Tag: ekklesia

279. The Agreement of Heaven

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Government in God’s kingdom is concerned with establishing everything in heaven first, in alignment with God’s desire, so that all things in the created order can be restored to God’s original intention and purpose and heaven be manifested on earth.

God includes us in His government. He wants us to get involved because He has given us authority for this creation. He is waiting for us to come into maturity to be able to fully operate that authority in creation to restore it. So we get to be involved both in heaven and on earth.

The power of agreement

The power of agreement is an awesome thing. If we are in agreement with God, we have a very powerful mandate; if we are not in agreement with Him, we are operating in our own strength. That is why so many people get weary and heavy-laden, because they do so much in their own strength and not in agreement with God and in His empowerment, in relationship with Him. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). Most people go around with a heavy burden because they are carrying the weight of their own responsibility rather than walking yoked to Him in relationship, where He carries the weight.

We need to come into agreement with Him. It does not work the other way around. Religion tries to get Him to come into agreement with us by doing things to appease Him and make Him happy so that He will agree, to make us happy. For example, I could decide to establish Parsons’ Law: everyone gets to win the lottery! That law is never going to work, because it will not be recognised or agreed to in heaven. God is not going to come into agreement with that law. The way to get the agreement of heaven for something is to get it from God in the first place. When we do create legislation ourselves it is because we know the desires of His heart, it is not something we invent out of our own understanding or desires.

A reflection of heaven

If there were no government in heaven, we would not have government on earth. Whatever is on earth is a reflection of what is in heaven – it is just that earthly government is inevitably flawed because no earthly do-it-yourself governmental system is ever going to be what God’s government is in heaven. The purpose of government is to bring order, so that people can live in a place of safety, security, blessing and empowerment. God’s kingdom is the blessing to empower us to be fruitful, to multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue all obstacles and to rule – and then to expand that out into the rest of the solar system, galaxy, universe, dimensions and beyond – because there is no end to the increase of His government and of peace.

The ‘and of peace’ is particularly important because it is about wholeness. If we are not whole, then what we do in government will be coming out of brokenness, so it is important that we become more and more whole, healed and transformed and that our fragmentation has been dealt with.

Amateurs in the new

If I am happily doing the heavenly stuff but there is no corresponding manifestation on earth, it is easy for critics to point the finger and ask ‘what difference is that making?’ What I do in heaven must either change me, or how I am living, or change my community or nation. It must be achieving something. If we are going to establish government in a foundational way for ekklesias or embassies of heaven, then they have to be on earth. There is no point in having an embassy of heaven in heaven. Heaven does not need an embassy for itself in heaven, it needs to be represented on earth.

Who will do that? We cannot all sit around awaiting for someone else, supposedly more qualified, to step up. As I have said before, God would rather have an amateur in the new than a professional in the old. The professionals in the old have so much junk they will need to get rid of before they could possibly hope to lay a foundation in the new! So what He is looking for is willing people to say ‘Here am I, send me!’ We have to be willing to say ‘yes’ to establishing things on earth, otherwise we will not have any storehouses for the harvest. In fact, the harvest will only come if we do. We cannot afford to wait another 30 years for the next generation to come along.

That is what happened last time. In 1975, Bob Jones brought a word about preparing for a billion-fold harvest but 40 years later we had nothing to show for it. Now a new generation is arising, the Joshua generation. Those of the Moses generation who will not cross over and engage something new (and worse, who even discourage others from doing so) will die out in the wilderness. It is already happening. We will start to see a big change take place as these things start to unfold, when we start legislating for the light to shine and for people to see the truth.

Higher authority

Government that operates from a heavenly position and perspective also operates with a higher authority, using higher laws, which supersede those on the earthly plane. When we operate from above, we have higher authority to change things. When we operate below, we are trying to change things from the same perspective and with the same processes that created the problem. All those problems have been created by following the do-it-yourself path of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are never going to solve the world’s problems by using the same pathway that created them.

We need to see the mountain of the house of the Lord raised up, which He has established; we are never going to be able to redeem the man-made ‘mountains of authority’ because God did not create them in the first place. They are worldly mountains that have come out of a worldly system and they are not redeemable. They cannot be restored to God’s original intent and purpose because they never were His intent or purpose. According to Isaiah and Micah, they are the hills that will run to us, saying “Let’s go up… that He may teach us His ways.” If today we had an example of a true embassy of heaven, fully functioning under heaven’s higher laws, with no sickness or disease (and therefore no covid-19), would that not be hugely attractive to the world?

Heaven’s authority is higher; and when we operate in heavenly authority, it supersedes all the problems we have here. But we have to outwork it: seeing what our Father is doing and being a gateway of heaven into the earth to establish it.

