After God's Own Heart: The Key to Knowing and Living God's Passionate Love for You

MOST CHARISMA HOUSE BOOK GROUP products are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. For details, write Charisma House Book Group, 600 Rinehart Road, Lake Mary, Florida 32746, or telephone (407) 333-0600.

AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART by Mike Bickle

Published by Charisma House

Charisma Media/Charisma House Book Group

600 Rinehart Road

Lake Mary, Florida 32746

www.charismahouse.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., publishers. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked NAS are from the New American Standard Bible.

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. Copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

Design Director: Justin Evans

Cover design by Karen Gonsalves

Copyright © 2004, 2009 by Mike Bickle

All rights reserved

ISBN-13: 978-1-59979-530-0

The Library of Congress has cataloged the previous edition as follows:

Bickle, Mike.

After Gods own heart / Mike Bickle.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-59185-230-7 (Hardback)

1. Christian life—Biblical teaching. I. Title.

BS680.C47B53 2004

248.4—dc22

2003020968

E-book ISBN: 978-1-59979-876-9

DEDICATION

I want to dedicate this book to my dear son Paul, who graduated from college and jumped into the IHOP-KC world. It is my joy to have you around so much. I love watching you receive and respond to God’s Word. Wow! From the day you were born until your teen years, your mother and I laid hands on you literally every night while you lay sleeping in your bed. We asked the Lord to fill you with revelation of Jesus and to make you a man after His own heart. As I see you in these days, I am watching God answer these prayers right before my eyes. I cannot tell you how deeply this touches me. The Lord has surely called you to greatness before Him. May you see your destiny in the chapters of this book. You and Luke continue to be the delight of my heart.

DAD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, I want to thank my dear comrades Matt and Dana Candler for their invaluable help in taking my transcribed sermons and turning them into the manuscript for this book. The only way they were able to do this is because they live this message in their private lives.

I want to thank my friend and co-worker Bob Fraser for his relentless encouragement (pressure) to write this book. He refused all my good reasons for not having time to write another book.

I want to thank my personal assistant, Anne House, for tirelessly providing the transcriptions. Anne, you are a joy and blessing to so many at the International House of Prayer of Kansas City.

Thank you, Joel Kilpatrick, for the excellent work you did with the manuscript. You definitely improved it.

CONTENTS

Foreword by Martin Smith/Delirious?

1 A Generation After God’s Own Heart

2 From Religious Sacrifice to Holy Obsession

3 The Gaze That Stuns the Heart

4 Is God Mostly Mad, Glad, or Sad?

5 The Glad Heart of God

6 Becoming a Person of One Thing …

7 Mary of Bethany: A Woman of One Thing …

8 Contending for the Power of God

9 Contending for Power in Intimacy

10 David: Contending for God’s Fullness

11 The Five Prophetic Seasons of David’s Life

12 Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

13 Divine Contingency for Human Weakness

14 Overcoming the Spirit of Fear With Intimacy

15 Consumed With Zeal for Night-and-Day Prayer

FOREWORD

WHILE PLAYING IN KANSAS CITY in 1999, Delirious? had the pleasure of meeting Mike Bickle for the first time. We swapped God stories and immediately felt a connection with this radical man of God. We all left Kansas City that night with a greater sense of purpose, and so it is with great honor that I encourage you to read this book.

Holiness is always an awkward subject for today’s generation of Christians. It’s a word not often used these days, and let’s be honest. It sounds a little bit boring!

I have often reflected on the true meaning of being a history maker. The more I carry on in my own Christian journey, the more I realize it is all to do with holiness, not the holiness that puts us in a straitjacket, but the holiness that celebrates purity and friendship and that jealously seeks after God’s own heart. I have come to realize more and more that this holiness is not a superspiritual set of rules that we all fall short of, but it is an everyday combination of good, godly choices and a passion to serve our Maker.

