Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of encountering God's emotions as a means to behold His glory. He highlights Moses' desperate plea to see God's glory, which God responds to by revealing His character—merciful, gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness. Bickle explains that understanding these attributes transforms our inner man and allows us to experience true liberty in our relationship with God. He encourages believers to engage with God's emotions through prayer and scripture, asserting that this process leads to a deeper connection with the divine. Ultimately, Bickle reassures that this transformative experience is available to all believers, not just the spiritually elite.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, and we ask you for the light of your countenance to shine upon our hearts even now. We ask you to stir our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We ask you for impartation. We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. In Exodus chapter 33, verse 18, this is one of the great prayers of the Bible that we are encouraged to pray just by virtue of the fact that it's an example in the Scripture. Moses said, please show me your glory, Lord. And then the Lord answered, and he said, I will make my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. Now, you can sense the urgency in Moses' heart. He says, please, Lord, I really want to see your glory. Now, there's those in this room. You are desperate to experience the glory of God. I hear a desperation in Moses' spirit here. When he said, show me your glory, he means more than just power. The word glory in the Old Testament is often translated beauty, and this, particularly in the book of Isaiah. When the Lord says, you will see the beauty of the Lord, it's a word that's often translated glory. Verse 19, God answers. He goes, this is the answer. When God wants to show you his glory, he says, I will proclaim, or I will teach you, I will teach you my name. I will teach you my personality. Now, the name of God and the personality of God are the same. Now, when we ask to see the glory of the Lord, what we're often thinking of, which I think is good, we want one of those supernatural encounters, and that's legitimate. But when the Lord reveals his glory, he reveals his glory to us, little by little, day by day, in ways that not everybody understands as being the glory of God, he says, I'm gonna proclaim my name. I'm gonna teach you about my name. For God to proclaim his own name, that means to teach us about it. And again, to have the name of God revealed is his personality. When God reveals his heart to us, and in a moment, you're gonna see, I'm gonna focus in on that I believe that it's the emotions of God that God emphasized in this encounter more than anything else. That when God reveals his glory, there are the displays of his splendor, like the fire and the lightning and the thunder around the throne, the sort of thing that Elijah might see. And there is the power demonstrations as well. There are the power demonstrations. But in this encounter, we are instructed that the glory of God is more than anything else, the revelation of God's emotions, the revelation of God's emotions to the heart of his people. Now, God has the best name, or let's say it another way, he has the best personality of anyone in the universe. I know that seems kind of odd to say that, but he does. He has the absolute best personality, paragraph B. He's the most kind, he has the most goodness, he is the purest, he is the smartest, he is the happiest. There's more mystery around his personality. There is wisdom, gentleness, he's bold, he's not intimidated at all in his personality. And so God has the best name or the best personality in the whole universe. And we wanna know that personality, because when we feel it, I mean, when we understand it and feel the power of it a little bit on our heart, that is considered encountering the glory of God from a biblical point of view, paragraph C. Paragraph C, Ephesians, I mean, Exodus 34, verse six. Now the Lord, at this time, he is now answering the prayer that Moses just prayed. Moses prayed it in Exodus 33, now it's Exodus 34. And the Lord tells him in Exodus 34, he now proclaims his name. Look at verse six, the Lord passed before Moses and the Lord proclaimed or the Lord made known or in our context, the Lord gave a teaching, if you will, about his own name. And what the Lord said, he said, that I am the Lord, the Lord God, I am merciful, gracious, I have long suffering, and I am abounding in goodness. Now he starts off by saying, I am the Lord, the Lord God. That's a statement of his power, his absolute power and authority. But after he declares the fact that he has all power and authority, he moves into four different categories about his emotions. So when God reveals the name of God, he reveals his emotions to his people. He says again in verse six, I am merciful, gracious, I suffer long with my people, and I'm abounding in goodness. Let's go paragraph D. The Lord says he's merciful, that's the first thing. Now the reason the Lord says this first, I am merciful because it is the issue we need to know first. This is the issue that the devil always undermines and accuses about God or distorts in one way or the other. The idea of God's mercy. Now we all have confidence that