Mike Bickle emphasizes the Bride's life vision in Song of Solomon 1:2-4, highlighting the importance of intimacy with God over worldly blessings. He explains that true fulfillment comes from experiencing God's love, which surpasses all earthly pleasures and achievements. Bickle encourages believers to seek a deeper relationship with Jesus, advocating for a life vision that prioritizes spiritual intimacy and community in ministry. He warns against the distractions of seeking success and material gain, urging a focus on the superior pleasures found in God's affections. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a commitment to a life centered on love for God, which leads to genuine obedience and joy.

Father, we just thank you for all that are with us in the stand conference. We ask you for a seal of love to touch the heart, the fiery seal. God, I ask you for the seal of love. I ask for a prophetic anointing of grace, even dreams in the night about the Bridegroom God that would awaken the heart, the Bridegroom King, to go to war, to release God's power based on love. And we ask you, God, for encounters that would begin even this weekend with those that have come to visit us these several days. We ask you to bless the hearing of your word now, in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we're working through the Song of Solomon, the major themes. We're not going to cover every verse. And here is the theme of the chapter, chapter 1, Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 2 to 4, which is the theme of the song. We're going to review from the last session. The bride cried out her one request to the only one that had authority over the king, the only one that could influence the king. She said, let him kiss me with the kisses of his word, the kisses of his mouth. And she gives us the key point. We're going to develop this tonight. And she says, I'm going to tell you why I want the word of God to touch my heart in power. Because I know something that other people don't really understand. That the encounter in the love of God is better than anything that this world can give me. Positive or negative blessings. I mean, there's many blessings of God. She goes, even more than the blessings of God in my circumstance in ministry the anointing and finance and favor. She goes, I have a revelation. There's actually something more than that that is the primary cry of my heart. She goes, it's love that's better than wine. The wine of this fallen world. She goes, that's why I want the word of God to touch me. So we cry out, we cry, Father, let your son kiss us with the kisses of his word. Meaning, you don't need to use that language, but if you use this verse, Song of Solomon, that's how you would pray it. You can pray it, Holy Spirit, pour out the love of God in my heart. You can pray it, Lord, release the spirit of revelation of the word that touches my heart. Unveil that volcanic eruption of love that's in your heart. Unveil it to my heart. This is a prayer for the grace, for grace to love Jesus with all of our heart. That's what this prayer translates to in the language of the New Testament. And we're reading the Song of Solomon through the language of New Testament truth. This is a prayer for grace, for the anointing or the grace of God, say it any way you want, to love Jesus with all of our heart. Beloved, that's the premier vision of our life. I have a secondary, a number of elements of the secondary vision of my life. I want the Lord to bless my ministry and relationships, many, many, many things, but I have a primary vision that's bigger than all of the secondary vision. The secondary vision's good, it's important, it's biblical, but I have a vision bigger than all the other ones. Paragraph B, I've already said it, but the bride gave her reason for wanting the Word of God to touch her in this way. Your love is better than. I like the NIV, the New International version. Your love is more delightful, it touches my heart. The point is that Jesus' affections are better than anything this world can offer. Now, everybody knows it, a lot of songs that highlight it, but then believers pursue ministry more than intimacy with God. They pursue promotion. They get stuck in bitterness and competition, comparison and anguish. They get snared in temptations, and the Lord says, wait a second, don't you believe that I'm a bigger vision than that? And those things that I'll even bless you with, but me connecting with you is actually more powerful than that. Now, wine in this context of married love in this love song, it's a natural song extolling the beauty of married love. That's the natural interpretation, and that's a very biblical and important interpretation of these eight chapters, the beauty of natural married love. And so wine in this context is talking about the drink of gladness that celebrates married love is the idea. And the reason