Tag: revelation

114. Twelve Strands, Twelve Stones

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

When Adam was created a spirit being, he was clothed with glory. Spirit, soul, body – but his spirit was on the outside and his body on the inside. There was no blood, because he was a being of light.

Adam originally had one triple-helix with three DNA strands that represented body, soul and spirit made in the image of God. He was created with the potential to become a fully mature son of God, embracing the nine strands (3×3) of DNA that represent the fullness of God, added to his three strands to form the twelve that represents the fullness of government.

I will go into this in more detail in the rest of this post, but what is important to grasp is that we have the capacity to change, to be transformed, at a level beyond what most of us have ever imagined.

97% inactive DNA

Sin caused the DNA light strands to be lost (the wavelengths of God that were within us). Now we only have 3% of our DNA which is active. 97% of it is inactive, but encoded.

Russian scientists, working in the human genome project, found that there was language and syntax within the 97% and that it could be changed and re-encoded by frequencies, sounds or even words within a laser light beam. Recent research has confirmed that this area of DNA has triggers or switches that can be turned on and off (for example by the environment, words, or trauma), and that what they turn on are genetic abilities and weaknesses. We can be conformed to the image of God, and again become a transfigured being of light, because our DNA has the capacity to be re-sequenced.

[A new field of scientific study called epigenetics shows that not only can DNA be changed, but that those changes can be passed on to the next generation: scientific study now agreeing with what the Bible said all along about iniquity being passed on to the third and fourth generation.]

Adam’s spirit imploded into his innermost being when he sinned, so his spirit was now on the inside. And God gave him skin. God did not kill an animal and wrap its skin around the man: He gave him skin, three layers of it, to cover his blood, because blood is congealed light (that may sound strange, but if you do a Google search, you will find scientific thinking going that way).

Adam lost his ability to access the spiritual realm, because the DNA of light was lost to him, therefore he became a human being with a double helix of 2 physical DNA strands. When we are born again and our spirit is properly re-engaged with our soul and body, we get our third strand of light DNA back.

So Adam had three DNA strands: two containing physical DNA, and one, light. Light can contain coded information – we are familiar with fibre optic cable being used in modern technology to carry information, data, sound and so on. In the light strand of DNA , there is coded information which may be sound, frequency, fragrance and mathematical formulae relating to our destiny or spiritual identity.

God spoke to me about this back in 2010, but I didn’t share it at all for 12 months because I needed to meditate on it and see if the scriptures had anything to say about it. What I found was that it relates to the nine stones covering Lucifer’s body (Ezekiel 28): those stones represented the nine strands of God’s DNA. In the same chapter we read about Satan being on the fire stones: I have been on those fire stones, and there are nine of them. And there are nine steps to ascension.

Now you may think that all sounds like Buddhism. But where do you think Buddhism got its truth from? Like everyone else, Buddhists can perceive the truth that God reveals. People of many different persuasions have taken that truth, interpreted it and applied it according to their own understanding or purposes, so it comes out twisted and distorted (to a greater or lesser degree). Look at science fiction and fantasy writers around the world, they are picking up a sound that is coming out of heaven. They interpret it through their own soul, to produce books and films and TV series or whatever, but there is truth in it. Christians are not exempt from doing the same thing!

Maturity as sons

Man was not created perfect: he was created sinless. If Adam had not sinned, he would still have needed to be conformed to the image of Jesus and become like Him. So there was a process in which Lucifer, before he rebelled, was given the authority to tutor man into becoming like a Son of God.

We originally had three strands of DNA because we were made in the image of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God has nine light strands of DNA: three from the Father, three from Jesus, and three from the Spirit. The revelatory knowledge contained in the nine strands of God’s DNA was to bring us into maturity as sons. Lucifer was to tutor man in this, and it was represented by the nine stones that covered his body (as one of the cherubim, he covered the throne of God, and as light-bearer he was to reflect the revelatory light of God into the universe).  Instead, as we know, he took that knowledge and traded on it, and a third of the angels followed him.

Twelve stones

hpbp

Now look at the High Priest’s breastplate, and there are twelve stones. Nine, the same stones that covered Lucifer’s body, and three extra stones. That was what got him all riled up, because man was to have three extra stones, the stones of sonship. Human DNA has always been a battlefield (Gen 3:15), and we have written before about the seed wars, the conflict between Satan’s seed and the seed of woman. That war has been raging throughout the ages and is being fought today in the arena of GRIN technologies, the current battlefield.

God desires to bring us back into perfect sonship, so He wants to transform our DNA. He wants to transform us to become again sons of light, just as Jesus was transfigured here on earth and shone with glory.

