David: Being a Person of One Thing

Posted July 14th, 2013 at 10:15 pmNo Comments Yet

FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE Transcript: 9/06/06
David: Being a Person of One Thing
INTRODUCTION
I’m glad that this verse is familiar, but the downside is, it’s so familiar around our missions base that it doesn’t always move people’s hearts.
This is such a significant and important verse to what the Holy Spirit is doing in the earth today. I would like you to try and hear it for the first time, or hear it in a fresh way. It’s absolutely filled with revelation. There are layers and layers of meaning to this one simple verse, Psalm 27:4.
“ONE THING HAVE I DESIRED OF THE LORD”
King David said, “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord” —number one—“and to inquire in His temple” (Ps. 27:4)—to receive divine information, to receive prophetic instruction.
He talks about two things: beholding the beauty of the Lord and then hearing God; being fascinated about what he sees about God, and then receiving clear instructions about how to live and act and go forth in ministry.
The power of this verse or this principle of David’s life is the two words “one thing” because David wasn’t exaggerating. This was real. It’s so easy to broad-stroke this reality and to make it tame, to domesticate this verse, to say “one thing really means many things.”
AN INVITATION TO THE FULLNESS OF GLORY
In our spiritual family here, all of us are committed to this one thing, but this one-thing lifestyle is rare in our midst because we have domesticated it. We have tamed this verse.
This is a very challenging verse; this is a verse that tears at my heart.
The Spirit cries out, “Mike, you haven’t yet entered into the fullness of what I have called you in this verse.” So I want to ask you to ask the Holy Spirit to speak this freshly, and not to speak it in a tame or a domesticated way.
The power of this passage, its radicalness, its power and glory is in the narrowness of what God is saying. Its offense is its narrowness. Its dilemma is in its narrowness. It creates a dilemma in life when we actually try to walk this out.
As long as it’s a poster and a conference, it’s not a problem, but when it becomes a Holy Spirit invitation, that dovetails into a mandate, because it is an invitation, but there are those in this room for whom it has grown from an invitation to a mandate.
The Lord wooed you, you said “yes,” and the Lord said something like, “Well, if you’re going to be that way about it, now it is a mandate.” He brings the thing up a notch. If you’re going to say “yes,” then He’s actually going to meet you and take you seriously in this.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 2
To many it’s an invitation, but to some of you it’s a life mandate, and it’s serious, but it creates a dilemma. How do you do this? How do you make it work in an environment with social dynamics and the natural dynamics of real life in a fallen world?
THE CHASM BETWEEN PREACHING AND LIVING
I’ve found that one of my most challenging things as a believer wanting to follow this is, “How do I make this work with real time and money and expectations? How does this really work?”
You don’t want to take your cues from our culture, because our culture will always tell you to be a person of many things, even though the culture will allow you to use the language of one thing, as long as you don’t really do it.
People don’t mind this being preached. What people mind is when it’s lived out. It’s not offensive to proclaim it; as a matter of fact, it’s cool. I mean, we get 10,000-plus young people gathering because it’s cool. It’s radical.
We want to be cutting edge, and people aren’t disrupted by the proclamation of it. What is disruptive and offensive is when a man or a woman gets a vision, in time and money and reality, actually to walk it out.
Then it troubles the people who are near you. They say, “What do you mean? Where do I fit? How does this work? Well, wait, settle down. David didn’t really mean that.”
THE ETERNAL REALITY OF GAZING ON THE LORD
Now David is going to preach. He’s going to speak about this verse in the age to come. This verse wasn’t exhausted when he died physically at seventy years old. When David said, “This one thing I will desire of the Lord, I will seek all the days of my life,” he meant forever. Don’t put “seventy years” there; put “eternity.” David will be seeking this in the millennial kingdom and then in the age to come after that.
This is an eternal reality to King David; this is an eternal reality to the people of God. I want to enter now into that which I will do far better in the age to come. Beloved, we will dwell in the house of the Lord. We will behold the beauty of the Lord forever.
THE BURNING ONES
This is the wisdom of God in the New Jerusalem, actually to walk out this verse in reality in the New Jerusalem. Revelation 4:8—we know it well—is the four living creatures. They’re seraphim. There are different ranks of exalted, high-ranking angels described in the Bible. There are seraphim, cherubim, archangels, and others as well, other dimensions of mighty angels that the Bible talks about.
