God is love – Sons of Issachar

521. God Is Love: Rethinking Judgment, Identity and the Reach of Grace

Mike Parsons

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God’s Desire Is Always Good

God is good, and God wants to bring good into people’s lives, even out of the things they do which are wrong. He does not condone what they do, because what they do will often be negative towards themselves and towards others, and that is not something God desires. But God still wants to bring good.

It is the love of Christ that compels us. It is not fear of God’s judgment or anger. It is God’s love, and that is what we are meant to carry.

I know some people say that is all wishy-washy, and that you need to see God as this or that. But honestly, I do not think those people really know who God is if they believe He is angry, looking to punish people, or wanting to take people out. That is not who He is.

Identity, Not Condemnation

God wants people to find their identity as sons in relationship with Him, and to discover their place in bringing the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. That is His desire for everybody. That is true for every single person on earth right now. No matter what they have done, Jesus has already died to forgive them. God does not hold it against them at all, because they are already reconciled to Him. They just do not know that, so they are operating out of a lost identity. They are doing things out of a lack of knowledge and experience of who they are.

We have all been there.

God did not judge me in a negative way. He graciously, with mercy and love, led me into discovering the truth. He did not come down and condemn me because I was believing lies, even though He knew I was believing lies about Him and many other things. He led me into an experience of truth which renewed my mind. I came to realise, I do not believe that anymore. There was no condemnation involved.

So we should not condemn people for where they are in their journey. They may still be operating out of a wrong identity, a wrong way of thinking, or a religious mindset, but so were we. Let us have grace and mercy for people, and help them find where the truth is. Not by condemning them, but by encouraging them to pursue God so they can find the truth in Him.

God Is Love, Fully and Consistently

God is love. I do not just think that, I know it. Therefore, God operates in love all the time. He is never anything other than love. People say, “Well, He is just and He is holy.” Of course He is. But that means justice and holiness are love expressed and outworked. They are not different.

We often create two versions of God when we compare what people think they see in the Old Testament with what Jesus revealed in the New. People end up operating in a mixture of those two ideas. But God is not two-faced. He has always been love. He has never been anything different. He was not operating differently in the Old Testament than in the New. People simply viewed Him differently.

They did not know Him. So they described Him out of their lack of knowledge, through their own religious mindsets, creating an image of God shaped by distance rather than relationship. That does not define Him. We have never defined God through our theology, beliefs or doctrines. God is not definable by us. He is God.

Therefore just because someone says God is like this, or writes something down and it is recorded in the Bible, does not mean it is true. If it contradicts the reality that God is love, then we know it is not true, because Jesus came to reveal who God really is. You do not see Jesus condemning people. He challenged people, but He did not condemn them. He did not judge them. He did not kill them. Even when people were killing Him on the cross, His response was, “Father, forgive them.”

That is God. He forgives. He is a loving God.

Awakening to Love

God has been misrepresented by all sorts of religions, including Christianity, as someone He is not. That is why people need to awaken to love. Many are doing that by leaving the conditional picture of God they encountered in church and finding Him outside of it. There are also people who have never been in church who are discovering that God is love, not through religion, but they are still coming through Jesus, even if they do not name Him.

He is the door to the Father. You cannot find the Father any other way, but that door is open. It has always been open. Jesus is the door; He has opened the way, and He has kept it open. He is not as precious about how people come through that door as we often are. When people find the Father, they will have come through Jesus the Son. They may not describe it that way, but that is the reality.

So we need to help people come through that door, to find Him, to experience the love of God, and to discover their identity in Him. Not to try to conform them to a religious system. In reality, more people are finding God and His love outside of Christianity than within it.

Already Reconciled, Already Included

I am not against people coming to Jesus and accepting what He did on the cross. That is how I would present the gospel, helping people discover who God is in love and experience that love; that Jesus loves them and has made a way for them. But I would not be prescriptive and say there is no other way people can come and experience the love of God. It will be through Jesus, but it may not be through the religious Christian way that we have described how Jesus saved people.

People are already saved, already included. Already reconciled, already accepted. They are already forgiven. They do not know it, and sometimes the way we present the good news does not help them know it. So let us help people find God, and let God bring them into the relationship and reveal Himself to them. That is not our responsibility. That is His.

Let us remove the hindrances and obstacles that may have been placed in people’s way, especially the harsh, judgmental message that says they will be condemned to hell if they do not accept Jesus. That is not true. Love is powerful: love never fails, love never gives up.

And death is not the end of choice.

Love Beyond Death: A Personal Testimony

Even if someone chooses to reject God in this life, God does not reject them. There is still opportunity beyond this life to embrace Him.