This series of posts is based upon Mike’s slides and teaching from our Sons Arise! – On Earth As In Heaven conference (September 2018) and other Sons Arise! events.

Related ‘Sons Arise!’ posts

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277. On Earth as in Heaven

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

We are living in a key time to engage and move forward as the sons of God. In the global shift which has begun to take place, we have a window of opportunity to step into our sonship and not shrink back. Let’s press in and begin to affect our communities, outwork the kingdom, see heaven established on earth and demonstrate what God is really like. That is what the whole world really needs: they need to meet the true God, their loving Father. Then they will discover that as His children they too have a destiny to fulfil; that they too have been called for a time such as this.

Cities of refuge

Several years ago, when God wanted to get my attention to what He was doing on the earth, He used a biblical term I would recognise, ‘cities of refuge’. As I began to ask Him what He meant by ‘cities of refuge’, whether they were literal cities, or figurative, or representative of something, He then started to talk to me using the term ‘embassies of heaven’ instead.

A city of refuge was a safe place where individuals could go if they were being pursued for something, somewhere they could be safe from fear. There is an aspect to what God is doing which reflects that: whatever is going on in the world, we do not have to live under any sense of fear when we are living under the government of heaven on earth. But ‘embassies of heaven’ added another dimension to it: an embassy is a place where an ambassador lives and operates, a representative of one country living in another. If we are ambassadors of heaven, living in an embassy of heaven, then we represent heaven; and that piece of territory, even though it is on the earth, lives under the laws of heaven rather than the laws of earth.

Ambassadors of heaven

Each of us is an ambassador who represents heaven. We are of the order of Melchizedek, the royal priesthood of heavenly priests and kings who carry heavenly authority in government and then operate as oracles and legislators on earth.

As we open our gateway to heaven and invite the presence of God within us, heaven flows through us as rivers of living water from our innermost being and we begin to outwork our identity as sons and a reflection of God on earth. We become oracles: we carry the heart of God and express it in creative ways, just as Jesus did. This is how people can see what a relationship with God is like, outworked in and through each of us.

We will outwork that heavenly government through our own lives: firstly as individuals but also then corporately, with others who are called to a particular place, territory, region, people group or other sphere of influence. So those who share a particular mandate, blueprint, calling or destiny will begin to build relationally together, seeking to establish things ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ together and to represent heaven on earth together.

Real relationship, real connection

We are not necessarily talking about literal, physical cities but we are talking about real relationship and real connection. Many people are in the early stages of this, but not many are yet connecting at a relational level with others who share the same clear blueprint and mandate for a specific purpose which would enable them to establish a foundation of heavenly government together.

If we have a blueprint for an embassy of heaven, it will need to be established in a very different way to ‘church’. People are beginning to talk about ‘ekklesia’ instead of ‘church’, but we can still find ourselves creating from our own understanding of what we think it should look like. It is more than a change of terminology. An ekklesia will have a very clear heavenly mandate and probably not look like anything we would recognise as ‘church’ when it gathers. We have to be open for a deconstruction of our understanding of what ekklesia is, reflecting something which is more heavenly and less earthly.

Our experience at Freedom Church

Much of what we have tried to do is still a mixture of the old and the new. Here at Freedom, we attempted to transition ten years ago, with the best of intentions and to the extent of the knowledge we then had. The principles were right but we lacked the maturity of revelation and character, personality and identity that were needed. So once again we have now deconstructed everything in order to rebuild according to a new pattern that God will give. Although we have not been able to meet, even in homes, because of the Covid-19 restrictions, we have been continuing relational connection with a view to establishing something built upon a more relational foundation than we had before. Throughout this time, we continue to minister to our community through Freedom Community Alliance, which is itself an expression of heaven on earth, although it looks nothing like the religious version of ‘ministry’ that you might expect.

Please understand that I really do not want to create a pattern here that other people try to copy: that would be following the same franchise model that the church usually adopts (though we might call it a denomination, or perhaps a stream). Each ekklesia needs to be individual and personalised to the people God calls to establish it and function within it, with a blueprint which may be different to any other.

Connect in relationship

So God is beginning to position people individually to begin to connect in relationship. Those relationships will form the foundation of an embassy or ekklesia and when those relationships are strong enough He will add to them. For the moment, they are very small and very scattered. But if they have the foundation both personally and corporately in God and have a clear blueprint that they are pursuing, not trying to do things in their own understanding, then they have the potential to grow very quickly.

God is preparing them out of sight, just as Joseph was prepared in the dungeon then suddenly raised up to be second in charge of a whole nation, with a God-given strategy to ‘save the world’. I guarantee that plenty of people in Egypt were unhappy about Joseph taking 20% of their harvest in the plentiful years because they did not understand why he was doing it. A lot of what God is doing is still in the deconstruction phase and people do not necessarily understand it at this time (to the religious, it must appear alarming and extremely threatening). I have been prophesying for years – or really, declaring and decreeing – that there would be times of great shaking that would cause people to lose faith in the established norms and to pursue new things. That is happening today: people’s trust in the systems they have followed all their lives (both worldly and religious) is being shaken.