Seraphim are the highest order of the angelic hosts. We only know of four of them in the entire eternal city, in the New Jerusalem, and they are called the burning ones.
That is what the word seraphim means, “the burning ones.” In Revelation 4:8 and Isaiah 6:3, they are before the Lord night and day. They never, ever cease to cry out, “Holy, holy, holy!” which could mean, in a practical way, “Transcendent beauty, transcendent beauty.”
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
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They are talking about God’s wholly-otherness, that He is of a completely different order from the rest of creation. The part that strikes me in Revelation 4:8 is that they never cease. They never cease, night and day. They are doing Psalm 27:4 for ever and ever.
Now my point isn’t that we will do that for ever and ever in the full sense the seraphim do. My point is to say that in God’s wisdom, beings exist in the wisdom of this occupation forever. The highest-ranking angelic beings are nearest God, and they are most occupied with God’s transcendent beauty.
THE PROGRESSION TOWARDS A HEART OF SINGLE-MINDEDNESS
David was only functioning in part of this wisdom in his natural life. He said, “This one thing I have desired.”
There are many desires in the human heart. We have many desires, and David didn’t say, “It’s the only desire.” He was saying it was the premier thing he desired.
That is a powerful statement. There is a certain amount of rigor in David’s life that is implied by that statement. David didn’t show up one day saying, “The thing I desire most is God.” This is the confession of a man who had made many decisions throughout his life that brought him to this place.
I’m estimating he was probably in his forties when he was writing Psalm 27. I’ll tell you later, if we get to it, why I think he was in his forties when he wrote this Psalm.
The point is, this statement, “One thing I have desired of the Lord,” is not an automatic statement. This is a statement that is the fruit of years of pressing into God. Some people think that they read the verse, go to a prayer line, have someone lay hands on them, and automatically have this abiding reality in their heart.
No, David contended for this type of lifestyle. He pressed into God, and I can imagine him in his younger days, saying, “I want to have an activity in my heart that is wholly Yours, O God. I want to be completely Yours.”
The way that I read this verse is, it was a great hour in David’s life where he could speak this truth. In his earlier days, he might have said, “The one thing that I hope to settle in my life is that I will desire You above all things. I want to have a sustaining grace. I want to be able to abide in this place for decades.”
So David, in I’m guessing his mid-forties, has developed to a place in God where this is a reality, but don’t think this is an automatic reality, because it’s the confession of your mouth. It’s the confession of our mouths with sincerity. I don’t mean it’s a false confession. It’s a real confession years before it’s an actual, sustained reality in terms of the way we carry our hearts.
SOME PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ON AIMING FOR GOD
For years in my spiritual growth, I wanted to have a certain activity in my heart towards God that I didn’t have, so I fought for it, I contended for it, and after some years, I began to have a new activity of the Holy Spirit in my soul.
I want it far more. I don’t know where I’m at in the journey; I’m not one to measure myself on that. I know that this is not an automatic statement of David when he was the shepherd boy in Jerusalem; this was something that was worked in him by the Spirit over time.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 4
One of the great pains that I’ve had as a pastor for thirty years is how many twenty-year olds I’ve seen who are fiery for God, and who, by the time they’re thirty or forty, have grown through disappointment, disillusionment, the rigors of life, and it’s a memory of them pressing into God. They were aiming at this reality, but it was still a goal and not a reality in them.
THE ASSISTANCE OF GRACE IN ACHIEVING THE DREAM OF OUR HEART
So I want to submit this to you: This verse is not a reality because you join the IHOP-KC missions base. It might be a goal in this season of your life, but for David to say this, for it to become real and for the Spirit to bear witness to it, is a remarkable work of grace in a man; especially in an Old Testament man before the new covenant.
David says, “This one thing I have desired of the Lord.” The phrase that I put over the word desire is, “this was the primary daydream of his heart.” This was the dream of his heart.
We all have many daydreams. Some of our daydreams are dark daydreams of sin. We have daydreams of grandeur, of honor, of how right we are and how great we are, and all those things, and then there are holy daydreams.
My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would begin to give you more and more holy daydreams. This is what David is talking about, where the desire, the daydream of your heart, the primary one—not necessarily the only one, but the primary one, not figuratively—the primary dream of your heart is to be wholly given at the heart level in the quest of encountering the beauty of the Lord.
