Category: Preparing For Destiny

148. Be still and know

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

In seeking to build our spirit, we have seen how important it is to give God first love, first place, first priority in our lives, and also how praying and singing in tongues is a key. The third point, which we are going to consider in this post and the next one, is waiting on the Lord and being still.

Be still

Be still, and know that I am God (Psa 46:10).

What does it mean to be still? Firstly it means we do not move; that we stop whatever it is we are doing. And then we can know that He is God. If we are always ‘doing’, we are not allowing Him to be God in our life.

The NASB translates this phrase as ‘Cease striving’. God wants us to stop fighting (‘striving’ comes from the word ‘strife’), and surrender. We need to stop striving to do things in our own strength and submit to Him. We have to stop doing things in our way if God is to lead us in His way and into the destiny He has prepared for us.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart 
And do not lean on your own understanding
(Prov 3:5)

He makes me lie down in green pastures
He leads me beside quiet waters
He restores my soul
He guides me in paths of righteousness
(Ps 23:2-3)

Physical calm

So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest (Heb 4:9-11).

This requires diligence: we have to actively pursue God’s rest, His peace. For every one of us, there is a place of rest that He wants us to find and enter into. God rested on the seventh day of creation, and He intends rest for us. We do not get just one day in seven: we get every day, because our rest is in Him. In relationship with Him, we allow Him to work through us and our destiny can be fulfilled.

Focused attention

relay

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb 12:1-2).

Those witnesses are the men in white linen who are appearing in various places around the world, the saints of old who have gone before us. They are cheering us on. In a 4x400m relay race, the first three runners do not pack up and go home once they have completed their lap: they stand and cheer and encourage the last runner. I believe God is saying that we are on the last leg, and all those people are watching us and cheering us on. I have met some of them, and they want to be involved in our lives and help us.

‘Let us lay aside every encumbrance’: if you are running a marathon, you do not wear a suit of armour, unless you are foolish (or running for charity – people wear all kinds of strange things when they run for charity). No, you get prepared, you wear a running vest and shorts, and proper shoes. Maybe you even cover your body with Vaseline so that you won’t rub. You do not carry anything with you that is not essential. We have to get rid of everything that will hold us back and keep us from running effectively. God wants to set us free from the things that are holding us back so that we can run the race. We do not want a ball and chain around our leg.

‘For the joy set before Him’: The joy set before us is that of achieving our destiny, just as it was for Jesus. Each of us has a destiny prepared for us to fulfil, and there is a race to be run if we are to get there. It might be 100m or it might be 26 miles: every race is different and will require something different of us, but we all have a race that God has prepared and set before us. Are we going to run it? Are we going to allow God to prepare us for it, to train us and to equip us?

And how are we going to run? Fixing our eyes on Jesus. We take our eyes of all that surrounds us, we take our eyes off ourselves, and we fix our attention on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. He authored our faith by dying for us on the cross, to set us free, to release our destiny to us, and He will also enable us to complete the race if we keep our eyes fixed on Him. He did all that for the joy that was set before Him – and the joy that was set before Him was us.

When He embraced the cross; when in the garden He looked into a cup and saw all of our sin  (yet still said ‘not my will but Yours be done’); when He took every sin, every sickness onto Himself, onto His own body on the cross; when He died our death which is the wages of sin; He went through all that because He loves us. He did it because He wants us to enter into our destiny and fulfil the joy; He wants His joy to be in us, and He wants our joy to be full and overflowing.

And then, when He had done all that, He sat down at the right hand of God, higher than every authority in heaven and earth, and He wants to raise us up to sit with Him in those realms of authority too.

Let be

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7).

‘Nothing’ and ‘everything’ do not leave much room for argument. We do not need to be anxious about anything at all if we are handing control of our life over to God and trusting Him to meet our need, to provide for us. If we are willing to surrender and stop trying to do it ourselves, He will do everything we need in our lives.

Be receptive

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

Abiding in Him speaks of a relationship. We cannot produce fruit of any eternal value unless we are connected to the source through the Vine (Jesus). We may be a branch of that Vine, but the branch does not provide the nutriment and supply of life in itself. If you cut the branch off, it dies. The life is drawn up through the roots and the plant to produce the fruit. Fruit in our lives comes from the flow of being receptive to the life of God flowing through us. If we want to fulfil our destiny, the call of God on our lives, we need to abide in Him.

Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident… (1 Cor 3:12-13).

When fire comes, gold, silver and precious stones survive. Wood, hay and straw do not. If we do anything outside of God and our relationship with Him, it will be burnt up and be worthless in eternity. We trust Him, we live in Him, we allow Him to live in us, and we produce the fruit that is lined up with our destiny.

Spontaneous Flow

Our spirit needs to flow in the life of God. We need the living flow of the life of God in us and flowing out of us to transform the world around us. It is His spirit and His power which will bring about that transformation, but He has chosen to flow through us to achieve it.

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’ (John 7:38)

We will look some more at what it means to ‘be still’ in the next post.

Related articles from Freedom ARC

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If our free or paid resources are a blessing to you, please consider sowing into and supporting this ministry with a financial gift. Thank you!

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147. Present A Living Sacrifice (3) – practice

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Because of practice

For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant,.But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil (Hebews 5:13-14).

If we have received revelation, we must act on it. All that we are learning, we have to put into practice. Things do not just happen automatically for us because we have read about them, or even by doing them just once or twice. It takes practice. But even though we call it practice, of course we are doing it for real.

For example, presenting ourselves as a living sacrifice. We have posted about this on a couple of occasions: now we are going to practice doing it (I do it myself every day). As part of that, we are also going to practice stepping in and stepping out of the presence of God.

I suggest that you stand, if you are able. When we step in, take a step forward; and when we step out, take a step back. It is just a practical cue here in this realm, a step of faith into His presence. It reminds us that the kingdom is always right there in front of us and that we can step into it at any time.

Let’s pray along these lines each day:

Father I thank you that You have made a way
for me to come into Your presence

By faith I step in… [step forward]
to the realm of Your presence
into the holy place in the heavenly tabernacle

I stand before the altar of incense
and present myself as a living sacrifice to You
Jesus, my High Priest.

Today, Jesus, I desire and choose,
as an act of my will,
to abdicate the throne of my heart.