It’s not about winning, but running . . . not about success, but commitment . . . not about position, but servanthood . . . not about religion, but relationship . . . not about liberalism, but discipline . . . not about compromise, but devotion. Holiness is happiness, and God is raising up a generation of revivalists whose heartbeat is to adore their heavenly Maker. Mike is the real deal and is someone who lives it, not just preaches it. Fasten your seat belts as you read, and prepare to be changed.

—MARTIN SMITH

DELIRIOUS?

1

Chapter One

A GENERATION AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART

KING DAVID HAS BEEN A PUZZLE, a mystery, a holy conundrum for thousands of years. His life perplexes, maddens, and humbles students of the Bible. To many, it doesn’t make sense that this man who was so prone to personal weakness was able to get away with so much and still have God treat him with special favor. He was many things: a shepherd, a psalmist, a king, a liar, a murderer, and an adulterer. But most important of all, he was the only person in the entire span of the Bible to be called a man after God’s own heart. Can you think of four more stunning words in all of creation? A man—lowly and often full of doubts and sin, like all of us—and yet God singled him out and called him a man after His own heart. What an awesome, almost unfathomable compliment!

But in saying those words, God threw open the door to every person on the planet to be, like David, a man or woman after God’s own heart. We all have the same opportunity as that long-ago king to embody in our own personality and in our own way the kind of heart that reflects the very heart, emotions, and personality of God. Our Father is no respecter of persons. He didn’t make King David great so the rest of us would feel like failures. Rather, He offers you and me the same opportunities and blessings He offered to men and women throughout history. But most people don’t ever come close to having a heart after God’s the way David did. They stumble and struggle through life without discovering God’s heart and without letting it transform them.

WHAT SET DAVID APART AS A MAN AFTER GOD’S HEART WAS HIS UNRELENTING PASSION TO SEARCH OUT AND UNDERSTAND THE EMOTIONS OF GOD.

Two of the toughest questions throughout Christian history has been, Why did David get this special distinction from God? and, What set him apart from so many other godly men and women? In these days, I believe God is releasing the answer to that question in greater measure than ever before. You see, it wasn’t David’s obedience that earned him special standing with God. Close examination reveals he wasn’t any more obedient than, say, Moses or the other prophets. And if you really want a sterling example of obedience, check out Daniel.

It wasn’t David’s pursuit of God’s miraculous power that made him unique. Elijah and Elisha had many more power demonstrations.

And it wasn’t his brilliant military success. That too wasn’t one of a kind. Joshua had significant success in his military career, but he wasn’t called a man after God’s heart.

So, what made David the one person God called the man after His own heart? What can we learn from him? What distinctive quality of his can we emulate as we seek to become men and women after God’s heart?

The answer has the power to revolutionize the way you see God, the way you relate to Him, how you view yourself, and your destiny in Him. What set David apart as a man after God’s heart was his unrelenting passion to search out and understand the emotions of God. This, I believe, is the distinguishing factor in the life of any person—you or me or anyone else—who sets out to have a heart after God’s. In fact, someday the church worldwide will be like David in this regard. We will be a massive group of people who worship, serve, and love God with ever-increasing understanding of His emotions and passions. Like David, we will understand and reflect the heart of God in a way humanity has rarely seen.

I believe we live in the generation in which the Lord will return, the generation that God will look upon and say, They are after My own heart. Today, as in David’s day, He seeks lovesick worshipers who understand how He feels. Jesus said, But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him (John 4:23). To worship in spirit is to worship deeply from a heart of total abandonment. Compare that to the limited way most people worship, staying within the strictures of external forms and religious rituals. True worship is not often seen on the earth. To worship, serve, and love the real way—God’s way—demands something more than what we usually see on Sunday mornings or Wednesday evenings. To worship in truth means more than just singing the right songs or striking the right worship poses; it means understanding the truth about God’s heart and personality. Worship is not a twenty-minute period during a church service but a lifestyle of relating to God in a particular way. But if you look at the body of Christ today, you see that religion has burdened us with lies about God’s heart; it has hindered us from giving God the love responses we naturally desire to give Him. The turbulent rivers of affection in God’s personality flow strong, and yet we respond with the drip-drip of ritual or passionless worship. When Jesus said, in John 4:23, that God was seeking worshipers, He was referring to the tremendous, fierce, fiery desire in His Father’s heart. That love seeks out lovers to requite His passion, to understand His love, and to worship Him drenched in the desire He has for us. That’s what it means to be a true worshiper. David was such a man. And we must be men and women like him.

