Divine presence – Sons of Issachar

424. First Love | From the Inside Out

Mike Parsons

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First love at the very centre

We are tripartite beings, made in the image of God to be in union with the Father, Son and Spirit. We have gateways that connect our spirit, soul and body, facilitating the flow of abundant life within us. Most of you will probably be familiar with the gateway diagram. Usually, it consists of four concentric circles, each one inside the other, representing body, soul, spirit and the glory of God— that place of first love at the very centre of our spirit.

Discernment is essential

The body is how we experience world consciousness. The gates of our body—our five physical senses—include the eye gate, nose gate, ear gate, mouth gate and feeling gate. These are designed to help us interact with the world, but not to interpret what we experience from the outside in, without spiritual discernment. If we rely solely on what we see, hear, smell, taste or touch, those things can deceive us if not interpreted correctly.

Our soul represents our self-consciousness, how we become aware of who we are. It too has functions that help with this self-awareness, but again, it’s not meant to function based only on external information or independently of revelation from our relationship with God. The soul gates include conscience, reason, imagination, mind (conscious, subconscious and unconscious), emotions, choice and will. If these operate independently, they can lead us to create an identity based on what we do and the programming we receive from the world.

The River of Life flows

Our spirit also has senses or gates that are meant to work together with the flow from that place of first love, where God’s glory dwells. This is where the River of Life and the life energy of the Spirit flows, to touch the soul and engage our whole being—so that we interpret the world only through the lens of the spirit. That was how Adam lived originally. He experienced the physical realm through the discernment of the spirit, because he was clothed with the spiritual glory of his identity in the union of relationship with God.

Now, instead of walking with God in a garden, we have His presence within. Our spirit is within our body, and our body relates to the world. This is the picture illustrated by the four concentric circles. We have spirit gates such as the communication gate, prayer gate, fear of God gate (which is not about being afraid, but about awe), intuition, revelation, worship, hope, faith and reverence. Each of these relates to a corresponding soul gate. For example, reverence and fear of God engage our conscience. Communication may flow through intuition or revelation. Worship helps us to engage with the world around us from a place of relationship with God, echoing how Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing.

Three spheres

So it is helpful, but that image doesn’t fully capture the reality. It’s more accurate to think of three spheres—spirit, soul and body—that overlap and connect. So rather than seeing these interactions as two-dimensional, we can see our spirit, soul and body as spheres in quantum entanglement—connected in such a way that our spirit can be anywhere and still instantly relate to our soul. There is a place – our innermost being – where all three are connected. That is our core, the centre of our being, where our union with the Father, Son and Spirit takes place.

This video and blog post are taken from Mike’s current teaching series, Restoring First Love. Get the full-length videos every month, ad-free and with many extras, only at eg.freedomarc.org/first-love

Only a trickle

At the core, in our spirit is the glory of God’s presence within the first love gateway. God dwells within everyone, but often that gateway is closed or restricted, with only a trickle of life flowing through—like the stream under the threshold in Ezekiel’s temple. But that flow can increase: ankle-deep, knee-deep, waist-deep—until it becomes an overwhelming flood. This is God’s desire: that we be saturated with His love and presence.

We have the choice to open that gate. It’s a daily decision. In my experience, this daily opening of the first love gate led me into deeper intimacy with God. Often, Father, Son or Spirit—or all three—would embrace me, and that hug would lead me further. The flow would often carry me into my soul.

I walked with Jesus

When I first started engaging with these gates, I walked with Jesus through each one, asking Him to help me understand how I function. We are all different, and the interaction between our gateways is unique. I learned why some of mine were blocked or inactive. For many, the first love gate may appear chained or overgrown, seemingly impossible to open. That image is often a projection of fear or trauma—a deception of the soul. But in truth, the handle is on our side. We can open it.

When opened, the first love gate releases an increasing flow of life—no longer a trickle, but a flood. Most of us have lived on a trickle for too long. This flood can energise us at the core of our being, through the energy gates and the merkabah, leading to a state of immortal life.

Mike’s latest book, Unconditional Love, is out now as an ebook on our website and is available to pre-order in paperback from your local or online bookseller.