I ask You to crucify and kill my flesh
I choose to deny myself all my rights
and to give You my life, to gain Your life.
I am dead to sin and alive to righteousness

I ask You to remove my head
as I surrender to Your lordship.
I choose not my will but Your will in my life.
I give up my right to free will
and choose to seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness

I ask You to skin me
and remove every covering I have placed around my life.
Remove everything I use to make myself acceptable to You and others.
I renounce all dead works.
Remove all my masks, pretences, defence and coping mechanisms

I ask you split me open down to my bones and marrow.
Cleanse my heart and its motives.
Purify the thoughts and intentions of my heart.
Restore my heart
Give me Your desires.
Renew my mind
Heal my emotions
and strengthen my will.

I ask You to remove my legs
I surrender my walk to You
I choose to do only what I see the Father doing
I choose to walk by faith and not by sight

I step out of heaven… [step back]
back into this realm
I choose to let You do Your works through me
as I become a channel for Your kingdom to manifest
in this world around me.

Related articles from Freedom ARC

Support Freedom ARC

If our free or paid resources are a blessing to you, please consider sowing into and supporting this ministry with a financial gift. Thank you!

Our Patreon patrons give a small amount each month and can join us for our monthly group Zooms, get exclusive or early access to Mike’s teaching and enjoy further patron-only benefits.

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146. Consider It All Joy

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

We shared in the last post two diagrams that can help us deal with our behaviours, so that we can change. Here is one more, and listed down the right hand side are the basic steps we take.

Truth in the heart

Forgive and release

Whatever it is that troubles us, we forgive and release it. We do not hold on to anything, or we end up in the torture chamber, being tortured by the enemy. If we do that, we will not only feel much worse, we will also continue to repeat the same patterns of behaviour.

Own it

We cannot change unless we own our behaviour. It does not mean that we take our identity from it, it means we recognise the issue and that we want to change.

Confess it

If it is sin, we confess it as sin. We do not dress it up as ‘my little problem’ or ‘this weakness I sometimes have’. We call it what it is, repent of it and renounce it, and God will change us. If we try to pretend, nothing will change.

Renounce it

“I am not going to act like this any more. I am not going to operate in this way of thinking any more. I renounce that: I am going to operate according to the ways of God.”

Repent of it

Remember, this is nothing to do with feeling sorry or doing penance. Metanoia is a change of mind so that we begin to think about something the way God thinks about it. Focusing on the problem only makes it seem bigger: we turn instead and look at Jesus. He is the solution, and He will enable us to change.

Meditate on the truth

We may have believed a whole load of lies because of our past. At Freedom we have often taught about ‘getting the lies out of our truth drawer’. More recently we have come across LieBusters and we wholeheartedly recommend and endorse that ministry.

We need to know the truth. Ultimately, Jesus is the Truth, and He will lead us into all truth. We can use some of the declarations of truth we know about who we are, and meditate on scriptures declaring the truth of our identity in Christ. We need to introduce the truth into our hearts and be led by the Spirit to get that truth firmly established there.

Hammer Familiars

If familiar spirits are present, we have to hammer them. Every time we hear a whisper in our head that is not God, we absolutely hammer it with the truth. We beat it up, take it into the heavens, and destroy it. We do not want to be listening to the enemy whispering in our ear, agreeing with him, and then living out of that agreement. We have to get rid of it: it takes some effort, but we can destroy those things.

Positive Confession

We speak according to our future, not our past. We positively confess (say the same thing as) the truth of what God says to us and about us. We confess our identity, who we are as a child of God. As we become confident in that identity, we begin to choose how we frame our reality. That is what God desires.

Deliverance, Healing

We may need deliverance, we may need healing: we are not ashamed to ask for help. We do not have to fight this all on our own. Some things we can overcome alone, but we can always ask someone to stand with us. If we are struggling to overcome a particular issue, we make ourselves accountable to someone.

Yes, that is scary, and it means we have to own it, admit it, talk about some of the things we have managed to keep hidden in our lives, but we find someone we can trust, someone who loves us, who is willing to support us, and we make ourselves accountable to them in the process we are going through.

Restoration

God wants to restore all of us. He desires that we become like Jesus, reflecting the image of God, demonstrating His kingdom on earth, but we have to be willing to surrender to Him, and deal with our own heart.

Changed priorities ahead

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

Now, you have a choice to make. Next time you are confronted, or experience feelings of rejection, what are you going to do? Are you going to do the same thing you have always done, or address it and become different by overcoming it? Treat the trial as joy, because joy will bring the strength of God into your life. If instead you oppose what God is doing, you will be fighting against God – and that is never a good idea.

We must embrace what God is doing, change, and grow through it. We will have to examine ourselves, and it may not be all that comfortable, but let’s not sail through life unaware of what is on the inside of us. It is not about navel-gazing, trying to find a problem where none exists; it is that when a problem arises, when a situation happens, when we know we have a problem in a certain area of our thinking, emotions or behaviour, we have the tools to deal with it and we can change.

It takes practice. Lasting change will not happen just by doing it once. We have to be consistent in applying this: Hebrews 5:14 says that it is because of practice that we have trained our senses to discern good and evil.

So are you content to carry on as you are? Or will you pursue transformation?

Related articles
More resources from Freedom ARC
  • Forgive and Release – essential, foundational teaching by Deb Parsons (3-part mp3 audio series)

Support Freedom ARC

If our free or paid resources are a blessing to you, please consider sowing into and supporting this ministry with a financial gift. Thank you!

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145. Encountering Trials

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom 8:28)

As we go through life, things happen to us. It is how we respond to them that will determine their eventual outcome. God showed me a way in which we can use those things that happen to us to learn from them and to grow through them. Here is a diagram which God gave me as I went through some things in my own life.

event-reactions-1

Event Reactions

This is how it works.

Towards the top left you have an event that occurred, and your reactions to it. It might be a situation in which you felt insecure, and you reacted defensively. or a situation in which you were confronted, and you reacted angrily or aggressively – or even passively. Sometimes we get criticised by others: how do we respond to that criticism? Sometimes we feel rejected by people. What does that stir up within us? We might be faced with injustice, fear, intimidation.

All these situations produce in us certain reactions or responses. Often they are automatic, and we probably think many of them are completely reasonable. But they are the defence and coping mechanisms we use to deal with the issues of life, and we have built them up over years.

Now we can act lovingly in all those situations, and if we do, things will turn out well for us. But what generally happens is this: our mind starts replaying the event. If ever we find our mind going over something like this, it is a sure sign of an issue we need to deal with. A little process begins. Our imagination can picture that event, so we can remember what someone said. Our emotions are involved, so we start to feel the same emotions. We start to use our mind to try to figure it out. Denial, projection, or other defence mechanisms might kick in. We go around that cycle, repeating it over and over again.

