heavenly realms – Page 6 – Sons of Issachar

205. The Song of Our Destiny

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

God is calling forth our spirit to maturity. He is calling forth each of us to our identity as sons. We have a destiny both now, in time, and in eternity. Our spiritual identity is eternal: it came from eternity, and it will go back to eternity.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5).

God has always known us, has always loved us, and has appointed each one of us to something in particular, to a destiny, to a purpose. He intends us to fulfil that calling.

How precious

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;
And in Your book (scroll) were all written the days that were ordained for me,
When as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
(Psa 139:16-17)

This is what we call our ‘scroll of destiny’. God has a vast amount of good thoughts about us, and wants us to know what they are. He wants us to know how He designed us, how He sees us, what He made us to be like. That book of our life was given when we were in eternity with God, and we come into this life with that scroll. It is like a commission for our lives, and it is important for us to get to know what is on it. It contains both purpose and provision.

We can access that scroll in the heavens, and we can access it in our hearts.

Eternal record

You started out in this physical life as an overcomer: the result of the one out of 300 million sperm that won the race to fertilise the ovum. When your spirit burst into that fertilised egg, it carried with it God’s record of who you were to be. You carry 23+23 chromosomes of the record of your parents’ history, but you also carry the record of your eternal destiny.

As that first cell begins to multiply, every cell of your body contains that record. We need to be transformed so that we no longer manifest the record of our physical genealogy but the record of the eternal destiny God has for us.

For as he thinks within himself, so he is (Prov 23:7a).

We need to think according to our destiny, not our history.

Frequency

Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart” (Ps 40:7).

Again, this scripture confirms that we each have a scroll, a record of our eternal destiny. God’s intention for our life is written in our heart. Our destiny carries a frequency, a vibration, and each of us has a unique frequency which we vibrate at, our own song. It carries a colour and a fragrance; a formula with all we need to fulfil our destiny encoded within it.

There is a service available where you can get your DNA analysed and they will turn it into a song for you. Now the problem is, that DNA vibrates with the record of the chaos it was created in (sin and iniquity) whilst the scroll vibrates with the record of our eternal destiny. Are we going to listen to the genetic record of our past generations, or are we going to listen to the record of what God said and thought about us in eternity?

We get to choose which we resonate and come into harmony with, and that ultimately determines how we will live. When we start to listen and come into agreement with the heavenly eternal record, our lives begin to be transformed. After all, we were destined to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to be a joint heir with Him.

Proper alignment

…with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will (Eph 1:10-11).

God has designed something for the fullness of time that is going to include the summing up of all things in Christ. He knows all about us, and He has chosen us to be part of His plan for the whole of creation. He has destined us to be part of that administration to outwork heaven on earth, to reconcile heaven and earth by bringing earth into proper alignment with heaven again.

A place for us

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places… (Eph 1:18-20).

God wants us to use the eyes of our heart, our imagination, to grasp what he has called us to. Christ is already seated in the heavenly places, and He has made a place there for us. He is:

…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 1:21-23).

He has sent us to go in the authority that He has, in this age, both in heaven and on earth. Since Christ is the Head, and we are the body, whose feet are His feet? Ours. So He has given us the authority to bring everything back under His dominion and under our feet, and wants to fill us with the fullness of heaven, with the fullness of Himself, so that we can represent him on the earth.

…and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:6).

That is our destiny. That is where we came from; that is where we will be going back to. In the meantime we are seated there with Him, and that is the position God always intended us to operate from.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Eph 2:10).

We can choose to walk our own way, or we can choose to walk God’s way. One way will lead to disaster, the other to blessing, to purpose, and to fulfilling our destiny.

Which way will we choose?

Resources from others

Scroll of Destiny by Anna Sophia

To see the whole Scroll of Destiny image full size, click on the thumbnail (right), and then again when it opens in Twitter. (It’s well worth the trouble!)
via Anna Sophia (@AnnaSophiasArt) March 28, 2016

More resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Engaging God subscription, for the Joshua Generation.
Destiny: Identity mp3 audio teaching series by Mike Parsons.
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page

SoundTrack: Identity in A (SML Music) – Engagement and meditation music composed and performed by Samuel Lane.

Support Freedom ARC

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.
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204. A Journey Quest for Identity

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Who am I?
How am I made?
What am I made for?

We all have an individual inheritance from God: destiny, birthright, calling, purpose – there are many names we give it. And God has created us all different, designed us to operate best in particular ways, which we need to discover and understand. We all have an identity, and that identity is as sons of God (including the ladies), but we all start out as spiritual babies who are on a journey quest to discover answers to these questions. This series of posts which we are starting today is all about that journey: a journey from the slavery of childhood and infancy to the maturity of sonship.

We must leave behind the slavery of a poverty mentality. When we are born, we inherit a sense of separation from God: we do not know who He is or who we are created to be in Him; we do not know the wealth He has for us in relationship with Him, so we think like paupers. I am not really talking about money (though money certainly comes into it), but about knowing our royal identity. Someone who is of royal birth thinks very differently to someone who is not, and we have to learn to think like a child of the King of kings. Only when we think that way can we act that way, able to fulfil our calling and come into our destiny.

From slavery to sonship

We are in a training process, intended to produce that maturity in us. We start out as servants, then as we complete the training, go on to become bond-servants, stewards, friends, lords, kings and sons. Increasing levels of authority and power come with increasing levels of relationship and responsibility, as God entrusts more and more to us.

How much do we desire that? How willing are we to pursue that, to pursue Him? It will take diligence, faithfulness and perseverance. It does not come easily.

Opposition

As you would expect on a quest, there is opposition along the way; opposition to us knowing who we are and why we are here. When the children of Israel crossed into their Promised Land, they had to dispossess the nations who were there before them. There are things in our lives which need dispossessing too. There is a battle, but that battle to possess our inheritance will bring us into more intimacy with God. He has designed it so that we find Him in the difficult times, in the trials, where we learn His faithfulness; where we learn that He overcomes – and that through Him we too can overcome.

