Tag: doctrine

260. Coming Back into Alignment

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

In this series of blog posts we have embarked on a journey to discover the full meaning of ‘the restoration of all things’ (Acts 3:21) and the part we all have to play as sons of God in that restoration.

All things

What are the ‘all things? For me, the phrase ‘the restoration of all things’ refers to all physical and spiritual things that have been lost, distorted, damaged, destroyed, broken or disconnected; everything that God created in line with His original intent and purpose. That would include:

  • Creation and everything in it
  • Everyone, everything, everywhere, throughout all time and all history
  • All relative dimensions of time and space
  • Our eternal memory, wisdom, knowledge, understanding and position as light beings, as we were before we came into this realm
  • All our abilities and powers
  • All dark and light matter and dark and light energy, including the restoration of the speed of light (which has diminished over time1)
  • Access to all places and all realms everywhere, at any time, inside and outside of time and space as we presently know it
  • Our inheritance, identity, position and authority as sons. This is fundamental and impacts the whole of creation because it is as sons that we will play our part in the restoration of all things.

God is looking to see everything restored which was lost when the light of glory was removed. It is in His nature to bring healing, reconciliation, redemption and restoration. Why would He not want all things restored to their original condition and functionality, back to how He always intended them to be? It is not as if He has changed His mind or had a better idea! Restoration for us – and for all creation – is nothing more nor less than coming back into alignment with God’s eternal thoughts about us.

Father and son(s)

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God… The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ… For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God… the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom 8:14-21).

We are heirs of the Father and co-heirs with Jesus. He has empowered us as sons and given us authority for the created realm, and creation will recognise and respond to us when we are manifested as sons. Therefore whatever is revealed about ‘all things’ in context of the relationship between Father and Son directly relates to our own sonship.

‘All things’ in the Bible

Before we launch into a consideration of ‘all things’ in the Bible, a brief word about how we read our Bibles. As we read, we have a tendency to automatically revert to the familiar assumptions that we (or others) have made, both about what a particular passage is talking about and what it is saying about it. Instead of merely thinking we know what it says, let’s engage with, meditate upon and enter into the scripture and allow God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) to reveal what He is saying through what we are reading. That takes awareness and practice but it opens up a whole new vista of revelation.

All things in subjection

For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:27-28).

But what does ‘in subjection’ mean? Who and what is going to be brought into subjection?

If we are ‘in subjection’ to Him, then we acknowledge that we are His subjects. The Greek word hupotasso means ‘to place under’. We are under His protection, under His blessing, under His love, under His covenant.

And not only we but ‘all things’ are to be brought into agreement with God’s plans and purposes. We may look around and wonder how that is ever going to happen. I suggest that it starts with a group of people who say “Yes, God, I want to be in agreement with You. I come into agreement that I am a son, and for my sonship to be revealed to all creation.” That is not what religion has encouraged but Jesus is our example: through His relationship with the Father He only did what He saw the Father doing.

None of this is about theology or doctrine, whether we agree or not with a particular person or teaching. It is all about relationship with God; with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and about being willing to maintain a loving relationship with other people with whom we do not necessarily see eye to eye. We can be in relational agreement even if we hold different views. We do not need to be ‘right’ and so reject everyone else as being ‘wrong’. Again, this is not something religion has encouraged or modelled for us.

Some Bible verses

Here are some New Testament verses mentioning ‘all things’. I am not particularly going to explain or teach on them. In line with what I wrote earlier, I would encourage you to take some time to meditate upon them, engage with them – perhaps read them in some other translations – and see what God has to say to you about them.

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Rom 11:36).

…but just as it is written,
“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard,
And which have not entered the heart of man,
All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God (1 Cor 2:9-10).

…yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him (1 Cor 8:6).

…all things originate from God (1 Cor 11:12).

There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all [persons] (1 Cor 12:6).

[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Cor 13:7).

…with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth (Eph 1:10).

In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will (Eph 1:11).

He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things (Eph 4:10).

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things have been created through Him and for Him (Col 1:16).

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Col 1:17).

…and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven… He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach (Col 1:20, 22).

Reflection

In light of what God has shown you in love as you meditated on these verses, do you believe there is potential for all things to be restored to God’s original intent and purpose?

Do you believe that there are some things that could not (or should not) be restored to God’s original intent and purpose? Why not?

The only thing which I consider really cannot be restored is the DIY (do-it-yourself) pathway itself, the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil. That was never part of God’s intent and purpose for creation in the first place.

Reference

1 A time varying speed of light as a solution to cosmological puzzles – article by Andreas Albrecht and Joao Magueijo (Cornell University, 1999).

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231. Meet the Real God

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

New for old

God is always doing new things.

Please understand that, as we said before, He is always the same, faithful and full of lovingkindness, and He has never changed. But when we engage Him intimately, He reveals Himself in continually new, surprising and sometimes even shocking ways.

“Behold, the former things have come to pass,
Now I declare new things;
Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you”
(Isa 42:9).