It is a form of meditation, and so those things go into our heart. Those are some of the stones, weeds and seeds that are in our hearts.They are things that have happened to us that we have not dealt with, that we have meditated on, and have allowed to find a place in our hearts and lives. Our heart can become hard because of things that have happened to us over years. Now those events have become memories in our heart, and motives for our behaviour.

Familiar spirits, who know us and know what is in our hearts, will always come in agreement with them. If we feel rejected, we get little words in our heads: ‘no-one likes you; no-one wants to be around you; you are not a very nice person at all, are you?’. We tend to listen to those words because they line up with how we are feeling, and take us just a little further down that road we are already travelling. Familiar spirits will affirm and agree with those ways of thinking, and they will put thoughts into our mind which we find ourselves agreeing with, and maybe even start to confess and speak out. In that way, the course of our lives can be changed, if we operate according to the stones and weeds that are in our hearts, and from the motives that are born out of these things that have happened to us.

It may have been an event that was sin. Then what comes into your mind? ‘You’re no good. God doesn’t love you. Call yourself a Christian? You’re a failure. Cover it up. Pretend. Now, what are you going to do to make yourself feel better?’ And so on, over and over again. When we face similar situations a number of times, we develop behaviour patterns according to what is in our hearts.

Forgive and release

But God wants us to see how each event, if we deal with it at the time, can be something we learn from, that benefits us, and helps us to grow. The first thing to do when you find yourself replaying a situation, or even, if you can, in the midst of the situation, is to forgive and release that situation to God.

Forgiving and releasing people is one of the foundational principles of the Word of God. Jesus said that if we do not forgive, we cannot be forgiven (Matt 6:15). In that case we get caught up and live in the torture chamber of the experience that we have faced, and we carry it around with us like a ball and chain, dragging behind us all our unforgiveness, allowing it to weigh us down and make us feel heavy.

So when something happens to us, regardless of whether we were right or wrong, the issue is, did we feel something in our heart? If we did, we need to forgive the person or people who caused that, and release both them and the situation. It might be that we need to forgive ourselves. If I have sinned, I need to receive the forgiveness of God by confessing that sin, so that there is no guilt, no shame, no condemnation. I do not put fig leaves on, cover it up, or try to hide in the bushes: I run to God, I receive His love and His arms of welcome, I receive His righteousness so that I can live in His presence.

It may be that someone has hurt me, rejected me. I have to choose to forgive them. Whether they deserve it or not is irrelevant. I have to choose to forgive them, and not just in my head. I release them from what they have done, and I release them into the hands of God, so that I can bless them. If you cannot truly bless someone who has hurt you, then you have not forgiven and released them fully. If we carry nothing negative in our hearts towards someone, then we can freely bless them.

Forgive and release is an absolutely key principle. But then, I need to deal with what happened. So I seek God’s counsel to evaluate what went on. I evaluate my thinking, my emotions, my behaviour, my attitude; whether I was aggressive, defensive, passive. I ask God to show me, and to show me His will, His heart and His mind. I ask Him for revelation about what happened.

If I understand the court system of heaven, then I can go to the courts, find out who is accusing me and of what, and deal with it by receiving God’s judgment on myself and being declared not guilty. That then gives me power to change. But if you do not yet know how to do that, you can still seek God’s wisdom, and ask Him to show you where the fault lies.

Pray and bless

If it is something where you were simply an innocent victim of the situation, and completely blameless (this really does not happen that often, but let us take this as one end of the spectrum), you can pray and intercede for the person who attacked or hurt you, that God will bless them and they will be transformed (because you have already released them to God and forgiven them).

Sometimes we might have to confront the person if they carry on with the same behaviour. The best way, and the one recommended in scripture, is to go to them and try to resolve the issue so that there is no breakdown in relationship between you. We do that in love, because we want the other person to be blessed and their life transformed, not for revenge (if we are looking for revenge, we have not forgiven or released properly). Our motive is really important here.

Own it

If, however, you were not blameless, if it is your issue, own it. Do not deny it, excuse it, defend it: the only way you will be transformed is by owning your own issues. If you don’t admit you have a problem, how can you deal with it? If it is always someone else’s problem, you will never deal with yours. Projection is one of the most common ways of avoiding dealing with what is in our own hearts. We have to own our part in any situation.

It may be that I have a weakness, a sin area, or a character issue, that God highlights in this particular situation. If so, I repent. I renounce it. I seek the word of God, ask someone else to stand with me, to pray with me, and I start building myself up in the truth that confronts that situation in my life. I can work through this, if I own it and recognise it as a problem that God can help me with.

I might have what appears to be a weakness, but actually God does not want to change that in me. For example, if someone comes to me and says, ‘Mike, you are not very pastoral’, I will agree that they are right. I am not going to get defensive: being pastoral is not my gifting. I am not going to ask God to build up my gift in that area when in fact I know that I am called to be apostolic and to teach. That is why we need one another and we need all the ministry gifts to be operating, in different people. Other people here at Freedom are very pastoral, they have a great heart and a gift in that area.

Be honest

You need to be honest about what is going on in your heart and your life. If I am not supposed to be strong in a particular area, I need to encourage the people who are. I need to support them, and I can learn from them as well, but I am not going to try to be something I am not called to be.

But if someone comes to me and says, ‘Mike, you’re not very friendly, not very sociable’, that is different: that is an issue I need to address. I need to consider why it might be that people find me unfriendly or hard to approach. I might go and find someone who is good in this area and ask them to disciple me, and to teach me how to improve. They can help me to grow and become strong.

If it is my weakness, and I have an area of sin or character flaw, I need to identify where it has come from.

Has it come from an unmet need? For example, if I need acceptance and try to get that from other people, I am always going to be open to being hurt and damaged. I need to look to God for acceptance.

Is there an unhealed hurt in me? I can ask God to heal me and restore me.

Where did those things come from? Maybe from my nature, my DNA – my family might operate in that way. It could be a curse spoken over me or over my family. There may be generational issues: ‘we are all worriers in our family’. I do not need to be controlled from my generational past: I am a new creation in Christ, and God wants me shaped by my future, my destiny and my spirit, not by my past and the defects in my soul.

Then there is nurture, or upbringing. I might have been told that I am useless all my life and I have believed it.