“Abba! Father!”

Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything… But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son… so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Gal 4:1-5).

God has adopted us into His royal family. Spiritually we may have started out as poverty-stricken beggars, but when He adopts us, everything changes. That passage continues:

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal 4:6-7).

Every one of us is an heir of the fullness of God’s kingdom as His sons; but if we think like slaves, we will not act like sons.

Predestined

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many sons; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (Rom 8:29-30).

We have a destiny already agreed, to become like Jesus. It was impossible for us to fulfil our call and destiny when we were living restricted by sin; but all things are possible for us now that we are forgiven, now that we are justified, made right with God. And glorified – that was the part we used to think would only happen after we die, but the revelation God is releasing in our day is that we can be glorified here and now. We can access the realms of glory and the realms of heaven in order to bring heaven to earth through our lives.

“I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters”, says the Lord Almighty (2 Cor 6:18).

I get the impression from the way God phrases this that He is pretty serious about it. It is not open for discussion or negotiation. It is like that song we sing, ‘You Won’t Relent’: God will not relent, He will not let up, until we are His sons and daughters. We can no longer be content with living as slaves or orphans: we must pursue our sonship.

Every spiritual blessing

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will (Eph 1:3-4).

God has blessed us, just as He blessed Adam and Eve, with every spiritual authority to bring heaven to earth. We can access those spiritual blessings in heavenly places, in Christ, to manifest them here on the earth. God always intended to choose us, from before the foundation of the world. He wants us as His children. That is His will, and he is not going back on it.

God is calling forth our spirit to maturity. He is calling each of us to our identity as sons. Let us each begin to embrace the fullness of what it means to be a child of God.

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Engaging God subscription, for the Joshua Generation.
Destiny: Identity mp3 audio teaching series by Mike Parsons (this post has been drawn from material in session 1).
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page

SoundTrack: Identity in A (SML Music) – Engagement and meditation music composed and performed by Samuel Lane.

Support Freedom ARC

Vision Destiny 2016

Free!

Seven messages by Mike Parsons delivered at Freedom Church in January and February 2016. A review of 2015 and what to expect in 2016.

Digital download (mp3 and PDF) with links to streaming YouTube videos.

Click here to stream or download – absolutely free!

More recent free Vision Destiny series are also available from our website.

Support Freedom ARC

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you:

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

‘Engaging God’ is an interactive modular programme developed by Mike Parsons.

Through using it you will learn how to access God through Jesus who is the Way, Truth and Life, in the realms of heaven and within your own spirit and heart; and how to take up your responsibility as a mature son [daughter] in God’s kingdom.

Many people have had involuntary or ecstatic encounters or experiences where they have engaged God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and the realms of heaven in visions. Whether you have had such experiences yourself or not, through this programme you will learn to develop the ability to engage and re-engage those encounters at will, and to mature in outworking the revelation you receive from God on a daily basis.

Choose monthly, quarterly or annual options for your automatic recurring subscription payments via credit or debit card, and try Engaging God free for 2 weeks – no payment will be made until after 14 days, during which you can easily cancel if you wish.

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202. Answer Creation’s Call

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God… For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Rom 8:19, 22).

The whole universe is groaning, waiting and calling us forth as his children, every one of us, God’s sons of light. Whether you know it or not, you are called to be a true son of the light, a fully matured son of God, in order to change and transform the whole universe in which we live. We are to bring everything back into the order God always intended from eternity past. That is how we are to answer creation’s call.

While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light (John 12:36).

You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We are not of the night, nor of darkness (1Thess 5:5).

Then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear (Matt 13:43).

God wants us to hear what He is saying. There is a sound coming from heaven in these days, which is calling forth the children of God to be revealed on earth. It is calling us to be like Jesus, to say the things that Jesus would say and to do the things that Jesus did.

So that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe (Phil. 2:15).

God wants us to be shining like stars in the midst of all the darkness that there is in the world, so that we bring light and transform that darkness. The world is only dark because we are not bringing enough light. God wants to manifest His light through us. It is our destiny to restore light to the whole universe as revealed sons of God.

God wants to reveal us. He wants to show us off and to demonstrate who we are, because it will demonstrate who He is.

WWJD?

Everything Jesus did on the earth, He did as a man. He gave up His majesty and came to live among us. He was anointed by the power of the Holy Spirit to do everything that He did. Jesus did not do it as God. So we have no excuse.

If He had done it as God, we could legitimately say, ‘we cannot do that, because we are not God’. He did it as a man to show us what is possible for sons of God, operating in the power and authority of God’s kingdom. We are joint heirs with Christ. He conferred on us all the authority and power He had, and sent us out with it into the world. When we look and see what Jesus did, it should be our goal and our aim to do the same things (and greater).

What would Jesus do? It has become a catch phrase, but it is a good question. We can ask ourselves that question in our life, in our situation, in our workplace and in our home. But we do not have to stop at just reading about what Jesus did two thousand years ago and trying to work out what to do for ourselves:

Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something he sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, these things the Son does in like manner” (John 5:19).

Eyes on the Father

Jesus had his eyes on the Father. He lived in the realms of heaven and earth at the same time, all the time. He could see something happening on the earth, look into heaven and see what the Father was doing in that situation, and cooperate with it. That ability came out of the level of intimacy of relationship He had with His Father. The Father was in Him and He was in the Father. He lived that way as a man, and so can we; some of us are just beginning to grasp the reality of these things. But it will take a thorough reordering of our priorities, plenty of practice in developing our spiritual senses, and a radical transformation in us.

We are supposed to rule over and change some of the things we see happening. We are not to be under the circumstances but over them, because we come with a higher level of authority. We are called to bring heaven to earth, in us, through us and around us.

The gift of righteousness

…those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ (Rom 5:7b).