Twelve stones (9 + 3) represents full government, full authority of God and man in unity, joined and one spirit (1 Cor 6:17). God always intended us to become fully mature co-heirs with Him, and jointly to rule the created universe, both spiritual and physical.

That is what it means for us to be the sons of God.

Related articles

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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.
Thank you!
*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we can no longer offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 

JOIN US IN ENGAGING GOD!

Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility is our online school for equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek.

Your first two weeks free!
Click here to get started today*

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

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

106. Engaging the Timeline

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott – 

We looked last time at our scroll of destiny, how important it is for us to have revelation of what is written on it, and what are the thoughts of God toward us, so that we can be all He intends us to be. Each of us was created in eternity in the heart and thoughts of God. He knew us. We had a substance in Him. He knew all about us and our destiny. We need to engage where we came from, who and what we were then, so that we can live out of that reality today.

Yesterday, today, tomorrow

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’ (Rev 1:8). Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8). That is the timeline. He sees and engages with yesterday, today, and tomorrow – He is not confined by time. He can choose to show us things on that timeline. He can also intervene in it at any point, past, present or future. And all of us have access to that timeline once we start to access the heavenly realms. Here are some statements about the timeline for us to consider. Let’s ask God for revelation about these things, and meditate on them. If we try to process them in our mind, our brain is likely to feel like it is being tied up in knots. Let’s bring our spirit into play here:

  • I can change who I am, and what I am today, from what I see of tomorrow.

This is called prophecy. God shows me something of tomorrow, therefore I shape my today to line up with what God says about me tomorrow. I choose to change, so that I am equipped to deal with tomorrow. That is why the Holy Spirit is there to reveal the things that are to come (John 16:13).

  • I can engage who I was yesterday to influence who I am today, and change tomorrow.

My yesterday includes what God said about me in eternity past, my destiny. If God says I am this, then this is what I want to become. That will change who I am today, and it will change who I am tomorrow.

  • I can engage and change who I was yesterday to change who I am today and who I am tomorrow.

When I forgive and release people for what has been said or done to me in my past, I no longer have to live out of my negative experience. When I confess and repent of sins I have committed myself, I can receive forgiveness and they no longer have to affect who I am today. Jesus is present in my past. He is there to set me free from it, to heal me and restore me from it, so that it changes who I am today, and who I will be tomorrow. Here’s a simpler one:

  • My tomorrow becomes my today, and then my yesterday.

That’s just how time works: everything in my life is on that timeline. If I can learn to engage it properly, to see by revelation what is to come, I will be prepared and equipped to deal with it. If I know what was written about me in eternity past, it will equip me to fulfil that destiny in the future. The more my yesterday is influenced by my tomorrow, the more I will reflect my destiny today. These are just words, but we can all go and do it. We can go and experience this for ourselves.

Testimony

We know the power of testimony: it gives God an opportunity to do it again. Testimony is what has happened to me. So if I change my testimony, I can change my present and my future. My testimony, my experience, my potential future: they all need to work together.

As time moves on, my potential future becomes my experience, which in turn becomes my testimony. If I engage what God has said about my future, I will experience it. Then it will become my testimony, to help me to experience more.

Everything in Hebrew thinking is circular. It goes around, it recycles. My testimony shapes my experience; to fulfil my destiny, not to oppose it. That is why I need my testimony to change. Things which have happened to me in my past which are still my testimony – I need to see those things changed. I need to be healed, set free, my thinking needs to be different. Then I can be free to do the things that God called me to do.

God has already written something for me to fulfil, before I was. I need to find it. That scroll is the written record of the desire of God, agreed with my spirit in eternity for me to fulfil. God is not forcing it on me, my spirit agreed with this destiny before the foundation of the world. It is for me to outwork, so I need to come into agreement with it now. Eternity is my destiny and becomes my experience.

Allowing our past to determine our future?

We have a choice: to line up with God in our spirit, or to keep allowing our soul to lead and so to keep allowing our past to determine our future. Our thinking and our emotions need to be changed and transformed, to bring us into everything that God has destined for us, not all the things that the world has messed us up with.

If we continue to allow the negatives in our past to determine our present, then our future will be the same as our past. It does not have to be that way. We are born into a cosmic battle in which the enemy is always seeking to destroy. We cannot allow anything that is written about us by this world to obscure or steal what God has said will be our future. We have to fight for our destiny.

