Tag: God

44. The Supernatural Kingdom of God

daniel

Mike Parsons–

We are continuing to look at the kingdom of God as prophesied in the book of Daniel.

How great are His signs
And how mighty are His wonders!
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom
And His dominion is from generation to generation

(Daniel 4:3).

Supernatural

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of power and supernatural manifestations. Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world. That is because it is heaven being manifested on the earth:

… For He is the living God and enduring forever, 
And His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, 
And His dominion will be forever.
He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders
In heaven and on earth…
(Dan 6:26-27).

What He does in heaven, he also does on earth, including signs and wonders.

We encourage people to get hold of Bill Johnson’s books, because he talks about how heaven invades earth through God’s people. People are only going to be convinced of the truth of the gospel, as Paul tells us, not by wise and persuasive words but by demonstration of the Spirit and of power – in other words, with signs, wonders and miracles.

Greater works

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father (John 14:12).

I spent a whole year teaching on this verse not so long ago. It is Jesus’ mandate to us, to His disciples, to His church. It is the same mandate of kingdom authority which was originally given to Adam and Eve in the Garden, but which they lost.

That is why I am not just looking for us to get back to the level of power and authority which the disciples displayed in the book of Acts. The level of the supernatural power of God that Adam and Eve possessed was vastly superior to that. They would have been capable of supernatural manifestations way beyond anything we see in the early church. And if Jesus will remain in heaven until the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21), then we are going to see that level of power and authority restored.

Freely give

Freely you have received: freely give (Matt 10:8).

As we go out with the message of this kingdom, we are to give away what we have received. This encourages us to seek God for more manifestations of the supernatural in our own lives, because the more signs and wonders and supernatural manifestations of God’s power we have received, the more we can give away. Signs and wonders should overflow from our lives as we engage with God in the heavenly realms and live out that reality in our daily lives. One of the phrases God spoke to me while I was on the fast was about ‘living in and living out the manifest presence of God’.

The glory of God is no good to people if it is locked up inside us. It is time for us to shine. And I do believe we will literally shine, that our faces will glow with the radiance of God’s glory. It happened to Moses – it can happen again. And that will cause people to sit up and take notice.

We will find that when the shaking comes, as it will, then words will not be enough. We will need to be able to live demonstrating the truth by the manifestation of God’s kingdom. So we must get ready for that time, we must throw off all the idols, all the hurt and disappointment with which the enemy seeks to weigh us down. He is just trying to intimidate us, just trying to cause us to back off. We cannot allow that to happen.

Hungry

We need to be increasingly hungry and thirsty to pursue God. We need to get everything going, everything God has for us. When prayer and impartation are being offered, I always encourage people to come forward for everything. In a sense it doesn’t matter what it is! For myself, I always try to find a way I can fit into the category of people who are being called forward. I want more; I want everything there is which will empower me, prepare me and equip me to be manifested as a son of God, as a joint heir with Christ.

We need to grasp the reality of this: sons of God, joint heirs with Christ:that is what  we are (Rom 8:14-17).

Superheroes

Let’s be willing to be superheroes. Some of you know how much I love science fiction. Some of the super-powers that those characters have on films and in TV series, I believe we will literally be like that. People will see the power coming from our fingers. We will be able to move instantly from one place to another. In the Spirit. And yes, we will shine. People will either run from us or fall on their faces asking, ‘what must we do to be saved?‘

Honestly, I believe that is what it will be like when we are truly ‘living in and living out’ the supernatural kingdom of God.

Soundtrack: Jesus Culture – We Are Hungry via YouTube
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42. A Dwelling Of God

Mike Parsons –

In Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream that Jesus would come in the time of the Roman Empire to set up a kingdom which would continue to grow, and would overcome all other kingdoms. Daniel 7:18 tells us that … the saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come. We are those saints, and the kingdom is ours to possess.

… the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom (Dan 7:22).