We must realise we have been made righteous. We receive righteousness, right standing before God, not because of what we have done, how good we are, how smart we are or any of those things. It is a gift, and because of that gift we can reign in life.

To reign is to have authority over and to rule. It is to administer the existing laws and to enact new ones where they are needed. But to handle that kind of power and authority we will need to be wholly submitted to God and know that He has made us righteous.

For I say to you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20).

That is a challenging statement and much misunderstood. On the surface the scribes and Pharisees looked really good. They tried to keep the external provisions of the law, but in reality God was not interested in what they looked like on the outside, but rather what was going on inside them and motivating their hearts. Were they doing the will of God or were they doing things for their own selfish gain and purposes?

Intimacy

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles. Then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness (Matt. 7:21-22).

If He did not know them, that means they were not intimate with Him. That is how they came to be doing things for their own motives, which is what ‘lawlessness’ means. We can do good things for our own motives and completely miss out on God’s best for us. Jesus had no agenda of His own, but only did the Father’s will.

God is not fooled. He is always looking on the inside rather than the outside. He knows our hearts. He knows what is motivating us and why we do what we do. We can fool each other by behaving in a particular way so that we fit in and are accepted. If we are trying to hide from God what is going on inside us, it will hinder us from being intimate with Him. He knows who we are and what we are. He knows who He created us to be. He knows all the work that still needs to be done to make us like Jesus. Knowing all these things, He loves us anyway.

We do not need to try to pretend or hide. If we are open, honest and vulnerable with God, He is not going to punish us. But because He loves us too much to allow us to stay where we are, He will transform us. We need to own and acknowledge where we are so that He can take us to where He wants us to be. Let us be real with God. Let us be intimate with Him and not hide from Him any longer through fear.

The whole world is looking at us, ambassadors of heaven, and seeing if we produce good fruit. Good fruit comes from the motivation of our spirit, not our soul. Where is our motive rooted, in our spirit or our soul? When we are living in intimacy with Him, when we are joined to the Lord and one spirit with Him (see 1 Cor 6:7), then we can bring heaven to earth as we reign in life.

And be revealed as the sons the whole creation is longing for.

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Mike Parsons’ YouTube channel
Engaging God subscription, for the Joshua Generation – click here for details
Ambassadors Of Heaven 2012 YouTube video and mp3 audio teaching series by Mike Parsons (this post has been updated from session 4).
Transformation (blog and audio series by Mike Parsons).
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
Arc Angel – on earth as it is in heaven, our curated online newspaper from paper.li

Night Moon In Big Space image courtesy of nuttakit at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Support Freedom ARC

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you:

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

‘Engaging God’ is an interactive modular programme developed by Mike Parsons. Through using it you will learn how to access God through Jesus who is the Way, Truth and Life, in the realms of heaven and within your own spirit and heart; and how to take up your responsibility as a mature son [daughter] in God’s kingdom.

200. Cities of Refuge

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth
And deep darkness the peoples;
But the Lord will rise upon you
And His glory will appear upon you.
Nations will come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising
(Isa 60:1-3).

We are going to see heaven and earth come back into agreement and alignment. There is going to be a major shift. That is not to say things are necessarily going to be easier: there is a shaking coming, but with a harvest in the midst of it. We need to mentor, teach, disciple that harvest, to see them bring the fullness of heaven to earth. There will be great darkness, but also great light that draws people in, because it demonstrates what the kingdom is. The mountain of the house of the Lord will be lifted up above all the other mountains. All nations will stream to it, saying ‘Teach us! You guys are living in health and wholeness and privilege and blessing and favour and protection, when all around everything is falling apart’.

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
That He may teach us concerning His ways
And that we may walk in His paths”
(Isa 2:3).

Everything of this earthly dimension will be shaken, but what is of God and His government will stand firm.

The overlap of heaven and earth

How are we to live like that? Amongst other things we are to have new power sources, ability to terraform, plants that produce all year round, and a new economy. We will live in the overlap of heaven and earth. We will be not only a Joshua generation, but a Joshua nation. The government of that Joshua nation will be a reflection of the government of heaven. God intends us to be part of that government – that is why one of the four faces of God is a man, and why Adam was commanded to have dominion over the earth.

The shaking is going to show what is of the Kingdom and what is not. We will see cities of refuge set up, embassies of heaven on earth, and they will begin to take ground: the dominion mandate that was given from the beginning will be outworked: we are going to have dominion as sons of God, representing Heaven on earth, seeing the Kingdom of God fill the earth as it is in Heaven.

Blueprint

Cities of refuge will have a blueprint carrying governmental authority to administrate the Kingdom. They will operate under the laws of heaven, not earth. A city of refuge is not necessarily a physical city, but it is a place of government, a place where God’s Kingdom is established, where the administration of heaven is outworked.

We will be living under the higher laws of the realm of the spirit. And when medicine has no cure for a disease yet the people of God live in health, then people in the world are going to want to come and enjoy that health too. If a plague is wiping out the world population and we are living in health then we will have a queue a thousand miles long coming to get healed. People will come to that which is demonstrating authority, to cities of refuge which are operating in a completely different governmental system.

We will be operating at a higher level of creativity, not necessarily using technology but through organic things. Abilities Adam and Eve had, such as the ability to control sound and light, vibrational frequency and resonance, will be restored to us. So we will be able to do things in a totally different way from the world, and we will need to be proficient in them by the time the world’s ways do not work anymore.

Continual harvest

Just as the tree of life brings forth fruit every season, there will be continual harvest, continual health, and continual blessing. It will be a demonstration of what heaven is like so that people can come and experience it for themselves. As a result, along with a continual harvest of food we will also see a harvest of labourers, which is why we need a Joshua generation to mentor them, a people who carry that authority to expand the Kingdom.

