Tag: religious spirit

547. How Do I Surrender to God?

Surrender, Rest, and Freedom of Relationship with God

Mike Parsons

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How do I surrender?

Well, you can set the desire of your heart and say, God, I just want to surrender. Show me how. Show me what it is I need to surrender from. It is relational, ask him. Engage him in that way. He may need to unveil things that you cannot see, and that is fine.

As a living sacrifice, I gave him permission to do whatever he needed in me, in my mind, in my inward parts, in my heart, in my everyday life. He had permission, and he used that permission to do what he needed to do in me and what I needed. It will be different for everybody.

515. From Self to Sonship | Understanding Living Sacrifice

So I think we can relax and trust him and know his unconditional love, that frees us from the need to perform, to meet a standard, to know his will and therefore try and fulfil it. It is so much more relational and relaxed than that. He is not judging you or measuring you to a particular standard of his will.

My religious upbringing told me that the will of God is one hundred percent, that we may attain to it to some degree but will always fail, and that he will judge us on it and we will one day have to face that judgment in a negative way. That is not what it is like at all. There is no measurement. There is just relationship. And he wants us to fully embrace who we are in our relationship with him and enjoy it. Joy and peace and love are really what it is all about. And that to me is rest. I am at rest. I am not striving. I am not trying to find what God’s will is because I feel I need to do it to please him or to be obedient to him.

Who we really are

All those mindsets are the things he had to deal with in me, because I wanted to obey him, because I thought that was what would please him, and therefore I would maintain the standard that was acceptable to him – while never feeling that I could ever make it, because it was impossible to be like God. Whereas we are already created in the image and likeness of God. We are already like him. He just wants us to relax and be an expression of him through who we are as individuals, who he has made us to be.

So we cannot fail.

He has not set us up to fail. He has set it up so we cannot fail. How can you fail to be you? The only way is if you do not know who you are. And that is what he wants to reveal to us: who we really are. If we do not know who we are, we are still living in lost identity. Jesus has already covered all of that. So it is a win all the way along with God.

379. Created in His Image | The Purpose of Our Existence

There is no losing with God. And we tend to think that there is, and that is what causes us to stress: I need to know his will, I need to try and do it, I am not good enough, I keep failing. And he is just saying, come and walk with me, come and enjoy fellowship with me today, let us enjoy today together. And if you are walking with me, there will be opportunities to express and outwork my heart as we together are looking to engage in a relational way with each other and with creation, and to help people also know the wonderful love of God, because he is so wonderful.

Find the joy

I understand that it is a process, and that our soul does need to find healing and wholeness through that relationship with him. But we do trust him, and we do not need to try and defend ourselves, protect ourselves, or cope with life on our own. We can truly find the joy that he wants us to experience and live in that joyful life.

It is so hard to be joyful when you have got to fulfil a whole lot of duties and obligations. Most of the time he is not really that concerned about where we are working or what we are doing. It is more a question of whether we can be ourselves in that dynamic. People have got this idea that they need to be in the right city doing the right thing, need to have the right job, need to do this and that, as if he cannot work within our choices. Most of the time he is not really that concerned about that level of detail. Some people are so bound up with detail that they are asking him what colour socks they should wear every day, as if he is bothered. He is not interested in that. He just wants whatever socks we are wearing to be comfortable, because he wants us to feel at rest. That is how it is with him.

473. Why Do We Assume? | Questioning Our Beliefs and Practices

Religion has a very different way of painting that picture, causing us to stress over getting it right, feeling like a failure all the time, and therefore having to perform some form of penance or religious duty to make amends. There is no penance with God.

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

Mike Parsons

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When people get drawn into deceptive teachings, it can completely distort their understanding of God. But the truth is, the very nature of God is love. Just think about it—some claim that if someone uses a different name for Jesus, or a Hebrew version, they’re going to hell. It’s absurd. But that’s the level of deception and depth of religious programming some people fall into.

Take the Hebrew Roots movement, for example. It’s just as deceptive as the Judaizers in the first century, who tried to pull followers of Jesus back under the law of Moses. Jesus warned us about the leaven of Herod and the Pharisees—the political and religious spirits. And sadly, that same spirit has infiltrated some mystical Christian groups today.

There’s a growing narrative that says you must understand Hebrew, take Hebrew classes or grasp the Hebrew language to understand God. But God is not Hebrew—God is God. Hebrew was simply the language of a people He chose for a time to demonstrate His desire for relationship. That doesn’t make it the one true language of divine understanding. In fact, many of the religious leaders in Jesus’ day—Pharisees, Sadducees, and others—had a deeply flawed understanding of God, and Jesus came to correct that.

Much of that misunderstanding came from syncretism. When the Jewish people were exiled in Babylon, they began to incorporate foreign beliefs and customs into their system. The same happened later under Greek influence. This led to writings like the Talmud—an oral tradition passed down and eventually written. Some of its content is shockingly harsh, treating non-Jews as lesser beings. It became equal in status to the Torah for many, yet it’s a book that contains things Jesus clearly came to oppose.

Jesus came to reveal who God truly is—a God of love. The Hebrew Roots movement, though, seeks to drag people back into a law-based, old covenant mindset. When people get into it, you often notice a lack of love in their attitudes. They become harsh, critical and defensive—clear signs of deception. Paul addressed this in his letter to the Galatians when he said, “Who has bewitched you?” They started with grace and were being tempted to go back under the law. But no one could keep that law, and that was the whole point.

Christianity is not Judaism plus Jesus. Jesus didn’t come to start a religion—He came to invite us into a new covenant relationship. He is the fulfilment of every old covenant promise and every feast that pointed to something greater. So why go backwards? Why follow the Jewish calendar or wear religious garments like kippahs or prayer shawls to seem more spiritual? It’s just mixing covenants and returning to bondage. And again, it often shows in how little love these teachings produce in people.

Some insist we must use the Hebrew name for Jesus. But God speaks to us in our own language. He’s spoken to me about Jesus using that name, because He meets us where we are. I’m not Hebrew—why should I feel compelled to use a Hebrew name? Unfortunately, many who fall into this movement become zealous, dogmatic and, sadly, unloving. They act as if God will condemn people for using the “wrong” name, which is utterly absurd. But that’s indoctrination. There’s a religious spirit behind it, trying to pull people out of the freedom found in Christ and back into bondage through law-keeping.

The Hebrew Roots movement, at its core, aims to reintroduce legalism. There’s even a wider agenda pushing something called the Noahide laws, attempting to bring the whole world under a religious legal system. But we’ve been called to freedom—not to religious control.

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

More details at eg.freedomarc.org/books

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