No end

We will possess it for ever, and for all ages to come. It is not going to be another group of people, it is going to be God’s people, His saints, the church, who will possess that kingdom and be involved in continuing to expand it. Even after Jesus returns, and we go into the age to come, the kingdom will go on increasing. There will be no end of the increase of His government. It will not end when Jesus returns and there are a new heavens and a new earth. There is a whole universe, multiverses maybe, into which that kingdom will expand, and ‘the saints of the Highest One’ are going to be instrumental in that.

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this’(Isa 9:6-7).

If the government rests on Jesus’ shoulders, who are the shoulders? We are His body, and His shoulders are part of His body.

Above

… He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph 1:20-23).

So Jesus is above everything. This is a New Testament scripture now, saying the same things about Jesus’ rule, His kingdom. Look at the last few words there again, ‘the church … His body … fills all’. The expansion of the kingdom is going to come through Jesus’ body, the church.

The early church was made up originally of Jewish people. Then Peter had a vision which led him to preach to Cornelius and his family, who were not Jewish but got saved and became part of the church, and in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem James talks about the Tabernacle of David being restored, meaning that the gospel is going out to the whole earth.

Stone

That is why Paul writes to the mostly non-Jewish believers in Ephesus, So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22).

Here again we see that Stone which was ‘cut out without hands’ in Daniel 2. You can say He is the foundation stone too, because the foundation which the apostles and prophets laid was none other than Jesus (this passage is not saying that the apostles and prophets are the foundation, but that the church is built on the foundation which they laid). We are the temple now, a ‘holy temple in the Lord’, and – this is the most wonderful part – ‘a dwelling of God in the Spirit’.

We know He dwells in us individually, but this passage is saying that He dwells in us corporately. We are beginning to experience this, that when we come together we are a dwelling of God in the Spirit, and His Presence manifests among us – that is what the glory of God is all about.

Soundtrack: Dave Fitzgerald (feat Jenn Johnson) We Are An Ark live at Bethel Church via YouTube

Heart/universe image courtesy of finemayer via Pixabay.

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41. The Kingdom of God is Filling the Earth

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

The Kingdom of God is filling the earth.

You continued looking until a stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were crushed all at the same time and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away so that not a trace of them was found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth Daniel 2:34-35 .

Daniel is interpreting the dream the king has had, in which he has seen a statue representing four empires: Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. In the time of the Roman Empire, a stone was to be cut out. That stone is Jesus and the mountain is His kingdom, which will fill the whole earth:

In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever (Daniel 2:44).

So God is setting up a kingdom which will not fail. It explicitly tells us that it is not going to be left for another people. It is going to overcome all the other kingdoms. These are truths that the enemy has fought hard to keep from us, because if we really get hold of them we will no longer be sitting around saying, ‘Jesus, come and rescue us’. Instead we will be saying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus, empower us to play our part in seeing this victory, the kingdom of God filling the earth’.

Here is another passage about the same kingdom:

I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.

And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed’
(Daniel 7:13-14).

Now, is this all just pie in the sky? Let me give you some facts and figures about how the kingdom is advancing. Let’s look at what God has done since 120 people in an upper room were empowered by the Holy Spirit and fire, spilled out onto the street and eventually into the whole world.

  • In AD100, there were 360 non-Christians for every true believer, a ratio of 360:1. Today, the ratio is less than 7:1. That means that the kingdom of God is filling the earth. It really is.
  • No Christian was officially allowed to live in Nepal until 1960. Now there is a church in every one of the 75 districts of Nepal with estimates of over half a million believers in that nation.
  • Every day, 20,000 Africans come to Christ. Africa was 3% Christian in 1900 but today it is over 50% Christian.That is a whole continent where more than half the people are Christians.
  • In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church and the country was deemed impossible to penetrate. Today Korea is 30% Christian with 7000 churches in Seoul alone (and several of those churches have over 1,000,000 members each).
  • Every day 50,000 people in countries served by Asia Access come to Christ.
  • There are currently 60-80 million Christians in China with up to 25,000 converts a day. That is thought to be a very conservative estimate indeed. The church there is growing fast, under persecution.
  • 35,000 conversions occur in Latin America  daily

If only 1 out of every 6 believers reproduced themselves one time each year, that is if just one in six of us made a single disciple each year (and one in six of those did the same), the entire world would be reached for Christ in 8 years! That is even without a massive outpouring, even without the River of Life being released into the earth as we believe it will be.