They will be storehouses, like Joseph built in the years of plenty. After he was promoted out of the dungeon to the second highest position of government in Egypt, he took 20% of the harvest for seven years and stored it. 20% of the world population is about a billion. We will see a billion people coming into storehouses that are ready to receive them. Where the storehouses are not ready, the harvest will not come in, so we want to be ready! And when those storehouses are filled, when they are the only ones who have the answers, the whole world will come to them.

Beachheads

A city of refuge is not for God’s people to hide away from what is going on in the world. The ‘preppers’ have their underground bunkers and they have all their food and water stored up because they think they need to be ready for something terrible that is about to happen. That is all a pessimistic, defensive mentality, a mindset of rescue and defeat. Cities of refuge will be beachheads of heaven on earth, administrative centres from which the Kingdom will expand to fill the earth. The mountain of the house of the Lord really will grow into a mountain that fills the whole earth, as Daniel prophesied. That is a very different scenario to the one the ‘doom and gloom’ prophets are envisaging. We do not have to be fearful of anything that might happen because we carry God’s Kingdom government as sons of God.

Capturing our hearts

God is looking for people to engage with what was in His heart from eternity, begin to cultivate that in the ‘what is’, so that they can release ‘what was’ into ‘what will be’. God is beginning to capture our hearts, drawing us to the desires of His heart. Then as we cultivate that desire He will release to us the authority to pursue and fulfil it. And it is better to be an amateur in the new things God is doing than a professional in the old.

If God has placed a desire in your heart for such a thing then you do not have to be a superstar in ministry or even an existing leader; you can call it into being. You can get a blueprint and a strategy from heaven for it. You can call in others alongside you and begin to establish the foundation for it. It may look completely different from any other city of refuge, regional apostolic centre or embassy of heaven, but it will be uniquely positioned to reach exactly those God intends it to reach, a place where people can be brought out of the world and come into a place of dynamic encounter with Him; a place where heaven is manifested on earth.

[This post is based on answers Mike has given to questions during Supernatural Mentoring and other hangouts. Subscribe to Mike’s YouTube channel to keep up to date with this unfolding revelation.]

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Mike Parsons’ YouTube channel
Engaging God subscription, for the Joshua Generation – click here for details
Ambassadors Of Heaven 2012 YouTube video and mp3 audio teaching series by Mike Parsons (does not include the material in this blog post).
Transformation (blog and audio series by Mike Parsons).
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page

Support Freedom ARC

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you:

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

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

198. Earth Like Heaven

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. (John 17:18)

We are sons of the kingdom, sent to colonise this world, the very same mission God gave to Adam and Eve:

God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over it’ (Gen 1:28).

They were to rule over it in the authority God gave them, and so bring it under the rule of God. God still calls us to bring that rule of love into the world, to make earth like heaven. To make earth like heaven you have to know heaven, so we need to access heaven.

The realm of heaven is a dimension that is right in front of us. It is not somewhere up in the stars. It is here, as a dimension of space. The Bell Theorem scientifically, mathematically proves that there are extra dimensions. We call them dimensions of the spirit. The scientists don’t know what to call them: they just know there is something things disappear into.

Concepts such as quantum tunnelling and quantum entanglement actually demonstrate how this realm is connected to a spiritual realm. Through the presence of God and the kingdom within us, we can access the realm of heaven ourselves and bring that realm from heaven to earth.

Creation waits eagerly

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10).

Christians have prayed what we call ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ for nearly 2,000 years, but there is more truth buried in this sentence than we ever recognised. God’s desire is to set the world right, to restore all things (Acts 3:21) to how He originally intended, and we are supposed to bring His Kingdom from heaven to earth through our lives.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery and corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:19-20).

Creation itself is waiting for God’s people to be revealed in the fullness of their sonship. When God’s people start to act as real, true sons in the fullness of the power of the kingdom, the whole of creation will be turned back to its original purpose. It will come into the freedom of God’s glory, as seen in His children.

Righteousness and justice

For something to be done on earth, it has to be done first in heaven. Then earth can be brought into line with what is in heaven. We have authority to bind and loose things in the heavens, so that they will be bound or loosed here on earth.

The Kingdom of God is founded on two principles, righteousness and justice. We need the righteousness and the justice which are in heaven to be worked here on earth. We have authority to rule in the justice system of the kingdom.

Seek first his kingdom, and his righteousness. (Matthew 6:33)

The only way we can be true ambassadors of God’s kingdom on earth is if we put His kingdom first in our lives. We must give up doing things our own way and start doing them His way. An ambassador does not act on his own. He may be allowed to use some discretion in how he achieves the desired outcome, but he gets his briefing direct from the home country.

We need to get heavenly truth, so we can bring it to earth. This means living for and from that kingdom first, above everything else, and walking by faith.

Spiritual authority releases natural influence; and without spiritual authority we have no influence for the kingdom. When the kingdom is not only within us, but manifested through us and around us, so that people can see it, then it is clear that we carry spiritual authority. And whoever is ruling in the spiritual realm will also rule in the natural realm.

You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world (Matt. 5:13,14).

Salt is intended to be salty. The world needs light to deal with the darkness, and we are called to be that salt and light. As ambassadors we cannot be just the same as the world. People should see the difference in our lives. We must expect salvation of those around us, expect that they will turn from the darkness of the world to the light. We will make disciples who will themselves go on to make disciples, equipping them in turn to go out into their marketplaces and do the same, expanding the influence of the ever-increasing kingdom in the world and out into the stars.

At hand

Jesus called to him the twelve apostles and began to send them out, as his ambassadors, two by two and gave them authority and power over unclean spirits (Mark 6:7 AMP).

As you go, preach, saying, the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give (Matt. 10:7-8).

Wherever they went, they could say that the kingdom of heaven was at hand because they were the ones who were bringing the kingdom with them. Wherever we go, we can legitimately say, ‘the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. The power to heal is here, through our lives. The power to set people free is here, if we are true ambassadors and know our authority.