After God’s heart

Whilst I do not personally know of anything that really looks like heaven yet, there are certainly precursors who are carrying aspects of it and are pursuing it. You, too, are called to establish things on earth as they are in heaven. God is calling you as a man or woman after His heart to serve His purpose in this generation. Do not disqualify yourself from that, be willing to embrace it. I encourage you, engage with God for yourself to find out more about how He sees you and what He has in mind for you. Begin to believe about yourself what He believes about you, and prepare to arise and take your place in the heavens and on the earth.

Related ‘Sons Arise!’ posts

This article is based on material taken from several sources:
Mike answering a question in Mystic Mentoring, Monday 11th January 2021 US Pacific,
being interviewed by Gil Hodges on Kingdom Talks (2020) and
his contribution to our Sons Arise – On Earth as in Heaven conference (2018).

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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. Or you can use the blue button to contact us about making a one-time gift.
Thank you!
*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we are unable to offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 

236. The Hallmark of the New

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

What is the ‘new wine’?

In this series of posts we are looking at new wine and new wineskins. Last time we saw how the new wineskin is each one of us, both individually and coming together as a new order ekklesia, but what is this new wine? What does it represent? Here is some of what I have seen (and if you will engage with God for yourself, I am sure you will see some of this and more besides):

    • New governmental mandates and new government patterned after heaven. New revelation and understanding of how to expand the kingdom, subdue and rule from a new heavenly perspective of servant leadership.
    • New values and ideals. Jesus introduced the manifesto of the kingdom, a completely new way of living. As we have seen, the ekklesia is to be a reflection of heaven’s values, an embassy of heaven on earth. We are to be ambassadors of that embassy, carrying the authority of heaven and exercising it on the earth.
    • New things established in heaven.
    • New heavenly strategies instead of earthly ones. Let’s stop trying to figure out how to do things and instead go to the heavenly strategy room and get a strategy which will be effective.
    • A new heavenly identity of sonship. It is in heaven that we operate in fullness of sonship, so that we can be manifested as sons on the earth.
    • A new health service – healing and health for the world, to demonstrate that God is a loving God who wants to heal. As a first step we will be living in health ourselves: body, soul and spirit in wholeness, connected to heaven, with the life of heaven flowing from the inside out. That will draw those in the world looking for healing.
    • New economic and financial services. Jesus threw all the money changers’ tables over: kingdom finance and economics bear no resemblance to the systems of the world. Kingdom finance is a love-based system in which we can freely give because we freely receive under an open heaven. Serving in love is the currency of the kingdom, going the extra mile and putting others before self.
    • A new society – paradise restored. God wants to bring back human society to how it would have developed in the Garden (if the Garden had expanded to fill the earth as it should have). The way up is down; the first will be last and the last first.
    • New speech, new attitudes, new ideals, new culture. Everything comes from a new perspective as redefined by Jesus.
    • New behaviours, abilities and powers. We will recover everything that was lost at the fall, at the flood, at Babel and throughout history as our DNA is renewed and restored and as we renew our minds.
    • Heaven transforming earth. This is God’s ultimate desire and plan.

    Experiential

    All new ways flow from beyond the veil and they are experiential.

    • New experiential ways of ministry. No longer will we set ourselves up as ministers who tell people what God is saying and what to do. Instead we will get alongside them and equip them to hear God for themselves. Liebusting is a good example of this new way, in which the person asks Jesus what He wants to do in their life and asks Him to show them how to deal with what stands in the way. And teaching people how to go to the courts equips them to hear first-hand, rather than getting someone else to tell them what the issue is and how to address it.
    • New experiential ways of teaching – we have to get away from a scenario where it is just me or some other teacher lecturing a roomful of people. It will be all of us together, experiencing. The activations we have done together on a Sunday morning and in some of the online sessions and events are a first step towards that. Alongside the new kingdom financial system, I am sure we will see a new education system as well.
    • New experiential ways of prayer. We will not just be crying out from here on the earth, hoping that God might hear something, but going to meet Him face to face.
    • New experiential ways of interceding, not from below but from above. We can stand before God, identifying with the person, city, nation or planet we are interceding for, in a heavenly courtroom, getting His judgment and verdict on the situation.
    • New more effective ways of kingdom administration: outworking heavenly government on the earth.
    • New ways of partnering with the angelic realm: angels are ministering spirits sent for the sake of those who inherit salvation. We are already hearing more testimonies of angelic engagement, and that will only increase. They are awesome, powerful created beings, and they can do things which have never even occurred to us yet!

