lord, just now talk to me. What? Because when you fast, you talk to the God because you got a thousand arguments to stop doing it. Keep the money. Eat the food. Don't pray. Get even with the guy. But fasting is the opposite of all of those. And when you fast, when you love him with your strength, it draws you into a dynamic conversation with the Holy Spirit. Oh man, I'm starving. Why am I doing this again? Because you told me I will have more if I do this. Okay, okay, good. I'm running late again and all these people I need to talk to problems to solve. Why am I in this prayer meeting telling you what you tell me to tell you? Because if I do this, you and me will get further. More will happen in 10 years. Okay, okay, okay, okay. It drives you into a dynamic dialogue all day long in whatever area you're fasting at. And the Lord requires it. What many do is they take their strengths and they just run with them. And they don't love God in their strength. They give God tokens. They throw him a, you know, a, a, a, a token offering on the way out the door. They give God a tip. But they're not giving them their strength. They're giving God a tip of their time, a little tip of their money, a little tip of their honor. And what happens is the area of their blessing ends up, five and ten years come and go, and their spirit is diminished in love. They actually lose their ability to walk in love. And the guy goes, I just got too busy. I got burned out. I go, no, you didn't love God with your strength. You didn't fast your strength. You didn't love him with strength. You didn't love him with your soul. You talk the way you want to talk. You didn't love him with your heart. You didn't set your heart to love God. You set your heart to have a big ministry. And you didn't love him with your mind. You were too busy. Entertainment, recreation, playing. I mean, the body of Christ in America just plays too much and rests too much and just messes around too much. And we've got this powerful mind and a Bible and an open heaven. And God says, you got as much time as everybody else does. You got a mind, you got a Bible. Do you want to do anything with all this? Yes, I do. Love me with your mind then. Amen. For more free downloads from Mike Bickle, please visit mikebickle.com.