“Do not call to mind the former things,
Or ponder things of the past.
Behold, I will do something new,
Now it will spring forth;
Will you not be aware of it,
I will even make a roadway in the wilderness,
Rivers in the desert”
(Isa 43:18-19).

God is revealing new things in our day, yet often we try to cling on to what is old, comfortable and familiar, just like the children of Israel did in the wilderness. Old forms of church wineskin, church government, ministry, prayer, evangelism, doctrine and theology are all being challenged by new, fresh revelation of truth.

Have you ever stopped to question how much of what we believe is because we have always believed it, based on what someone else has taught us, or from a religious construct, doctrine or theology? How much is derived from or influenced by our particular culture and society? And finally, how much is actually from revelation, coming out of our direct personal experience of relationship with God Himself? In short, how much are we ‘leaning to our own understanding’?

The Joshua Generation are forerunners of the new. We are finding a new level of experiential relationship with God, a new level of communication with Him, new ability to hear and see what He reveals. We are finding out what it means to have the mind of Christ!

God is calling us to let go of the old and embrace the new: new mindsets and new paradigms, new worldviews. We must not be surprised if we encounter great resistance to change, and not only from the quarters we might expect it. Certainly some people in the old established churches will oppose what God is doing, but the greater resistance will likely come from more recent moves of God which have settled into maintenance mode.

Deeply ingrained

Even within ourselves, we may struggle to overcome the comfortable inertia of wanting to keep things the way they are. We experienced some of this within the church here: for a while the old pastoral form of church government steadfastly opposed and resisted the new heavenly apostolic order. We discovered just how deeply some of these things are ingrained into our thinking and practice. But eventually we made an individual and corporate decision to step into the new.

“… The dynamic of our strategy is revealed in God’s ability to disengage mindsets and perceptions that have held people captive in pseudo fortresses for centuries! Every lofty idea and argument positioned against the knowledge of God is cast down and exposed to be a mere invention of our own imagination” (2 Cor 10:5-6 Mirror Bible).

God has begun challenging the very pillars of our minds. We find ourselves in a time of transition, of uncertainty and change, in which we cannot be sure of anything we thought we knew. He has even told us,

“You have been invited to know the real Me, so that you can be forerunners of the glory presence”.

If He is inviting us to get to know the real God, what God did we think we knew? Is it possible that we have been seeing and presenting a false image of Him all this time? If so, we have only been introducing new believers to the same false image we have been worshipping. And if the world has rejected that image of God (and often, it has), then what might happen when we present the true nature of God, when we ‘show and tell’ what He is really like?

Jenn Johnson // ‘In Over My Head’ via Pinterest

We need to meet Him and experience Him for ourselves. Then what we are offering people will not be some theoretical, theological perspective and doctrine, but a real relationship with a living God. And that is what the world needs; like us it needs to meet the real God, not the image that has been painted of Him up to now.

Seen Me, seen the Father

Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being.

“Jesus is the crescendo of God’s conversation; he gives context and content to the authentic thought. Everything that God had in mind for mankind is voiced in him. Jesus is God’s language. He is the radiant and flawless expression of the person and intent of God. He mirrors God’s character and exhibits his every attribute in human form. He is the voice of God announcing our redeemed innocence. This voice is the dynamic that sustains the entire cosmos. He is the force of the universe upholding everything that exists as the executive authority of God, enthroned in the boundless measure of his majesty” (Heb 1:3 Mirror Bible).

He declared, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”. As Mirror Bible translator Francois Du Toit says, “the best translation would always be the incarnation”. So Jesus has to be the lens through which we both see and project what God is really like.

Transformation

As ‘forerunners of the glory presence’, we must get to know that presence by our own experience. The glory is the glory of the true God, not some dim, fractured, distorted image of Him. The principle is that we will be transformed into what we behold: if we see God as angry and vengeful, looking for every opportunity to pounce on us and strike us down when we get out of line, then we will display the same traits ourselves. So even as we look to unmask what Brad Jersak calls ‘the toxic representations of God’ so prevalent in the traditional church (and therefore in secular western society), we have to be careful to operate in love towards those we enter into discussion with. We can only do this if we are beholding the real God. The leaven of the Pharisees and Herod is still working its way through the lump: religious and political spirits love dispute. By seeing and revealing the truth and operating in love we can help people to engage God themselves rather than feeling they have to engage in argument.

When Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land, there was first of all a time of consecration. Alongside new experiences, new thinking and new levels and patterns of authority, we must display new levels of openness, honesty, sincerity, honour, respect and commitment.

Sacred cows

The old, the comfortable and the familiar have to be left behind when God brings us into a new day. If we are to receive all that God has for us we will need to let go of those old familiar ways because they will no longer be effective. Two and a half tribes elected to forego their inheritance in the Promised Land. We are not to be tethered to the past: old ways must not become idols we will not abandon.

So what are your pet doctrines, ideologies, methods and other sacred cows? Are you willing to meet God as He really is and ask Him to expose, remove and replace them?

These blog posts are adapted from Mike’s teaching in the ‘Engaging God‘ subscription programme.

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