Related articles from Freedom ARC

See an image of the whole Scroll of Destiny piece by Anna Sophia here

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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.
Thank you!
*Note Sadly, because of abuse by scammers we can no longer offer a ‘click to donate’ option. However, if you contact us, we will get back to you with a simple means of giving. 

JOIN US IN ENGAGING GOD!

Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility is our online school for equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek.

Your first two weeks free!
Click here to get started today*

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

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

105. Scroll Of Destiny (revisited)

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

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 knew us before we were formed in the womb. He knew us before we were a physical being. At that point we existed, and He knew us, as a spiritual being. God is spirit, and we have come out of God. Our spirit is eternal: it will never die, because it is of the essence of God.

What am I here for?

We saw last time that all of us have a destiny.

“For I know the plans that I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer 29:11).

God’s plan is for us to enjoy peace and wholeness; His plan is to prosper us and to see us succeed. He gives us a hope by giving us a vision of our destiny. So do we know what we are here for? Do we know who we are meant to be? And do we know our name?

That may sound like a strange question, but God has a name for us which is our true name. It encompasses all we are and all He intends us to be. It is a heavenly name which is assigned to us in accordance with our destiny. It is the name that is on our thrones, and in our scroll. When I saw my name, I knew it was me. It will be the same for you, because your spirit will leap in recognition, just as John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb when he sensed Jesus in Mary’s womb. That is what happens when aspects of our destiny start to take place around us. Things start to move us and our spirit begins to leap.

In Your book

We existed before we had a physical body. The scripture tells us that there was a substance to our lives which God saw when it was still unformed.

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).

We have briefly mentioned our scroll of destiny before, in the context of judgment. That scroll was written not only before we were formed, but before God created the heavens and the earth. Understanding who we were then, even as an ‘unformed substance’, will really help us to understand who we are now. Everything we are called to be now was written then, on our scroll.

Sometimes we will find that we have done the things that are written on it, even though we might have never read it. That will happen because our destiny is inherently tied up with who we are. When we choose to line up with the purposes of God, and seek to be guided by Him, we start to fulfil our destiny.

But if we actually read it, we can engage with our destiny in a completely different dimension. And God is willing to show it to us, though maybe not all of it, not all at once. It would be too much for us.

If we picture a scroll (like the one at the head of this article), we can look at one section of it, but there is much more of it still rolled up which comes before and after what we are looking at. The same with a book: we can see the pages which are open, but all the other pages are hidden until we turn to them. If we ask, God will reveal a portion or an aspect of what is on our scroll: He may show it to us, read it to us, or tell us in some other way. But we will know. And depending on what we do with the portion He has revealed, He is always willing to show us more.

How precious are Your thoughts

Psalm 139 tells us that God has many thoughts about us, because He knows us intimately. We need to get hold of those thoughts, because they will transform how we think about ourselves. It will be nothing short of life-changing for us to know how God thinks about us! I guarantee that not one of us thinks about ourselves 100% the way God does. But the more we allow God’s thoughts toward us to affect the way we think about ourselves, the more transformation we will see in our lives, and the more we will become like Jesus. We will do the things He did, and the greater things we are called to do.

The thoughts of God toward us today are totally in tune with what was written on our scroll before the foundation of the world. But destiny is not fate. We have a choice, to agree with God and pursue it, or not. We already agreed with Him when our scroll was written. If we choose to agree with Him now, it is essential for us to get hold of His thoughts toward us and to know what is written on our scroll.

Important: Mike has new insight on our Scroll of Destiny – check out blog post 281. Scroll of Destiny: Just Being (from Dec 2021).

Related articles from FreedomARC

Check out our website: Freedom Apostolic Ministries

Note: The image of a scroll at the head of this post is from Netherlands Wikipedia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Resources from others

See an image of the whole Scroll of Destiny piece by Anna Sophia here or click the thumbnail image (opens in a new tab or window).

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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 make a one-time gift of any amount you choose (in US Dollars) by credit or debit card (processed by Stripe), or using your Apple Pay account if you have one.
Thank you!

JOIN US IN ENGAGING GOD!

Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility is our online school for equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek.

Your first two weeks free!
Click here to get started today*

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

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

103. Familiar Spirits: Throne-takers and Destiny-destroyers

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

In this series of blog posts we have seen how we need to enter into the realms of heaven and bring authority from that realm back into this one.

We need to know God intimately, and we need to know who we are. We cannot hope to rule unless we have a really close relationship with God. As His sons, His children, we can know our authority which comes from that place of intimacy.

We need to know our identity as kings and priests.

We need to live according to kingdom principles.