Jesus said the kingdom was going to be like leaven spreading through the dough. He also said it would be like a little seed that grows into a massive tree.

Make no mistake about it. We are winning. The kingdom of God is filling the earth. We belong to that kingdom, and that kingdom belongs to us.

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40. Challenging the Sacred Cows

Mike Parsons –

I pointed out last time that there are widespread demonic doctrines entrenched in the church, which attempt to place the kingdom of God and the authority of that kingdom in another time, or give them to another people.

Old Covenant

The enemy will always try to take us back to an Old Covenant system. The Old Covenant system was one country, one city, one temple. That is where God was, He wasn’t manifest anywhere else, whereas in the New Covenant God is everywhere. He is in His people; we are the temple and we don’t need another temple. But to try to rob the church of power and authority, the enemy has tried to make the church equal a building, a temple somewhere. That is not what the church is. It is a people called out by God, in relationship with Him and with one another in the kingdom of God.

Again, the enemy will always try to bring us back to an Old Covenant system where there is a priest, rather than all of us being priests, all of us having access to God. God does not want us to have any mediator other than Jesus; He is the only one we need. Yes, there are people with different gifts and calls within the church, but every one of us has the capacity to hear God for ourselves. Leadership in the church does not need to hear God for you. You need to hear God for yourself, otherwise all you are doing is obeying somebody else.

Destiny

God wants to inspire and touch each of our hearts, and release everyone into their personal destiny. Every person reading this has a destiny in God to fulfil, but the enemy has tried to rob us of that destiny by all sorts of methods and means. So God is saying, ‘Rise up, fulfil your destiny.’

Now there are a whole herd of sacred cows in the church that we are going to have to challenge. I am only doing this because God told me to challenge them. Left to myself, I really didn’t want to do it. But as I have mentioned before, I went to a conference with Bill Johnson and Jill Austin, and I shook for a whole day until I stopped resisting what God was telling me to do. God was wanting to put a sword in my hand, and I knew what that would mean. But if persecution comes because of it then we need to be prepared and we need to have the answers. We need to know what God is saying, we need to know where we fit into that, what God is calling us to. We need to know what we believe and why we believe it.

Kingdom dominion

We have to prepare for kingdom dominion. Kingdom dominion is what God’s intention was from the beginning. ‘Now it will come about in the last days  that the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains and will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it (Is 2:2). This is one of the key scriptures to understand, and this truth runs right throughout the bible, yet the enemy tries to put it off so that we think it is not for us.

We are going to see that it is indeed for us. This scripture is talking about the kingdom of God operating through the church. It will be chief of all the mountains, and mountains speak of authority. Authority will operate through the church; I am not talking about political authority, but about spiritual authority in the earth. We are to have spiritual dominion over all the works of the enemy, which will bring the blessing of God to the earth. That is what Adam and Eve were called to do.

Centre of the world stage

All the systems of the world culture will fail – they are only ‘hills’, you notice – they will come to nothing, and in the shaking of the world’s systems we will need to be ready to be raised up. I am sure that shaking will be beyond anything we can imagine right now, and in the midst of that, the church must be ready to rise up to provide the answers that all those worldly systems were unable to provide.

We need medical answers, financial answers, spiritual answers, governmental answers, societal answers; we need demonstrations of wisdom and knowledge and authority and power. Ryan Wyatt says (quoting Bobby Conner, I think), ‘The church is going to be taken out of the corner of the field and placed right in the center of the world stage’. When the medical systems fail people are going to be desperate for healing. Who is going to be able to heal? We are. We can lay hands on the sick and see them recover. When the financial systems start to fall, folk are going to be drawn to a people who are flourishing and being blessed. Again, that will be us, because we have supernatural provision and supernatural transfer of wealth to us.