All this process allows you to see the trials and the troubles and the situations that happen in your life, and to deal with them by letting God show you what is going on, what root this has come from, what soil is nourishing it.

You can do that in anything that happens to you.

On purpose

But you do not have to wait for something to happen to bring these issues to the surface. You can also do it by looking into your own heart, on purpose. You can choose to investigate your own behaviour, mindsets, coping mechanisms and emotions. Ask yourself, why do I feel like that? You walk into a room and you feel alone, even though it is full of people. Ask yourself why. You feel that no-one likes you: ask yourself why you feel that way. You can look at your behaviour, how you act in certain situations. and ask yourself why.

You can see how that works out on this variation on the diagram:

Event reactions2

We can deal with our behaviours, we can be honest about how we are living, so we can change. If we cover it up, or prefer ‘not to go there’; if we say ‘that is just how I am’, we will stay the same. If we really want to change, we have to deal with the things that are in our hearts.

Am I willing to ask God to search my heart and show me if there is anything that is directing me towards ungodly behaviours and responses? Because if I am, He will.

Related articles from FreedomARC

Support Freedom ARC

If our free or paid resources are a blessing to you, please consider sowing into and supporting this ministry with a financial gift. Thank you!

Our Patreon patrons give a small amount each month and can join us for our monthly group Zooms, get exclusive or early access to Mike’s teaching and enjoy further patron-only benefits.

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

Or you can use the blue button to support our work with a one-time gift*.
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*Note: This donation is securely handled through PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account yourself to make a one-time donation. For repeating donations, if you do not have (or want) a PayPal account please support us through Patreon instead. 

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you:

eg-homepage-crop

Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility
Equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek

Get started today!*

To find out more about the Engaging God programme, click here…

*Technology permitting: automated process on receipt of payment and completion of online registration form. Terms and conditions apply.

144. Stepping Stones To Change

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

While we are building up our spirit by opening that first love gate inside us, praying continually, and waiting on the Lord, we also need to allow God to work on our soul so that it comes into proper submission to our spirit.

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I (Christ in me) now live in the flesh, I (Christ in me) live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me (Gal 2:20).

The whole relationship changes when I recognise that I have been crucified, and when I die to self, because God is then able to join Himself to me in manifesting Himself to the world around me.

Search me, try me

Search me thoroughly, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.
(Ps 139:23-24).

When we pray a prayer like that, God takes us at our word: He takes us up on what we have prayed. If we are willing to pray that prayer, He will search our heart. And He will also enable us to know what is going on in our heart. This is part of the process of change: we have to be prepared to allow God to search our hearts and show us what is there. We have to be willing to look at ourselves and see what is going on on the inside.

For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. (1 Cor 11:31 NKJV)

In judging ourselves, though, we do not compare ourselves to anyone but Jesus. God wants us to be transformed into the image of Jesus, and if we compare ourselves to Him we can see how far we have come, and how much more God still has to do in our hearts.

“Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil… (Matt 13:18-23)

The word of the kingdom gets sown into our heart. There are four kinds of soil mentioned here. Because of the past there may be areas in our hearts which are trampled down, compacted and hard, like a path, and the seed cannot grow there. Or it may be the rocks and stones in our heart, the things that have happened to us, that make it hard for the word to take root. We may get distracted by allowing our flesh to direct our thinking and our behaviour. Our hearts need to be changed, transformed into good soil, so that the word of the kingdom of God can grow in us and flourish, and bear fruit.

Consider it joy

But there is a process we need to go through in order to deal with the things that are in our hearts.

…strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, – this sounds really good so far – and saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” (Acts 14:22).

How is that ‘encouraging’? Because when we are in the middle of the troubles, trials, or tribulations, we need to know that it is all part of the process of God bringing transformation. I am not talking about sickness or things like that (God does not bring any sickness on us) but about situations and circumstances in our lives that highlight for us the condition of our heart in a particular area.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4).

How many of us actually consider our trials as joy? But it is the attitude we have to the trials that will determine their outcome. And if we consider that God uses trials to transform us, then we will have a different approach to the situations we face. We can allow those trials to be stepping stones to change, transformation and growth; or we can resist those trials and then nothing in us will change. We have to welcome them with thanksgiving and joy. We can thank God for the trials He brings, because we know that we are being perfected, becoming complete, and will lack in nothing – just like Jesus.

If that is the outcome we are looking for, then we have to be willing to look within our lives so that we can learn, overcome, grow; so that we can see what is on the inside transformed.

Exult in tribulations

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Rom 5:3-5).

Exulting in tribulations is exactly the opposite of what our flesh wants to do. Gifts are given, but fruit grows. We want to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, and be more like Jesus. It is great to receive things as a gift; but we do not get character that way: it is a fruit of dealing with the trials and troubles in our lives. How we deal with them is what shapes our character and causes us to act like Jesus.

And everything operates through love. The love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and it enables us to deal with every situation, every trial, every trouble that we face. The love of God is in us.

It is not that He is disciplining us because He does not love us. Quite the opposite: He disciplines us because He does love us, He cares for us, and He wants us to be transformed and changed. Then He can reveal us on the earth as the manifest sons of God, shining with His light, displaying His character and the fruit that comes from a life transformed by the situations that we have faced.

He Won’t Relent

The process itself may not sound too pleasant. But it will be less painful if we surrender to the process rather than struggling against it. Jesus said:

And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder (Matt 21:44 NKJV).

Our soul can be broken, and then restored; or it can be crushed. Which would you rather? As I allow brokenness in my soul, the fragrance of God’s presence comes from me. The other way fragrance can be released from something is by grinding it to powder. God wants us to be changed. He won’t relent (as we have been singing again recently) until He has it all, all of us.

God loves us too much to let us go. Time and time again He will give us opportunities to grow and be transformed. We can give Him our heart, and surrender to the process, and be filled with joy, peace and love; or we can fight, struggle, and resist what He is wanting to do. Then all that happens is that we get to go around the mountain one more time, until He gives us another opportunity to deal with the same issue. I am sure there have been times when most of us have been around the same mountain more than once, until we learnt this truth.

He wants us to look at the mountain and say, ‘This is not going to stop me. I am going to deal with this and overcome it. I am going to climb this mountain’.

When we do, that mountain is going to elevate us higher into the purposes of God for our lives.

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143. Beholding And Becoming

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

As Christians, we know that God lives on the inside of us (1 John 4:15). It is when we open up the gateway of first love, and allow Him to have first place in our lives, that He will begin to transform us from the inside out. Our spirit can take its proper place of authority over both our souls and our bodies.