    Growing in maturity

    The new ways are about our maturity. Moses did miracles, parted the Red Sea, food just appeared, the Israelites’ clothes never wore out, they were led by a pillar of cloud and fire – all this while they were just children who only knew God by His deeds. If they had gone and engaged heaven with Moses, they would not have needed any of that.

    Under Joshua’s leadership, the people did the miracles, parted the Jordan, caused the walls of Jericho to fall. They did not need supernatural food or clothing provision because they could all sow in the Promised Land, and reap the harvest of what they sowed.

    Jesus showed his disciples how to multiply food, do miracles, produce provision and so on. He taught them how, then sent them out to do it themselves. Unlike Moses, He did not just do it for them. And today He will show us new ways of being salt and light in our world, new ways of being agents of change in history, society and culture, so that we are not influenced but influencers. He will open up new ways for us to bring transformation to our communities. We will do all this by establishing all things in heaven first so they can be manifested on earth – that is the hallmark of the new.

    This blog post is adapted from Mike’s teaching in the ‘Engaging God‘ subscription programme.

  • Recent articles from Freedom ARC
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*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we can no longer offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 


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235. New Order Ekklesia

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

The blueprint that has come from heaven

But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved (Matt 9:16-17).

In Jesus’ time and culture the old wineskins were not just thrown away but were renewed, restored and reconditioned to make them suitable to hold the new wine. They had invested a lot into those wineskins. God has invested a lot into the wineskin of church (ekklesia), and He is not just throwing it out.

I hear a lot of people talking about a new wineskin which is not the ekklesia. I do not accept that. The ekklesia is still what Jesus is building; He has not changed His mind. It is still the blueprint that has come from heaven. By all means let’s throw out the old concept of what has become known as ‘church’, with any negative connotations and past experience of hurt and oppressive controlling authority. But since the manifold wisdom of God is to be displayed to the usurping powers and authorities through the ekklesia (Eph 3:10), we need to recognise that without it we are not likely to see the kingdom fill the earth.

…you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light (1 Pet 2:5, 9).

All of us have a responsibility to be who God has called us to be, both individually and corporately.

Characteristics of a new order ekklesia

So a new order ekklesia will comprise people gathered together around a heavenly blueprint. It will function as a heavenly royal priesthood bringing agreement between heaven and earth. It will be built on a foundation of servant leaders, a heavenly foundation of the agreement of heaven’s oracles and a form and style of government which is a reflection of heaven on earth.

It will demonstrate a heavenly pattern of government – bench of 3, bench of 7 and bench of 12. It will not be a copy of any other ekklesia but will be established from its own individual heavenly mandate and blueprint: this variety will demonstrate the manifold nature of God’s wisdom (Ephesians 3:10 again).

Its shape will be flexible, continuously determined by the living stones who grow and mature as they outwork their destinies within it, and by living stones added and taken away. Its objective is to bring agreement between heaven and earth, to contribute to the restoration of all things to God’s original intent and purpose.

Flexibility

Locally, we have been transitioning into such a new order ekklesia over a number of years. We are forerunners, and at times the experience can be very difficult, but we know we are on a journey. Over the years we have produced several different, updated diagrams representing our blueprint. Does that mean that the blueprint has changed? I do not think so, rather it is that God has revealed (and that we have become aware of) different aspects of it over time.

When I look back to our beginnings in 1994 and the revelation of Isaiah 61, a foundational scripture for us, my understanding of that now is totally different to what I understood then. The text is still the same, but God has progressively deepened and expanded the revelation of it which we have been able to receive; my perception of it has changed and so, I am sure, has everyone else’s in the ekklesia. Therefore we are not now doing exactly the same things we were doing in 1994, but we are still outworking that same scripture as we now interpret and express it.

We did have a saying, back in those early days: ‘constant change is here to stay’. Little did we know how true (or how important) that was! The structure of our ekklesia is flexible, and it is the people who are part of it who determine what it will look like at any given moment. as they find their place as living stones and outwork their destiny in it.

So although we have an overall blueprint which says ‘we are an ekklesia and we will be part of a city of refuge, an embassy of heaven’, the actual form it takes will be totally determined by those who are called to embrace it. And in ten years’ time, when new people have come along, embraced the vision and received revelation themselves, certainly they will see and express something new, and the shape of Freedom Church will look different then to what it is now.

God always requires a new wineskin for new wine, but it is a constantly refurbished one, not something that did not exist before. God will carry on progressively releasing new wine of revelation, and the wineskin of the ekklesia has to remain flexible and be continually renewed if it is to receive it. We must never become rigid and set in our ways.