We need to be ready to receive all these things and operate in them, because we are blessed to be a blessing and to bring heaven to earth.

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39. Demonic Doctrines in the Church

Mike Parsons –

In looking at the prophetic timetable which God showed me, it is clear that a time of persecution is coming. As with everything else, we need to be prepared for it.

Persecution

Where is it going to come from? Well, there are Nephilim spirits which are controlling world systems at the moment, but they are hiding. When the light starts to shine into the darkness, it begins to expose them. It says in Matthew that when Jesus returns, it will be like in the days of Noah. If you want to look into that in more detail, in a previous post we have already considered some of what that might mean. In short, there was open warfare going on upon the earth. If those days are returning, we need to be prepared for open warfare once again.

There is going to be a massive persecution which comes through the religious church. This is because there are so many demonic doctrines operating in the church at large which hinder us and have robbed us of power and authority. When we start to challenge those doctrines, all sorts of religious spirits start to kick off.

If you look at the internet, you will find far too many people from some sections of the church criticising and complaining against other Christians and other moves of God. Come to that, I have had books and leaflets and emails and CDs and DVDs given to me and even posted through my letterbox telling me that everything we see of God moving in supernatural power is actually demonic.

There is a reason why those things are happening. The enemy gets worried when the church begins to rise up, and starts to operate in the power of God and in the authority that God has given us. He tries to get other people (and especially other Christians) to start criticising what is going on, so that it causes disunity and disharmony which disrupts the move of God and makes the church ineffective again.

Where is the fruit?

If you are truly concerned about whether what is going on here (or anywhere else) is a genuine move of God, the answer is to look at the fruit. If it is not of God, it will just fall away. If it is of God, it will produce fruit. Are lives being transformed? Are people being saved and healed? Certainly they are, and there will be more besides.

But the critics I am speaking about will not be satisfied with that. The challenge to God moving supernaturally comes from entrenched doctrines which place the kingdom of God and the authority of that kingdom in another time, or give them to another people. Even just to point that out has a tendency to cause religious spirits to kick off really heavily. Those entrenched doctrines are false doctrines. Was it only in New Testament times that the power of God worked, or will the kingdom only be manifest a thousand years in the future? The only thing you can be sure of is that as far as these people are concerned, it certainly isn’t for us and it certainly isn’t now.

Defeat and rescue?

This kind of thinking has bred an eschatology (that is, an understanding of the end times) of defeat and rescue, that Jesus is going to come and rescue a weak, pitiful, defeated church. That is just a complete lie. If you read the Bible, how could you possibly believe that is going to happen? But it has been taught, and for years and years the church has fallen for it. This is one of the biggest areas that stirs up controversy. As soon as you begin to question people’s eschatology, it causes stink.

Lots of prophetic people around the world are facing a problem in these days, and some of them are quite well known people. Their problem is that what God is showing them prophetically just doesn’t match up with their own eschatological beliefs. One or two of them have been brave enough to stand up and say so, but have quickly lowered their heads below the parapet again because of the hail of abuse and criticism they received for doing so, especially in the USA and Canada. They end up trying to fit what God is saying into an eschatology that doesn’t work.

Jesus is coming back for a victorious church. This is not triumphalism, it is the plain truth of scripture. The kingdom of God is going to be raised up, and we will look some more at this next time.

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36. Blessing the Whole Earth

olives-1307154_1280

Mike Parsons – 

There is a level of resources that the church currently does not have but is going to need in order to accomplish what God intends in these last days. This is no surprise to Him, and He has planned for it in advance, so that throughout scripture we can find His promises of a wealth transfer – of financial resources coming to His people in these last days, out of the world and into the kingdom.

Promises

We looked at some of those promises last time, and I encourage you to go over them again and again, until you grasp the magnitude of what God is planning. Those promises are there for us to begin to seize upon, and pray into, and to see them manifest. But to help us, one thing we have noticed before is that for every promise yet to be fulfilled in its fullness, God has given us forerunners, examples, little tasters if you will, that have already happened. So before we go any further in this post, let us look at some of those examples in the Bible, of wealth transfers that have already taken place.