I have a testimony of that recently, though I have never done this before.

Last week, I went to a celebration of someone’s life. It was a man I had met through a school reunion. He was the husband of one of Debbie’s school friends, and we had met several times over the past months. At those gatherings, the husbands are often spare parts, left figuring out what to talk about. But over time I got to know them. One of the men was a Christian, and we had some great conversations about grace, love and the mystic side of things. This other man was not interested at all. He was a nice man, funny, but not open to any of it.

We met in April, and in June we heard that he had been diagnosed with a disease, and then he died in July, suddenly, very quickly. It was sad for his wife, for his family, and for his children. We were invited to go to the celebration of his life, which was totally non-religious, because he was totally against organised religion, as I found out when people were telling stories about him.

I sat there listening to the stories and people’s recollections, and I started to feel sad. I felt sad for the people who did not seem to have any hope. In their view, he was dead and gone. Life after death did not exist as far as he was concerned, and probably that is what his family felt too. There was no expectation of seeing him again.

While they were playing some music he liked, some Beatles music and other songs, I thought, “Okay God, is there anything I can do about this? Is there anything that you want me to do?”

Then I felt God say, “Well, you know what to do about it.”

So I thought, “Can I?” And then I decided, okay, I am going to be bold. While everything was quiet and the music was playing, I went to the fire of God’s love and I called him out. I did not know whether he was going to be there, because sometimes people accept Jesus on their deathbed. But he was there.

He came, and I felt the emotion. I felt that he was feeling condemned, not by God, but by self-condemnation and self-anguish, because he realised that his belief systems were not right. He was still alive, not dead. His consciousness was still living. For people who do not believe there is life after death, when they die and discover they are still alive, it is a shock.

So I preached the gospel to him. I shared that God’s love never fails. That even though he had rejected God while he lived, and did not accept that there was a God, God still loved him. God had never rejected him. God still wanted a relationship with him.

I shared that good news, and I offered him that opportunity, to which he responded and accepted. He followed me, and I introduced him to the Father. The Father brought his spirit and soul back together, unified him, clothed him with glory, and placed a ring on his finger of sonship. It was wonderful to see.

I did not stand up and tell people what I had done. That would not have fitted the framework of the meeting. They would probably have thought I was very strange. But now he has a relationship with God.

And death is not the end. It is another opportunity, in a different way, to experience God’s love.

Death Is Not the End of Choice

I know people will say you cannot talk to dead people. But they are not dead. A person’s spirit and soul do not die. Their body may be dead, but they have moved into another realm. We still have an opportunity to share the good news with them, even if they have chosen to reject Jesus and God in this life.

Then I started to feel really happy. There was a sense of joy in what he was now experiencing. Of course, I would want his children and his friends to feel that same joy, and to be awakened to God’s love. But at least for him, he is now out of the consuming fire, out of that refining process, and he is now receiving and accepting God’s love.

Now he knows who he is. And now he is going to go on to fulfil his destiny in that realm. That is good news. These are tremendous opportunities of sharing God’s love. Death is not the end of choice, as I experienced in that testimony. I am not saying I will ever do that again: I do not know. I felt moved by compassion, and God gave me permission.

It shows what is possible.

Responsibility and Opportunity

All of us have the opportunity to preach the good news and help people embrace God’s love, even after they die. There may be family members. There may be situations where we can do this.

In this situation, I was surprised that I even thought about it. But I was feeling so moved, aware that something was missing, something that could have been there, so I chose to do something about it.

He still had the choice. He could have rejected what I shared. But his belief system had already been challenged, because he did not believe there was anything after death. Now he found himself in a place where he thought he was condemned to remain there forever, because he did not know anything different. Even though he had not believed in God, and had not believed in hell, he now assumed that must be where he was. He was full of self-anguish, believing that his decisions in life had placed him there.

But God still loves him. And the love of God can reach people even in that place. It is our responsibility to empty that place of people, to make sure no one is left there, and that they all find the love of God.

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517. Experiencing Heart to Heart Intimacy with God

285. God is Love… BUT

487. My First Hand Experiences Of Hell

502. Breaking Free From Indoctrination | Embracing Love

Mike Parsons –

Over hundreds of years, false doctrine has infiltrated the church and shaped what many people simply accept today.

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Simplicity of the gospel

Over many years, even hundreds of years, false doctrine has infiltrated the church and shaped things into what we see today, and people have simply accepted it. However, there are explanations for this and different alternatives to all of it. To be honest, why spend your time trying to understand something that was never written for you in the first place?