So whatever we are doing now, I can guarantee that down the line we will be doing something different, because we will have received fresh revelation from God for that season. That is why the concept of being like the sons of Issachar is important: understanding that God operates according to times and seasons, and in each season we need to know what God is calling us to do and to receive the necessary provision from Him to accomplish it.

[July 2022: Freedom Church has been in its own season of deconstruction and looks very different now to when this post was first published in 2017. Our understanding of what ‘church’ is, and how it operates in the heavenlies and manifests on the ground continues to unfold – JW].

Angelic engagement

An ekklesia of gathered people will live under an open heaven with angelic engagement. Jacob saw angels ascending and descending at a place he called ‘Bethel’, saying it was a house of God and a gateway of heaven. Individually and corporately we are all ‘Bethels’ into the earth.

Each of us is always a representative or ambassador of the ekklesia 24/7, not only when we are meeting physically in the same location. We do not ‘go to church’, we are church. Our whole lives are an expression of being a house of God, an ekklesia. But when we do come together, that is multiplied exponentially. We need to understand what it is to be built together as living stones, joined in love to fulfil God’s purpose.

Shadow

An ekklesia both individually and corporately is a shadow of what is established in heaven. You have to have something with a light shining on it to produce a shadow on the far side of it. So we must be in heaven in order to cast a shadow on the earth. If we do not live in heaven there can be no shadow on the earth.

I used to go into heaven, try to produce a shadow on the earth, and then come back out of heaven and occupy that shadow. The trouble was that the shadow no longer existed because I was not in heaven any more. That is why we have to learn to live in dual realms of heaven and earth at the same time; things on the earth will change dramatically when we do.

Embassy of heaven

Here, we are developing into a resource for the local community as we expand our work and influence through Freedom Community Alliance. There is also a worldwide aspect outworked through Freedom Apostolic Ministries (Freedom ARC), of which this blog is just a small part. I believe that eventually every ekklesia will be a city of refuge, an embassy of heaven, either in itself or as part of something larger in its city, area or region. That will be a full reflection of heaven’s government, with the mountain of the house of the Lord raised up above all the other mountains as we are an expression of God’s household, God’s kingdom, God’s authority on the earth. All the nations will run to it.

This blog post is adapted from Mike’s teaching in the ‘Engaging God‘ subscription programme. Find out more…

Recent articles from Freedom ARC
Older related posts

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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. Or you can use the blue button to contact us about making a one-time gift.
Thank you!
*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we can no longer offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 


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234. Revolution of Love

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott

Turning the law on its head

Whenever God does something new, it challenges what already exists, because we are so familiar with the old ways of thinking and doing things.

When Jesus came defying all the religious norms, He was rejected by the religious people and institutions of His time. He brought a radical new perspective, completely reinterpreting Old Testament scripture and revealing the truth behind it. He said things like “the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath”, turning the external law on its head, making it into something that was to be used for people rather than to control or restrict them. Religion is all about keeping people restricted and under control, so this was never going to go down well with the religious elite. They quickly decided to do away with Him because they realised that the future of the whole religious system they depended on was under threat.

In the Sermon on the Mount, again and again He said “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…”, shifting the focus from external religious observance to what really goes on in our hearts. True, He did not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, He came to fulfil them – but in a totally unexpected way, in the context of relationship – love – rather than in legalism and religious duty. For religious people, brought up to keep every little rule and regulation, to be told that the most important thing was to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength cut to the heart of everything they had ever known.

His new values and new ideals of the kingdom challenged all those external legalistic perspectives. This was a revolution of love, where the King came to serve and not be served, demonstrating an entirely new model of leadership and authority which had nothing to do with hierarchy and control.

Jesus gave the Pharisees, Sadducees and Teachers of the Law every opportunity to lay their preconceived notions aside and follow Him, yet most of them could not get past being offended and threatened by His demolition of the foundations of their world. Ultimately, those religious structures were swept away in AD70, and those who were determined to defend them met with a violent end at the hands of the Roman army. It cost them their lives, whilst those who had embraced the new and become disciples heeded Jesus’ warning and left the city.

New wineskins for new wine

But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results. Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved (Matt 9:16-17).

The old order was coming to an end. There was to be something new, something different from the old religious ritual of bringing sacrifices into the Temple. This issue of new wineskins for new wine is one we have touched on before and need to be continually aware of because in the religious mindset there is a deep-seated tendency to revert to the old wineskin.

The Old Covenant wineskin was one temple, in one city, in one nation; one king, one earthly priesthood from one tribe (Levites) and one High Priest from one family (Aaron’s).

Such a mediatorial system prevents people accessing God for themselves: only the priests could enter the tabernacle and only the High Priest could go into the Holy of Holies, and that only once a year. It encourages a ‘top-down’ model of leadership which is the exact opposite of Jesus’ own servant-hearted example. This is still operating today wherever we see division into clergy and laity, and in a more subtle form where family members inherit religious positions from generation to generation. If people are artificially restricted, it will hinder them from fulfilling their destiny.