The first of those is Israel coming out of Egypt. ‘I will grant this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed… Thus you will plunder the Egyptians’ (Ex 3:21-22). You can read about it there (and in Exodus 12): they went out with all the gold and all the treasure of Egypt.

Secondly, Israel inherited the promised land. Maybe you have never seen this as a wealth transfer, but that is what it was. They didn’t go in to a land that was empty: it was full of all sorts of good things. ‘I gave you a land on which you had not laboured, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant’ (Josh 24:13). We need to realise that God has a provision for us which has nothing to do with how much we can get for ourselves.

Again, maybe you have read the story where four lepers walked into the camp of the Assyrians – they were outcasts and desperate men – and yet they collected all the wealth of the Assyrian army, because God had come and scared the Assyrians, so that they had all run away (2 Kings 7). God can do that for us.

Joseph, as we have seen before, was promoted from the dungeon to the second highest office in the land and was able to administer all the wealth and produce of Egypt.

Covenant

Now Deuteronomy 8:18 says this; But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

The reason God wants to bless us, to give us an abundance, is so that we can fulfil His covenant, the covenant in which He promised: ‘And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed’. Notice that the covenant is intended to bring the blessing of God, not to one person or even to one people, but to the whole earth. God’s desire is to see every family of the earth blessed, coming under His kingdom power and authority, and becoming part of His family. We are the people through whom He has chosen to accomplish that, and that is why He desires to bless us.

So if you want lots of money in order to have all kinds of nice creature comforts in your life, then you have really missed the point of these promises. The point of this transfer of wealth is to confirm His covenant and to enable His people to fulfil the dreams and visions that He has given them. God does want to bless us, He does want to transfer wealth to us; but we need to be positioned to receive it. We need to be prepared, so that when it comes we will not squander it, but will be ready to put it to proper use.

Over to you:
What dreams and visions has God given to you?
What financial resources would it take for you to accomplish them?
Are you expecting a wealth transfer?
(Please feel free to post your comments below).

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35. The Wealth of the Nations

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

We have begun to glimpse the scale of the task facing the church if we are to reap a harvest of harvesters and train them up effectively in the supernatural. But God has a plan to ensure we have the resources to achieve all that He is asking of us, and part of that plan is that there is going to be a wealth transfer, out of the world, and into the Kingdom of God, into the church (ekklesia). In order to equip the number of harvesters we are expecting to come in, we are seriously going to need extra resources – and on a grand scale. God wants to position us so that we are ready for that wealth transfer. There are plenty of scriptures that promise this, and we will look at some of them:

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous’ (Prov 13:22). Is there anyone righteous reading this? If so, then you can know that wealth is being stored up for you.

For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God’s sight (Ecc 2:26). If you are good in God’s sight, then what should you expect?

He who increases his wealth by interest and usury gathers it for him who is gracious to the poor. (Prov 28:8). If you know what we do here at the Freedom Centre during the week, you will know that we are gracious to the poor. Therefore we can expect to receive the wealth that is being raised by interest and usury (the world’s financial system, which robs people).

We really need to get hold of these scriptures, meditate upon them, and start expecting to see these promises start to manifest.

Then you will see and be radiant and your heart will thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you (Isa 60:5). The ‘wealth of the nations’: you can spritualise that if you really want to, but actually it means ‘money’.

Your gates will be open continually. They will not be closed day or night, so that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations (Isa 60:11). That tells me that we need to be open, and ready to receive.

But you will be called the priests of the LORD; you will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast (Isa 61:6).

This is a powerful one in Haggai: “I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the LORD of hosts.  “The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,” declares the LORD of hosts.  “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,”says the LORD of hosts, “and in this place I will give peace,” declares the LORD of hosts (Hag 2:7-9).

The Lord of the Angel Armies says that the wealth of the nations is going to come to His house when He starts to shake the nations. Who is His house? We are, the church is. And is He starting to shake the nations? We have seen that He is beginning to do just that. This scripture even talks about silver and gold – how much clearer could it be? God is promising financial blessing. And the glory of the latter house (that is the church) will be greater than even the former glory (of Solomon’s Temple).

