Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –
Purpose
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).
We can only love God because He first loved us. The Father sent Jesus because He loves us. All He is looking for is for us to respond to that love and come into a relationship with Him. Then we will begin to know that we have been called according to His purpose.
Do we know what that purpose is? Are we seeking for it? Are we just aimlessly wandering around hoping it will materialise for us? Or are we self-absorbed, living only for the present, wrapped up in trivial self-gratification, in material possessions, position or power?
Perhaps it is buried deep within our hearts, beneath layers of disappointment, frustration and regret built up over the years over generations. God wants us to discover it again. He desires us to know the thoughts He has about us (Psalm 139:17 NLT) thoughts of love, acceptance, affirmation, encouragement and blessing. Accomplishing God’s purpose for us brings fulfilment; achieving any other purpose we may substitute for it brings only emptiness.
When we come into this world our spirit perceives itself disconnected from God; our spirit disconnected from our soul; our spirit disconnected from heaven. We start out as slaves to sin, feeling rejected and disconnected from the sonship God designed us to enjoy.
Legacy
Destiny should lead to legacy, something left behind to bless the next generation. Not many have a Christian heritage – if you do, it is something to cherish and be thankful for. But every person who ever lived had a destiny, a purpose for their lives which God intended them to fulfil. We may feel like we have missed out on ours but God is able to restore everything stolen from us, including not only our own destiny but also that of our generational line.
Each individual’s destiny is a vital part of the overall plan and purpose of God. His plan has not changed since He called Adam and Eve to bring heaven to earth, to manifest the rule of God in this realm and populate the earth with people who would live in relationship with Him. God’s intention has always been to bring blessing to every family that would ever live.
Despite Adam’s fall, that destiny was passed on from Adam down through the generations to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to Joseph; to Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David and Solomon; to Jesus, to the apostles, to the church (ekklesia), that is, to us. But so many have missed out along the way.
We saw last time that a whole string of Bible characters failed to enter fully into their destiny. Every instance of that is a result of some kind of sin, rebellion or iniquity, either in the individuals concerned or in their generations. Your spirit can recognise a generational root: if you feel stirred by any of the examples we look at, and you do not recognise it in your own life, ask God to reveal to you if there is anything in your generational line that is holding back your destiny from you. There is a place you can go to get destinies restored that have been lost to past generations.
Adam and Eve, Esau
Adam and Eve lost their destiny by eating from the wrong tree and hiding from God. Skipping forward several generations, Esau despised his birthright (Gen 25:27-34), despised the spiritual dimension of his life. He was a ‘macho man’, over-impressed with his own soul, power and ability. That attitude cost him.
Jacob
Scripture often speaks of ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’, and Jacob is a really sad case. If you can get three generations to fulfil the purpose of God it establishes something significant, so the enemy’s attack on that third generation is all the more intense. Jacob missed out on God’s best for his life, and spoilt what God had planned for his future generations.
Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there…” (Gen 35:1). At Bethel, Jacob had met God in a dream and seen angels ascending and descending. He himself called it ‘the house of God, the gateway of heaven’ (Gen 28:17). Who wouldn’t want to live somewhere like that? But it was not a suitable place for Jacob’s livestock, so he moved on.
Then they journeyed from Bethel; and when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and she suffered severe labour… So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem)… Then Israel journeyed on… It came about while Israel was dwelling in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine, and Israel heard of it (Gen 35:16, 19, 21, 22).
Would Rachel have died at Bethel? Would Reuben have got involved with Bilhah? Reading on, Jacob suffered continual family issues he would not have faced had he stayed where God told him to. These included the rape of his daughter, Dinah, and culminated in his eventual migration to Egypt, where his family went into slavery for generations. That is not the kind of legacy you want to leave.
Jacob teaches us that our destiny can be linked to a specific location: we can lose our destiny by moving away from where God tells us to stay, or by staying somewhere (perhaps through misplaced loyalty to people, organisations or churches) when God has told us to leave. Let’s be sure we are where God wants us to be. He told Abraham to go, and told Jacob to stay.
Moses
Moses’ destiny was to free Israel from Egypt, but he tried to do it his own way. He killed an Egyptian and hid in the desert for forty years. God called him back to his destiny, but he still failed to complete it. Moses was angry at the persistent devaluing of his office and authority by a people with a spirit and mentality of slavery. Although he had the blessing and favour of God, and moved in God’s power and authority, he still wanted the favour of the people. So he struck the rock, disobeyed God, and forfeited his right to enter the Promised Land.
This is a dangerous temptation: to use the anointing to do the work of the kingdom, but to do so in order to legitimise ourselves or our ministry, to seek the favour of men. Moses lost his destiny because of his insecurity: Jesus faced the same temptation but refused to use God’s power to legitimise himself in the eyes of men.