I make that point, because paragraph C, that wine in this context speaks of the things that are intoxicating in this world, the good things and the bad things. And what I mean by the good things, I'm talking about blessed circumstances. I mean, it's really something if God gives you a million dollars. I mean, that's pretty cool. God wanted to give me a million dollars, I wouldn't say, oh no, in the name of Jesus, don't. I'd say, in the name of Jesus, give me two million. I mean, those are blessed circumstances. The Lord said, I want to open a door of favor. I'd say, yes, greater, give me the double portion. But in my appreciation and celebration of the good things of this fallen world, I mean, the blessings and favor and increase, I don't want to be confused that that is the primary issue that will satisfy my heart. It's important that we value the circumstantial blessings of God, but we're not intoxicated by them. Easy to say, but hard to do. I know many believers that can say what I just said, but in the reality of how they carry their private life in God, the way they carry their heart, they actually live in a different place than what I just said. And my point isn't how bad they are. My point is we're contending for a higher vision. Some imagine that favor in relationships, and favor in finance, favor in ministry, great impact somehow will answer the cry of their heart. It won't. I promise you, it won't. And the pursuit of it can be intoxicating, kind of excite us as doors are opening and things are increasing. We get excited only to find out when you get deeper into the blessing, it really doesn't satisfy our heart. I know more lonely men and women of God that have a mountain of impact in favor and finance, and they go, is that, that's really what this was about? Several decades later, they've made it to the top only to discover there's nothing at the top that they imagined that would satisfy their heart. So as young people, why do we want to take two or three decades and waste it pursuing that? Celebrate the blessing of God, but don't be confused by it. Don't make it number one. I'm talking about the circumstantial blessing of God. Paragraph D, this passage highlights the superior pleasures, the superior pleasures that come from experiencing God's affections. There's something superior when God reveals God to our human heart, to the human spirit. Superior pleasures are in contrast to the inferior pleasures of sin. Now the way that God frees us from the dominion of inferior pleasure is by introducing us to the superior pleasures. Meaning, I know a lot of young people that are saying no against lust, and that's very important. They're resisting lust, but they're focusing on saying no, and it's important in an element of our spiritual life to focus on saying no. But it's the primary focus. And they put their energy, no, no, no, and they grit their teeth, and they resist it, and they think about it. The Lord taps us on the shoulders and says, turn around, focus on the superior pleasures, and then after I begin to fascinate your heart with my son, you can turn around and resist sin as it's trying to chase you down. It's a very, very different mindset. When sin pulls at my heart, whether just the lust of life, which includes bitterness and disappointment and pain and many other things, I know where the answer is. It's not in focusing on resisting, although resisting is important, but it's secondary. It's on getting intoxicated with the one that I know can liberate me on the inside by encountering him. And the encounter I'm talking about is not a one-time encounter where an angel appears and visits, touches you, then all of a sudden you have no more wrong desires, you're totally full. I don't know of a counter that does that. When I was younger, I thought if I had a heavenly encounter, everything would go away. Well, I've had a couple of very powerful encounters over the years, and I know quite a handful of guys and gals that have had powerful encounters, but the thing doesn't go away, the negative. It's that growing in revelation of Jesus by the word, day by day, inch by inch, that's where the exhilaration and the fascination is found. Paragraph E. There's many different categories of pleasure in our human makeup. We're supposed to celebrate these pleasures. I'm talking about there are pleasures under the lordship of Jesus in our human makeup. God made us so there are spiritual pleasures. There are physical pleasures that are in the will of God. There are emotional pleasures. There are relational pleasures. There's mental pleasures. I mean, just the excitement of learning something that's according to how God designed you, something you're really interested in, that's pleasurable. We yearn for pleasure. We're pleasure seekers because God is the very fountain of pleasure, and he created us that way. The key is to find the pleasures in the will of