We need to rule in our own sphere, over our own house. We need to have authority in our own life, and it will overflow around us. That is our destiny. We are created, not to be failures or losers, but to succeed. When we rule as God intends, it will change our lives. Each of us can have charge of the courts in heaven which issue decrees over our own life. That is where God will deal with the accusations of Satan against us, in that realm. And in that realm we can receive court papers which enable us to rule and fulfil our destiny.

Sons of Light

God wants to display us as His sons on the earth: sons of light. Each of us can be transformed into a son, from glory to glory.

Before we were born again as Christians, we were human beings. Adam did not start out as a human being, you might be surprised to learn. He did not look like us when he was created. The glory, the light that was on him, was on the outside of his body. He did not have skin or blood as we do. God created him a ‘living being’, because the breath of God was breathed into him. But when he sinned and fell, he became a human being.

If he had not sinned but had followed God, he would have become a son of God, a godlike being, a being of light. God wants us all to be beings of light. He wants us all to be demonstrated and manifested as His sons on the earth. We can be transformed – the same word that is translated ‘transfigured’, by the way – we can shine, we can do the things that Jesus did, and greater things. We can rule, and bring this earth back into what was God’s intention before Adam fell.

Scroll Of Destiny

Each of us has a scroll of destiny. On that scroll God has written everything that we are to do in our life, everything that God has called us to. It was agreed and mandated before the foundation of the world.

Each of us has at least seven spheres of dominion and authority: seven thrones to rule on in our own life. Family, workplace, marketplace, school, college, street, neighbourhood, government: all kinds of places where we may be called to rule. For some of us, it is in our gift area: prophetic or evangelistic or administration and so on. For others it is in the church, where we are to rule in leadership, or one of the five-fold ministries, or youth or children’s ministries. Some are called into the education system, or the financial or government systems, where they are to demonstrate God’s kingdom.

There are many other areas where God might call us to dominion, and we need to know for ourselves where we are called. God’s call confers authority upon us to bring change and see things come into line with His purposes. Every one of us can transform the world in which we live; but only if we receive our authority in the heavenly realms and learn to exercise it here on the earth.

Most people have not seen that scroll. We can see it, we can read it, we can ask God to show it to us. It is on the inside of us, and He really wants us to know what is written on it because He wants us to fulfil it. Our scroll is unique, because God created each of us a unique person, with a destiny to fulfil. Let’s get hold of it. Let’s not be robbed of it.

What could rob us of it?

Familiar spirits

Some of you will have heard Ian Clayton speak about familiar spirits, and he has a really powerful teaching about them. I tell you now, we are going to war against familiar spirits, because familiar spirits are robbing God’s people of their identity, robbing them of their destiny to rule.

For I have heard many whispering and defaming, [There is] terror on every side! Denounce him! Let us denounce him! Say all my familiars, they who watch for my fall, Perhaps he will be persuaded and deceived (Jeremiah 20:10).

This is exactly what familiar spirits do. They can be on the inside or the outside of you: little voices whispering, defaming you, telling you that you are useless, bringing doubt and confusion. They tell you that you cannot be successful. They tell you that you are a failure. They tell you that you are going to stay in fear for the rest of your life. They tell you that you are no good. They lie.

Most of us will have at least half a dozen familiar spirits who speak to us regularly, unless we have dealt with them. We need to deal with them, because they are robbing us. They are the little things that you cannot seem to get over, but you need to. God is giving authority and mandating authority for us to deal with them. And we are going to war against them.

Throne-takers, Blessing-blockers, Rest-robbers, Destiny-destroyers

They are throne-takers. They deny your authority, they tell you that you are unworthy to rule.

They are blessing blockers. They cut you off from the blessing of God, from His empowerment in your life, and tell you that you will not succeed.

They are rest robbers. They stop you from enjoying the rest of God by getting you to strive and struggle in your own strength, whereas Jesus said “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).

They are destiny destroyers. They know that if you fulfil your destiny, their days are numbered. You will destroy them, together with their masters, and their masters too.

So we need to deal with these.

Fear

This is a big one for many. All our lives we are subject to the fear of death, as it says in Hebrews 2:15.

Rejection

Since Adam and Eve hid from God in the Garden, we are all born with that misplaced sense of separation which they have passed on to every one of us. No wonder we feel rejected – and the world just piles it on. Is there anyone who has not experienced rejection in some form in their life?

Pride

Pride will stop you from acknowledging who you are as a child of God. Pride is not only thinking you are something better than you are, it is about disagreeing with who God says you are. It is about agreeing with the enemy, who says you are useless, that you will never amount to anything.