With all of this, whether it is true or not, let us go back to the simplicity of the gospel that Jesus talked about. Let us love one another. We do not have to agree: let us love one another. Let us love the world rather than trying to convince someone of something. Let the Holy Spirit, who is the only one who can renew someone’s mind, do that work. If people are genuine, then you can have a conversation, but if they are just trying to prove you wrong, then it is a waste of time.

A different view of God

If someone is genuinely searching and thinking, “I am struggling because this does not align with God, how could this be God?”, then they are on a journey towards restoration and renewal of their mind, and you can help them along that path. If all they want to do is convince you that you are wrong, and that there is going to be tribulation and judgment and a millennium and all of that, then that is a very deceptive doctrine, and you will not argue someone out of it. I think God will renew many people’s minds and deconstruct a lot of people, but many will remain stuck in religion and in the system, sadly. But many are leaving it, and many are coming to a different view of God.

We can help them discover that God is love by loving them. It is better to love them than to argue with them. It is better to keep a friend than to win an argument and lose a friend. I think saying, “Look, I do not really want to get into a lot of this stuff, because I think it will just cause problems in our relationship, and I value our relationship more than being right,” and leaving it at that, is often the best way.

It is better to keep a friend than to win an argument.

It is a difficult deception that keeps people in darkness and in bondage, and ultimately only God can bring the light into that. If people had tried to convince me that my eschatology was wrong back in the 1980s, I would not have believed them. But God spoke to me. God did it. I could not argue with God. I just went on a journey where he unfolded a whole different view that I had never even imagined.

God deconstructed me himself

I did not read books about it at first. God showed me through the Spirit by taking me through the whole thing. Once I realised that my whole understanding had been twisted, then I found some books that supported that view, and I realised I was not on my own. Loads of other people believed this as well. But I did not find it through other people. God totally deconstructed me over a two or three year period himself. Then that was confirmed by me reading other things, and there were people who were helpful to me, especially David Chilton: Paradise Restored, The Great Tribulation, and The Days of Vengeance, which is his book on Revelation, a massive book. You can find free PDFs online here:

Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (1985)
The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (1987)
The Great Tribulation (1987)

David Chilton started off as a partial preterist in that he believed chapter 20 of Revelation was still future, but he ended up a full preterist because he came to realise that it was all in the past. He got himself excommunicated from the group he was in because he believed that and was persecuted.

Inevitably, I think, if you are open, you will move through partial preterism into preterism. I do not want to be labelled a preterist or not, because there are other things within that system that I do not necessarily think are true, but let us say I am a realised eschatologist. All eschatology is realised. It is already the end. The study of the last things is the study of what happened in the past, not the study of what will happen in the future. For me, that is where I have moved towards.

Not the end of the world

Ultimately, my understanding of that, and the same Bible verses that talk about what would happen at the end of the old covenant, also talk about and have been interpreted as what is hell. Then I realised, I do not believe this is talking about the end of the world. So this is also not the end of the world. Gehenna is not hell. Gehenna is literally talking about the end of the age when the old covenant was put into the fire and destroyed. Jerusalem and the people were put into the fire in Gehenna if they continued in Jerusalem, as Jesus warned them would happen.

They did. The Romans crucified hundreds of thousands and burned them in Gehenna. That was not the end of their life. That was the end of their physical body. Their actual soul would go into the fire of God’s love and hopefully bring about their restoration. I imagine a lot of people would have remembered what Jesus said when the armies turned up, but it was too late if they were besieged, and they would probably have remembered what Jesus said, “You are going to end up in Gehenna.” Hopefully, they would also then have remembered Jesus’s offer of life.

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266. A Happy Eschatology

431. Breaking Free from Deceptive Teaching | Rediscovering God’s Love

426. The Nature of God: Rethinking Our Beliefs

345. The Rapture of the Saints

318. Not the End of the World

441. Unconditional Love – NO BUTS | God definitely IS Love!

Mike Parsons

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God is love—and that love is unconditional. We need to carry that message of unconditional love, of inclusion, of reconciliation and restoration, which God has already brought about in Jesus. Our role is to help people come into the reality of that; to help them experience the truth that they are already reconciled, already loved, and that God holds nothing against them. That is the ministry we are called to.

Sadly, I would say that much of what has been preached as the gospel—particularly in evangelical contexts—has been the opposite. It has been about exclusion. It has been based on works and, far too often, motivated by fear: the fear of punishment rather than the invitation into love.

What I have come to understand—and to experience—is that love can only be unconditional. That means there are no conditions you must meet in order for God to love you. None. And I want to encourage you to embrace that truth, even if just for a moment. There are no conditions for God’s love. Absolutely none.