God. The goal is not to live a pleasure-free life. The goal is to live in pleasures that are in the will of God and predominantly locked into the spiritual pleasures of God revealing God to our heart. Paragraph F. God created the human spirit with longings. We have many longings. I have a book, myself and Deborah Hebert wrote it, paragraph G, called Seven Longings of the Human Heart. It's not like there's only seven. There are more longings. You can categorize them different ways. But God created us with these longings. You can't repent of these longings. You can repent of trying to fulfill them in the wrong way, but you can't repent of the longing itself because it was built into you strategically by God to draw you to him. Paragraph G, I think the greatest longing in the human heart is the longing to have the assurance that we're actually enjoyed. I believe that's the greatest, most profound longing in the human heart, that we're enjoyed by God. We have a longing to be fascinated. The entertainment industry has exploited that longing, and they seek to fascinate us over in the other direction. Not all the entertainment. Praise God, the Lord's raising up those media messengers, those media missionaries that are bringing the will of God and the kingdom of God to the realm of the arts. That's happening right now as I speak. All across the earth, God's stirring up men and women in that arena. The longing to be beautiful, the longing to be great. Did you know that you can't repent of longing to be great? You can repent of pursuing it in the wrong way, but the great God created you with a desire to be great. We just need to pursue it in his way, in his timing, according to what the Word says. Anyway, you can read the rest of those if you want to. Paragraph 2, page 2. Satan counterfeits these longings and these pleasures. The reason I'm emphasizing this, because through this perspective, you'll read the Song of Solomon in a different way when you understand God actually wants to fascinate you and fill your heart with the pleasure of encountering him. And again, it's little by little, step by step. I've had a couple of major experiences over the years, but those aren't the ones that actually make the big difference in how my emotions feel. Because if I don't do something with the truth related to those encounters with the Lord, I have to apply those truths day by day. And it's the applying of the truth about who he is and who I am to him that actually fascinates my heart and fascinates your heart. The Bible talks about deceitful lusts. And the reason they're deceitful, they promise that they will satisfy us, so we take hold of them, but they leave us empty. And I don't mean just evil things. That's what these passages are talking about. I'm talking about even blessings that are good, that we want, when they become number one in our life, they leave us empty. Even good blessings in our circumstances. And I love blessings. Again, wherever God wants to bless me, I want the double portion everywhere. I'm not putting down his blessing, but I'm not exalting it to its inappropriate place in my heart either. Paragraph I. The greatest pleasures are spiritual ones. There are physical, emotional, relational, mental pleasures, but the greatest pleasures in the human makeup are spiritual ones. Paragraph J. The bride develops this theme of the superior pleasures throughout the love song, the eight-chapter love song. I mean, in the next chapter, chapter two, we're in chapter one right now, she talks about the great delight of encountering the presence of God. Paragraph K. I mean, this is the height of where it goes. This gives us insight into the measure of how powerful the love of God is. Jesus declared, he said, in the same intensity that the Father loves me, I love you in that same intensity. Beloved, that is impossible to exaggerate the height of what that means. Jesus looked at the apostles. He said, in the same intensity, my Father loves me. The eternal God, the Father, loves me. The eternal Son. I mean, Jesus is as much God as the Father. He's uncreated like the Father. They've loved each other from eternity past. He goes, in the same intensity, as the Father loves me, that's how I love you. Beloved, a billion years from now, we'll still be discovering this. But I don't want to wait till the age to come to get serious about this journey. I want to take the Word. I want to talk to Him. I want to talk to the Holy Spirit. Show me how God feels about me. Awaken my own desires for Him. I walk in the power of loving God with all of my heart. Though my love is weak, when we give all of our heart to seek to love Him, something is exhilarating on the inside. My love is weak. I'm not impressed with my love for God. I want it to grow so much, but I've been going hard after it. And the very pursuit of wholeheartedness actually is exhilarating in itself to touch our heart. Let's