In this book we will look at David’s life, which is a divine pattern for the church at the end of the age. It sets the course for our journey into holy passion and abandonment that will change our hearts in ways we haven’t yet imagined and that will strengthen and empower the church in a way history has never seen. Millions of people are primed and ready for this change. Many are already on the path toward discovering God’s own heart. Perhaps you are one of them, or perhaps you are hearing this for the first time, and your heart is burning inside of you at the possibility of becoming what you know the Lord wants you to be. Let me encourage you: you can be a person after God’s own heart, just as David was. God is raising believers up and giving them hearts like David’s. We will be, when all is said and done, a church after God’s own heart. Let’s start the journey into how.

After God’s Own Heart

What does it mean to be a man or a woman after God’s own heart? What in the heart of this shepherd boy playing his makeshift guitar on the backside of Bethlehem so captured almighty God’s attention? I’ve alluded to one answer, but there are three facets to this divine description of David’s life, and they form the basic blueprint for this book.

1. David was committed to obeying the commands of God’s heart.

I put this first not because it’s the most important, but because it’s the most common, most recognizable lesson preachers draw from David’s life. I have heard many men and women teach on this through the years, saying it’s the key to being a person after God’s heart, and while partly true, it’s not the whole story. David’s obedience is well established in the Book of Psalms and elsewhere. But it’s only one dimension of what it means to be people after God’s heart. We must look deeper.

Let’s not deceive ourselves; it’s critically important to obey God. Jesus equated obedience with love (John 14:23). David was tenacious, determined, and sincerely devoted to following hard after God’s commands. This desire chiseled and shaped his heart over many years. But he was far from a model of obedience. There was often a yawning gap between his sincere resolve and his actions. In other words, he blew it from time to time, sometimes in spades. Yet he was still a man after God’s own heart. That should flutter your heart a bit! What does this tell us? That there’s more to being a person after God’s heart than obedience. There is also the posture of your heart before God. God counted the sincere intentions of David’s heart even when his great weakness led him to wrong decisions.

THAT LOVE SEEKS OUT LOVERS TO REQUITE HIS PASSION, TO UNDERSTAND HIS LOVE, AND TO WORSHIP HIM DRENCHED IN THE DESIRE HE HAS FOR US.

God sees us the same way. Our sincere intentions to obey are very significant to God. He notices our desires, not just our outward actions. We often think that if our genuine intentions don’t immediately come into full fruition, they are worthless. Religious tradition has taught us that only mature love for God is real love. It says when our love is immature, it’s false and hypocritical. It blames young believers for messing up.

That’s a damaging lie that strips people of confidence and dignity. Truth be told, we all start with immature love. Life is long because maturity takes time—often more time than we would like. Have you noticed that nobody immediately goes to heaven after accepting Jesus? Maturity requires time to develop, but sincere love of any maturity is real in God’s eyes. It counts! God did not view David as a hypocrite while David’s love was weak and immature, and He doesn’t see us as hypocrites, either. Our attainment of mature love happens over months, years, and decades, and the results will be seen in due time as we bear fruit. God, in His patience, sees the long view much better than we do.

Most people beat themselves up over their weaknesses, but David saw God’s heart more clearly than most of God’s Old Testament servants and most Christians today. He understood that his deep-down determination to obey and love was valued by God, even when he came up short. David’s weaknesses were at times paraded before his countrymen, even written into Scripture. Yet he had an unusual ability to stand confidently before God and say, I am one of Your favorites. You like me even in my down times. I am completely Yours. This sincere determination to love Jesus even in the midst of our weakness is a huge part of being a man or woman after God’s own heart. Our ability to obey will grow over time, but God doesn’t treat us according to our obedience alone.