God has mercy when he relates to the guy next to us. But where we struggle, it's common throughout the whole body of Christ, is that he has mercy when he relates to us. Now I know he's merciful to you. You don't get it, but it's obvious to me he's merciful to you. Now where we struggle is thinking he's merciful to me. That's where it gets difficult. But the Lord told Moses, he says, I want you to know this, that I am tender. And the way that I deal with my people. When the way I deal with you in your weakness, in your sin. Micah chapter seven, verse 18, Micah seven, verse 18. It says this, that he delights in his mercy. Now one of God's favorite things to do is to show mercy. He loves it. He says, I delight in this. And when God delights in something, it's something we wanna take note of. And I think one of the reasons he delights in it, because he loves to see the response on our heart when he's so tender with us, when it connects. Now at first, when he's being tender, often we resist it, we think, can't be, I gotta somehow get a little bit what I deserve. There's just no way he is giving me a clean slate after what I did yesterday, there's no way. But once we get through that, and it connects with us, and we go, oh, oh, wait, really, oh, thank you. The Lord goes, oh, I delight in this. I love it when you connect with it, the Lord could say to us. It touches my heart when it connects with you, because the light goes on in our eyes, the joy hits our spirit. And let me just make up the conversation. The father looks at the son and says, I love it when that happens to them. That's my interpretation of God delights in mercy. He loves it when the mercy connects with us. Isaiah 55, verse seven to nine. Now this is a famous verse, but it's often applied in a wrong way. The Lord says, in verse seven, let the wicked forsake his way, let him return to the Lord, and the Lord will have mercy on him, for he will abundantly pardon that person who turns to him, verse eight. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts your thoughts. Now, in verse eight, the way this is typically applied, which is okay, I mean, the Lord doesn't mind, but it is a wrong application, is that people apply this to God's wisdom. You know, God leads one way, and we thought he was gonna lead us the other way, and we say, well, you know, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. Meaning, we quote this verse to describe God's mysterious leadings, and he doesn't mind that we quote this verse that way. It's okay, you can keep doing that. But if you read it carefully, let's look at it again. Verse seven, he's talking to the wicked who are repenting, who need mercy. When God says, my ways are above your ways, he's talking about the extremity that he goes to to show mercy. He goes, my thoughts about showing mercy are entirely higher than any thought you would think. If you thought the highest thoughts about mercy, God says, my thoughts are higher than yours. My ways are higher than yours. We would forgive 1,000 times. Maybe the nicest guy in the world. God will forgive 10,000 times 10,000 times. He goes, my ways are higher than yours. You don't get them. So this passage is actually about mercy and how unusual it is. It's not about how unusual his wisdom is, although, again, you can use the verse that way if you want about wisdom, but don't let go of what it's really talking about. Lamentations chapter three, verse 23. It's talking about the mercy of the Lord. Let's look right at verse 23. God says, my mercies are new every morning. This is a remarkable statement. No matter what you did yesterday, no matter what you did today, tomorrow, when you wake up tomorrow morning, or if it's in the night watch tomorrow afternoon, when you wake up tomorrow, the Lord says, my mercy is new, meaning I will give you a new beginning, a clean slate every single day if you ask me for it. And I don't mean just if you say, give me mercy, but if you repent of the area of compromise in your life. Now, the Lord does require us to say no to our sin. This is not mercy unrelated to our response. This is mercy in response to our cry for it. And the cry for mercy isn't just, hey, take care of the problem, God, give me mercy. It's, Lord, forgive me for the sin because I'm taking a stand against it. But this is remarkable that every single day, every day, he says, I will give you a new beginning every single day, I'm faithful to do this. Now, notice in verse 23, it says, great is your faithfulness. Because 1,000 days later, it's like me again, Lord, it's me again, you know, it's 1,000 days later, he says, my faithfulness, it's not beginning to wear out. Well, now it's 10,000 days later. I mean, it's 30 years later. The Lord says, my faithfulness is great to give you a new beginning every single day. Now, this is the glory of God that Moses is witnessing. Don't forget the context. Moses said, I wanna see your glory. And God said, I'm gonna teach you my name. And my name is my glory. And here's what I'm gonna teach you. I am the Lord, the Lord God, I am merciful. So he's teaching Moses about the glory of God in his own personality. Let's go to top of page two. The next thing the Lord tells Moses when he shows his glory, he's gracious. Now his graciousness is how generous he is when he evaluates us, our labors or our obedience. You know, when we serve the Lord or obey the Lord in