STUDY, THE BEGINNING STEP OF THE BEHOLDING PROCESS
When David talks about beholding the beauty, he’s talking about experiencing it; he’s talking about studying it. That’s the beginning stages of beholding—to study it out, to seek it, to observe it in the Word and in creation and by the Spirit.
What I mean is, David looked at the skies, he looked at creation, he looked at God’s handiwork in history. As he studied history, he could see God’s hand in the Scriptures. He saw it in the realm of dreams and visions; he would receive insight through the Spirit’s language to the heart in the revelatory dimension. He would study. Study is a focused, sustained observation. It’s the beginning step of this beholding process.
A lot of people are waiting for the revelation to break in on them. They want to skip the study, skip the sustained, focused concentration, the feeding of their spirit on it, skip that and go right to the powerful release in their heart, and it doesn’t happen that way. The beholding has stages to it.
In Psalm 19, David looked to the skies. The words glory and beauty, many times in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Isaiah, are synonymous. When he looked up and said, “I behold the glory of God in the sky,” it would be accurate to say that he beheld His beauty and His splendor in the sky. We behold God’s beauty when we mediate as anointed observers of history.
THE BEAUTY OF GOD IN HISTORY
We can look back at history and see God’s hand in history, and we can see His handiwork in the way the nations have been led—even the bit of information we have; most of us don’t know much about history, but a
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
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little bit. It is awesome when we ask God to give us the ability as an anointed observer of history to see His beauty.
THE BEAUTY OF GOD IN CREATION
We say we can see His beauty all through creation, not just in the sky and the way our human body is made. That is what Psalm 139 is about. David was captured by the glory and the beauty of God in the way his body operated. He said, “It is wonderful. It is too wonderful. Your leadership over my life is just too wonderful.”
THE BEAUTY OF GOD IN THE WORD OF GOD
We see His beauty in the Word of God. We see His beauty, again, through the work of the Spirit in dreams and visions. There are so many dreams and visions the Holy Spirit is giving; not all of them that people claim are from the Holy Spirit, but the Lord is really increasing the amount of activity He is giving in this arena.
It’s remarkable in a global way. He is speaking about His beauty even in revelatory ways in dreams and visions. He is showing us His beauty.
So first we study it; we observe it; we focus on it. We dialogue about it with one another after we study it. We carry it; we speak it back to God in worship and prayer, and, little by little, these small times of focus from the heart on the subject of God’s beauty begin to form into real substance of the revelation of the beauty of God in our heart, and it becomes real, and we feel the power of it in our emotions.
So the very phrase “beholding the beauty of the Lord,” again, implies process. David went on the process.
I haven’t gotten to the notes yet. You know how we do this! We just go for a while and skip a bunch of the notes and then get out on time. I’m totally enjoying myself here, I love this verse.
MEDITATING ON THE GLORIOUS SPLENDORS
In Psalm 145:5, David said, “I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty.” He said, “I meditate; I study it.” There are several times in the Psalms when David says, “I fill my mind by studying Your ways.” It takes time.
Of course today we have the added dimension of videos—no, I guess that was in my day—DVDs! We have the media, is what I’m trying to say. We have the media. It is remarkable what the Lord is giving His servants that’s coming through the media. It’s living color right in front of us, and this thing is exploding, and we see His beauty in history and creation and in the works of His hands. King David said he studied it; we have to study it.
It’s not enough even to go to the prayer room; we have to go to the prayer room having filled our minds. The beholding process isn’t just the receiving of the impact; it’s the process before we receive the impact and the tenderized emotions and the heart revelation.
We have studied; we have observed; we have filled our minds, and beloved, it takes time to do this. It takes time. That’s the downside of this reality. Again, the upside of it is that it’s so romantic and so glorious to talk about Psalm 27:4.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
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LIVING IN THE RADICALNESS OF THIS MINDSET
You cannot do this on the run; you cannot do this as an added supplement to a crowded Western-style lifestyle. One of the dilemmas that we’ve seen in the IHOP-KC community in the last seven years is that people live a certain way for years. They see the IHOP-KC commercial, so they move to Kansas City. They add seeking the beauty of God as a supplement to an already-established paradigm of how life should operate.
It does not work. You cannot add this as a vitamin. It has to be a radical, new view of how life is carried out under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. It is radical. I want to challenge you tonight to the radicalness of what this verse is talking about.