Low self-esteem, worth, value

This will keep you from the success God intends for you. It will keep you down, make you believe you are worthless.

Insecurity

This will make you blind to who you really are: a child of the king, and heir to all that He has for you.

Doubt, unbelief

If you don’t believe it, you can never have it. Familiar spirits want to keep you in that place where you are no danger to them, where every word that comes out of your mouth builds a world of uncertainty and delusion around you.

Anxiety, worry

Those are just another manifestation of fear. They will seek to take your eyes off your destiny and fasten them onto short term difficulties in order to keep you from being effective.

Strongholds, mindsets, belief systems

These are more subtle, but if we allow God to reveal them, we will see how they have robbed us and caused us to miss what is going on right before our eyes.

God wants to deal with these things in your life. He wants you to receive a crown of royal identity. He wants you to receive your destiny. The trophy room of Satan is filled with those crowns, and it is filled with destinies of people who have missed theirs. We are going to go and get them back. Everything that belongs to us, everything that belongs to our family line that has been robbed in past generations, God is going to restore them to us. We are going to get things back we didn’t even know we had lost.

Rise up!

This is the day when all the mantles Satan has stolen are coming back to God’s people.

I want to see you go there and get it all back, because you need everything that has been stolen from you. You need to rise up in your spirit, and start moving. You need to rise up and get hold of your authority. You cannot read this and say, ‘well, that’s very interesting’, then carry on exactly as before and expect it to just happen. If you stay with this blog, you will not be able to do that; because we will be constantly stirring you up to pursue these things. God wants you to get militant about this, to get serious and not to allow yourself to become passive. It is the violent who take the kingdom, by force (Matt 11:12).

What do you want? To be under the enemy’s feet, or have him under your feet? Then you need to enter into the realms of heaven and take up your authority to rule in your life. You need to stop listening to the rubbish that is being whispered into your head. Listen instead to what God says to you, that you have authority to succeed because He has destined you for success.

Let’s pray together.

Father, I pray
with the power and the authority that you have mandated to me.

I exercise that authority
and I challenge the familiar spirits
that are operating in the lives of those praying with me.
I declare that you familiar spirits will not whisper,
defame and denounce the people of God,
but that you will come under their feet
and you will be crushed
and sent back where you belong.

Father, I declare in the name of Jesus
a revelation of sonship and authority and power
on these Your people today.

And I pray that you release their crowns of royal identity.
Cause them to rise up
to take hold of their destiny
and pursue it until it is fulfilled

Right now I declare the destiny of God
released over Your people
for them to get hold of in the heavenly realms.

In Jesus’ name.

Amen

Related articles from Freedom ARC

Support Freedom ARC

'Donate to Freedom ARC' button

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 make a one-time gift of any amount you choose (in US Dollars) by credit or debit card (processed by Stripe), or using your Apple Pay account if you have one.
Thank you!

JOIN US IN ENGAGING GOD!

Engaging God on the Heavenly Pathways of Relationship and Responsibility is our online school for equipping a Joshua Generation of supernatural sons of God to live according to the order of Melchizedek.

Your first two weeks free!
Click here to get started today*

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

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

97. Image-Bearers of the Heavenly

Mike Parsons
and Jeremy Westcott –

Purifying, refining fire

For some time now, the church has been at that point in God’s Prophetic Timetable which is characterised by the coming of fire, refining and purifying; the gathering and removing of stumbling blocks from the church and from our lives. It is not an easy time. Those stumbling blocks can be idols, they can be other things – and even people – that are hindering the flow of God’s kingdom. The gathering angels are here, to see if we are willing to open up our hearts and allow them to be removed from our lives. We can co-operate, or not: but it will be less painful if we do.

Raising up of a Joshua Generation

This time is also characterised by the raising up of a Joshua Generation, a people of a different spirit, a generation of people who will inherit the land and bring another generation in with them. Joshua and Caleb brought a whole new generation into a physical, geographical land, and also into a new spiritual land. We have spent some time looking at 40 Characteristics of the Joshua Generation on this blog, and it is important for us to know if we are called to be part of that generation.

That is where we are now. But we know that what God is calling us to do is to move forward. Refining, purifying, coming into the furnace of God’s Presence: that is all preparation for moving on with God.

Refiner’s fire

“And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant .. behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness (Mal 3:1-3).