either direction, I mean, whether it's an act of service, our service, like our obedience, is very weak and it's very flawed. It's not perfect at all. So we work hard and we seek to obey the Lord. We seek to love him, but our love is weak and flawed. Our love is fragile. Our faithfulness is fragile. We offer to the Lord and we, oh no, what's he gonna say? And the Lord told Moses, it is my glory to be gracious when I evaluate my people. So we offer our fragile obedience and our fragile labors. And he smiles and he pays us so well compared to what we offered him. I mean, we gave him a minimum wage offering and he gives us a million dollars an hour. And I said, how is this possible? How could I get the eternal city and the glory of God for this offering? Lord says, I'm gracious. Like a Lord, like you're like really gracious. He goes, oh, more than you know. We offer him minimum wage service. We really do. And he gives us a million dollar an hour wages. And he goes, count it even because I love you. This is real. It sounds kind of neat, but it's not a story, it's real. He is rocking Moses's world when Moses says, I wanna see the glory realm. And he says, tell the people how generous I am, how gracious I evaluate people. And if you catch this, you've touched my glory. Number one, or Psalm 103, verse 10, paragraph one under there, David said, he's not dealt with us and he's not punished us according to our iniquities. And of course, iniquities is the same idea of sin. In other words, God has not punished us or he's not dealt with us. He's not responded to us in the way we deserve. Psalm 103, verse 14, a couple of verses later, David said, he went on to say, the reason God doesn't punish us according to our sins, he knows our frame. He remembers we're but dust. So God looks down, he goes, hey, I understand your weakness. Now we are sometimes so exasperated by our weakness and sometimes in our pride, we're shocked by it. I remember many years ago, about 18 years old, I remember that I did something and it was so shocking to me that I said, I went, God, I actually said this phrase, can you believe it? I mean, it didn't even hit me till about a year later when I was telling somebody and I go, oh, that was ridiculous. It took me a year to even connect the dots, how arrogant that was. I go, can you believe I did this? And the Lord could have smiled. I mean, I know he smiled and could have said something like, there's a whole lot more where that came from. God is not shocked when we're shocked. We're shocked. I can't believe it. God's not shocked. He goes, I get it. I remember your frame. I know your frame well. In other words, your human makeup, your human constitution. I know how your emotions work. I get it. And I remember your dust. There are no such thing as super saints. Now, we can be sincere. I mean, red hot sincerity, but there are no super saints. We are sincere and then there's the power of God that helps us in areas of our life. But whenever there's a breakthrough, whether it's wisdom, whether the breakthrough is the power of God in our ministry or the power of God in our character, it is the power of God with weak and broken responses of sincerity in it. Psalm 116, this is David again. In his presence, there's fullness of joy. Now, the reason there's so much joy in his presence because God has such a happy heart. He's so gracious because he's so happy. God is happy, that's why he's so gracious. If he was grouchy, he would not be gracious. He wouldn't say, there's new mercy every day. He'd say, I told you to quit doing that. How many times do I have to tell you? Now, that's the voice we hear because of earthly authority figures, but that isn't the voice of the Spirit speaking to us. Paragraph F, let's go to the fourth one, that God is long-suffering. Now, to be long-suffering means he bears long with us. He doesn't write us off. Now, we write ourself off. For us, I mean, we would write ourself off. We'd come before God. God, we offer it to him. If I was you, God, I'd be done with me. I remember when my sons, our sons, Luke and Paul, were five, six, seven, eight years old, and one of the things, whenever they stepped across those lines where they got in trouble, I would get them, I'd talk to them, and I'd say, okay. I'd say, now, I have to give you a swat. We'd always talk about it, and I'd always ask them why I have to. Then I would ask them how many I should give them, and then I'd ask them, what will you do if your children do this many years from now? I asked them those three questions every time, and we had a dialogue, and this is the craziest thing you can imagine. We're all like it. I would look at my son and say, okay, Paul, how many? He goes, five. He'd get the spirit of justice would come on him. I'd go, five? He'd go, yep, that's what I'd give when I'm older. I'd say, no, Paul. I said, we're talking about you right now getting a swat with a board, five. I'd go, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do one. It was bizarre, and Luke did the same. I mean, they always had this extreme teach them a lesson because they were already picturing their kid years from now. They were forgetting they were in the balance that moment. I mean, I really mean this. Almost every single time, I had to lower the penalty, but it's how the human heart works. Now, they got, at a certain age, they said, I'd let this one go. They