This isn’t a vitamin; it’s not a supplement; it’s not an add-on. “Well, I tell you what, I’ll join a worship team. I’ll be a prayer leader. I’ll sit in the room and add this onto my already crowded, emotional hard drive, which is already completely full, and I’m going to add the glory of God onto it.”
I have found that as the Holy Spirit challenges me to be a man of one thing, I find the challenge in every season. I feel this challenge, His zeal. Again, that invitation has gone from invitation to mandate to, “I mean it.” I don’t know if I’ll say this exactly right, but there is a time in our lives where we have a certain freedom to come and go as we want, but there are those in our midst who have matured past the coming and going as you want, and now you’re the Lord’s bondservant. You have given over your rights to come and go as you want.
A SPECTACLE TO ANGELS AND MEN
Paul the apostle talked about this in 1 Corinthians 9. He said, “Some guys preach, and they choose to preach, and hey, they get a reward. Not me; I am under compulsion. I am in trouble if I don’t do it. I’m not just a free man walking around in the grace of God.
“I am a bondservant. I’m under compulsion. I have been enlisted. I have been mandated. I’m living in a different way for the age to come.”
He looked, even in the midst of the Body of Christ, as strange and odd. In 1 Corinthians 4:9, Paul said, “[I] have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.” In other words, men and angels look at me and say, “What manner of life are you living?”
I want to ask you: Are you a spectacle to angels and men? Meaning, do even the angels take a step back at your lifestyle and say, “What an unusual work of God is happening in that young man, that young woman, that old man, that old woman’s life?”
A spectacle to angels—1 Corinthians 4:9. Paul said he was, and what he meant by that is that his resolve in God was so different from the common way that even the angels paused and went, “My, this is unusual.”
Certainly, he was a spectacle to men, and men called him foolish. Most of the kingdom of God, even the prayer movement, is so much like the rest of the word that we look cool, not offensive. My goal isn’t to be offensive; that’s not the goal. The goal is to give myself wholly to God, but I want to assure you that the man or woman who does this will be disruptive to those near him.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 7
It is disruptive, and I don’t mean because they’re carrying on in strange ways, but because the decisions they make are so different than those known in our culture that it’s odd.
“THE CONSUMMATION OF ALL PERFECTION”
King David said in Psalm 119:96, another verse that I don’t have in the notes here, “I have seen the consummation of all perfection.” What a statement! He’s talking about the New Jerusalem. “I have seen the consummation” —or the fullness—“of all perfection. I have seen the realm of the city where we’re going—the New Jerusalem.” That’s really what he’s saying in New Testament language.
The throne of God is the consummation of all perfection (Rev. 4). My theory is that David sees the consummation of all perfection: He sees the fullness of beauty around the throne of God. He sees the living creatures who, night and day, never cease.
He says, “I am going to live in part like that. I cannot live in the fullness of that; I don’t have their capacities, but I am going to set my heart, even in these days, now, to go after this.”
Now, David didn’t attain to a sustained reality in his forties, except that he was doing this in his twenties and thirties and even earlier besides.
“THE MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART”
In paragraph A, Psalm 27:4 gives us insight into the heart of the one whom God called, “the man after My own heart.” Beloved, we want to take serious when God calls a human being “the one who is doing what is in My heart.” Whoa!
Will that hold up on the last day in David’s life? Yes, it will. I am confident that in the last day, when David stands before the Lord, the Lord will say, “Here is a man who did what was in My heart.”
That is what we want to do. Our problem here is, we have a decided disadvantage in history. We have great advantages and real disadvantages—that we’re right in the middle of the Western culture, and the Church in the West has a secular, western spirit on it.
The counsel and the wisdom and the paradigm and the daydreaming of the Church is other than where David was going. So if we take the counsel and the approval of those among us who are fervent, it’s probably only about halfway to where David was seeking to live.
THE LORD GOD IS OUR STANDARD
There’s a verse in 2 Corinthians 10:12-13 where Paul said, “If we compare ourselves by ourselves, then we have no understanding” (2 Cor. 10:12, paraphrased). I don’t want to compare myself to the group on the other side of the town; I don’t want to compare myself to you. I don’t want you to think that I’m fiery for God, and then for me to buy into it.