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jer 29:11). I want you to grasp this for yourself as an individual today. The word ‘prosper’ means to be successful, to increase, and to have more than enough. That is what God’s plan is for you. You do need to position yourself so that you can receive it, and we will look at how we do that.

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 1:2). ‘In all respects’. That doesn’t leave anything out – God wants us to prosper in body, soul and spirit.

Remember, we are not talking about having loads of money just for the fun of it. We are talking about having enough resources to be able to do all that God has called us to do, and even more than enough so that out of our abundance we can bless others. There will be degrees of this. You might only need a million pounds to accomplish what God intends for you – there might be some who need billions. There may be some who need 10p, who knows? But whatever the amount, you need to have enough to fulfil God’s will for your life.

We will pick this up again next time, as we look in the Bible at some examples of wealth transfers that have already happened.

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34. Enlarge The Place Of Your Tent

Mike Parsons  –

In all that we are sharing about the Prophetic Timetable, it is important to remember that God has not revealed this simply so that we can be fascinated as we look into it and see what He is doing: He has revealed it so that we can be prepared to play our part. There is a place of authority that God has always intended us to occupy, in which the authority of God is expressed through our lives as we bring heaven to earth. All the earthly systems are about to be shaken and all the world will turn to the church for the answers: we need to be ready.

I have mentioned before that I believe that the first harvest of labourers, the harvest of harvesters, will amount to 20% of the population. Worldwide, that would be over a billion people. If that scale is too hard to imagine, let’s look closer to home: the population of Barnstaple and the surrounding villages is around 48000 according to the latest figures I could find, probably closer to 50000 by now. 20% of that is 10000 individuals. What would it take for the local church in our relatively small market town to handle an influx of 10000 people right now (I don’t mean just Freedom Church, but all the churches across the area)?

There are 20 churches who are part of the Barnstaple Churches Together network, and only a handful of them have congregations over 100 at the moment. Could each church take 500 people, disciple them and equip them to go out and reach the rest of the population? What if there were only 10 churches who were prepared for that? That would be 1000 each. No wonder we are thinking we need a bigger building! The biggest auditorium in North Devon is probably the Queen’s Theatre, which holds 600. Possibly if you used our local Leisure Centre you could squeeze in a few more. Even in a town like Barnstaple you would have 10 churches needing 10 places that size or bigger.

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And if only 3 churches were ready… in that case, we are going to need the whole site we have been believing for. That is why some of us have been making those declarations and prayer-walking and staking out the boundary God has shown us. If you look on a map, or this aerial view, it is shaped like a footprint, with our present building at the ‘big toe’ (centre right, marked with our butterfly logo). That is very fitting, because God told Joshua that he would possess everywhere he set his foot. And just as God really intended Israel to take the blessing to the whole world, that footprint is not the limit of our inheritance or our influence – it is just the base from which we would look to reach out to transform our whole community (however wide that is).

So what if people came from further afield? In the revival here in 2012 we saw folk coming from the south of the county, from Torquay, from Cornwall and Somerset. If we are to be a regional apostolic centre, how big is the region? How big is our vision? As I update this post in mid-2015, we are connecting with thousands of people around the globe through our ‘Engaging God‘ programme, blog, websites, social media and YouTube channel. Wherever you are reading this, how does all this translate into your situation, your church, your community?

All this may well get you thinking: and it is just one aspect of what it would take to disciple and equip the harvest of labourers. I am really only quickly sketching it out now as an introduction to what I want to get into, which is this: if we are going to do all that God is showing us, we are going to need resources way beyond what we now have at our disposal. It is just one line on that Prophetic Timetable, but it is an important one: there is going to be a wealth transfer, to enable us to do all those things to which God is calling us.

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32. Nations Will Stream To It

Mike Parsons –

Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it (Isa 2:2).

There is going to be a shaking.
I would encourage you to read and meditate on these verses:

And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven”. This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:26-29).