All authority

Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:18-20).

‘All authority’ is all the authority there is. There is no other on earth or in the heavens. This is the mandate that Jesus gave us: to take God’s good news, in His authority, and to transform the world in which we live. It is quite a task, but the reality is we have the authority to do it.

Will you accept this commission? Will you take up your appointment as an ambassador? If so, you can step into the realm of heaven today and affirm your acceptance in words like these:

Father, I choose to accept my commission as an ambassador of heaven on earth.

I choose to live on earth according to the principles of heaven.
I choose to receive my direction and protection from heaven.
I choose to live from the resources of heaven.

I choose not to be influenced by the ideas, culture and philosophy of the earth.
I choose to become an agent of the counter-culture of heaven.
I choose to live a supernatural lifestyle with a higher level of authority.
I choose to be an example of kingdom attitudes and the character of Jesus.

I choose to demonstrate the good news of Jesus in word and deed.
I choose to be salt and light in my world.

I am a minister of reconciliation to make disciples for the Kingdom of God.
I am an ambassador of heaven to transform the earth.

As you step back into this realm again, you come carrying that authority, and the power to outwork it in and through your life.

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Ambassadors of Heaven session 1 (YouTube video – only session 1 is available as a video on YouTube).
Ambassadors Of Heaven mp3 audio teaching series (this post is based on part of session 1).
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
Engaging God subscription – click here for details

Soundtrack: Earth Like Heaven – Jonathan David Helser (via YouTube)

Image attribution (diagram): Entanglement, by Quantuwiki (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://goo.gl/P7TcRR)], via Wikimedia Commons

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you:

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

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

Support Freedom ARC

197. Citizens of Another Kingdom

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20).

In prison, Paul described himself as ‘an ambassador in chains’ for the gospel (see Eph. 6:19-20). God has called His people to be ambassadors in this world for Him, to proclaim His kingdom and to encourage people to be reconciled to Him in relationship. I say ‘in relationship’ because, through the cross, God in Christ has already done everything necessary to reconcile all people to Him. But if they continue to see themselves as estranged from Him they will not enjoy the kind of relationship He desires to have with them as His sons.

Dictionaries define the word ‘ambassador’ as

a diplomatic official of the highest rank appointed and accredited as a representative in residence by one government or sovereign to another
an authorized messenger or representative
an agent, an apostolic delegate, messenger, minister, or emissary.

Our citizenship is in heaven

He has rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).

We have been taken out of one kingdom and transferred into another. We are now under the authority of God’s kingdom.

For our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20).

Our citizenship is not of the country of our birth or residence. Though that might be true in the natural sense, spiritually we are citizens of heaven. This means we are connected to heaven and our authority comes from heaven. We are citizens of a heavenly kingdom but living on the earth.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you (John 15:19).

Jesus has chosen us as His representatives out of the world, so we are not tied to the restrictions of this realm. The kingdom of heaven is a spiritual realm, a higher authority than the natural realm. It has more and greater dimensions of authority and power than this realm. In fact, this physical realm is held together by the power that comes from that spiritual realm.

This temporal realm had a beginning and will have an end. Once we come into eternity, everything that is wrapped up in this time will be left in this time. Sin will be left in this time. There will be no more remembrance of it in eternity. But we are already of eternity: though we live in this natural realm, we are constantly connected to that realm of heaven.

Ambassadors of heaven

As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. (John 17:18)

Jesus is talking to the Father about his disciples, about us. We have been sent on a mission. We are gateways of heaven on earth, bringing heaven to earth. We come to administer that kingdom in this natural realm. When we lay hands on someone and see a miracle, we are bringing what is in heaven (complete health and healing) to the earth through the power and authority flowing through us as ambassadors of that kingdom.

We take our orders and get our authority from heaven. Our protection and our provision come from heaven. We live by the laws of heaven, the economy and the political system of heaven. Certainly we need to honour those in authority over us in the natural realm, right up until it conflicts with the authority of heaven. Then, we defer to that higher authority.

Consider the British Ambassador in a foreign country. The embassy is considered British soil and is protected by British troops. The ambassador and staff take their orders from London, and represent British interests, operating under British rules and culture. They are in constant contact with the home country. They do not operate from personal opinions but on orders from home. That is exactly what God is calling us to do.

The whole church is an embassy, and our individual lives are an embassy: foreign soil to this world, protected by heaven. We have authority, but only as we act on orders from heaven (and not earth). As citizens of heaven, each of us has a sphere of kingdom authority to exercise. In and around our lives we have authority to rule over our circumstances, situations, and the place that God has put us in, representing one kingdom (heaven) in another kingdom (earth).

New services and systems

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould… (Romans 12:2 Phillips).

We are not to be influenced by earthly culture, society and customs, but rather we are to influence them and transform them. In the UK, our National Health Service is excellent as far as it goes, but as Christians we have (and can administer) a new health service. Our health service comes from heaven.

We enjoy and administer new economic and financial services. We sow into God’s kingdom and He blesses us, honours us, and multiplies it back. We then have more than enough for all our needs, with an abundance for every good deed He calls us to do (see 2 Cor 9:6-12).

We have a new education system. We are not limited to what our minds can understand. We are connected to the source of all knowledge, the omnipotent, omniscient God, who is in heaven and in us. We have all the education we need because it comes from the source of life. We can receive revelation, prophetic information, and have a heads-up on every situation because we are connected to a realm which sees the future as clearly as the present and the past. The spiritual realm is not limited by time and space like this natural world.

We are to be a new society. That means new attitudes, new ideas, a new culture, new behaviours, new abilities, and new powers.

We have supernatural abilities, even beyond anything imagined by Marvel comic book writers. We can look into the hearts of men and see what is there; we can lay hands on the sick and see them recover; we can work all kinds of other miracles. We have authority over nature. Jesus wants us doing everything He did, and more (see John 14:12). We have the supernatural power of heaven at our disposal. The kingdom (and our ambassadorship) is of a supernatural realm, operating in this natural one.