I appreciate different people encouraging me and saying, “You’re going for God.” I appreciate that; I actually like that human dimension. However, I don’t take it as though it means God is going to say it. What ultimately means something to me, and of course to you as well, is if God says this at the end of your life.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 8
We are in the midst of a culture where many of the brightest ones among us, meaning in the whole Western world, are in a different mindset. They have such a different daydream in their hearts than this. They would say, if it was truth, “The tenth thing that I want with all my heart is to gaze on the beauty of the Lord.
“I want an anointed ministry first; I want certain dynamics in my family second; I want certain dynamics in my economics third. I want certain honor and friendship dimensions fourth. I want certain health and physical dimensions fifth. OK Lord, You’re sixth! That’s not bad! That’s up from ten!” But the daydream of their heart is other than what David describes here, the primary daydream of their hearts.
The thing that brings them anxiety isn’t, are they doing this? It’s where their money is, where their favor is in ministry, where their relational dynamics are. Those are the things that bring them anxiety, not this, because the primary daydream of their heart is other than this.
Many of the bright ones in our culture live like that, and then they’re the ones telling us we’re doing great. Beloved, receive the encouragement, but don’t take it too much to heart.
THE FOLLY OF “MELLOWING OUT”
One guy told me I had to mellow out a little. He said, “You don’t have to do that prayer thing so much.” He was preaching grace to me, and I have heard this for so many years. For thirty years, I have had men of God preach grace to me to quit praying so much, and I’m trying to pray twice as much! I’m not trying to pray half as much.
I’m trying to find grace to pray twice as much, and they’re preaching grace. “Why pray half as much?” I have had a thirty-year dilemma with this that I am very, very familiar with.
So when a guy comes to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and says, “Hey bro, you know I love it, but just… take liberty,” I say, “The liberty I’m trying to get is against darkness and passivity. I don’t want liberty from pursuing God. I want to go after it.”
He says, “Hey man, great grace!”
Very confused is the doctrine of grace in the Western world today. I told the guy, and I’ve stuck with this line— I like this line—“If your vote counts where I’m going, I will listen to you, but if your vote doesn’t count where I’m going, and I’m going to the judgment seat of Christ, I won’t listen to you.
“If you can assure me that your vote counts, then I’m really going to listen to you right now, but if, when I stand before God, they don’t call you up and ask you to speak into the evaluation of my life, sorry! I have one moment on the earth called seventy years. I’m not taking a chance with your counsel.”
“THEY SHALL GO NO MORE OUT OF THE TEMPLE”
Roman numeral II. Paragraph A. This is where I talk about David writing this Psalm in his forties. You can read that on your own; you don’t have to read it right now.
It matters because it gives you a perspective that he wasn’t a sixteen-year old writing this; he wasn’t an eighty- year old, either. Well, he died at seventy years old, so he couldn’t have been eighty.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 9
Again, I want you to remember, David was writing a reality that he would live forever.
When he says, “I am going to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,” he meant the verse in Revelation 3:12 where Jesus said that the overcomers will be pillars in the temple. They will have access to the temple, and their assignment will be in the temple of God all their days.
It says they will never leave the temple. I don’t think that means they’ll never physically leave it. I think their divine assignment and commission is in the context of the eternal temple, for ever and ever, as a reward for living as an overcomer on the earth.
It’s in the same spirit as the verse we have in the prayer room, Ezekiel 44:15, that the sons of Zadok will be in the temple even in the age to come. It’s because they were faithful in this age.
The point is, David was actually talking not just about how he lived on the earth; he had the age to come in his mind as well. He said, “I want to live in a way where I am making choices now that God remembers, that really make a difference in the age to come.”
ONLY THE SPIRITUALLY VIOLENT CAN TAKE THE KINGDOM BY FORCE
OK, where do I want to go now? Paragraph G. Jesus talks on this same theme—this one thing. Of course Paul the apostle says the same thing in Philippians 3:13—“One thing I do.”
Mary of Bethany we know well—“One thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part” (Lk. 10:41). Jesus affirmed this narrowness, this offensive lifestyle. It is offensive. It really is troublesome, and only the violent can take the kingdom by force. It is violent to the person trying to walk in it, and it is disturbing to the people they are connected with.
It is violent. Jesus said that John the Baptist was a man of spiritual violence. It didn’t mean that he was violent to people physically; it meant that the best phrase for the decisions he made in his inner man was “spiritual violence” (Mt. 11:12, paraphrased).
Jesus said, “That man was violent: The best way to describe the decisions he made in his inner man is violent. He spared nothing.” And Jesus said in Matthew 11:11 that he was the greatest man born of a woman, and that he made decisions so radically.