2. David was a student of God’s emotions.

David went beyond a determination to sincerely obey; he became a student of God’s emotions. He wanted to know what wonders, pleasures, and fearsome things filled God’s heart. He had many responsibilities and challenges as warrior and king, but he spent his best energies trying to understand what emotions burned in the personality of God. This was a king like no other; he spent his days gazing upon the beauty of God’s fiery desires and peering into the heart of the uncreated One. It is this reality, not some legalistic impulse, that fueled David’s obedience. He had a remarkable hunger to understand the emotions and heart of God, and as a result he had a unique grasp of the emotions, intentions, and passions of God’s heart. David was, bar none, the Old Testament’s ultimate student of the emotions of God. He was a scholar of God’s affections; his bread and butter was an undying passion for the center flame of God’s heart.

OUR ATTAINMENT OF MATURE LOVE HAPPENS OVER MONTHS, YEARS, AND DECADES, AND THE RESULTS WILL BE SEEN IN DUE TIME AS WE BEAR FRUIT.

This is the one key, the single motivation that empowered David. And if we are to follow in his footsteps toward an understanding of God’s heart, we must have the same motivation. By the anointing and the grace of God, we must become scholars of God’s heart. We must yearn to know how God feels, how the passions of His heart move. As we discover the same truths about God’s heart, we will find ourselves living the way David lived and fulfilling the call of God on our generation.

The Holy Spirit is impressing this upon people across the earth. He is taking what David saw in the heart of God, combining it with all that Jesus revealed about the Father’s heart in the New Testament, and causing an explosion of revelation about the emotions of God’s heart to come into the body of Christ. People are listening to this message and developing rock-solid resolve to be scholars of God’s emotions, as David was. This explains the deep, worldwide hunger people have to experience God in a way that goes beyond what many churches are accustomed to. We will talk more about that later. For now we must fix it in mind that David was a man after God’s heart primarily because he sought to understand the emotions of God—and we must do the same.

3. David was passionate about seeing the full release of the power and promises of God in his generation.

David refused to live with less than the very highest God would give him in his day. He never let himself feel disqualified by his weaknesses, but he contended mightily for the release of God’s power during his generation. He caught a glimpse of God’s zeal for His people and became convinced that the Lord would release His power for the benefit of the entire nation of Israel. In David’s generation, God’s power was often expressed in military feats. Therefore, entering into all that God would give his generation translated into the military conquest of enemies. The principle today is the same, though not expressed in military terms. But like David, we must refuse to draw back until we experience God’s full power for our generation. When we get caught up in the glorious emotions that burn within God’s heart as David did, we begin to see the tremendous, unprecedented blessing and power God has planned for this hour in history. We lose our ability to settle for same ol’, same ol’. We burn like torches with strong vision as our fuel. We become people who contend for the power of God available to our generation.

THIS JOURNEY TO BEING A PERSON AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART BEGINS WITH A REVELATION INTO THE EMOTIONAL MAKEUP OF THE HEART OF GOD.

To sum it up, let me switch the order to show the real sequence of how we become people after God’s heart. David first passionately pursued the revelation of the desires and emotions of God’s heart. Second, he obeyed God’s commands, and third, he moved into the fullness of God’s power and purposes. We’ll dive into these critically important topics in later chapters.

This journey to being a person after God’s own heart begins with a revelation into the emotional makeup of the heart of God. That is the first, most life-changing step, and there is no way around it. David conveyed what he saw in God’s heart in dozens of ways through the songs and prayers he wrote. He prayed that he would be able to drink from the river of the pleasures of God’s heart (Ps. 36:8). God’s heart was depicted as a river, even a raging, crashing river of rushing desire for human beings. David understood that God’s heart is like white-water rapids, tossing and tumbling with fierce emotions so strong and determined that they even drove Him to the extreme of being incarnated and