Praying in tongues all the time allows our spirit to be in constant connection and communion with God, and to experience a flow of revelation from heaven.

The third thing which will help us to build a strong spirit is waiting on the Lord, and being still.

Be still

As I mentioned before, I went through a period in my times with God in which I could not see anything, and nothing seemed to be happening. I found it really hard. I did not think that I would, but I did. God effectively put me in a place where I needed to trust Him. I thought I did trust Him, but I found that in fact I needed to know what was going on. So I had to surrender that to Him, allow myself to rest in a place where I did nothing but wait in His presence. When I did that, after a few weeks he began to reveal Himself and show me things again.

But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint
(Isaiah 40:31).

He becomes our source. We draw from Him all that we need in our lives to fulfil our destiny in Him.

Be still, and know that I am God 
(Psalm 46:10).

He wants us to know – not in our head, but by personal encounter with His presence. That is what the hebrew sense of the word ‘know’ is: it means ‘to encounter intimately’. We have to stop trying to do things in our own strength, even trying to change ourselves, and instead surrender to Him. If we read that same scripture in the Amplified Bible it says:

Cease striving,
Let be and be still and know that I am God
(Psalm 46:10 AMP).

He will give us everything we need and empower us to do all that He is calling us to do.

Beholding and becoming

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.(2 Cor 3:18)

As we behold Jesus, as we look at God, and wait in that place where our whole attention is fixed upon Him, we become like that which we behold. We know that the kingdom of God is as close to us as the hand in front of our face; we can turn into it at any time, we can behold what is in God’s kingdom, and we can become the image of Jesus. Or, we can look at what is around us, fix our eyes on our problems and difficulties, and become more like them.

It is a choice: what are we going to look at?

If we look into a mirror, we see a reflection of ourself. But this scripture says we can see the glory of the Lord. God wants us to see ourselves as He sees us, to see ourselves through His eyes, to see ourselves the way He created us to be: full of His presence and His glory.

As we focus on Him, and see ourselves as we are supposed to be, He changes us a little at a time, so that we become more like Him. So when we actually look into a mirror, we start to see what we are like in the kingdom of God.

Now when the enemy looks at us, depending how far along this transformation we have come in relationship with God, he sees the light that is in us, and it challenges the darkness he seeks to bring. What he might see is described in Revelation chapter 1: fire in our eyes and a flaming sword coming out of our mouth – this is the likeness of Jesus into which we are being transformed. As yet, perhaps he only sees a flickering candle, but the more we focus on God, the more we wait in His presence, the more we learn to behold Him, the more that light begins to shine on the inside of us, and the more visible it becomes on the outside too.

Fix our eyes on Jesus

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith (Heb 12:2).

As we do that, He is the One who will start to change us. Our part is to fix our eyes on Him, and not be distracted; to behold Him so that we can become like Him.

If we focus on the problems, the problems always look bigger, until all we can see is the problem, and we cannot see a way out. But if we focus on the solution (which is always God), the problems look smaller, until all we can see is the solution, and we change.

For nothing will be impossible with God (Luke 1:37)

There is no situation, nothing which has happened to us in the past, nothing right now, and nothing in our future, that He cannot change if we look to Him. There is nothing He cannot transform. Nothing is impossible. There is nothing we cannot overcome; there is nothing that can stop us fulfilling our destiny, if we allow Him to strengthen us. He will make us strong, as we look to Him.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me (Phil 4:13).

I encourage you to spend some time today (and every day), building your spirit up by just waiting in the presence of God, and looking at Him.

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142. Present A Living Sacrifice (2)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect
 (Romans 12:1-2).

Transformation is complete, thorough, radical change. It enables us to prove (to find out and be sure of) what is the perfect will of God for us (that is, what is our destiny), and then to outwork it.

Present ourselves daily

But it involves sacrifice.

Worship is surrender. Worship is obedience. So we come to Jesus, our High Priest, and we present ourselves at the altar as a living sacrifice. This is something we are to do every day. We present ourselves to God so that He can use us, He can transform us, He can change us. It is not the sacrifice who is responsible for the changing. We do not have to transform ourselves: we merely have to present ourselves and God will do the changing.

So by faith we enter the Holy Place, in the heavenly tabernacle, in the heavenly realms. There is an altar there. Not the bronze altar where Israel used to offer sacrifices: Jesus was offered on that altar once and for all. We come instead to the altar of incense. When we give ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, the fragrance of our submitted lives goes up before Him, and He loves it.

Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus… (Heb 10:19).

Because of Jesus’ sacrifice and death, we can come right into the Holy Place. We do not come on our own merit, we come by the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:17).

Jesus is our High Priest, and He prepares the sacrifice that we give Him: our life. We have to present ourselves to Him and allow Him to deal with us. So we come by faith to surrender. We have looked before at the details of how the sacrificial lamb was prepared for sacrifice. It is really helpful for us to understand how those steps apply to us. If you are not familiar with this, please do take the time to read about it before moving on.

Click this link to read our earlier post (opens in a new window or tab): Present A Living Sacrifice (1).

Preparing the sacrifice

It is a picture of what we need to have done to us. The priest slit its throat, drained its blood, chopped off its head, skinned it, split it open, right down to the marrow of the backbone. Everything was opened up before God. All the inner organs were washed and  the legs cut off. Then the pieces were put on the altar.

We have to surrender our lives to Him, fully, for Him to do what He needs to do. Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). We surrender our life to God, and exchange His life for ours. That is the meaning of sacrifice.

Dead, but alive

Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.
(Rom 6:11-13).

If the flesh has to die, how is it a living sacrifice? It is because the flesh dies, but we carry on living in the spirit. Then our flesh does not get in the way, and the members of our body can be presented as instruments of righteousness, so that God can use us for His kingdom purposes. ‘Not my will, but Yours be done’, as Jesus said.

For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart (Heb 4:12 AMP).

We are allowing God to open us up and reveal the deepest parts of our nature, to cleanse us, to purify us, and restore us; to expose, sift, analyse, and judge the very thoughts and purposes of our heart. And because he loves us, He will change us from the inside out, so that we are more like Him.

‘In like manner’

In our daily walk we are surrendered and obedient to what God wants to do in us. We walk by faith and not by sight; according to His will and not ours, only doing what we see the Father doing. And the Father in us is able to do all His works through us. That is how Jesus lived every day, and He wants us to live every day that way too.