Again, in our context, it is so hard. I mean, for years I’ve been told how on-fire I am, but I’ve mostly been told by people who are cold. They’re saying, “You’re on fire!” and I’m thinking, “Well…” Again, I’m not saying anything to them, but I’m not comforted by that. I don’t have a sense of certainty in my spirit because they’re saying it’s true. I don’t just want to be more on fire than someone else; I want to live in a way that is really walking out the Psalm 27:4 lifestyle.
“SEEK FIRST HIS KINGDOM AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS”
Paragraph G. Jesus promised anyone who would seek His kingdom first that He would add things to them. He would add them.
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David: Being a Person of One Thing
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We know the verse: “Seek first the kingdom; seek first the pursuit of righteousness in your own life, and then minister, bringing other people into righteousness” (Mt. 6:33, paraphrased).
This is the centerpiece of the Sermon on the Mount, the pursuit of righteousness in your life. It makes the experiencing of the kingdom of God, God in His kingdom, the reign of God. The reign of God means the kingdom of God, the reign of God in your life, the authority of God in your life, the authority of the Holy Spirit, and the pursuit of a breakthrough of righteousness at the heart level, and then the anointing to bring this righteousness to other people.
He says, “You make that the first concern of your life. You make it the premier daydream of your life, the premier thing that you are troubled by, the premier thing that you are disturbed by, that you have a holy anxiety.”
KEEPING FIRST THINGS FIRST
You cry out, “O God, am I sure? Is this happening? Am I really doing this? Am I getting the fullness of the breakthrough that You’re asking me in the realms of righteousness?”
The Lord says, “If this becomes the first thing, I promise you I will give you the other things in My timing and in My way. I promise you that I will.”
What happens is that we go for the other things, and the other things aren’t sinful things; he’s talking about the legitimate things of life, of God’s blessing. The legitimate blessings of God under the leadership of Jesus are the other things, so don’t have a list of the other things somehow being less. They are wonderful divine blessings.
He says, “You lose yourself in seeing the kingdom of God, the authority of God touching your life, your inner man, your mind, your emotions, the authority and leadership of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God being established in you, then getting a breakthrough in righteousness, and then getting the grace of God to bring it to others as well.” Jesus says, “I promise you that I will give you the other things.”
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR HEART IS?
Paragraph H. Many believers seek the other things first. They don’t even know it because our culture has blinded us. They don’t even know it; the other things are their primary anxiety in life.
If you could just take stock of your own heart in the last thirty days, what have you had concern and turmoil about? “Well, the money, my body, my relationships, my love life, my future, my anointing, my ministry, my place…”
The Lord says, “Keep going, keep going. You have not hit it yet. You haven’t hit where I want you. I want the primary preoccupation, the thing you are most sick over in terms of concern, to be the reign of God increasing in your inner man.”
“Oh yeah, sure I want that. I do the IHOP-KC thing. I do want that.” Our hearts are weakened when the other things gain ascendancy in our lives as the primary passion. Our relationships are weakened.
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06
A LACK OF CONNECTEDNESS
One verse I don’t have here, again, is 1 John 1:7—“If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” —we have fellowship with the light.
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You know, every now and then I take five minutes and talk about this, because I have such energy about this. “One of the great problems in the Church of Jesus Christ in our nation is the lack of connectedness.” I hear it everywhere. “I don’t feel connected! I don’t feel connected!”
So people normally look at the organization of the ministry, to see if the organization can connect them; as though organizations connect human hearts. They do not. Organizations do not bond with people. People bond with people; organizations do not. I have heard this for thirty years of ministry. I’ve heard it everywhere—east coast, west coast, north, east, southwest. “I don’t feel connected! I don’t feel connected! I don’t feel connected!” I understand that, and I appreciate the dilemma, but we’re looking at the wrong place. It’s not the organization or the org chart or the ministry. That’s not how you get connected.
“HIS LIFE IS THE LIGHT OF MEN”
It says in 1 John 1:7, “If we walk in the light… we have fellowship with one another” —you have connectedness, and that fellowship is in families, marriages, ministry, staff, friendships, marketplace.
With the word fellowship, put the word connectedness, because it takes the entrance of light in the human spirit for spirits to connect. It takes a supernatural release of light. We have to walk in light, and walking in light means that we are honest with one another.