look at Roman numeral 2. I have three different types of obedience, and all three of them actually are biblical and necessary. I'm not putting one of them down, but what I do is I'm pointing out there's one that exists that many ignore. That's the first one. I call it affection-based obedience. This is obedience that flows from experiencing a little bit. I mean, a little bit goes a long way. Jesus' affection for me that I just talked about in John 15 in the last verse we looked at. And returning that love, that affection, this results in the deepest and the most consistent. This results in the deepest and most consistent obedience. Meaning if you will get into that vein, your obedience will be deeper and more consistent when you're under pressure. I tell you what we will do for love is far beyond what we will do for duty. Paragraph B, there's duty-based obedience. Duty-based is not bad. It's just not the most powerful. We obey God when we feel nothing. I know what it means to obey God when I feel nothing. I've done it many, many times. That's not my favorite, but it's biblical. There's fear-based obedience. That's biblical. Fear of consequences. You really go to hell. It's real. I don't want to go to hell. I really don't. I don't want to live under the discipline of God in the negative sense because I've resisted Him, resisted Him. He goes, I love you so much, I will discipline you. That's real. And when my affection-based obedience runs thin, I go, you know, I fear the Lord. This is real. It's the fear of consequences. Consequences are real. And if someone tells you they're not real because of the grace of God, they're not reading the Bible. It's real. But the difference is that those other, those second, the duty-based, the fear-based, it was never designed to transform the heart. There has to be more than that. If the fear of getting caught, the fear of getting shamed, the fear of getting fired, the fear of being disciplined, if that's all that motivates us to stay true, it will never transform us. We'll just be gritting our teeth all the time, trying hard not to step across the line so we don't get in big trouble. Again, that's biblical. It's just not the highest. That's my point. There's more. I love the quote, paragraph D by C.S. Lewis. I've heard a number of preachers quote this, so I encourage you to run with this. He said, We are half-hearted creatures fooling around with alcohol and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us. We're like the ignorant child who makes mud pies in a slum because we can't imagine that we've been offered the holiday by the sea. The Lord, he develops the analogy of the poor boy in the slum who's been offered this phenomenal vacation, but he takes the ticket. That's the imagery. And he puts the ticket under his cardboard box and lives under the bridge and just eats mud pies because it doesn't enter his mind there's something bigger that's already been given to him. Beloved, why do we want to live in spiritual poverty in the wrong sense? Because there is a blessing of the poor in spirit that's a right thing. God wants to give us a vision of how far we can go with our encounter of God in the heart. And I want to go the whole way. Top of page 3. Well, let's look at some of the verses now. The passage, verse 3. The bride says, Because of the fragrance of your perfumes. I use the word perfumes because when we think of ointments, not everybody thinks automatically of perfume, but that's the idea. The ointments were perfumes and many translations will use the word perfumes here. Because of the fragrance of Jesus' perfumes, two things happen. Your name is perfume poured forth. Number one. And number two, your people, they love you. Because there's perfume, because of the beauty of who you are, your name is poured forth. God anoints the name of Jesus and makes it famous in the earth. The reason God pours forth the name of Jesus in the nations, He's doing it through church history, but He's going to do it far beyond in the days to come and in the age to come. Why? There's only one perfumed name among men. It's His name. And God's going to pour it forth in the nations. But that's not the only thing that this perfumed name does. It awakens love. It causes us to love Him. Paragraph A. The fragrance of a rose comes from its internal qualities. I mean, you pick up a rose and you smell it, but it's the internal qualities of the rose that you're smelling. The king's perfume in this love song, this poem, this love poem, speaks of His internal life. It's the internal life of who that man is. It's fully God. He's fully man. It's His internal life that is so fragrant. What do I mean by His internal life? It's what He thinks. It's what He feels. I remember some years ago, I was in my 20s. I'm in my 58, almost 60s. Many years ago, I got the vision. I mean, just the goal. I wanted to become a student of God's emotions. I got