Sown into this world

Jesus presented another parable to them saying, “The Kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seeds in his field… The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one” (Matt. 13:24, 37-38).

Every believer is a son of the kingdom and has been sown into this world to produce the fruit of the kingdom and to bring God’s rule to earth. We are not just here to influence the world, but to colonise it. When the Pilgrim Fathers went to America they extended the government of Britain to America. The church is a colony of heaven on earth, and so too is each of our lives.

But we do not control, manipulate or force people into accepting the kingdom we represent. This is not medieval Christendom, with its forced conversions (often at sword-point). We bring and demonstrate the good news. As sons of the kingdom, we bring the fruit of that kingdom so that people will want to be engaged with the God that they see through us.

He presented another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches” (Matt. 13:31).

The kingdom started really small, with Jesus. By the time Jesus ascended back into heaven, there were still only about 500 disciples. Yet the kingdom did not stay small, and the church now has a substantial presence in most nations of the world. In the early centuries, the number of Christians to non-Christians was 1 to 350. Today it is 1 to 6. The kingdom is advancing and growing.

He spoke another parable to them, saying, “The kingdom is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened” (Matt. 13:33).

We are to permeate the whole world with the good news of the gospel of Jesus. We bring a message of good news that God is not counting anyone’s trespasses against them and we demonstrate that message by how we live. We are called to influence the world, to restore it to its original condition and ownership.

That is why we have to be good ambassadors.

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Ambassadors of Heaven session 1 (YouTube video – only session 1 is available as a video on YouTube).
Ambassadors Of Heaven mp3 audio teaching series (this post is based on extracts from session 1).
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
Arc Angel – on earth as it is in heaven, our curated online newspaper from paper.li
Engaging God subscription programme – click here for details

Support Freedom ARC

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you!

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

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

196. Set Apart in Holiness

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

God is calling a new generation of forerunners like Joshua and Caleb to rise up, take hold of what belongs to them in God’s kingdom, and bless others by sharing this revelation and leading them in too.

Will you be one of them?

The Joshua generation has an inheritance that is both earthly and heavenly. We need the heavenly in order to be able to manifest the earthly. The other way round, it is a real struggle. Our inheritance is to act as gateways, bringing heaven to earth through our lives. Our status as royal priests enables us: as kings we have authority and as priests we have access to the holy things of God.

Fame

So the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame was in all the land (Joshua 6:27).

Some of us are beginning to be well known in certain Christian circles already, in a way that we were not just a few years ago. But when the Joshua generation start actually doing the signs, wonders and miracles God is calling us to do, once we set up the Cities of Refuge to which people will run for help and protection when everything falls apart, the world (not just the rest of the church) will begin to take notice.

We need to be ready for the media pressure. When people are raised from the dead, when fire falls from heaven, it will be a global phenomenon, because these are the days when ‘many will go back and forth, and knowledge will increase’ (Dan12:4). It will be on social media and YouTube within minutes, not hours.

If we are not operating in righteousness and justice, if we are not truly set apart in holiness, then we risk being easy meat for the world’s media. You only have to look at the Lakeland Revival to see what happens once those areas of unrighteousness are revealed. The spotlight of the secular press and social media is unrelenting.

Any skeletons in the closet will be exposed, we can be sure of that. So we must deal with what we know is in our lives, deal with what God reveals to us, make sure there is nothing hidden, nothing for anyone to find out and discover, nothing we are trying to conceal. We all have history, we all have a past, and we have all messed up. But if we hide that from each other and from the world, then we are needlessly exposing ourselves to danger. The enemy can use what is in the dark; that environment suits him very well. We need to make sure everything is brought into the light.

In all that God is doing, in the power of God that is coming, He must have the glory. The heavenly elders cast their crowns before God, and we are to redirect any honour we receive back to Him. Past generations have failed in this because they have taken glory for themselves, promoted themselves, instead of bringing glory to God.

It is all about Him. It is not about us. Let’s be sure there is nothing of ‘us’ standing in the way of God’s glory.

A radical stand against sin

And it is not only because of the world that we need to be uncompromisingly holy. Let the fear (reverence and awe, not terror) of the Lord be our strong motivation:

Rise up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, for thus the LORD, the God of Israel, has said, “There are things under the ban in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you have removed the things under the ban from your midst.” … It shall be that the one who is taken with the things under the ban shall be burned with fire, he and all that belongs to him, because he has transgressed the covenant of the LORD, and because he has committed a disgraceful thing in Israel’ (Joshua 7:13,15).

God wants a holy people. If there are things in our midst that He has called us to lay down or deal with, and we are not doing as He says, then we are inviting defeat both individually and corporately.

Please understand, under the New Covenant no-one is going to be burned at the stake for this. If we get it wrong, if we make a mistake, if we sin, then the fire of God’s presence comes to purify and refine us, not to kill or destroy us:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Out of His kingdom

The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness (Matt 13:41).

I have pointed out before that Jesus says ‘out of His kingdom’ and not ‘out of the world’, and we have seen these angels here at Freedom many times in recent years. He wants us to be pure and holy so that we do not live in bondage to sin, death, oppression, or poverty, but overcome them.

Our relationship with God is the most important thing in our life. Then, when we agree to be forerunners and accept responsibility to do what He calls us to do, we will not be afraid of the cost which goes with that responsibility.

The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).

No compromise. The Joshua generation will be ruthless in pursuing, rooting out and destroying whatever is in opposition to God’s will, and they will teach the following generation to do the same.

There will be no end to the increase of His government and peace,
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 9:7).

Are we willing to step into our inheritance?
Are we willing to accept and embrace our destiny?

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Inheritance 17-part audio series with slides
(this post is based on Mike’s teaching in session 17)
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
The Engaging God programme (see below)

Support Freedom ARC

Soundtrack:

Tim Hughes – Set Apart (via YouTube)

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you!