There is a dimension of light when we are talking about our hearts. That is light; that’s a good part of light. Another dimension of light is beholding the glory of the Lord, beholding the beauty of the Lord, the light of God actually touching our spirits. Our spirits are invigorated with light, and then we can bond.
I’ve watched it for years. I’ve watched so many marriages where the goal of their lives is to extract life out of one another, but neither of them have any life to give.
Life comes from another source. A minute ago I said 1 John 1:5 and 7, and this is John 1:4. John said, “And the life [is] the light of men.” The life in our spirit comes from light touching us.
THE LIGHT THAT BONDS
So I have watched this. I have watched so many ministry teams, so many relationships and friendships, trying to bond, have fellowship, without light being the primary thing that they share between one another. They’re trying to bond on the basis of how the media tells us that we bond. We bond by light; light bonds us. Light is where the life is, and if we get more connected to light—I mean, you can always improve the org chart of a ministry, but the org chart isn’t what connects people. They don’t say, “I fit in the chart there. OK, I’ll go to that home group,” and they go to that home group, and the people in the home groups are all disconnected. It takes, because people with light connect.
People with light increasing are more able to bond to people; they don’t not bond. I look across the Body of Christ. It’s a chronic problem in our nation, and, I’m sure, all over the world. So many are wearied by it, and the answer is lives of fasting and prayer. That’s what the bonding comes out of, not that the fasting and prayers earn
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 12
it. The fasting and prayer and the Word and the obedience position us for light, and light always causes bonding.
Light always creates bonding. We’re getting our bonding models from the media; we watch the movies and then figure out how to bond. Our bonding comes from the light of life that enters the human spirit, and David is talking about that right there: “This one thing have I desired, to gaze on your beauty” (Ps. 27:4).
There are so many benefits to the kind of spirit and the kind of mind in time and in eternity; there are so many benefits to the man or woman who has light enter his or her spirit. They have benefits in this age and in the age to come. They are truly remarkable.
“THEY LOOK UNTO THE LORD AND THEY ARE RADIANT”
I’ve done a fair amount of marriage counseling over the years, and more times than not, it’s two people staring at each other, gazing into one another’s eyes, looking to extract life from each other—life that they don’t have.
I’ve said this a thousand times—“Here’s what you need to do: You need to quit staring at each other. You need to put your arm this way and stare at the light of Jesus, and go after Him. Lose everything after that Person, and you will fall in love in the pursuit of abandonment that way.
“If you quit looking that way and you look this way, what you end up with is two ticks, no dog. That is so many relationships, two ticks and no dog; two people trying to suck life out of each other, and the life is over there. It’s the other Person who has life. His name is the Son of God.”
They say, “Well, what if we don’t?” I say, “Listen, I promise you: You seek the kingdom, and all of it will be added to you. All of it will be given to you.”
The human spirit is not made to be able to look away from Him and work. We have to look unto Him, not as enough to get saved; we have to look unto Him with all of our heart.
King David also said in Psalm 34:5, “They look unto the Lord and they are radiant” (paraphrased). Their hearts become radiant. That is the principle of light: Our hearts become radiant.
THE PURSUIT OF THE LIFE-QUICKENING ZOE OF GOD
I have here in G, many good things that are designed by God to be secondary easily become primary in our Western culture because our Western culture is founded on a sense of entitlement and idealism.
Idealism is a nice word for fantasy. Our Western culture is so media-driven that especially in this last decade or two… Back in my day, they only had three channels. How many of you remember having three channels? OK, there it is, fifty and older. There you are. Ben Cartwright was the main guy; he was the guy we waited for on Sunday night.
But for the last ten to twenty years, and the next twenty years, it’s going to be that they grow up from the womb with all their life inundated with images, and images are telling them how life works. The Lord can really use those images; there are so many images we grow up with, that it’s a complex reality. We end up creating our expectations and our entitlements and our idealism on these images that aren’t truth. They aren’t the truth of the
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 13
Word of God. The images don’t tell us to deny ourselves and live abandoned this way—to lock in and run this way.
The images give us another message completely. We end up with two ticks and no dog, I really mean that, with sucking the life out of each other in friendships and ministry relationships and in father-son, father-daughter relationships, in marriages, in all kinds of dimensions. They wear out, because there is no life inherent in the human spirit.
There is no life. I’m talking about the life-quickening zoe of God, the life that comes from God. It’s a gift; it is life; it is light, and this is where God is taking His people.