captivated by becoming a student of how God feels, by reading in the Bible where it describes how God feels and becoming a student of God's emotions. I believe David was a student of God's emotions. That's where I got the idea. He was a man of God's own heart in one element. He was a student of how God feels. The Bible has much information about it. I began to grow in my understanding a little bit. I'm not very far along the road. I understand more than I did back then, but when I began to get just as captivated by how He thinks and how He feels, and particularly how He thinks and feels about me. Okay, sanctified selfishness. I was thinking mostly about me on the front end. I still think about me a lot. I really like me. That's actually biblical in the grace of God. It's biblical to hate our own life and to love who we are. In the grace of God, that's another subject for another day. But when I began to a little bit understand how He thinks and feels, I tell you, I began to see Christianity and the kingdom of God entirely different. It wasn't just some rules I had to endure to escape hell and not get in trouble. It wasn't just a ministry assignment to work hard to get other people forgiven of their sins. It was a dynamic exchange with the most beautiful man that ever walked the earth. Oh, the fragrance of His good perfumes. The way He feels about you. The way He thinks about you. It's remarkable. It speaks of His thought life, His emotions. Paragraph B. Well, there's two different things the bride highlights here. Because of your good perfumes, number one, God will pour your name forth. He will exalt you above every other name. Because Jesus' life is perfumed before God. When the Father looks at Jesus, He said, That's the name I will exalt in the nations. It will bring glory to me and it will fill the earth with love. That's the name I'm going to pour forth. What a glorious revelation to connect your heart with the Father's commitment to pour forth that perfumed name. But it doesn't end there. Paragraph 2. The virgins love Him. Believers love Him. These are spiritual virgins. Who we are in Christ Jesus because of the gift of righteousness is what it's talking about. Through the lens of the New Testament. Look at paragraph C. We develop a little bit more. This idea. The church will love Jesus as the Father pours forth the perfume of who He is. The revelation of His beauty. That sounds like David again. King David was captured by the beauty of God. Not just His external display of power, but the internal makeup of His emotions and His thought life and His personality is beautiful beyond description. David said, I'll lock into the realm of your beauty. The bride knows, I have in paragraph C, the beauty of Jesus will cause believers to love Him more. It's so gracious of the Lord in our early days. I mean 30 years ago, plus in 1983 when the Lord spoke about IHOP, the verse He used. He spoke it audibly. Psalm 27. This one thing will gaze on His beauty. I remember when Bob Jones told me this. I said, well, gazing on God's beauty isn't prayer night and day. You're confused. And he said, oh, it is. I said, what? I said, no, prayer night and day is all about revival. He says it's about gazing on His beauty, encountering His beauty, and seeing others being released into the revelation of His beauty. It was a bizarre idea. I actually told him, I said, no, you got it mixed up. He said, well, you'll see. This will make sense. And my reason I'm saying this, the prayer movement is contending for justice and power, but it's through the paradigm, the perspective of encountering beauty and contending for beauty, the beauty of Jesus. And without that little progressive increase of beauty, I tell you, the work is too difficult. We get burnout in the task. Without the revelation of beauty, the task is just too wearisome. Paragraph 8, Jesus declares God's name. He declares the Father's name, God's name, the Father's name, or declares the Father's personality as the way to awaken love in the heart. You don't have to have a lifetime verse, but I got one. And if you're looking for one, I always recommend people to pick this one. I say that just a little bit of humor. But John 17, 26, I just made it my life verse. Many years ago, Jesus is praying. He goes, Father, I've declared your name to them. And in declaring your name, the love that you love me with will be awakened in them. They'll love me when they see you. They'll be so fascinated by who you are, Father. And they will be so exhilarated by you. It will awaken love inside them. And Jesus, he has really good theology. Jesus has really good theology. How many of you know that? The reason I'm saying this, it's this focused, this tenacious focus to grow in the knowledge of what God's like. The Father, the Son, the Spirit. One God in three persons. Whether you're studying the Father, the Son, the Spirit, you're going to end up