got a little bit older, and they started that, I'd just let this one go. I just think kindness is how that thing works, and I go, there was an age they switched over. It's actually true, but there's something in the human heart that when we come to God, we want him to forgive us and completely give us a new beginning, but we imagine that it's just, it's ridiculous if he lets us off. We have this strange way of thinking on the inside. Well, God told Moses, in essence, he's saying, go tell the people this. I mean, he was telling it to Moses for Moses' sake, but it was meant to be recorded in the word of God of experiencing the glory of God. Tell them I will suffer long with their failure. To suffer long is what he's talking about. Long suffering means suffer long. Now, obviously, the opposite of long suffering is to write somebody off quickly. He says, tell them I won't write them off. I will actually suffer long with their responses. It will take them a while to get this, and I will bear it with them. God does not lose enthusiasm for us when we fail. He does not lose enthusiasm for our relationship. Okay, paragraph G, the final one, the final statement. He said he gave four statements about his glory. Well, he said, I am the Lord, the Lord God. That's power and wisdom. And then he gives four statements about that, that reveal his emotions. Four different statements, and here's the fourth one. He's abounding in goodness. Now, it says in Jeremiah 29, God says, I know the thoughts I have towards you, thoughts of peace. They're not evil, thoughts to give you a future and a hope. Now, God has thoughts. He has abounding thoughts to give you a future. Now, we don't respond well to him in the way that we wish we would, but he still is abounding with good thoughts to give you a good future. Psalm 84, verse 11, the scripture says, there's no good thing that God will withhold from the person that walks uprightly. Now, that's not just this age, that is the age to come, but it is this age as well. And most of us think of that as this age, and that's what we should be thinking, but there is another dimension to this passage as well that goes beyond the grave. There's no good thing he will withhold. But let's focus on this age, because that's what we're struggling with right now. And I wanna assure you that the Lord abounds with good plans for you. And he says, I won't keep any of it back. If there is a relationship that I have ordained for you, I will not hold it back. If there's a ministry assignment, if there's a financial breakthrough, if there is a situation in life that it's in God's heart for you, he said, I will not withhold it from you if you walk with me. Now, the devil comes, tells us the opposite. He said, if it's, God's gotta keep it from you. God just wants to break you by keeping goodness from you. God says, no, it's opposite. If it's good for your life, according to my understanding of your life, God is saying, because God's ways are different than ours in this way as well. He said, I will not hold it back from you. You can count on that. So you can trust me and have a free heart. Top of page three. Now, the reason that some people resist God's mercy is because it's so free that nobody can deserve it so that troubles them. I mean, it troubles them. It's so free. It says in Romans three, he justified us freely. And you've heard the phrase, justification means justifying. Just as though you never sinned. That's the idea. That's what it boils down to. When we're justified, we stand before him as though there is nothing that God has against us. He has nothing against us. And the reason, now this passage has a lot of big words in it, and the reason that God completely frees us because Jesus paid the price for this. Now, God doesn't just overlook sin, he pays for it. But if he pays for it, which he did, then you can be sure the benefit of mercy will come your way. Lot of people, they just can't deal with this forgiveness because it's outrageously free. I mean, it's abundant, it's every day. It's 10,000 days in a row. It's, Lord, I can't deal with this again. I mean, you've forgiven me a thousand days in a row on this thing. And the stumbling block is the fact that it's totally free. And that just kind of messes with our mind as I was talking earlier about my sons, who they said, you know, I deserve more trouble than this. And there's something in our spirit that just repels. I mean, we wish we could receive it fully, but something in our spirit actually repels against the outrageous freeness of it. Let's go to Roman numeral two. Roman numeral two, 2 Corinthians 3, verse 11 to 18. Now, Paul is going to take, in 2 Corinthians 3, he is going to actually go back to this passage where Moses saw the glory of God. And Paul's gonna bring it up a notch. He's gonna say, not only did Moses experience the glory of God, but we can experience the glory of God as well. And that's, so in 2 Corinthians 3, Paul is actually referring back to Exodus 33 and 34, the passage we've been looking at. But look at what Paul says. He says, for what? For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. So Paul says, if what is passing away, he's talking about the old covenant, the days of Moses. If that was glorious, what remains, which is the new covenant after Jesus, is much more glorious. So he goes, what Moses had was good, it was the glory of God, but