God wants to prepare us, that we may be the offering of the Lord. A refiner’s fire gets pretty hot: the melting point of gold is around 1064°C (1945°F). As the heat is maintained, the impurities come to the surface and can be scooped off. If you are experiencing this, you will know exactly what we are talking about – when something comes to the surface in your life, you have a choice: you can allow God to remove it, or you can just push it all back under again. The trouble is, until you allow God to remove it, it will just keep on coming back to the surface. And the very worst thing you can do, if you want to fulfil your destiny in God, is get out of the fire.

When gold is really pure, the surface is like a mirror. It gives an absolutely perfect reflection. And God wants us to reflect Him, so that others see Him in us. But during that process we need to know that God is with us in it.

We open our door to Him, He opens His door to us

“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).

In other words, He is offering us an intimate relationship with Him in which He will reveal Himself to us and we will be close to Him. And a few verses later:

After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, He said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.”  Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne (Rev 4:1).

As we surrender our lives to God; as we open up our lives to the lordship of Jesus (and submit to the process of refining), He opens up the door into the heavenly realms for us to engage and ‘Come up here’. Some people have been translated physically, I know, but for most of us it will be a spiritual experience, and that is what we have been looking at on this blog in recent posts.

With practice we can learn to turn into that realm of heaven, because it is ‘at hand’ – or as close to us as if we put our hand in front of our face. We step in, and we step out of the heavenly realms. When we step back out, we bring with us what is there and manifest it here. That is what we understand by Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:10). Jesus Himself brought the kingdom, and the will of God, as it is in heaven, to the earth – and He intends his disciples to do the same. If we are to bring heaven to earth, we have to access heaven – and the door is open.

Bear the image of the heavenly

As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Cor 15:48-49).

Just as we were born in an earthly body, now we have been born again and our spirit is now active and alive to God. So we will now bear the image of the heavenly. We need to be bearing the image of the things that are going on in the heavenlies, and outworking them here on the earth. God is opening up the door for us to engage with the heavenly realms, so that we can both see and reflect what is going on.

Through the church… in the heavenly places

…and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:9-11).

There is so much more to God than we can even imagine. He is infinite and eternal. And there is so much that He is revealing today which has not been revealed before. He is opening the realms of heaven so that His people can see. That manifold, multi-faceted, wisdom of God is to be made known through the church – through us – to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places.

That kingdom which is in darkness – it, too, is that close to us. We are not to draw from it, but we are to manifest the manifold wisdom and authority of God to its rulers and authorities in heavenly places. This was always His intention:

This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord (v11).

Adam was to have enjoyed free access to the heavenly realms, but he chose a different path. In Christ, that access is now restored to us.

Related articles from Freedom ARC
Related articles from others

refining purifying fire twinstapin

1088

88. The Fall of Lucifer, the Light-Bearer

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

We have seen that something catastrophic happened between the first two verses of Genesis. Satan fell.

When God made the earth, as it is now, He removed it from the sphere it was in and placed it into time and space. God said, ‘Let there be light’ before He made the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Because He is light, and that light is creative light. And there are two speeds of light: there is the speed of light that operates in the heavenly realms, and the speed of light which operates here, which is slowing down (as some scientists have now suggested), although at the beginning they were the same speed. Because of Adam’s fall, the speed of light started to slow down and so time used to be quicker (if you understand what I mean). That is why the earth appears to be 10,000 years old in the biblical account, and yet it is 14 billion years old as measured by science. Time was different, time was stretched out, the heavens were stretched out.

There is a passage in 2 Peter which speaks of this period: For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water (2 Peter 3:5-6).

This is not Noah’s flood. This is talking about the original destruction of the earth, and the fall of Satan. Earth was flooded with water at that time, the first flood. That is why we then find that the Spirit of God was brooding upon the waters in Genesis 1:2.

The anointed cherub who covers

We need to see what happened when Satan fell. He was originally a covering cherub, one of those angels who covered the throne, one who cried ‘Holy, holy, holy’. When he cried ‘holy’, he was exclaiming with wonder as he received from God the revelation of His purposes.

At some point, God revealed His plan to use Man, a person with DNA, to carry the DNA of God on the earth. And God revealed that it was to be His sons in DNA who were going to inherit the earth and the heavens (rather than the sons of glory, the angels).

Instead of crying ‘holy’ this time, all of a sudden, something else started to form in Satan’s heart.  He rebelled, and in his heart he was saying, ‘I want to ascend to the place where I will be like that!’

Now Satan had a reptilian form, and he was covered in stones. He was called Lucifer, the light bearer, and he was also the leader of the worship in heaven. So those stones were supposed to reflect the light of God’s glory, and he was supposed to be responsible for training Man to come into the fullness of God.

In Ezekiel 28 we can read about Satan’s fall.