in the same place. Again, one God in three persons. When we study his name, what his personality is like, what he feels like, how he acts, what he thinks, it awakens love in the human heart. Why do I say that to you? A lot of folks want love to increase. They want to feel the power of it. They want to feel the love of God for them, and they want to feel love back to God. So what they do is they come to a worship service and want someone to pray for them to impart it to them. And I'm all for that, but that's not mostly how you're going to grow in this revelation by someone laying hands on you. You're going to grow in it day by day, inch by inch, reading the Word and talking to Jesus, and the Spirit little by little touching your heart. I'm telling you that's how it works. People go, I believe everything you're saying, but I don't actually read the Word. I'm just not, you know, I'm not really one of those guys. Well, then you will live spiritually superficial. You may have a powerful gifting that opens up big doors for you. You might sell a lot of CDs, make a lot of money. You might be a famous preacher, but you'll live spiritually shallow on the inside, and that to me is the greatest tragedy a believer could do in this age. A sincere believer lives spiritually shallow. I want to go after this. I believe this stuff. I really believe this. It's worth laying aside some things to make more time for this. It really is worth it. I'm a satisfied customer that is completely unsatisfied. I'm discontentedly content. I'm grateful but ravenous in hunger. This is not enough. Give me more. Oh, but how much you've given me. Thank you, but I've got to have more. I mean it. I don't mean just being a worship service where we get real excited and jump real high and have someone lay hands on me. I like that, but I'm talking about far more than that. I'm talking about those other 18 hours in the day. I'm talking about that part of our life. What we do in our heart, how we talk to Him through the day, based out of those times where we get to lock things away and talk to Him with the word open, then we can have that conversation developed throughout the day, little by little, because we have those times where we lock in. Paragraph F. Jesus knows how the human heart works. He told Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7. I love this. It's 747. I mean this is the passage that will really take you high. I mean this is the 747 passage. It's kind of corny, but I'm telling you it's true. That's how I memorized it years ago. I just said, okay, I can do it that way. Jesus said, let me tell you. He tells Simon the Pharisee, let me tell you about that woman. She's forgiven much. She loves much. My point is this causes us to grow in gratitude. I tell you, when we see the measure of the love, gratitude, and when gratitude, that's our safety from bitterness and disappointment, is gratitude for what we've received, not anger for what we didn't get that somebody else got or somebody took from us. We can live in bitterness instead of gratitude. But when I see how much I brought into the relationship, not very much, and how much he brought into the relationship, if nothing else happens positive in circumstances, I'm way ahead of the game of what I deserve already. If you get in the way of my blessing and you take it and steal it and run with it, but in the will of God it always bounces back, but put that aside for a moment. My point is I'm way ahead of the game already right now. Yes, I hop worship leaders, even if somebody takes your drummer. Okay, top of page four. They'll give up their boyfriend before they give up their drummer. Okay, page four, paragraph A. It's a 15-year observation. There's something about drummers that are really special. It's only funny because you're not a worship leader. Okay, paragraph A. A couple of you are crying right now. They said, I'm going to get inner healing tonight. That guy understands. Top of page four. Paragraph A. Paragraph A. The bride describes her spiritual goals and she describes her primary life vision. Verse four is her primary life vision and you're going to see three different facets of verse four. Verse four is loaded. It's one of the most powerful verses in the Song of Solomon. She expresses her two-fold life vision and her two-fold life vision, she wants to be drawn in intimacy with God. Draw me after you, Jesus. I want to touch you at the heart level. But she wants to run together with others in ministry. The drawing is singular. The running is plural. Draw me away. We will run after you. There's something dynamic about linking arms with believers that are equally yoked, going hard for God and we're running after Jesus and we're running together in ministry to bring others. There's ministry. There's community. There's something together that we're bringing to others. We're running. Well, verse four starts with her life