Shaking

It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:31). But we have an opportunity to surrender to that fire, to allow Him to consume all the rubbish that is in our lives so that He can prepare us. Everything that has been man-made and created in this world – every system, such as humanism, that has been created to rule over the world and to show forth man’s power and what man can do – all of those things are going to be shaken in these days, and shaken to such a degree that the whole structure is going to collapse.

We have to be ready.

The religious systems are going to be shaken and shown up as false, counterfeit and worthless: they will have no answers for people in these days. The whole worldly system will be shaken to its very core. We have seen what a little ripple in the financial system can do, with people buying up debt which couldn’t be repaid: it shook the world – and that is nothing compared to what it is going to be like when these things are not just shaken a little, but are shaken until they totally collapse.

The same is true of the education system, governmental systems, the media, arts, the entertainment business, the whole medical system. There are going to be diseases which the medical experts have no answers for, and some of them will actually be man-made created diseases which are going to be released in the world. I have seen this, and I know others have too. But when the world has no idea what to do in the face of these diseases, we are going to have the answers. That’s why we need to be equipped with healing power.

Meltdown

Where are people going to go when the world’s system is in total meltdown, in famine and collapse? When every one of those systems is shaken to its core, their root of materialism is going to be exposed. Materialism has been defined as ‘looking for material answers to meet spiritual needs’, and that is how the world’s system operates: it offers things to meet our need, and it will be exposed as a sham. All the counterfeits are going to be exposed for what they are: powerless to bring eternal salvation or lasting change. All man-made humanistic systems will be shaken; all the ‘-ologies’ and the ‘-isms’ and suchlike philosophies are going to fall. They are going to become meaningless when people have nothing and nowhere to go, when everything they have put their trust in is suddenly useless.

So where are they going to go? They are going to be looking for a people who are ready. They are going to turn to a people who have the answers, to a people who are operating in genuine supernatural power, who can offer safety and security and provision, healing and miracles. Every system that man trusts in and relies upon will fail. All the cultural systems, the whole of society as we know it, will crumble.  The Word of God talks about it, and that is why God is calling us worldwide to be prepared for this to take place. That is why He is warning us, that is why He is saying now is the time to deal with the stumbling blocks, to deal with the idols, and to allow Him to start moving in us so that we are ready when it comes.

This is what it will be like:

The proud look of man will be abased and the loftiness of man will be humbled, and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty and against everyone who is lifted up, that he may be abased. Against all the lofty mountains, against all the hills that are lifted up against the knowledge of truth (Isa 2:11-14).

‘Mountains’ are authorities, systems of authority, and they are going to come down because their pride is in man.

It was knowledge, apart from God, that the devil offered Eve in the garden of Eden, and she took up that offer. Ever since, man has been trying to do things apart from God, and set up his own systems to achieve this.

They are all coming down.

Soundtrack: We Shall Not Be Shaken – Matt Redman (via YouTube)

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29. Surrender Your Whole Life

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

abandon

I believe that God is challenging us to surrender. And especially if you have been hardening your heart when you have seen God at work in revival, resisting what He is doing because things are not as you expected, this is an opportunity for you to surrender totally to Him, and allow Him to do what He needs to do.

All of us, everything

Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19).

If we are willing to turn away from ourselves and surrender to Him, He will refresh us with His very Presence. That is a promise: the question is, are we willing, or do we still want to do it our own way? Do we still want to do it according to our own thinking or are we willing to surrender that and allow God to do it however He chooses? Are we willing to give Him everything? He wants our heart; He wants our mind; He wants it all. He is not satisfied with what we are giving Him: all of us need to surrender everything.

Let us abandon ourselves to Him: be that living sacrifice we looked at last time, and let it all go. Let go of our past and let Him heal it and restore it. He will restore our soul if we are willing to sit in green pastures by quiet waters and look at His face. See His eyes, looking at us, loving us. Seeing our pain and our hurt, and bringing healing because He loves us. He went to the cross and took every sickness, every pain, every disease, every sorrow; He took every sin we have committed or ever will, every sin that has been committed against us, and He died for us. And He was resurrected and is alive to enforce the victory of the cross in our lives – if we will allow Him to do it.