More details at eg.freedomarc.org/books

339. Universal Inclusion in Christ

415. Limitless Energy Through the Merkabah

195. The Source and River of Life

382. Understanding Immortality | Beyond life and death

392. Training Your Spirit | Practical Steps to Engage with God

Mike Parsons

It is a journey to come into a dynamic where you’re able to engage with God and feel His presence, sense His presence, and know His presence in different ways. These ways vary, and different people have different experiences, so you can’t rely on someone else’s experience—you need to find what works for you.

That being said, there are things you can do. The Engaging God programme, which we run, helps people journey from the beginning to mature experiences as sons of God. It delves into practices and exercises to build your spirit, train your spirit to engage, and teach it to sense and discern. Hebrews talks about training our spirit through practice—repeatedly doing something to make our spirit active.

In my own journey to seeing in the spirit, which I’ve shared online, I can trace it back to around the year 2000. That’s when God began speaking to me about meditating. At the time, I didn’t have any concept of meditation, but He guided me through it, teaching me how to hear His voice. I would encourage everyone to focus on hearing before trying to see.

By hearing, I don’t just mean an audible voice, but also sensing God’s thoughts within your mind. The mind is where everything is received—natural vision and sound are all interpreted by electrical impulses in the brain. Similarly, spiritual information is processed by the mind and decoded into things we see, hear, feel, sense or know.

I spent four or five years learning to hear the voice of God, initially through the Bible. I meditated on Bible verses, sometimes even on one word, mulling it over in my mind, repeating it and focusing on it. For instance, I meditated on the verse, “Be still and know that I am God.” I would focus on the word be: “Be… be still… be still and know…” As I did this, I found that thoughts came into my mind that weren’t mine—thoughts from the Holy Spirit. It took me years to become confident in this practice.

Eventually, I began to speak to God directly rather than relying on the Bible. I would picture Jesus sitting opposite me, ask Him a question, close my eyes and wait for His thoughts to enter my mind. His thoughts were distinct from mine, and over time, I learned to hear Him clearly. After mastering this, I eventually learned to see, although now I no longer need visions to know where I am, what I’m doing, or what I’m engaging in spiritually.

It’s important to come to a place of rest before pursuing anything. I now use a meditation called “Meditation for Rest,” which is just five to ten minutes long. It helps me calm down, stop striving and relax. The harder you try, the harder it becomes. You need to let go of your own agenda and allow the Father to set the direction. Rather than asking for specific outcomes, just come into His presence and share your heart, asking Him to reveal His presence to you.

To activate your imagination, you can use a physical object. I often use a door. Think about a door in your home—its colour, material, handle, and details. Picture it in your mind. You can even stand in front of the door, look at it, then close your eyes and visualise it. Imagine opening the door and engaging with Jesus or the Father. This is not about forcing your imagination to create something, but about perceiving what happens.

The word “see” in its root meaning is to perceive. Communication and engaging with God is about perceiving, not just seeing. Perception can come through seeing, hearing, sensing or simply knowing. Many people feel impressions or just know things intuitively. Practice and allow your senses to lead you into deeper connection.

If you find yourself falling asleep during meditation, that’s fine—your spirit is still engaging. Often, our minds get in the way, and sleep helps the mind step aside, allowing the spirit to fully engage. Eventually, your spirit will communicate with your soul, and you’ll begin to understand and experience what you’ve engaged with spiritually.

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice,” so it is always your time to hear Him. God isn’t holding anything back. The process is about training your senses and coming to a place of rest where you can receive. Sometimes, blockages can come from our own pressure or desperation. Instead of striving, desire His presence and trust that He will meet you.

Jesus is the door to the Father, and that door is already open. If you struggle, it might be due to a mindset shaped by tradition or past experiences. These can be renewed so you can engage fully with God’s unconditional love. You don’t need to earn or perform for His love—just let Him love you. The key to entering rest is to allow God to love you in the way you need to be loved.

As you practise this and come into a deeper awareness of His presence, things will begin to open up. Let God guide you, and over time, you will find it becomes easier. You are unconditionally loved, and God is not holding anything back. Just rest, relax, and let Him lead the way.

15. Revelation of God’s Prophetic Timetable

Mike Parsons –

We are getting to the core part of what we set out to share with you. Everything we have posted so far has really been by way of introduction. We are now beginning to look in detail at the prophetic timetable that God is opening up to us, the revelation of His plans and purposes over the coming months and years. Let’s remember, there are no specific dates or times here, just a sense of different phases or periods in which God will be working in particular ways, which He is calling us to recognise so that we can cooperate and participate with Him.