If you can truly grasp that—experientially, not just intellectually—it will transform your whole life. It has certainly transformed mine. That does not mean life will be without difficulty. That does not mean you will never be tested. But the truth remains: you are loved, because God is unconditional love. And God loves all His children equally—regardless of what you have done, where you have come from, or what you have been through. He loves you as fully as it is possible to be loved. He loves without limits. Lavishly, with no barriers, no hindrances.

This teaching forms part of Mike Parsons’ new book Unconditional Love, which is out in print on 20 June 2025. Order it from your favourite local or online bookseller today, or get the ebook from our website. More details at eg.freedomarc.org/books.

Now, many people accept that God is love, because the Bible says so. But there is often a “but.” Why is that? Because the idea of unconditional love seems too good to be true to an independent or alienated mind. We are separated from God in our own thinking—alienated within the mind of humanity. I believe this mindset comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is the mindset which begins to shift when we experience God for ourselves.

But for so many, it has been shaped and programmed by religion. All religion is man-made. God never intended it. He has always wanted relationship. Yet religion has taken something that is already ours and made it into something we have to earn or deserve—or a state we must appease God to reach. That same religious programming has presented us with a view of God as angry, disappointed, or frustrated with us. But God is none of those things. He loves us unconditionally, and He wants us to truly experience that.

People say, “Yes, God is love… but He is also holy”—as if His holiness contradicts His love. Or, “Yes, God is love… but He is also righteous,” as though love and righteousness are somehow opposed. Or, “Yes, God is love… but He is also just”—again implying that justice counteracts love. These are all religiously programmed ideas. I used to believe them myself because I had never experienced the truth, which made it easy to believe the lies.

Some say, “Yes, God is love… but He is also a judge,” as if that makes Him a harsh judge who is looking to find us guilty. But love keeps no record of wrongs. So how could He ever find us guilty?

Another one: “Yes, God is love… but He cannot look upon sin.” People usually mean behaviour when they say that—but sin, in reality, is lost identity. If God cannot look at a lost world, how could Jesus ever have come And of course God is not only looking at this world—He is present in every single person. He is working within everyone to bring them into the reality of their relationship with Him, into their inclusion in Christ. We have already been reconciled in Christ. We have already been made righteous in Christ. We have already been made holy in Christ. We did nothing to make that happen. He did it all.

Religion is full of “buts.” And all those “buts” do is undermine the truth that God is love—unless you believe the false doctrines that paint God as two-faced: loving in the New Testament, but angry in the Old. Even within the New Testament, people sometimes see wrath and anger. But they do not realise that the word orge, often translated “wrath,” also means “passion.” God is passionate—passionate about removing anything that hinders our relationship with Him. That passion is not about fury or violence; it is about His relentless, determined love working to bring about transformation.

Religious deception has distorted the nature of God, separating aspects of His character and creating a false image of love that punishes. But what loving father would punish his children eternally? This kind of theology has created a God who is hard to trust—a God who claims to love, yet threatens to torment unless we do things a certain way. That is not who God is.

Many people have been fooled into trying to earn something that is already theirs by inheritance. As God’s children, we have a right to relationship with Him. That is not something we must strive for—it is something embedded in the very nature of who He is and who we are. The deception is in making us believe that we have to do something to get something. But the truth is that we are already God’s children, and therefore we are already loved—unconditionally—by a Father overflowing with lovingkindness. It is not that we must do something. We only have to realise something, to come into the full awareness of it.

Religion has twisted the meanings of holiness and righteousness by misinterpreting concepts like judgment and justice. That distortion is what has created the false narrative of hell—a place where God punishes and tortures His children eternally. But in truth, God loves His children eternally. He will never stop loving, never give up—until we fully experience that love. His love is a purifying, refining fire. A consuming fire that burns away every obstacle and objection until nothing remains but pure, unconditional love.

Holiness, righteousness, judgement, justice—none of these contradict unconditional love. In fact, they flow from it:
Holiness expresses love.
Righteousness reveals love.
Judgment results from love.
Justice enforces love.

The judgment of God, made on behalf of all humanity and all creation, is this: not guilty. If you are not guilty, then you are innocent. And if we would only see ourselves the way God sees us—as innocent—we would begin to live from that place of understanding and experience.

God cannot be a contradiction. He is either love, or He is not. And He most definitely is love.

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244. The Hell Delusion

342. “God Punishes Those He Loves!”

406. Recognise the Finished Work of Jesus

435. One of the Saddest Things

Mike Parsons

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What you’ve experienced, no one can challenge—unless you let them. I don’t need to enter arguments or debates about theology because I’ve encountered the living God face to face, and I know him. No one will convince me of anything other than that God is love, no matter what theology or doctrines they use to try and challenge me. I know God is love.