The question is, will we let it go? We need to receive our true identity as sons of God. The only way we receive it is letting go of our old identity, letting go of our old way of doing it, our old strongholds and mindsets, to embrace our destiny. Every one of us has a destiny in God, God wants us to embrace it.

Today

And today, I really believe, is the time when we need to make a decision in our hearts. Some of us have been lukewarm, resistant, doing as little as we have thought we could get away with. If we have been thinking that would be OK, we need to recognise that is not enough anymore. It never was. It is not enough to play around with this: God wants our whole life: everything. And when we give Him our whole life, we receive His abundant life in return; we get everything we ever desired or wanted, but has been blocked by our stubbornness, because of the flesh and the strongholds that get in the way.  Today is the time when we can surrender.

Can we take a minute to be quiet, close our eyes, and be honest before God about where we are with Him right now? If we are struggling, to surrender that struggle. If we know there are things we have not handed over to Him, to hand them over now. Just count the cost of what doing things our own way might be for us, if we miss what God is doing right now. Consider where it will lead us and where it will take us, compared to what will happen if we surrender our life to God, compared to our destiny in God,  in the Holy Spirit, in the future Kingdom of God.

Selah

Please, pause for a minute to do that, and only continue reading this post when you are done.

Prayer of surrender

Now I am inviting you to pray with me if you are willing to surrender the whole of your life. Whether you have prayed a prayer of surrender like this before, or whether this is the first time, He wants to give you so much more than you can imagine or think, but He cannot if you are not surrendering everything to Him. Surrender to Him right now. Forget what anyone else is doing around you, just get in the presence of God.

Father,
I pray that You will receive the living sacrifice
That I am presenting before You right now.
That You will receive it into Your hand,
Receive my life, receive my soul,
My mind, my heart, my will, my emotions, my choice.
Receive me as a living sacrifice,
Heal, restore, make whole,
Empower, envision, equip;
Draw me into an intimate relationship with You, Father.

As I surrender to You,
Come, meet with me at that point of surrender.
As I surrender my life, give me Your abundant life;
As I surrender my hurts and pains, bring healing and restoration;
As I surrender my past, give me revelation of my future.
Open up the eyes of my heart to see, to hear, to feel and to know
Who I am as Your son.
Release my true identity as Your son,
Called to the kingdom for such a time as this.
Prepare my body with fragrant oils and fragrant perfume
To come into the presence of the King.

I come into the presence of the King right now
As a living sacrifice,
To present it before You in the heavenly realms
So that I can take my seat,
Seated with Christ in authority and power in the heavenly realms;
To manifest Your kingdom
On earth, as it is in heaven, through my life,
Manifesting the light of Your glory.
Take me, Lord God,
Take my heart, melt it with Your love.

With Your eyes of love
You are looking into people’s hearts, saying,
“Give Me your heart,
Stop being stubborn,
Stop resisting;
Surrender,
Be a living sacrifice.
I have so much to give you,
So much more than you can imagine or think.
Today, just surrender to me
And allow me to do what I want to do in your life.
Allow me to direct your life
In the way it should go,
To empower you and envision you;
Embrace your destiny.”

I pray, Holy Spirit, touch our lives today.
As we have turned away from our own way
And we have repented and turned to You,
Let times of refreshing come from Your very Presence.
Let Your Presence rest on us;
Open up the realms of heaven
As you invite us into the throne room
To meet the King.

God wants to give you new things: He wants you to be invested with new clothes, new robes of righteousness and kingly authority. He wants to put a ring of authority on your finger. He wants to release power and anointing upon you. You are called to the kingdom for such a time as this.

But first of all, He wants you to surrender.

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Soundtrack: Holding Nothing Back (Sans Rien Retenir)- Jesus Culture (via YouTube)

Related articles from Freedom ARC

Engage with God like never before!

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

Get started today!*

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

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