what we have in Christ is much more glorious than what Moses experienced. Verse 17, for where the spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. But if we all, with unveiled faces, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the spirit of the Lord. Now, paragraph A, in this passage, Paul is comparing the old covenant to the new covenant. And he's saying the old covenant, the one that Moses experienced, it was filled with glory, it was good, but it passed away. But he goes on to say, the new covenant is far, has far more glory than the old. Now, the reason the old covenant, it had glory because it had forgiveness. But the old covenant had no ability to transform the heart to walk in righteousness. In the old covenant, you could be forgiven. But in the old covenant, you could not experience power in the inner man. Like, we've all heard that the new covenant is far more glorious than the old. Let's just imagine we're having a panel discussion, and there's some of the main leaders from the old covenant are up on the stage. You know, and the moderator says, okay, why is the new covenant better than the old covenant? So the guy in the new covenant, one of us, we say, raise our hands, and we say, well, in the new covenant, there's the power of signs and wonders. So Elijah raises his hand, he goes, well, we had signs and wonders a lot more than you're experiencing in the old covenant. So, okay, that's not the right answer. Another guy says, well, in the new covenant, we have anointed praise and worship. King David said, let me take this one. He goes, boy, we had some really experiences in the glory of God in the old days. That's not the reason the new covenant is better. One guy goes, oh, in the new covenant, there's forgiveness. David said, let me take this one again. He goes, I committed adultery and murdered a man, and God forgave me. Guy says, well, how about in the New Testament, there's the glory of God hits the meeting. Moses said, I'll take this one. The glory came on a whole mountain, and the mountain shook, and all the children of Israel trembled in fear. Well, the Old Testament and the New Testament, we have the Bible. Jeremiah says, Isaiah, hey, let me take that one. Man, we had the Bible in our days as well. And you could go on and on. At the end of the day, the reason the new covenant is far more glorious than the old, because in the new covenant, our spirit is touched by the spirit of God, and we're transformed on the inside. That's the essential difference between the old and new covenant, and we experience it by experiencing the glory of the Lord in the way that God described to Moses. Because see, Moses experienced the glory himself, but it was not transferable to other people, to the masses. I mean, Moses was just, I mean, after he experienced God, his face lit up in the glory of God. But it was not a sort of thing that the masses could experience it. They could hear of God's emotions, but it did not touch their heart by the Holy Spirit like it can in the new covenant. In verse 18, Paul said, we all with an unveiled face, because that was Moses, had an unveiled face, meaning he stood in the glory of God with nothing on his face. He beheld the glory. But Paul said, all of us, all of us can experience the glory in the new covenant now. Paragraph B, so let's look at this. Let's break it down a little bit. To behold the glory, that's the challenge. That's the exhortation, behold the glory. Now, to behold the glory means initially to look at the glory. To behold it means to look at it, to encounter it. Now, the glory of God is God's emotions, it's God's power, and it's God's wisdom, just like Moses experienced. Now, the way that we encounter the glory most in this age, it isn't just being in a meeting where the presence falls on us in a meeting. We want that. Trust me, I value that, and we want that. The glory of God coming onto people in a meeting is wonderful, and I wanna see that 1,000 times. But at the end of the day, the highest glory is when God's mercy, his graciousness, his long-suffering, and his abounding goodness touches our inner man and transforms us. Now, in a meeting where the glory, where the presence is being manifest, we will touch God quicker and deeper, no question. But we don't have to wait for that meeting to touch the glory of God. With an open Bible and the Holy Spirit living in us, if we will take time to behold the glory by studying it, I don't mean just with our minds studying it, of course, our minds involved, but I mean we open the Bible, and we open our heart, and we talk to God about his emotions. He is gracious, he is long-suffering, he is abounding in goodness, he's filled with mercy, that's what we're talking about, top of page four. Now, this is what I call the beholding and the becoming principle. And in just one sentence what that means, whatever we behold, whatever we behold about God, whatever behold means to study, or to look at, or to think on, to meditate, it involves all of those and more, but that's the general idea. I mean, we don't really behold it only because we study it, we behold it because we study it with an open heart and we turn what we study into dialogue with the Lord, and then the Holy Spirit touches our heart a little bit, that's how we encounter the glory of God. Because as we study it, we open our heart and we dialogue with the Lord in