Thus says the Lord GOD, “You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared (Ezek 28:12-13).

The garden of God (Eden) was connected to the earth. In Genesis it says God had a garden in Eden, and then He planted a garden east of Eden. So there were two gardens, and at that point heaven and earth overlapped. The garden of God was where God walked, Adam had access to that; it was where the Tree of Life was.

And then we read about all the stones that covered Satan’s body. You will notice that Satan had nine stones, but Man has 12 stones: the breastplate of the High Priest had 12 stones, there were 12 tribes, there are 12 foundations to the New Jerusalem, 12 fruits on the Tree of Life. The number 12 speaks of government, and Man was supposed to exercise godly government.

[Biblical numerology is really interesting: threes and sevens and tens and twelves and forties are everywhere once you start to see them, but we can’t go fully into that here.]

Then it goes on,

You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire (Ezek 28:14-16).

Heaven is on a mountain, ‘the holy mountain of God’ (v14). The whole structure of heaven is a mountain and there is a plateau on top. On the mountain there is a throne and from the throne runs a river of fire – imagine how lava flows from a volcano. There are stones that operate on that fire which are stones of revelation. I have been on that mountain and I have walked on those stones, and another time I will maybe explain what those stones are. They represent what Satan would have done to bring Man into the fullness of God.

But then unrighteousness was found in him. It was exposed because of his role as covering cherub and the revelation that God gave him. The scripture goes on to speak about Satan’s trading and about his being filled with violence.

Again, I am going to have to teach on trade and trading floors another time, because it is to do with covenant and to do with exchange. For now, let’s understand that it worked like this: Satan had information, revelation of what God was going to do, and he traded it with the other angels. Man was going to inherit the heavens, rather than the angels doing so, because the angels were all about being ministering spirits for those who would inherit salvation (Heb 1:14). All the angels were created for us, and that now became clear. When Satan discovered this revelation, he went to some of the other angels and a third of them decided they were going to receive and act on it, and they were going to seek to rule the heavens instead of Man.

Like lightning from heaven

So Satan fell, like lightning from heaven, Jesus said. As a result of his fall, Satan no longer has access to Heaven (but has not lost access to all of the heavenly realms). He has no access to the River of Life or the stones of fire, or anything else which is found in that heavenly realm.

And when he fell, ‘there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Rev 12:7-9).

Here Satan is referred to as the dragon (I was writing about dragons and giants a few weeks ago in a previous post). This is where the word ‘dragon’ comes from: it is a description of Satan. A third of the angels – and that is a great number – took the trade Satan offered them, and fell with him.

As I say, that was in the original creation. Satan’s activity on the earth brought down God’s judgment upon it in the first flood, which resulted in a planet that was ‘formless and void’, covered in waters over which the Spirit would hover, brood or vibrate (Gen 1:2). And in the second creation, Adam’s rebellion would give Satan access to heaven again and open some of those realms back up to him.

Related articles from Freedom ARC

86. Kingdom Realms

The story so far

[February 2013]

Back in the summer of 2010, Mike went on a 40-day fast. God revealed much to him during that time, and over the months that followed, he began to share some of it with Freedom Church here in Barnstaple. Meanwhile, Jeremy had been looking at social media and blogging in another context, and in September 2011 began to sense that God was inviting us to use those newly available means to make that revelation and teaching available to the wider church.

So we set up this Sons Of Issachar blog, the @FreedomARC Twitter account, and the Facebook Page. Later on we also began posting on Pinterest, and added a YouTube channel, a new, much improved website and our structured introduction to living in the dual realms of heaven and earth, the Engaging God programme.

Here on the blog, 15 months in, we finally wrapped up Mike’s teaching on the Prophetic Timetable. That series closed with the 40 Characteristics of the Joshua Generation, which seem to have been widely shared and appreciated around the world.

Towards the end of that, Mike began to open up some further revelation about how we can obtain access to the realms of heaven, and why we need to do so. In this next ‘Kingdom Realms’ series, we will explore some of that in more detail, and to encourage you as you read to step into the realms of heaven and experience this for yourself.

[Feb 2020: If you want to keep up to date, you can usually catch one of Mike’s latest published ‘Mystic Mentoring’ sessions each Monday. Just visit our main website home page, scroll down and you will see the Mystic Mentoring video. These sessions often deal with current events and hot topics. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel so you don’t miss anythuing!

You can purchase recordings of many of Mike’s historic teaching series from our engaging God website too. The annual ‘Vision Destiny‘ sets (dated 2017 to 2022) are available free of charge.