This is the first part of that prophetic timetable:

Each of these is a period of time which does not end, but continues alongside the other periods of time. Over these periods, there are going to be an increasing number of apostolic centres, where God is equipping people in apostolic power and ministry, and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Increasingly, fivefold ministry gifts are going to be released to the body of Christ. There will be increasing manifestation of a people who are seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. There is going to be an increased shaking of every worldly system: financial, medical, political; in fact any system that is out there is going to be shaken. And the only things that can remain are the things that are based on the Kingdom of God. There is going to be increasing world darkness, but church light. We are going to shine in the darkness and there are going to be increasing manifestations of the glory in signs and wonders, which is going to demonstrate God’s Kingdom in heaven here on earth.

This second diagram is just a different way of looking at those same periods.

Now there are a couple of things I want to touch on. The first one of those periods has already started, it is already here, a call to intimacy and love. Again, you can see it will not stop, it will go on underneath all the other things God will be doing, until Jesus returns. You can read Song of Solomon and just get information, or you can catch His desire for intimacy; you can read it and expect to experience the presence of God for yourself. Many people are experiencing the presence of God and his love today far more than they were last year.

That is happening, and it is to prepare us for the coming of the sword, because there is going to be a gathering of stumbling blocks and the refiner’s fire. You do not need to be frightened of that, you can fall on the rock and be broken! I would rather do that than the rock fall on me and be crushed, but whatever way, God is going to do it, and it is up to us which way it is to be (see Matt 21:44). We can surrender to it, and allow God to do it, or not.

We need to be a habitation of God, a dwelling place of God’s Presence. We need to know God is in us. Father, Son and Spirit came to dwell in us: as it says in John 14, ‘they made their abode’. Jesus went to prepare us to be a place where the Holy Spirit could dwell, and the Father and the Son could dwell.

In Acts 2 there was wine, fire, and wind of the Spirit. The early rain was great, but there is going to be a latter rain which is even better. So all the wind and the fire and the rain of the first outpouring of the Holy Spirit is only a taster of what is going to be poured out in the end. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’.

Wine, fire, wind

I have engaged with three of these periods so far personally.

I experienced the wine of the Spirit in 1993 through a guy called Rodney Howard-Browne. He was known as ‘Joel’s bartender’ because he brought the pouring out of the wine of the Spirit to the Pentecostal arm of the church, with a lot of laughter. In Toronto they picked up on that, and it was wild. As a church, Freedom was birthed from that in More for ’94: and it really was wild, it was like a zoo. Bob Jones prophesied in 1983 that this was going to take place, and when it did it caused warfare in the church; it caused division. Most of the people in the UK were on the side of God: for instance the Church of England came out and said ‘These are manifestations of the Holy Spirit – we are going for it’; Holy Trinity Brompton, particularly, were in the forefront of that. Awesome! But in America it was totally different. It caused division, so much so that the Vineyard church threw out Toronto from their whole movement… and in my view have never been the same since.

Pensacola. The fire. Now I went to Pensacola and it was the most intense fire of the Presence of God I have ever experienced anywhere. You could not walk into that place without wanting to get on your knees in repentance. People ran to the front, including me, to repent; and I couldn’t even think of anything to repent of! I ran to the front and just got on my knees and cried to God because my spirit was so touched by the fire of his Presence. That was just a flicker of what is coming.

Lakeland: the wind. Some of us were touched by what happened in Lakeland. Whatever you believe about what went on in Lakeland, it was God. Man got involved and there were unwise things that happened but it was God. You can’t reach out and touch your TV screen and be changed if it isn’t God. How many of us did that? We did that. It was the Presence of God, it was the wind. Now that disrupted everything, it was a worldwide phenomenon, thanks to God TV and the internet. The wind blew, but that was just a breeze compared to what is coming. A wind is going to blow, and nothing is going to stop it. You can’t tell where it’s coming from, you don’t know where it’s going; but it is going to blow powerfully, more powerfully than any of us really know. Before Jesus returns, that wind is going to blow. The former glory is going to be nothing compared to the latter glory of the house: the Kingdom of God revealed, on earth as it is in heaven.