this, and it touches us just a little bit, but beloved, that's a little bit of the glory really touches us. And whatever we behold in God, whatever we behold about God's heart is what happens inside of our heart. When we behold that God loves us, we become a lover of God. Whatever we behold about Him towards us is what we become in our heart towards Him. But when God wants us to love Him more, He shows Himself to us as one who loves us. The well-known passage in 1 John 4, 19, we love God, why? Because He first loved us, we all know the verse. But when God wants you and I to grow in love, He shows Himself as one that loves us. That's how He gets you and I to grow in love. He shows us His love for us. The way that you will become dedicated to God is by understanding He's dedicated to you. So you could put in this verse, we are dedicated to God because He was first dedicated to us. And it's not enough that He was dedicated to you, but it's the idea that you understood He was dedicated to you. He's dedicated to everyone, but only a small percent of the earth, maybe a billion, but that's still the minority. He's dedicated to everyone, but only a small percent actually understand it. So you wanna, your dedication to be increased, study God's dedication towards you. You wanna pursue God more, study that He pursues you. You wanna enjoy God more, study from the Bible how much God enjoys you. For we will enjoy God because He first enjoyed us. You could put many words to replace the word love there. Whatever you see in God's heart towards you is what becomes the response of your heart back to Him. I wrote a book some years ago called Passion for Jesus. And so people ask me, how do you get passion for Jesus? And I go, the answer is actually kind of, it's quite simple. The beginning of it is study Jesus's passion for you. I go, the book is not really titled right. The book ought to really be titled Jesus's Passion for You. But the editor said that's too long of a title. What's the basic, what's the fruit of this? I go, well, you end up with Passion for Jesus. And he goes, that's what we'll title it then. But really it's a book about God's passion for us, but the end result is it produces or awakens passion in us back to Him. All right, paragraph two. We change our mind about what we think about God. We begin to see He is gracious. We begin to see He is merciful, long-suffering, abounding in goodness. We change our mind and then the Spirit changes our emotions. Beloved, the way for your emotions to change is for you to see the glory of God, I'm talking about conceptually, that you would perceive in your brain He's kind to you. That's the beginning of the glory realm. That in your mind you would say He is gracious, He is merciful, I'm taking it. And I don't mean you're content just to underline it in your Bible and to tell another person. These truths become a part of your conversation with the Lord at the heart level because you don't really behold His glory by just studying His mercy. It's only when His mercy becomes a part of my conversation with Him, I'm talking to Him about those truths about His heart. And then the Spirit just a little bit touches my heart with His mercy and that builds up over time. And over time it really does transform our inner man. The problem with a lot of folks, they will get to a verse about God's mercy, God's loving kindness, they will underline it. They will even tell a friend about it, but it never becomes a part of their conversation in their private life with God. It's not a subject they go deep on. It's a subject they put their thumb up and go, I ascribe, yes, cool, He loves me. They move on to the next subject. Beloved, these four subjects of God's emotions, His mercy, His graciousness, long-suffering, abounding goodness, they are the subject of the glory of God that if you behold them, they will radically transform your inner man. And not in a week or a month, not even necessarily in a year, though certainly in a year the changes, you'll be able to tell them. But over a lifetime, they will radically transform your inner man. That doesn't mean you'll be free of everything. But it means that the whole atmosphere of your inner life will be different. But the problem is, a lot of people don't see these four subjects as significant dimensions of the glory realm. Matter of fact, they esteem them, they kind of ascribe to them, but they're not important in their personal private life with God. I love Alan Hood's testimony. Now it's related to me, his testimony's a lot bigger than this, but one point, I loved it, but I gave a challenge many years ago. It was almost 20 years ago. Alan was 21 years old, he's just over 40 right now, so that was 20 years ago. He was sitting right over there on the third row, 21-year-old, and I gave a challenge. I said, I wanna challenge you, something I did, to go through Genesis to Revelation and mark every single Bible verse on the emotions of God and then go back to those Bible verses and begin to pray them back to God. I said, it will radically change your life. Well, Alan, 21, he was just visiting here. He said, I'm gonna do it. And he took the next year, underlined every verse of the Bible that said anything about God's emotions and started praying it. And then, you know, I met him sometime later, got to know him a whole lot a few years later, and he said, that set me on a