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

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

195. The Source and River of Life

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Jesus died to give us access to heaven, and not only when we die: eternal spiritual life begins here and now. He died, but He did not stay dead. He rose again and is alive today. He is alive in heaven; He is alive in us; He manifests His presence here with us. Because of our relationship with Him, we can have intimate relationship with the Father as adopted sons, and with one another as brothers and sisters in God’s family.

We are connected to the source of life, and the source of life is connected to us. Within our spirit, there is a door that connects to God and to heaven, and it is up to us whether we open the door:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me (Rev 3:20).

When we choose to open that door on a daily basis, He comes in, fills us, and manifests around us so that people see and experience Him through us.

Living Water

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Jesus was not offering the Samaritan woman a cupful, He was offering her the River of Life which is flowing in heaven. It is the same river that was in the Garden, where it split into four rivers and watered the earth.

The river that Ezekiel saw (see Ezek 47) was ankle-deep as it flowed out from the Temple. Ankle-deep water can refresh your feet; you can even reach down and get a drink from it. But it did not stay ankle-deep, or even waist-deep, but got deeper and deeper until it was so deep you could not cross it. Wherever that river went, it brought life. God wants us to bring that water to others so that they too can be filled and experience that life.

He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’ (John 7:38).

If we go to that spring every day and drink of it, it will become a fountain of eternal life not only for us, but also for those around us. It will flow through our whole being, spirit soul and body. But we do have to draw water from the well. We have to get into the river. We have to drink the water.

Do we know the gift of God?
Are we connected to the flow of living water?
Do we drink from the internal well of water springing up to eternal life?
Do we experience the constant flow of the source of life, the Holy Spirit?

There is a river

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
The holy dwelling places of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns (Psa 46:4-5).

How deeply have we drunk of this river?

He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers (Psa 1:3).

That is a description of what our life can be like when we live connected to that source of life, putting our roots down and constantly drawing from it.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22: 1-2).

We can follow that river flowing in our spirit, back up into the heavenly realms. Years ago, we would only have expected to encounter the river in this realm – ‘we rejoice for the river is here’, as we used to sing – but we can also experience the river in the realms of heaven.

Five Rivers

The River of Life is only one of five rivers that God showed me cascading like waterfalls out of heaven today. We can jump in and experience:

The River of Life – New Birth
The River of death and resurrection – Water Baptism
The River of the Spirit – Baptism in the Holy Spirit
The River of Fire – Consuming Fire
The River of Glory – Heavenly presence

Jump into the River of Life. Experience something deeper of the presence of God. Open that door in your own life and begin to sense the flow of His life in you. And if you have never met Jesus before, open up that door for the first time and drink of the River of Life. Drink that water until it becomes a well, a spring that bubbles up in you.

If you have had a baptism experience but you want more, plunge into the river of death and resurrection. Be washed inside and out, cleansed from your past, have the power of sin broken over your life. Exchange all the old for the new. Exchange the struggles, the sickness, the guilt, the shame. Exchange your old identity for a new one. Stop to trying to meet your own needs and allow God to meet them. Walk in resurrection power.

Jump into the River of the Spirit. Whoever wants to be filled with the joy, whoever is eager for the gifts, whoever wants to speak in tongues, come and receive a river flowing from within. Open your heart and receive all He has for you. Experience the power of baptism in the Holy Spirit at a completely new level.

Be empowered. Then give it away; let it flow from you.

If you need to be transformed, if you need the fire of God, then jump in and open your heart to the all-consuming River of Fire. Allow God’s fire to refine you, purify you, transform you. Allow God’s fire to destroy your chains. Jesus came to baptise in the Holy Spirit and fire (see Matt 3:11). Experience the power of baptism in fire.

Open your heart and receive all He has for you. Do not be satisfied with less.

Upstream to the source

If you are born again and have never engaged with God in your own heart and spirit, He is there, and you can do so right now. If you have never been into the realms of heaven, find the river within you and follow it back upstream to its source.

Experience God at a new level today. If you don’t want to jump right in, you can start by standing in the shallows. Feel the river flowing, and gradually go deeper. Eventually, go under, breathe in, and drink. Feel the energy, His life flowing in and through you.

Taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34:8a).

Activation

Listen to this audio clip as Mike leads us into the river and upstream into the heavenly realms: http://goo.gl/uzjAFj

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Inheritance 17-part audio series with slides
(this post is based on Mike’s teaching in session 15)
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
The Engaging God programme (see below)

Support Freedom ARC

Image attribution: Picture taken by John Maxwell in June of 2005 at the Krka National Park in Croatia. By Version13 at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3012949

Are you part of the Joshua Generation?

We developed this just for you!

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

To find out more and get started today*, click here…

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

194. For the Heirs of Salvation (Angels – Part 3)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

And of the angels He says, “Who makes His angels winds, And His ministers a flame of fire” (Heb 1:7).

Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation? (Heb 1:14).

In previous posts we have seen that angels are messengers, guardians and protectors. They are servants, both God’s and ours. They make up the heavenly entourage, worshipping around the throne, and the heavenly host, God’s army which engages in warfare on earth and in the heavens. They act on His behalf.

Here are some more functions of angels:

Watch over and interact with churches

The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches (Rev 1:20)

Our Freedom Church angel, Urandiel, is over 50 feet (15 metres) tall, with the face of an eagle and a lion. We also often interact with four angels called Sound of Many Waters, Winds of Change, Transformation, and Refiners Fire, with the breakthrough angel, and with the healing pool angel.

The affairs of nations

But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia (Dan 10:13).

Territorial spirits and ruling spirits – both godly and ungodly angels – operate in the atmosphere of the earth.

The heavenly judicial system

Angels have roles in the courtrooms of heaven and in the war and strategy rooms

Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that (1 Kings 22:19-20).

