Mike Parsons
If you do not see the video above, please click here.
Get more from Mike when you join any tier at patreon.com/freedomarc.
Moving Beyond the Need for Proof
When I started this journey, everything for me had to be focused in the Bible because that was what I was brought up with in the evangelical system of thinking. And that was limiting what God was able to show me, which were things beyond the Bible. But because I needed it grounded there, that grounding then was outworked in what I knew. And so I would try to do it myself because I knew and I was confident, well, the Bible says this.
Now, at that point, I had not gone through deconstruction, and that was still what was framing my relationship with God. But God wanted to take me beyond that, so he had to start weaning me off needing proof, biblical proof, which was where my proof came from, you know, because there were things then he started to show me. Well, if you want biblical proof about this, your understanding of the Bible needs to change because the way you see the Bible now is not going to give you the proof, which is actually the truth. Because you are framing it with a wrong expectation of me.
And I suddenly started to realise that what God was saying to me is, “You do not have to do this yourself. You just let me do it.” So presenting myself as a living sacrifice, as a priest, meant for me I was doing what I needed to do to be a good sacrifice. Whereas actually Jesus my high priest prepares me in my life. But I was doing the preparation.
Trust Jesus Rather Than Knowledge
So every day I would want to go into the tabernacle in heaven and I would want to look into the bronze laver and see a reflection. But what I was looking at was a reflection of my understanding of the Bible. I did not know at that point that Jesus was the Word of God. Of course, I knew it intellectually, but actually the Bible was the word of God. So for me, that is how it was.
403. So you think the ‘Word of God’ is the Bible? Think again!
Therefore being washed by the water of the word was not Jesus doing that. It was me, reading the Bible, who was doing it. So I was actually trying to wash myself. You know, when I was trying to renew my mind, I was using the Bible to try and renew my mind. And all of the things like “the word of God is like a sharp two-edged sword just dividing soul and spirit,” – I was trying to divide my soul and spirit using the Bible to do it.
And actually what Jesus was trying to say is “No, I am the living Word. So trust me, not in your knowledge, because your knowledge will not be enough to do it because you do not know enough, and also some of the things you think you know are not true.”
So it was quite a challenge, you know, to go through that process of him removing the evangelical framework of my thinking to trust him rather than to trust my knowledge. Ultimately that took me through a whole process where I had to accept that I was in control and I was doing it myself. And I was not trying to do a bad thing, but I was still doing it in works, and I was still doing it in the power of my soul, and I was still doing it actually because I trusted myself more than God.
You know, because of the [understanding of the] nature I still had of God who was to be feared, because that was before my understanding of God was deconstructed into unconditional love. So I was still functioning in penal substitutionary atonement and all of those doctrines which were my understanding of framing the Bible. So I was framing the Bible wrongly all of that time.
Surrender, Deconstruction and Trust
So he decided to wean me off the need for biblical truth and biblical proof and show me that a lot of my understanding of what I thought was true based on the Bible was not true because it was based in a false system of belief based around a god who is not actually who God is.
So you go through seasons, and it is not always easy if we do not surrender. So what I have learned to do is just surrender and trust. If it seems to be a season of inactivity, it is okay: I trust you, and I trust you enough that if there is anything you want me to do, then you will show me. And when this season changes, then I will actually sense and feel something has shifted and now something else is happening.
But it is not an easy process when you are conditioned. And I was certainly conditioned. And I had to go through a lot of deconstruction. And I had to surrender to trust God before that deconstruction could really take place. You know, there was a degree where I had experiences that challenged some of the things I believed about God, but that was not sufficient at that point without a surrendering of my soul’s need to understand and to know and effectively to be in control.
So God took me through a whole process of softening me up, preparing me, a lot of refining experiences of going into fire and going into being soaked and getting ready for the most difficult thing that ever happened when I got to the point where I had to surrender my right and need to know to just trust him. And that was such a hard thing back in 2012. But since then, my relationship with God, my understanding of who God is, my understanding of who I am has been totally transformed because I now know God at a completely different level.
So go for it, you know, go for resting. And it does not mean that you cannot say to God, okay, if you want to tell me what is going on or show me what you are doing, I am open. But that is not the driving force behind what you do when you engage God. Because there is no problem, God is quite happy for us to talk to him and ask him questions, but he is quite at liberty not to give us the answer if he does not want to. And we have to accept that there is a reason for that, whatever it might be. That is what we have to trust God in, the process.
If you enjoy these videos, would you please take a moment to like, comment, and subscribe? It really does help. Thank you very much.
Sons of Issachar 