course, but that's what I'm challenging on right now. I'm not talking about just acknowledging these truths, I'm talking about these truths becoming a dynamic part of how you and God talk to each other throughout the day. I mean, it's not just, okay, you love me, that's cool, it's cool, let's get on to the big stuff. Beloved, there's nothing bigger in the glory of God than these four subjects. It doesn't get bigger than this, because if the power comes, it's to bring people into this. And why do you want power to bring people into this if you don't get into it? Well, I'm waiting for the power. The Lord says, no, you can get into it now without a stadium anointing on you. This is how we behold the glory in the new covenant. Now, there are those days and those moments of the dramatic, spectacular, supernatural break-in power dimension. But we want the power dimension because we want this part of our life enhanced and strengthened. Paragraph F, Paul said that wherever the Spirit of God is, there's liberty. Now, this liberty is talking about liberty in the inner man. Wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. Now, some apply this, and I think it's a good application. They apply it to worship services. I've heard this verse used over years. That, you know, there's liberty in the worship service where if the Spirit's moving, and I think that's true. But that's not mostly what he's talking about. He's not talking about if the worship goes an hour or two hours, or if you have prayer time in the middle of the worship or not. Liberty means, mostly in this verse, liberty in the inner man. Now, what Paul's saying, wherever the inner man encounters the Spirit, there will be a liberation of their emotions. They will be liberated. I have paragraph F, from condemnation. They will be liberated from shame. They will be liberated from fear, addiction, et cetera, et cetera. Now, we don't just wait for that one meeting where the manifest power is in the meeting so we get liberated. You can have a small experiences of the liberty day by day, month by month, by opening your Bible and talking to God from the Bible, heart to heart with God, a little bit of the liberty will touch your spirit. And this is the difference that we have in the New Testament, the New Covenant, we did not have in the Old Covenant. The guys in the Old Covenant, the Spirit didn't touch the inner man day by day when they opened their Bible and talked to God. This is the glory of the New Covenant. We can talk to God about his emotions, and it actually transforms our emotions little by little, day by day, if we have the vision to go do this. Paragraph H, well, let's do G, let's do G. I don't wanna skip that one. Hebrews 10, 16. Now, the New Covenant, the essence of the liberty in the New Covenant, here it is. The New Covenant liberty is defined here in Hebrews 10, 16. It touches the mind and it touches the heart. The liberty of the New Covenant, it is to empower the emotions, and it is to give us living understanding, it is to give us understanding in the mind, that's what it's called. So it empowers our emotions and it enlightens our understanding or our mind. This is the essence, not the fullness, but this is the foundational core of the New Covenant. The mind, the emotions are empowered, and the mind is enlightened, where the boring Bible becomes exciting. That doesn't mean you become a Bible scholar, but it means there's a spark of the Spirit that touches your inner man when you open the Bible. I don't mean every time, but this is the inheritance of every believer in the New Covenant. But the only way that that spark will happen and those emotions will get changed, that spark in the mind and that stirring of the emotions, is if we go after the glory, not just greater power in the big meetings, which we want that. Again, I love that, but I don't want to have such a vision for power in the big meeting that we forget in the little time, one-on-one with God, we can behold God's graciousness and it can bring enlightenment to our mind and it can empower our heart, and this is what Hebrews 10, 16 says, is the glory of the New Covenant is the mind enlightened and the emotions empowered. Now, it doesn't happen a whole lot in one moment. It's incremental. It's little by little, step by step. Paragraph H. Paul said, if you behold as in a mirror, this isn't critical. You behold it as in a mirror, the glory. Now, in the modern day, today, the mirror is opposite of how the mirror was in the ancient world. Today, when you look in a mirror, you get a perfect reflection. What you see is what you get. The mirror does not lie, but in the ancient world, the mirror was like polished metal. When you looked in a mirror, it was so dim, like you had to kind of like, huh, huh, I think it will be okay today, I think. You couldn't see, barely, because the reflection was very dim. In 1 Corinthians 13, verse 12, Paul actually talks about it. He says, for we see in a mirror dimly in this age, but in the age to come, face to face, because in the ancient world, a mirror was a dim reflection. Why is this important? When I open my Bible and I read, I do the saying that Alan Hood testifies about. I look at his emotions, God's emotions. I underline them, and I take those emotions, God's graciousness, his mercy, his tenderness, his joy, his happiness, his passion, his affection, whatever emotions, and I