vision. Draw me and we'll run. The next thing he says, he talks about the chambers. That's the way for the vision to be fulfilled. Those chamber times in our private life, those personal times where we're with God, without the chamber times, we're never going to fulfill our vision, never. A lot of people have a vision for intimacy and a vision for powerful ministry, but they don't have any place for the king's chamber in their schedule, in their life. Now, I say this next thing absolutely with no criticism. Seriously. A lot of folks that, with all the effort and energy to come here and join IHOP and raise their support and be an intern and be a, all these things, and in the prayer room they play video games and do email and they don't even talk to Jesus. Nothing wrong with doing email. I do email in the prayer room sometimes. But most of my time, I'm not trying to get away and endure time in the prayer room. I want to go somewhere with God. But I've seen people in the 15 years of IHOP, incredible amount of energy and time and sacrifice and money to get here, and they get here and they don't connect and they don't talk to him. They endure the prayer room, just dreaming of their life outside of it. I think, why did you put the effort to get here? Here you are. It's built into your schedule, your chamber time. I don't really want to do that. Then she, her third point, all of this is in the notes, but it's her, we will be glad and rejoice in you. We will remember your love more than wine. Actually, that's the spiritual warfare dimension. I developed this in the notes, where she's contending for the vision. She's confessing the word. She's putting her stake in the ground, so to speak. She's not going to accept the enemy's counterfeit or any other obstacles. She has set her soul to confess. She's rejoicing in him. She's believing in him. She's taking time to remember what he says about his love. Because I tell you, beloved, there's a lot of obstacles that will get in the way. And you can have a vision. You can even have chamber times. Get in the king's chamber. But if you don't contend for the truth, you'll just live in condemnation and confusion on the inside, even in the chamber times. We've got to contend for the vision. I mean, for the truth of who he is. And I have that developed more in the notes. We probably won't get very far there. That's why I slipped it in and out. But you can read more later if you want. Number one, under paragraph A, being drawn is singular. This speaks of intimacy with God. It speaks of our private interactions. Did you know every one of us in this room, we're developing our secret history in God? You and I, everybody, every believer on the earth, we're developing that secret history, that interaction with God that nobody else can see. I mean, whether you're in a public gathering, whether you're in the workplace, whether you're in a prayer room, whether you're walking in the park, we all carry our heart in a certain way and make choices. We're developing our secret history. I want a rich secret history in God. That doesn't mean that nobody ever sees what's going on, but most of what happens in all of our lives happens on the inside. It's those choices we make continually. And I don't mean whether to sin or not sin, but how we're going to maintain the dialogue with him in our heart. How we're going to refuse condemnation. How we're going to resist temptation. How when the devil comes and there's disappointment and we want to just give up and give in, it's not worth it. And the Lord says, really? He says, don't you know I love you, and all things work together for good. Contend for what I've told you is true about you. Contend for it. Paragraph two. Running after him is plural. It speaks of ministry. It speaks of community. But I'm talking about life in the spirit. Beloved, fellowship isn't just entertainment with believers. Fellowship can be entertainment with believers, but it's something that builds us up in our spirit. I know guys, they think, as long as there's three born-again guys and it's Friday night, we call it fellowship. That's not fellowship. You're living in carnality and compromise. Well, they're all born-again and it's fellowship. It's not fellowship. It's destroying your spiritual life. It's not building you up in the spirit. You're socializing in darkness as born-again believers calling it fellowship. It's a deception. I say that because I love people. But anyway, paragraph B, throughout our spiritual life, there's an element of drawing after him and running in ministry. In every season, every season of our life, sometimes the emphasis is different in different seasons, but we're always drawing, developing intimacy, and running. We're engaged in ministry. We don't neglect one for the other. Paragraph C. Now many start off running in ministry. A lot of young believers, they get involved, they get in ministry, and