We cannot do it in our own strength. We cannot do it by the flesh. We can only do it in the spirit. We have to surrender.

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19). If Jesus could do nothing of Himself, how much less can we?

Faith of the Son of God

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20 KJV).

When Jesus was on the cross, bearing our sin, we were crucified with Him. He is living in me, and that life is lived by faith of the Son of God (I have purposely quoted a translation that says ‘of’: it is not even my faith that I live by, but His). Jesus surrendered His life so that we could have full, abundant life. I want to encourage you, every day to present yourself as a living sacrifice before God. Surrender, and allow Him to prepare you, to change you, to transform you from the inside out, to deal with your soul so that your spirit can flow in the life of God.

We are going to pray, and I want to encourage you to be willing to daily deny yourself and allow the Spirit and the life of God to flow through you, out from you, and to change you.

Every day, present yourself. I do, every day; so that every day, God can use me.

Father, I thank You that You sent Jesus
to die on the cross for me
to take my sin, my sickness,
and everything about my flesh,
and to die in my place.

I choose to surrender myself as a living sacrifice to You,
and allow You to prepare my life
for the life of Jesus to flow from me.

Prepare my life as I surrender,
so that everything that has come through nature
can be transformed
everything that has come through nurture
can be transformed,
everything that has come through trauma
can be transformed,
so that I live a life flowing in the Spirit and in the power of God
bringing the kingdom of God from heaven to earth,
living as a manifestation of Your presence here on earth,
that Your light would shine through me.

I open up my life in surrender to You.
so that You can do Your work through me
and that I might bring glory to You.

Jesus, as You gave Your life for me,
I choose to give my life to You, daily,
as a living sacrifice,
in order to fulfil my destiny
and the purposes of God, here and now in this time,
so that in eternity I will be able to fulfil all You have for me to do there.

Father, I praise You,
Father, I bless You,
In Jesus’ Name

.Amen.

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141. The Flesh Profits Nothing

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

God intends us to be spirit, soul and body, in that order. Our soul and body should be subject to our spirit, now that our spirit has come alive to God. If we want to build a strong spirit, we saw last time how praying in tongues on the inside and on the outside is something we need to practise.

Meanwhile we also need to deal with the soul.

Nothing good

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
(Gal 5:16).

Our spirit needs to be strong to lead, direct and guide us in our everyday life so that we will not carry out the desires of the flesh. The desires of the flesh are not good, and we have to accept that. We want to believe there is a bit of good in there somewhere, but there is not. There is nothing good about our flesh whatsoever. It always gets us in a mess.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please (Gal 5:17).

So whilst my spirit is flowing from the Holy Spirit, and the purposes of God for my life and my destiny, my flesh has tried to get in the way and has to be brought into line. Our flesh wants to please itself; our spirit desires to please God.

Two completely different agendas, because if you please yourself you cannot please God (and our flesh does not even want us to understand that).

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing”
(John 15:5).

Nothing of any eternal value or significance can be done apart from Jesus; apart from Him who dwells in our spirit, and flows through our life.

“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing…” (John 6:63).

Trust

That is really hard for the flesh to take. We really like to think we can at least do something. I went through a time in my personal times with God in which I was engaging Him in the garden of my heart, but I was in complete pitch-black darkness. It was not a place of fear, just of not being able to see anything and resting in complete stillness before Him. I found it so hard. I really wanted to know what was happening.

But God said, “Will you just trust Me? Just stay still, and let Me do what I need to do to prepare you for what is to come.” I thought, “Of course I can do that.” But when it came to it, my flesh was desperate to know what was going on. I remember one day I cried out to Him, “O God, what is going on?” And He answered me, “I don’t need your assistance, just your surrender.” It was really difficult. But what it came down to was this:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding
(Proverbs 3:5).

I had to realise that maybe I did not trust Him as much as I thought I did. I had to die to that need to know what was going on. I had to choose to trust God even if I could not see anything. I had to trust that whatever He would do would be the best thing for me. So I know it is hard when we have to deal with the flesh.

Humanism is independence from God. It is doing things without God. That is what Adam and Eve bought into when they sinned. Satan offered them the opportunity to gain knowledge without God. Everything in dealing with the flesh is dealing with humanism and dealing with independence. There is nothing good that comes from independence.

Self

We need to die to self.

Self-centredness: it is very difficult because of course we are at the centre of all that goes on in our life, but that has to flow from the spirit, not the flesh. Selfishness is wanting to put myself first above everybody else, whereas when Jesus came He said, “I have not come to be served, but to serve.” That is a completely different attitude, and I should also seek to serve rather than be served. There is no place for selfishness or self-centredness in that. We are so accustomed to being self-centred, and life revolving around us.

Anyone who is married knows that when you get married, life does not revolve around you as a single person any more. You have to think about somebody else. When we become Christians, we enter into a relationship with God in which we are no longer in first place: He is. When we become Christians, we say that we make Him Lord of our life: we must make sure that He really is.

We need to die to self-importance, self-promotion, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, even self-belief. There is nothing of the spirit in these. We can have no self-righteousness. Self-help, self-expression.

You might think, ‘Surely they are not all negative?’ Anything that comes from the flesh is negative, and however hard we find that, we have to surrender.

Self-respect, self-esteem, self-worth. If my self-respect comes from what I have done in the flesh, if my self-esteem comes from what I can do, they are not good. I want my esteem to come from how God sees me; from knowing who I am as a child of God, knowing the love of God, knowing the value He places upon me. My worth comes from knowing that I am God’s child, that He loves me and has a purpose for me. My self-image is not how I view myself, but it is seeing myself as God sees me. If we could really see ourselves as God sees us, it would transform everything about our lives.

Some things are more obviously negative: self-gratification, self-indulgence. Making ourselves feel good, using food, shopping, sex, drugs, alcohol. Whatever it is, if the self is involved, it needs to die. It needs to go on the cross.

The cross

The cross is not a pleasant place. When Jesus went to face the cross, when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane, His soul was in anguish. Literally, He sweat drops of blood, He was in so much anguish. He saw what He was going to have to carry on the cross; He looked into the cup, and in that cup was every sin we have ever committed, every negative thought, every sickness that has been on our body, every sin committed against us: He took it all physically upon Himself, because He loved us so much.

He chose to say, ‘Not My will, but Yours be done’ even when His flesh, His soul, looked into what it was going to have to carry. Being sinless, because He loved us so much, He was willing to go to the cross and take our sin, our flesh, our self, and be crucified. He also represented us there so that we could identify with Him through the bread and the wine.