turn these Bible verses into prayer, meaning I say, okay, Lord, tell me about this. Help me understand this. I thank you that you are gracious. I actually thank him. I say, thank you that your heart is happy. Now, I thank you for it. I don't really feel it that much, but I thank you. Would you give me insight more into your happy heart? I ask him for revelation, so I thank him for it, then I ask him for revelation. Now, I don't feel much because I'm beholding the glory in a dim mirror, but beloved, the dim beholding is the only kind of beholding God ever asked of you. I remember when this hit me some years ago, when it connected with my mind that the only kind of beholding that God ever asked me to do was dim beholding. In other words, my prayer times are unanointed. I don't feel very much. It's like a dim beholding, and the Lord would answer, that's all I ever asked for you is for you to behold me dimly. It will change you. It is sufficient to change you over time. I remember I connected with this. I go, you mean my unanointed prayer times, this dim beholding is working? You're kidding, and it connected with me. I remember, I went and told my friends. I said, this is unbelievable. Unanointed prayer still works. They said, what's wrong? I go, unanointed prayer. The hills are alive with the sound of music. I was so happy. I said, unanointed prayer works. My boring Bible study matters. They go, Bickle's kind of lost it. What's he talking about? I go, look, the dim beholding is all he ever asked me to do. My emotions, liberty will touch my emotions if I just simply stay with it. Now it says the next phrase, an unveiled face. An unveiled face, without going to the details, means with boldness, means without shame. We have to come with confidence and boldness. When we come before the Lord, receive his grace and mercy, we gotta throw the apology away. We gotta throw the intimidation away, the inferiority, sin consciousness. We come before the Lord, we've been cleansed. We say, this kind of hurts, just my pride to receive something so free in such an outrageous amount as your kindness, but I take it. The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. So we come with boldness. An unveiled face means confidence, no shame. If it's shame, it needs to be repented of. If you've repented of the sin and you have shame before God, the Lord says, you haven't understood. I've really, really forgiven you. Let that thing go, open your spirit and come. Paragraph J, we're transformed glory to glory. It's step by step, it's progressing. Now every now and then, there might be a dynamic experience that changes us a dynamic amount in one day, but mostly, it's step by step, glory to glory, that our heart is changed. The liberty touches our inner man. Paragraph K, Paul said this glory comes by the spirit. Beloved, it's a supernatural work in the heart. Here's my point. The only way we can experience the emotions of God is if the spirit touches us, meaning we can't have a bad relationship with the Holy Spirit. We have to stay on good terms with the Holy Spirit. When we sin and the Holy Spirit convicts us, there is no point in trying to fake out the Holy Spirit. You can fake your friends out. God has given me liberty to do this. And the Holy Spirit says, I don't remember that conversation. No, I just have grace and liberty. And the Holy Spirit says, I wasn't there when you heard that. We can't quench the spirit as a lifestyle. Now we can sin and blow it, repent, but when we agree with God, we're back on and talking in terms of the Holy Spirit. See, the Holy Spirit is so urgent that we get into this liberty. We cast him off in an area of our life. The Holy Spirit says, I just really wanna talk to you about that area. Well, I'm not talking about that area. I'm not ready to change. The Holy Spirit says, we're not talking till we talk about what I wanna talk about. No, I wanna talk about my ministry, my money, all my situation. The Holy Spirit says, no, we're gonna talk about what I wanna talk about because I'm God and you're the little guy. And a lot of folks have an area or two. They've said no and the Holy Spirit says, the conversation is on pause till we go back to that area. So all of this means nothing if you and the Holy Spirit aren't on talking terms. Now he'll give us mercy day after day, but he actually wants us to repent of it. And if we repent of it, the Lord Holy Spirit says, oh, I have many things to talk to you about, but I'm God and it's on my terms and you can't ignore what I wanna talk about because you're not interested in obeying in that subject. It's critical that we bring our life into contact in a growing friendship with the Holy Spirit. And then finally, Paul says, we all with an unveiled face, behold the glory. This is for everybody. This isn't quote the super saints because again, there aren't any. This is for every weakened, broken person. Every one of us are prone to sin, to shame. We're prone to quit. We're prone to rejection. We're prone to complain. We're prone to have self pity. We're prone to love sin. We're all prone. This works for us. The liberty in the inner man is within the reach of everyone. So this is what experiencing the glory of God is about. And we can all experience his glory tonight. And we might have a dynamic experience, but if we don't, we can have a real little experience, but beloved, it is the glory.