David’s tabernacle

One person in the Old Testament caught a glimpse of the new, and as a forerunner he adopted it ahead of time, at least for a while. In David’s tabernacle there was open access to the arc of the covenant and the Presence of God in worship, and when you read what they did in those days it is an amazing thing when you consider what the Law prescribed. I have never really understood how they could go back to putting God in a box – perhaps it is proof of the strength of that religious mindset again – but the fact is, they soon reverted to the cycle of sacrifice and ritual in a brand new temple.

Heavenly royal priests

In the new covenant, we are all heavenly royal priests. Every individual one of us is a new wineskin, a house of God and a gateway of heaven. We operate from heaven, and we are the nation, city and temple. God is in us and we are in Him. In the old covenant the Holy Spirit came upon prophets, priests and kings but now He dwells within us. We all have access as priests of the heavenly order of Melchizedek, not of an earthly Aaronic order: when the old covenant was made obsolete all the former priestly functions and roles came to an end with it.

Each of us has a destiny, an earthly and a heavenly outworking of God’s kingdom and His government. Every one of us is a reflection of the four faces of God, the kingly, prophetic, priestly and apostolic, expressed and outworked in the proportions appropriate to fulfilling that destiny.

A heavenly blueprint

We are a new wineskin in a corporate sense too. Individuals can come together around a heavenly blueprint as living stones, being built up together on a foundation that reflects heaven’s government: foundational servant leadership which releases people into their destiny rather than imposing mediatorial coverings, restricting access to God and to the realms of heaven.

…having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the capstone (Eph 2:20).

Ekklesia

“I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church [ekklesia]; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven” (Matt 16:18-19).

I increasingly use the Greek word ‘ekklesia’ because the English word ‘church’ carries so much baggage in our thinking. The structures and institutions of what is known as ‘church’ are mainly man-made constructions based on old wineskins. They tend to look like the old covenant rather than the new. And this is not just a side-swipe at established denominations and streams – even in independent churches like Freedom we have done the same in the past: none of us knew any better.

Today Jesus is building His ekklesia with living stones of all shapes and sizes. Therefore all local ekklesias will be different, depending on the living stones built into it using the blueprint God gives. We cannot produce a formula or a template which we just duplicate. In the next post we will look at the characteristics of a new order ekklesia, but for now let’s just agree on this: anything which does not have a foundation which is a reflection of what is in heaven is an old wineskin.

This blog post is adapted from Mike’s teaching in the ‘Engaging God‘ subscription programme. Find out more…

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6228

227. Lost Destiny Restored

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

Purpose

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 (Romans 8:28).

We can only love God because He first loved us. The Father sent Jesus because He loves us. All He is looking for is for us to respond to that love and come into a relationship with Him. Then we will begin to know that we have been called according to His purpose.

Do we know what that purpose is? Are we seeking for it? Are we just aimlessly wandering around hoping it will materialise for us? Or are we self-absorbed, living only for the present, wrapped up in trivial self-gratification, in material possessions, position or power?

Perhaps it is buried deep within our hearts, beneath layers of disappointment, frustration and regret built up over the years over generations. God wants us to discover it again. He desires us to know the thoughts He has about us (Psalm 139:17 NLT) thoughts of love, acceptance, affirmation, encouragement and blessing. Accomplishing God’s purpose for us brings fulfilment; achieving any other purpose we may substitute for it brings only emptiness.

When we come into this world our spirit perceives itself disconnected from God; our spirit disconnected from our soul; our spirit disconnected from heaven. We start out as slaves to sin, feeling rejected and disconnected from the sonship God designed us to enjoy.

Legacy

Destiny should lead to legacy, something left behind to bless the next generation. Not many have a Christian heritage – if you do, it is something to cherish and be thankful for. But every person who ever lived had a destiny, a purpose for their lives which God intended them to fulfil. We may feel like we have missed out on ours but God is able to restore everything stolen from us, including not only our own destiny but also that of our generational line.

Each individual’s destiny is a vital part of the overall plan and purpose of God. His plan has not changed since He called Adam and Eve to bring heaven to earth, to manifest the rule of God in this realm and populate the earth with people who would live in relationship with Him. God’s intention has always been to bring blessing to every family that would ever live.

Despite Adam’s fall, that destiny was passed on from Adam down through the generations to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Joseph; to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David and Solomon; to Jesus, to the apostles, to the church (ekklesia), that is, to us. But so many have missed out along the way.