I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me
(Gal 2:20 JUB)

He died so that we could be free from the flesh, because our flesh died with Him.

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140. Pray Without Ceasing

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

All the flow of the life of God comes through us from the inside out. The choice is ours whether we surrender, and allow it to flow, or not.

Last time we looked at various prayers and declarations (you can read them by clicking here). I want to encourage you to use those declarations to unblock your conscience, reason, imagination, mind, and all the other gates; use them every day.

Spirit, soul and body

In this series on Preparing For Destiny, we are looking mainly at two areas: how to build up the spirit and how to restore and refine the soul. In today’s post we are looking mostly at building the spirit, but we need to have both things going on at the same time. It is no good trying to deal with the soul if the spirit is not strong enough to assume its rightful place. It is no good having a strong spirit if our soul is still battling to remain in control. We need to deal with both aspects together, so that we become spirit, soul and body (not body, soul and spirit).

If our spirit is really weak because it has never really been used, then it is going to find it difficult to rule. And if our soul is really strong because it has become accustomed to being in charge, it needs to submit. We have to learn how to build up our spirit and how to have our soul restored and refined so that everything is in its proper order in us.

When God created Adam, originally his spirit was in charge. His soul was not connected to the outside world but through his spirit and his relationship with God. He had no self-awareness apart from awareness of God, and God’s Spirit. God wants to restore us to that condition.

We looked before at a list of some things we can do to begin to build our spirit.

First of all we saw that we need to give God first place, first love, first priority.

Praying in tongues

The second area to focus on is praying and singing in tongues. This was probably the most important breakthrough for me in training my senses to engage the heavenly realms: learning to pray in tongues without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

People have taught it as if that verse just means we should pray regularly. That is not what it says. It says, ‘Pray without ceasing’. That means all the time. 24 hours a day, our soul can be directed by our spirit because our spirit is connected with God and praying without ceasing, and receiving a constant flow of revelation as it does so.

We begin by praying in tongues on the outside. We pray out loud in tongues, and we begin to train our spirit by praying in tongues and getting connected with God. And we can also pray in tongues on the inside. Most of us find it easy enough to pray inwardly in tongues when we are quiet and not doing anything else.

But we can train our spirit to pray in tongues on the inside whilst doing something else on the outside, and also to be praying in tongues on the outside whilst meditating on God’s word on the inside. It takes practice to do those things, and we have to take the time to do spiritual exercises so that we learn.

Two exercises

We can try two exercises now.

We begin by praying on the inside, silently, in tongues for a minute or so.

Then, as we begin to flow in that and our spirit engages (and without stopping praying in tongues on the inside), we read aloud Psalm 23:

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

It seems strange at first, but with practice it becomes easier!

Now we are going to pray in tongues on the outside, whilst meditating on this same scripture on the inside.

We begin again by praying in tongues, but this time out loud, for one minute.

Then, as we begin to flow in that once more and our spirit engages (and without stopping praying in tongues on the outside), we begin to meditate on the first verse of the psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want

We read it over slowly several times, a word at a time, on the inside, and allow God to speak to us about what we are reading, all the while continuing to pray in tongues out loud.

If this is new to us, we can feel that it is a stretch for our spirit, just like physical exercise is for our body if we are not used to it. But if we do this for a few minutes every day, then with practice and perseverance our spirit will grow stronger. And I now realise that the payoff for this is even more far-reaching than I understood when I first began doing it: we are rewiring our minds for living in dual realms of heaven and earth, aware of both at the same time, just as Jesus did.

The Night Watch

We are told to meditate on what God says day and night (Joshua 1:8, Psalm 1:2). How can you meditate when you are asleep? You can train your spirit to be awake, while your body is asleep. It is called the ‘night watch’ in the Psalms. We can be awake in our spirit and engaging with God even as our body sleeps. Then we need to have our soul be awake too, so that we can remember all the things we are engaged with, and all the revelation we receive.

Training, practice, discipline, exercise

When I was on the 40-day fast a few years ago, God told me that He wanted me to start each day by praying out loud in tongues for an hour. And as I was doing that, my spirit began to get really stirred so that I started to learn how to pray on the tongues on the inside. So now I can be praying in tongues while I am speaking to someone, or listening to them, so that I am receiving a flow of revelation.

Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1).

That means we need to desire them eagerly. They have to be really important to us. If building our spirit is not important to us, our spirit will remain as it was: weak and ineffective, subject to the whims of our soul.

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As we have said before, if you want a strong physical body; if you want to be in good shape with plenty of muscle, you have to get regular exercise. You cannot do it any other way. Maybe you have seen those advertisements for devices you can strap on while watching the TV and they promise you will get a six-pack? Save your money. They don’t work. You have to train your physical body, and it is the same with your spirit. If we want a spirit that is like Jesus’ spirit, able to do all the things that He was able to do here on earth, we need to train our spirit, and go to spiritual gym. Praying and singing in tongues, and using other spiritual gifts, is spiritual gym. It builds our spirit up. The more we use our muscles, the stronger they become.

Paul writes, Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues (1 Cor 14:5) and, I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all (1 Cor 14:18). The spiritual language that we have might be a language of men, it might be a language of angels; but it is a language we are given to communicate with God.

Building, edifying, strengthening

One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself (1 Cor 14:4): he builds himself up, strengthens himself. If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful (1 Cor 14:14). That is exactly how it is supposed to be with praying in tongues. We have to put our conscious mind in its rightful place, which is in subjection to our spirit. And sometimes we might wonder ‘what am I praying when I am praying in tongues?’ Actually we are not supposed to know, in our head, in our conscious mind. Our spirit will know, and we may get to know consciously if a flow of thought comes spontaneously to our mind from our spirit. But not the other way around.

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit… (Jude 1:20).

So praying in the Holy Spirit, when our spirit and the Spirit of God are joined together as we pray in tongues, builds us up in our faith and it strengthens our spirit. And we need a strong spirit that is able to rule, able to be in charge.

So I pray in tongues while meditating, while reading the Bible, while doing everything I can possibly do. I pray in tongues while I am ministering to people, so that I get a flow of revelation. I pray in tongues when I am seeking God for revelation and direction. Because it is a flow of the thoughts of God that flow from the spirit. Praying in tongues keeps me connected to God who is on the inside of me.