Here’s a quote from Keith Giles—one of my favourites—from the Gospel of Philip. And yes, there are other gospels beyond what’s in the Bible. If you’re interested, I’d encourage you to explore some of them—with discernment, of course. These texts can offer insight into truths that aren’t necessarily in the canon of Scripture. That doesn’t make them wrong.

The quote says: “If you become whole, you will be filled with light. But if you’re divided, you will be filled with darkness.” That’s not a legalistic rule-following salvation message. It’s not a rule—it’s an invitation to transformation. As we are transformed, we are transfigured—filled with light. But if we’re broken, fragmented, divided, then we experience elements of darkness that limit who we really are. We are beings of light, made in the image of God—who is light.

The Gospel of Philip doesn’t offer easy answers, and that’s what makes it powerful. It invites us into the mystery. It invites us on a journey rather than offering a neat doctrine. Isn’t that what faith is really about? Don’t settle for doctrine or theology—go on a journey to experience the mystery, the intimacy of God himself.

He is the light that lights every man who comes into the world. That’s in the Bible. Everyone has the light of Jesus—the light of life. Some know it, some don’t. But the gospel is that all will know it. That’s the message we carry: that all will come to know. And we want them to know now—not to wait until their deathbed or even after they’ve died. We want them to step into the fullness of who they really are now, and to know that God is with them and in them.

If you claim to teach grace, but add a condition—a caveat that requires self-effort to receive it—you’ve left grace and entered the land of mixture. As Paul said, that’s another gospel. Don’t fall into it. Don’t believe a gospel that places conditions on grace or love. There is nothing we need to do to receive it. We simply accept it. There’s nothing we can do to make it true—it already is.

When people say the Bible is their authority, what they’re really saying is their interpretation of the Bible is their authority. That was me for much of my Christian life. I believed the Bible was my authority—but which version? Which interpretation? My own? Or what I was taught and conditioned to believe growing up?

SERIES INFORMATION: This video is an excerpt from Mike's current teaching series, Restoring First Love. Get the full length videos every month, only at eg.freedomarc.org/first-love

One of the saddest things

One of the saddest things I’ve seen on Facebook was a quote from Paul Washer, a pastor in the Southern Baptist tradition. He said, “The moment you take your first step through the gates of hell, the only thing you will hear is all of creation standing on its feet, applauding and praising God because God has rid the earth of you.” That, to me, is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. It so completely contradicts the reality of who God is and what his love is like.

I looked the guy up. He pastors something called “Grace Community Church.” If that’s not the biggest oxymoron I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is. Someone who read the quote wrote, “It’s not the guy I have a problem with—he’s sincerely saying what he believes to be true, and for him, it feels compassionate to share it that way. The issue is the distorted portrait of God being painted with these horrible words. Think about it: God is obligated to torture you forever because you’re worthless and unholy? A holy, just God must rid the earth of you—a divine image-bearer—and all creation will stand and worship when it happens? How could something be so utterly wrong?”

It’s wrong because the people who created that doctrine never met the Father face to face. They only studied the Bible and believed what they were told it says. But when the only thing you’ve received is the Father’s love, the only thing you can give is the Father’s love. No judgment. No hate. No “us vs them.” God treats you as his child, the apple of his eye, the treasure of his heart. You are loved unconditionally. You don’t have to perform to earn that love. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

When the only thing you receive is the Father’s love, that becomes the key to everything. The Father’s love is what brings change and transformation in us so that we can love as we have been loved.

Here’s another quote, this time from Brian Zahnd: “We all make errors in our theology—you and me both. So my recommendation is to err on the side of love.” Why? Because God is not doctrine. God is not denomination. God is not war. God is not law. God is not hate. God is not hell. God is love.

Let’s focus on that reality: God is love. That is the truth. That is the reality. God is love. There is never a time when God isn’t thinking about you. You were on his mind before the foundation of the world. His thoughts toward you are always good.

Unconditional love doesn’t demand a choice or decision. It simply loves. It accepts. It includes. Jesus included everyone in his death so that everyone would be included in his resurrection. He saved the whole world—not just some, not just those alive in his time, but all of mankind. All who have lived, and all who ever will live. All died with him. All have been resurrected with him. That is the power of the gospel.

If we want to discover truth, we must be willing to set aside comforting illusions and traditional preconceptions. We must let truth declare itself to us. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. As Don Keathley says, “Be willing for truth to challenge what you currently or previously believed.” Don’t cling so tightly to doctrine and theology that it keeps you from the truth—and keeps you in bondage

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