We saw last time that a whole string of Bible characters failed to enter fully into their destiny. Every instance of that is a result of some kind of sin, rebellion or iniquity, either in the individuals concerned or in their generations. Your spirit can recognise a generational root: if you feel stirred by any of the examples we look at, and you do not recognise it in your own life, ask God to reveal to you if there is anything in your generational line that is holding back your destiny from you. There is a place you can go to get destinies restored that have been lost to past generations.

Adam and Eve, Esau

Adam and Eve lost their destiny by eating from the wrong tree and hiding from God. Skipping forward several generations, Esau despised his birthright (Gen 25:27-34), despised the spiritual dimension of his life. He was a ‘macho man’, over-impressed with his own soul, power and ability. That attitude cost him.

Jacob

Scripture often speaks of ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’, and Jacob is a really sad case. If you can get three generations to fulfil the purpose of God it establishes something significant, so the enemy’s attack on that third generation is all the more intense. Jacob missed out on God’s best for his life, and spoilt what God had planned for his future generations.

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there…” (Gen 35:1). At Bethel, Jacob had met God in a dream and seen angels ascending and descending. He himself called it ‘the house of God, the gateway of heaven’ (Gen 28:17). Who wouldn’t want to live somewhere like that? But it was not a suitable place for Jacob’s livestock, so he moved on.

Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labour… So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)… Then Israel journeyed on… It came about while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it (Gen 35:16, 19, 21, 22).

Would Rachel have died at Bethel? Would Reuben have got involved with Bilhah? Reading on, Jacob suffered continual family issues he would not have faced had he stayed where God told him to. These included the rape of his daughter, Dinah, and culminated in his eventual migration to Egypt, where his family went into slavery for generations. That is not the kind of legacy you want to leave.

Jacob teaches us that our destiny can be linked to a specific location: we can lose our destiny by moving away from where God tells us to stay, or by staying somewhere (perhaps through misplaced loyalty to people, organisations or churches) when God has told us to leave. Let’s be sure we are where God wants us to be. He told Abraham to go, and told Jacob to stay.

Moses

Moses’ destiny was to free Israel from Egypt, but he tried to do it his own way. He killed an Egyptian and hid in the desert for forty years. God called him back to his destiny, but he still failed to complete it. Moses was angry at the persistent devaluing of his office and authority by a people with a spirit and mentality of slavery. Although he had the blessing and favour of God, and moved in God’s power and authority, he still wanted the favour of the people. So he struck the rock, disobeyed God, and forfeited his right to enter the Promised Land.

This is a dangerous temptation: to use the anointing to do the work of the kingdom, but to do so in order to legitimise ourselves or our ministry, to seek the favour of men. Moses lost his destiny because of his insecurity: Jesus faced the same temptation but refused to use God’s power to legitimise himself in the eyes of men.

Judah

The nation of Judah lost the Promised Land by abusing it, by not giving it its sabbath rest every seven years. They failed to trust in God’s provision, and went into exile in Babylon as a result. If we do not take proper care of our destiny, we can lose it. The condition of our spirit, soul and body is important: sleeping, eating, resting; getting the times and seasons in sync. If we don’t care for ourselves, it is a form of abuse and can cost us our destiny.

Jewish nation

The religious leaders of Jesus’ time rejected their king and forfeited their destiny. They generated enormous income through corruption, and saw that His talk of a house of prayer for the nations and the coming of the kingdom was a threat to both their religious money-making scams and their position of authority with the people. If we make decisions based on financial security or protecting our position rather than on faith in God, we risk being drawn away from our destiny.

Joshua

Don’t trade your destiny away. If we don’t fulfil our destiny, God can pass it on to someone else. Where Moses stepped down, Joshua stepped up. God is raising up a Joshua generation so He can release lost destinies, mantles and legacies upon them.

Restoring lost destiny

What happens to lost destinies?

One Sunday morning, during the worship, I had a vision in heaven. I was engulfed in flames for about twenty minutes. In that place I was given a large staff with a golden headpiece. Now, if I don’t know what something is for, I know where to go:

Does not wisdom call…?
On top of the heights beside the way,
Where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
Beside the gates, at the opening to the city,
At the entrance of the doors, she cries out
(Prov 8:1-3).

This is a real place in the heavenly realms we can all go to engage with Wisdom. That is where I went that Sunday. I was taken to a room with four doors: the second one opened and I walked into a place of flames, just as I had experienced earlier. I saw a huge door guarded by a balrog-like creature, and I just knew what the staff I had been given was for: I slammed it into the ground, the door opened and I went into Satan’s trophy room.

This is such a sad place! Lost destinies, anointings and mantles are displayed as trophies there, like a hunter might display on his wall the heads of animals he has killed. Family inheritances, the legacies that belong to you, they are trophies there. I began to get really indignant, and something in my spirit started to stir me to say ‘I want these back!’