He knows everything, so if I need to know something, where is that going to come from? It is going to come from the revelation that flows from His boundless knowledge. He is all-powerful, so I can be connected to His power, so that His power can flow through me to change things around me. He is also omnipresent, and since I am in Him, I can see things outside of my physical domain. I can see things in other parts of the world (or cosmos), I can see things that are going on in the heavenly realms. I can do that because He is everywhere. He is in all things, past, present and future, and I can be connected to Him. But I have to be flowing, and my spirit (rather than my soul) has to be strong, in charge, and ruling.

Rivers of living water

Tongues keeps the flow of the life of God coming.The more I pray in tongues, the more the Spirit is filling me, moving me, leading me. The rivers of living water flow from within me (as Jesus promised in John 7:38), because my spirit is open and allowing the Spirit of God to flow out through my life to touch people around me.

This is just how it happened for Jesus. We are here, as Christians, to be ‘little Christs’. That is what the word means. Anointed ones, just as He was anointed: we are anointed by the Holy Spirit to fulfil the purposes of God.

You will be like a well-watered garden,
like an ever-flowing spring.
(Isa 58:11 NLT).

The flow of life comes from within our spirit out through our lives. We need to build our spirit up. I would encourage you, pray in tongues as much as you can. Even if you are doing something else, because you do not need to engage the left side of your brain to pray in tongues. It is a right-brained activity. That is the same area of our brain where visions can be projected, from the inside out, from our spirit onto the screen of our imagination. Then we can see them, see the things of God, and have visitations with Him.

Praying in tongues is absolutely key to developing all of this. We need to practise it.

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139. Declarations For Transformation

Mike Parsons 
with Jeremy Westcott

If you are willing

If you have reached this far with us in this series on Preparing For Destiny, we are going to make some declarations together (if you have just come across this blog today, you are welcome to join us, but you might want to read a few recent posts first). So, if you are serious about wanting to surrender your life and allow God to change you from the inside out, then let us make these declarations together of our willingness to allow the Holy Spirit to show us what is going on inside us, and to transform and to change us.

Please only pray these prayers and make these declarations if you are willing. Otherwise, what if God takes you at your word, and does what needs to be done to transform you? If you are not willing and do not cooperate, it will feel like He is putting the squeeze on you like you have never known. It is better to just read over them and wait until you are really ready; better not to ask Him to do this if you’re not up for it.

Speak them aloud

But if you do mean it, if you truly want to change, then I would encourage you to stand up and to speak these things out loud. Actually speaking the words carries a power to cause them to begin to come to pass in you. If you cannot do that where you are right now, please make sure to come back and speak them aloud later.

We are giving permission to God. He is going to listen to what you’re saying and the authority that you are giving Him in your life, and He is going to start to move. At the end of the declarations, there is a prayer in which there will be a release of the angelic to operate in your life: seraphim angels with coals from the heavenly altar, and the gathering angels who will come to remove the stumbling blocks from your life.

Let’s say this out loud together:

Father, I choose to give You full permission
to do whatever it takes
to change me and transform me into the image of Jesus.

I give You full permission
to remove all stumbling blocks from me.

I give You full permission
to use whatever means You see fit
to purify, refine and restore me to my original eternal condition.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my conscience.
I repent of and renounce everything that has damaged it.
I ask You to purify and restore it.
Direct and protect me through my conscience
by a flow of reverence and fear of the Lord.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my reason centre.
I repent of and renounce doubt, unbelief,
rationalism, skepticism, cynicism and denial.
I ask You to cleanse me
of all false doctrine, philosophies and ideas.
I ask You to renew and restore my reason.
Use my reason to interpret Your thoughts
and understand Your ways.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my imagination
I repent of and renounce viewing
any image that has polluted me.
I ask You to blot out every negative image
with the blood of Jesus.
Purify and restore my imagination
Restore my screen, vision and revelation.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my heart, my sub-conscious mind.
I repent of and renounce
all strongholds, negative belief and value systems,
vows, words, curses, doctrines, triggers,
coping and defence mechanisms.
I ask You to cleanse every negative memory.
Purify, restore and reprogram my heart
with Your truth,
with Your values
and with my destiny.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my emotions.
I repent of and renounce
all unforgiveness, bitterness and anger.
I ask You to purify and restore my emotions.
Use my emotions to let me feel Your heart
and guide me through intuition.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

I give You my will
I repent of and renounce
all sin, rebellion, stubbornness, wilfulness, control,
fear, doubt, unbelief, indecision.
I ask You to purify and restore my will
and restore courage, perseverance and boldness.
Use my will to enable me to do Your will
through obedience and true worship.

Father, I choose to deny myself
and surrender control of my life to You.

And Father, I choose to follow my eternal destiny
into lordship, kingship and sonship.
Display me as a son of light on the earth.
I choose to do the works of Jesus
and the greater works.
I choose, as an ambassador,
to administer the rule of the kingdom of God
on Earth as it is in Heaven.

Amen.


Father, as we have made these declarations together
I pray you would release the gathering angels to operate in our lives
to remove all stumbling blocks, 
to restore and heal and make our lives whole.
Bring us back into an eternal destiny and purpose.

I release the seraphim angels into our lives
to bring coals from the heavenly altar
to purify our lips,
to purify our hearts in every way
so that we are conformed to the image of Jesus.

I release the anointing of your presence
over the next weeks and months
to transform our lives
and change us into the image of Jesus
so we can be Jesus here on earth
manifesting the kingdom of God
on earth as it is in heaven.

I pray that each day
we will surrender ourselves as a living sacrifice
to allow you to change us.
We give up all effort to change ourselves
and we allow you to change us
from the inside out
as we surrender.

Father we thank you that you love us.
You are not punishing us
but you are disciplining us
to transform us
into the person you called us to be from eternity past.

We bless you and thank you in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

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Support Freedom ARC

If our free or paid resources are a blessing to you, please consider sowing into and supporting this ministry with a financial gift. Thank you!

Our Patreon patrons give a small amount each month and can join us for our monthly group Zooms, get exclusive or early access to Mike’s teaching and enjoy further patron-only benefits.

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

Or you can use the blue button to support our work with a one-time gift*.
Thank you!
*Note: This donation is securely handled through PayPal but you do not need to have a PayPal account yourself to make a one-time donation. For repeating donations, if you do not have (or want) a PayPal account please support us through Patreon instead. 

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

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Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility is our online school for equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek.

Your first two weeks free!
Click here to find out more and get started today*

*Technology permitting: automated process on setup of payment arrangement and completion of online registration form. Terms and conditions apply.