they're so excited, they're going to change the world, they're going to have a great ministry, they've got three prophecies, they're going to take over Reinhard Bonnke's ministry, and it's it. This is it. They get so excited, but they don't draw, they don't develop the drawing of intimacy. Two, three, four, five, six years later, they're burnt out. I'm mistreated. Nobody's treating me right. God's not listening to me. Beloved, if you're going to run in ministry, also be drawn in intimacy. Don't do one without the other, or you'll end up burnt out. Top of page five. Okay, I can't hear you. I'm missing something. Oh, yeah. I get that ear thing in, and so paragraph D. Thank you. Did I miss one earlier when somebody was saying something? Okay, somebody was saying something, and I thought, there I go again. Okay, paragraph D. A life vision is that which we are committed to. We're fiercely committed to, regardless of our occupation, our family status, meaning a lot of folks are, I'm going to go for God until I get married. Then I get married, I'm going to put God on the side, and then I'm going to do all this for 10 years, and then get back to God. Or I'm going to go for God, then when I get the job that I really wanted, well, I'm going to go for God, but after I get established, 10 years go by. Beloved, I'm talking about having a life vision that's bigger than everything else. Something that everything you're committed to and everything else is second. And you don't put it on hold when a big opportunity happens. Well, I'm going to establish my ministry for a while, so I'll let drawing after God go aside for a while. Paragraph, page 5. I think I'm ready to move on here. The King's Chamber. I talk about the chamber experiences. These are the times where God communicates to us in a deeply personal way. There are times in the Word and worship. You don't always have to have the Bible open. Those chamber times. Beloved, we have a vision for intimacy and ministry, but that vision's never going to be real without chamber times. You and the Lord together talking. Where you develop that dialogue. A lot of folks have the vision, but they don't have the chamber times. There's no substitute to fulfill the vision without encountering Him. Paragraph D. Well, it's more than chambers. We've got to contend. It's more than the chamber time. We're glad in the Lord. We rejoice in Him. Now, this isn't just something, an overflow. There's an overflow dimension. This is a, I am lining up with the Word, and when my circumstances tell me opposite, I'm believing the Word and rejoicing in what God says. I'm going to remember love when I feel condemned. I'm going to say, it is written, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It is written, He is accuser. Jesus loves me in the way the Father loves Him. It is written, we contend for the truth. Paragraph D. We are to intentionally engage. Intentionally engage. Our mind and our heart. I mean, you can have the chamber times. A lot of people will have the times alone with the Lord, but they'll just let lies triumph in their mind. They just live in despair continually. The Lord says, what about my word? Well, I have the chamber time. I have a good vision, but they don't actually remember His love. They don't call it to attention. Paragraph E. We rejoice and we're glad. We do this in three ways. First, we remember His mercy in our weakness. We refuse condemnation. I remember His love. It is written in the name of Jesus. He loves me. His righteousness is mine. Number two, we remember how fascinating He is while we're resisting temptation and we're developing our life schedules, what we do with our time and our energy. We remember His love, how fascinating this man is. You know, I talk to the guy. They're busy every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I go, do you remember who He is? Oh, yeah, I love Jesus. Like, do you ever talk to Him? Well, yeah, kind of on the run. I blow Him a kiss on the way, you know. Sure, I do. We remember how fascinating. Number three, we remember His leadership when it's difficult. We have confidence in His leadership. Paragraph G. This faith confession in times of testing is an expression of spiritual warfare. An expression of spiritual warfare. And it's interesting, this rejoice and be glad that's in the Song of Solomon, it's the confession of the bride on the great wedding day as well. Top of page six. It's going to slip the last one in here. Paragraph B. You can read the rest of this on your own. The end of paragraph B, we are to remember. It's not enough to know about God's love. We have to remember it. We have to confess it. We have to recall it. We have to resist the lies of the enemy. And I give you just a couple simple ways in the handout here how to do that. Real simple, it just has to be done. Amen. Amen. I invite you to stand. If you take a minute, just respond to the Lord.