Judah
The nation of Judah lost the Promised Land by abusing it, by not giving it its sabbath rest every seven years. They failed to trust in God’s provision, and went into exile in Babylon as a result. If we do not take proper care of our destiny, we can lose it. The condition of our spirit, soul and body is important: sleeping, eating, resting; getting the times and seasons in sync. If we don’t care for ourselves, it is a form of abuse and can cost us our destiny.
Jewish nation
The religious leaders of Jesus’ time rejected their king and forfeited their destiny. They generated enormous income through corruption, and saw that His talk of a house of prayer for the nations and the coming of the kingdom was a threat to both their religious money-making scams and their position of authority with the people. If we make decisions based on financial security or protecting our position rather than on faith in God, we risk being drawn away from our destiny.
Joshua
Don’t trade your destiny away. If we don’t fulfil our destiny, God can pass it on to someone else. Where Moses stepped down, Joshua stepped up. God is raising up a Joshua generation so He can release lost destinies, mantles and legacies upon them.
Restoring lost destiny
What happens to lost destinies?
One Sunday morning, during the worship, I had a vision in heaven. I was engulfed in flames for about twenty minutes. In that place I was given a large staff with a golden headpiece. Now, if I don’t know what something is for, I know where to go:
Does not wisdom call…?
On top of the heights beside the way,
Where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
Beside the gates, at the opening to the city,
At the entrance of the doors, she cries out
(Prov 8:1-3).
This is a real place in the heavenly realms we can all go to engage with Wisdom. That is where I went that Sunday. I was taken to a room with four doors: the second one opened and I walked into a place of flames, just as I had experienced earlier. I saw a huge door guarded by a balrog-like creature, and I just knew what the staff I had been given was for: I slammed it into the ground, the door opened and I went into Satan’s trophy room.
This is such a sad place! Lost destinies, anointings and mantles are displayed as trophies there, like a hunter might display on his wall the heads of animals he has killed. Family inheritances, the legacies that belong to you, they are trophies there. I began to get really indignant, and something in my spirit started to stir me to say ‘I want these back!’
And I knew this was why God had given me that staff. He had given me a mandate to recover and restore those family destinies and legacies. You see, my father passed nothing spiritual onto me, and yet his great-grandfather was a great man of God. That is the enemy’s desire, to rob us of what we should have had.
How we can get back things that were lost generations ago? They are stored up there, and God wants to release them and restore them to us. The very memory of our family inheritance may have been lost or stolen but it is still stored and recorded. The iniquity of the fathers may be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, but we can remove all the enemy’s legal rights and recover our family’s destinies and legacies. We can stop the cycle of robbery, and get back what has been taken from us, so that we can pass on a legacy to the next generation.
Are we willing to do what it takes for that to happen? Let’s make a start today.
Removing Satan’s legal rights
By faith, we are going to step into the Court of Accusation in heaven, and if God shows you something while we do this, then you can deal with it in your own spirit.
Father I thank you that you love me
And that your kingdom is based on righteousness and justice.
By faith I step into the heavenly court of accusation.
I stand on my own behalf and on behalf of my generational line.
I face my accusers and I accept and agree that I and my ancestors
Have wrongly traded away my destiny Inheritance.
I accept that I and they
Have followed the pathway of the knowledge of good and evil.
I accept that I and they
Have been influenced and motivated
By earthly, natural and demonic wisdom.
I stand here representing myself and my forefathers, identifying with them.
I repent of and renounce all false trading for myself and my forefathers
I receive the judgment of God and His declaration
That I am justified and made righteous through my advocate, Jesus.
I release the judgment of God against my adversaries and accusers.
I receive a mandate to have my destiny and legacy restored.
I receive the authority to access Satan’s trophy room
And take back what has been robbed from me.
I step back into this realm with the authority to fulfil my destiny.
I choose to be identified as your son
with the capacity for the fullness of my legacy to be restored to me.
Related resources from Freedom ARC
- 94. The Enemy is Disarmed and Vulnerable
- 95. Manifestation of the Sons of God
- 105. Scroll of Destiny (revisited)
- 225. God Chooses You
- 224. Called According To His Purpose
Mike revisits the place of fire in this this Supernatural Mentoring video, and takes back something of even more value than lost destinies…
(The relevant portion begins at around 23 minutes 45 seconds – click the ‘play’ button on the video window below and it should start in the right place):
Other resources from Freedom ARC
- Mike Parsons – Exercises: How To Enter The Spiritual Realm and Interact with God (YouTube video)
- Discovering Destiny: mp3 audio teaching series by Mike Parsons.
All three ‘Destiny’ teaching series are also included in our subscription programme, Engaging God. - Freedom Apostolic Resources website and Freedom ARC Facebook page
- Resources in other languages
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Sons of Issachar 