A stream of fire came forth from before Him; a thousand thousands ministered to Him and ten thousand times ten thousand rose up and stood before Him; the Judge was seated [the court was in session] and the books were opened (Dan 7:10).

Transforming and removing stumbling blocks

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven” (Isa 6:6-7).

The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness (Matt 13:41).

‘Committing lawlessness’ is doing things your own way, or without authority. So let’s be warned: angels are coming to remove those people, and Jesus does not say ‘out of the world’ but ‘out of his kingdom’.

Transference after death

Different things happened to the two men in this story Jesus told:

Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried (Luke 16:22).

All the angels are going to return with Jesus

But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne (Matt 25:31).

Harvest of souls

The harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels… the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous (Matt 13:39, 49).

You can see there that what Jesus actually says is the very opposite of the ‘rapture’ many Christians have been taught to expect!

Ministry

In New Testament times, angels ministered to Jesus (Matt 4:11, Luke 22:43), rolled the stone away from the tomb (Matt 28:2), rescued disciples from prison (Acts 5:19, 12:7-9), led people to gospel workers (Acts 10:3), and directed God’s people where to go (Acts 8:26) and what to do (Act 12:8). There are very many other mentions of angels throughout the New Testament, and they are ready to be instrumental in our ministry today.

Form an angelic canopy

And You have made [us] a kingdom (royal race) and priests to our God, and they shall reign [as kings] over the earth! Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels on every side of the throne and of the living creatures and the elders, and they numbered ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands (Rev 5:10-11).

There is an angelic canopy over the throne of God that is involved in our bringing God’s kingdom to the earth:

There could be around 100 million angels in this canopy, according to Rev 5:11.

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? 7 When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4).

The angels shouted for joy when they saw what God had done in creation, and they will recognize us when we engage in our eternal destiny. They administer the kingdom around our lives, releasing provision and protection for us.

When we surrender to Jesus as Lord, and our life can be seen as a house of prayer, we create an atmosphere of God’s presence around us, that same canopy comes down over us.

We welcome angels

Everything angels did for the Patriarchs, the prophets, the kings, for Jesus or the disciples, they can do for us. They can feed us, strengthen us, protect us, release us, direct us, form a canopy over us, ascend and descend upon us.

Angels can manifest in the natural realm, so sometimes we can see or hear them through the natural senses. The voices of angels can be heard internally by the human spirit or enter the human mind as a thought. Angels can be seen and heard in a dream while sleeping, or in a spiritual vision (either closed or open).

Angels are drawn to reflections of God’s glory. The more we look like Him, the more angels are drawn to us. Wherever God is displayed in our lives, and not only in our meetings, angels are drawn by the attitudes and atmosphere around us, and by the colours, fragrances, and sound frequencies we give off. They surround our praise. Colour, movement and flags can open portals for them to manifest. Prophetic acts and declarations enable angelic activity. Angels can sense faith, love, joy, peace, and the other fruit of the Spirit.

We will not bow to religious tradition which seeks to deny the involvement of angels in our lives. Jesus had no problem with them and nor did the early church. Why should we? We welcome them. We will be in faith and pursue relationship with our angels: engage with them, speak to them and listen to what they say. We will find out who they are, what is their name, what is their function and mandate. We will cooperate and work together with them.

We can see angels, talk to angels, and receive direction and ministry from angels. We can have angels minister with us. Angels respond to our words and our prayers. We can cooperate with angelic assignments, and have angels cooperate with our assignments.

We don’t worship angels but they are involved in our worship. We don’t pray to angels but they are involved in our prayer. We don’t immaturely direct angels according to our own will but we can direct angels as mature sons of God.

And there are more than just angels in the spiritual realm. We can also engage with:

The seven spirits of God

Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God (Rev 4:2-5).

The seven spirits of God are tutors to teach and train us in the revelation of God. They are the spirit of the Lord, the spirit of the fear of the Lord, the spirit of knowledge, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of understanding, and the spirit of strength or might.

They are created beings we can meet, talk to and engage with in the heavenlies. And they can manifest here in this realm, often as colours or tints.

The cloud of witnesses

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us… (Heb 12:1).

We can engage with the cloud of witnesses in the spirit. They surround us. They are forerunners from the Old and New Testament periods, right up to the present day. They want to pass their batons and mantles on to a generation who will see the fulfilment of the promises they received.

They are also known as ‘men in white linen’, and you can find them throughout the Bible, for example in Gen 18:1-3, Ezek 10:2-3,7, Dan 12:4-13, Zech 1:10, Matt 17:3, Matt 27:52, Mark 16:5, Luke 24:4, and Acts 1:9-10.

Meet your angels

God, open our eyes .

Father, I pray that you will open our eyes
so that we can see what is going on in that realm around us
to be able to engage with the angels whom You have assigned to our lives
to cooperate with them, and for them to cooperate with us.

I believe that God wants to introduce those angels to you.

They are standing behind you, on your right and left shoulder, right now. Don’t turn around and look with your natural eyes, but open your spirit to feel their presence, and begin to engage with them. Ask their names, if you don’t know them.

When you activate that relationship, they are able to help you more effectively. And then you can more effectively fulfil your destiny, bring God’s kingdom from heaven to earth, and bring greater glory to God.

From ‘Angels’, a Freedom ARC Pinterest board (click image to visit).

Previous articles in this series

Other resources from Freedom ARC

Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
Inheritance 17-part audio series with slides
(this post is based on Mike’s teaching in session 14)
Angels (a Freedom ARC Pinterest board)
Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
The Engaging God programme (see below)

Resources from others

Angels: God’s Servants, My Friends – Charity Kayembe (CWG Ministries – Mark Virkler)
Encountering Angels – Lindy Strong and Bonita Curtis (Podomatic audio podcast from Marketplace Ministries)
A Mystical Introduction to Angels – Facebook page by New Mystic

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