And I knew this was why God had given me that staff. He had given me a mandate to recover and restore those family destinies and legacies. You see, my father passed nothing spiritual onto me, and yet his great-grandfather was a great man of God. That is the enemy’s desire, to rob us of what we should have had.

How we can get back things that were lost generations ago? They are stored up there, and God wants to release them and restore them to us. The very memory of our family inheritance may have been lost or stolen but it is still stored and recorded. The iniquity of the fathers may be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, but we can remove all the enemy’s legal rights and recover our family’s destinies and legacies. We can stop the cycle of robbery, and get back what has been taken from us, so that we can pass on a legacy to the next generation.

Are we willing to do what it takes for that to happen? Let’s make a start today.

Removing Satan’s legal rights

By faith, we are going to step into the Court of Accusation in heaven, and if God shows you something while we do this, then you can deal with it in your own spirit.

Father I thank you that you love me
And that your kingdom is based on righteousness and justice.
By faith I step into the heavenly court of accusation.
I stand on my own behalf and on behalf of my generational line.
I face my accusers and I accept and agree that I and my ancestors
Have wrongly traded away my destiny Inheritance.

I accept that I and they
Have followed the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil.
I accept that I and they
Have been influenced and motivated
By earthly, natural and demonic wisdom.

I stand here representing myself and my forefathers, identifying with them.
I repent of and renounce all false trading for myself and my forefathers
I receive the judgment of God and His declaration
That I am justified and made righteous through my advocate, Jesus.

I release the judgment of God against my adversaries and accusers.
I receive a mandate to have my destiny and legacy restored.
I receive the authority to access Satan’s trophy room
And take back what has been robbed from me.

I step back into this realm with the authority to fulfil my destiny.
I choose to be identified as your son
with the capacity for the fullness of my legacy to be restored to me.

Related resources from Freedom ARC

Mike revisits the place of fire in this this Supernatural Mentoring video, and takes back something of even more value than lost destinies…
(The relevant portion begins at around 23 minutes 45 seconds – click the ‘play’ button on the video window below and it should start in the right place):

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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. Or you can use the blue button to contact us about making a one-time gift.
Thank you!
*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we can no longer offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 

1. About

Freedom ARC (Apostolic Resource Centre) is an expression of the apostolic mandate of Freedom Church, Barnstaple, UK. It represents our heart to serve the wider body of Christ by making available any teaching, insight and revelation which God opens up to us.

We believe that Jesus intends the church (ekklesia) to be instrumental in transforming human society (indeed, the entire cosmos) here and now, rather than waiting for some event in the future. This is what we understand Peter to have meant by the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21). Freedom ARC aims to be a resource for the church to help her become all that God intends her to be and to enable her to bring heaven to earth.

Sons of Issachar blog

Why ‘Sons of Issachar’? Sue Davies prophesied over Freedom Church that we would be like the Sons of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what needed to be done (1 Chronicles 12:32). God remains the same, but He focuses on different things at different times and seasons, according to His eternal plan and purpose.

Mike-Parsons

On this blog we post content including the teaching of Mike Parsons (photo above) and others on accessing the realms of heaven and stepping into our destiny. We  will also give you advance notice of any special events organised by Freedom ARC.

Follow Mike’s teaching in chronological order by clicking on the  link, which you will normally find at the very foot of each post, below the comments. You will find a Previous link there too on all posts except this one. Use the search box (in the right menu) if you know the subject, or part of the title, of the post you are looking for.

Over time Mike’s revelation has developed, so you may find that in more recent posts he is saying something quite different to what he said about the same subject several years previously. On the blog home page you will find posts in reverse order, starting with the most recent.

Freedom ARC website

Please check out the teaching resources now available on our Freedom ARC website. We offer the first session of many of our teaching series completely free in our podcast area, and you can usually listen to Mike’s latest published message each week.

Engaging God

If you are really serious about pursuing a deeper relationship with God and fulfilling your destiny, we recommend you join around 800 other pioneers and adventurers worldwide on our Engaging God programme.

This interactive programme runs on a dedicated website. It will enable you to learn how to access God in the realms of heaven and within your own spirit and heart, and take up your responsibility as a son in God’s kingdom. The cost is £12 per month (likely equivalent to around $15 USD, depending on the prevailing exchange rate), but you can try it for two weeks FREE when you register and set up a payment plan. Read more about it here.

YouTube

Mike also posts ‘Supernatural Mentoring’ video clips on his YouTube channel. [Please note that we are not accepting any new applications to take part in these, and that they are not part of the Engaging God programme].

Community outreach

We demonstrate the heart and love of God in our community through our social outreach charity Freedom Community Alliance (the new name for Freedom Social Projects and Freedom Communities), which runs a day centre for those suffering from poverty, disadvantage and social exclusion, and a therapeutic community for men recovering from life-controlling addictions.

Connect

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