THE PRIMARY DAYDREAM OF YOUR HEART
I want to ask you to ask the Lord: I have here in paragraph H, ask the Lord to reveal to your heart how much fantasy you’re pursuing, and how much you’re really seeking the kingdom of God first, or if you’re really seeking the kingdom second, or third, or fourth, or is it fifth?
What is the primary daydream of your heart? What is the primary thing that your stomach gets churned up about? “I don’t have a spirit of prayer; I don’t have revelation. It’s not happening. I’m not connecting. I’m sick about this. I have got to connect more at the heart level with God.”
No, that comes down the road. Many would have to say that the primary daydream of their life is their position in ministry, or their place of economics, that whole list. I won’t go through it again.
My point isn’t to tell you how bad you are; that’s not my goal. This is such a glorious liberation. I’m not doing it perfectly, but I’m certainly going hard after it, and I want to go harder and harder and harder. I want to live in the light and life of God in this age and in the age to come.
“SHOCK ME NOW, DON’T SHOCK ME THEN”
We’re going to end right now. I’m going to ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us.
Lord, how much light are we living in? Are we seeking the kingdom first, for real, for real, really first? Are we one-thing people? Are we really beholding the glory of the Lord as our one thing? Lord, talk to us; talk to us.
What area of our life is higher in our priority than this? I’m going to ask you all over the room to take a second actually to ask Him. I dare you to ask that of the Holy Spirit. And the longer you’ve been in leadership, the harder it is to ask that question, because the longer you’ve been in leadership, the longer you’ve been familiar with the Bible, and the more automatic our response is that we know the answer.
I ask the Lord that sometimes, and it shocks me. To really ask the question is a vulnerable place—to quiet down the motor on the inside, to ask, “Lord, talk to me. Am I really seeking the kingdom first? Am I really a man of one thing, or a woman of one thing? Am I really seeking the light, for real, as my top priority of life? If not, shock me now, Lord; shock me now. Don’t shock me then. Talk to me straight, right now.”
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FORERUNNER SCHOOL OF MINISTRY – MIKE BICKLE
David: Being a Person of One Thing
Transcript: 9/06/06 Page 14
MINISTRY TIME
I’m going to invite you to stand. I want to invite anyone who feels like the Lord is stirring you. He wants to make you a man of one thing, a woman of one thing; He really wants you to be, for real, a person of one thing—Bible style, not Western-culture style.
I mean the real biblical one thing, not just a little more fiery than the group down the road. That means nothing to me, nothing. If the Lord is stirring you right now, and hopefully all of you are stirred a little right now, but I’m talking about to where you’re thinking, “I need a real change in this; I mean a real change. My ministry is clearly number one. It’s not beholding the Lord. I’m not studying and searching it out. I’m doing it on the run. I’m not really giving myself to this.”
If that is what the Lord is speaking to you, and you would like prayer, I want you to come on forward. Or, if you want to be alone with the Lord, then say, “I want to be alone with the Lord for a few minutes. My neighbor is going to be next to me right now. I just want to talk to Him.”
Beloved, I haven’t said it all perfectly tonight, but the general theme is life and wisdom to you. It is your liberty; it is your glory; it is your eternal reward. It is wisdom.
I am trying to do this. I have areas of my life where I’m not doing it. I’m in turmoil about this. I want to do this more in my life, at fifty and fifty-one years old. I want to do this more.
Lord, I want to be this man. I want to walk in Psalm 27:4, and most of you who have been around for a while know that that’s the verse the Lord spoke audibly about IHOP-KC back in 1983. He said, “That is what they are going to be. They are going to be a Psalm 27:4 people. That is the mandate of this people.”
The Spirit is going to be striving with us in a good way to bring us into it.
Let’s go ahead and worship. We’re going to worship and wait on the Lord; go back and forth and see what the Lord says to us.
Lord, I want to be a person of one thing. I want the reality of this in my life now, in these days.
I ask You, Lord; I want a new daydream. I want holy daydreams. I want to mourn and have poverty of spirit. I want to know what it means to mourn; to break through in God.
This one thing I want, O God, to behold your beauty. I want to search it out. I want to encounter it; I want to experience it. I want to seek first the rule of God in my spirit, the leadership of the Spirit.
This one thing have I desired. I give You everything, Lord. Show me the truth, Lord. I ask You to show me the way, O God.
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