Mike’s more recent teaching can be found as part of our Engaging God subscription programme – you get a two-week free trial period and we promise it is well worth a look!]
_________________________________________________________________________

Free Access to the Realms of Heaven

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott

When you first hear teaching about the heavenly realms you might find it rather challenging to begin with. You may never have heard anything quite like this in the church before. Don’t be surprised if your spirit starts to respond before your mind has caught up. It is easy to get confused, or bogged down by trying to make sense of it all from a logical point of view. Not to mention the fact that some of you are probably trying to work out if we have gone completely off the rails…

Please set your mind at rest, and let your spirit lead. We are not going to ask you to do anything that is not firmly rooted in Jesus. Jesus is the Logos Word, and you need an ever-deepening relationship with Him. The Bible is an introduction to Him, a springboard from which you can encounter Him. It is only by experience that you can truly know Him: an experience you can have for yourself in increasing measure.

“I will grant you free access…”

We saw a few posts ago a passage in Zechariah about Joshua the High Priest:

And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My service, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here” (Zechariah 3:6-7).

At that point Joshua is in the heavenly realms, not on the earth, and the others standing there are heavenly beings. This is where God promises Joshua that he can have ‘free access’.

But there are conditions. Since God does not show favouritism (Rom 2:11), we know that if we fulfil those conditions, the same offer is open to us. And in those conditions we can see a distinct progression. Walk in His ways; perform His service; govern His house; have charge of His courts: then we will be able to stand in His Presence in a different realm.

Moses knew the ways of God

He revealed His ways to Moses, his works (or His acts) to the children of Israel (Psalm 103:7).

Moses knew the ways of God. There was a reason for that: He was prepared to risk engaging with God, to meet with Him face to face, when the rest of Israel kept their distance from the fire and the smoke on the mountaintop. It is not an easy thing to get to know God’s ways. But He invites us to come as Moses did, into the heavenly realms, into His Presence, into His glory.

Remember how Moses asked God to show him His glory, how God passed by before him and he was not able to see God’s face, but only what the King James Bible calls His ‘back parts’? Now, when we read that with a Greek (western) mindset, we probably think it means he saw God’s physical back. Whatever would God’s back look like? But with a Hebrew worldview we understand that what Moses saw was history, the things God had done, everything that had happened up to that time. That is how Moses was able to write the first five books of the Bible, including the story of creation and all the other events which happened before his lifetime.

But the rest of the nation of Israel did not go up that mountain, and all they saw was what God did. They saw His works, they saw His miracles, but they didn’t really begin to understand who He is, what He is like. God is inviting us to do as Moses did, so that we can know His ways. And when we know His ways, we can do the works that He does.

Moses performed miracles. He brought water out of the rock: he used his staff, he exercised power. Israel just received. The whole nation saw the works, but none of them ever actually did the works like Moses did. Jesus said that He did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19): and He expects us to do the works He did (and greater ones).

If we are to walk in His ways, we first have to know His ways. To do the works of God, we need to know the ways of God. Then we can be among those who bring the kingdom from heaven to earth.

Walk in the ways of God

The Logos Word of God will be a safeguard for us, to keep us in the truth. The Word of God will be an anchor for all we do: Jesus is the Logos Word of God, the living Word. He is the exact image and likeness of the Father. If we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. If we get to know Jesus in relationship we can get to know the ways of God.  The ways of God reveal His character, so it is really important for us to become familiar with His ways.

If we look at Psalm 119, the first 40 verses in particular speak of His word, ways, testimonies, judgments, law, precepts, statutes, ordinances, commandments, and wonders. If we will meditate on those facets of His revelation, we realise they are all different, and that they each express some different aspect of His character.

Meditate on scripture

Meditation on scripture is really key for unlocking this. We, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory (2 Cor 3:18). As we meditate on a Bible verse or passage, what is written becomes a doorway to experience, and we become what we behold. And the more we behold, the more we become like what – or whom – we behold. We are transformed. That word is ‘metamorphosed’, like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. A change in its DNA takes place. Meditation like this can transform us that deeply.

Similarly, as we receive the DNA of God in breaking bread, the light comes into our DNA and we are changed.

We need to hear the rhema word, the word that God speaks right now, straight to our heart. When we meditate on scripture, we can receive a rhema word as the Holy Spirit teaches us and draws out for us a message which speaks to us in our situation. And we can also have face-to-face encounters with God where He speaks a word to us directly. When that happens, we will know it is God because that revelation will line up with the truth of His nature that we already know: God is love. While we learn to recognise His voice for ourselves, we can use love as our plumbline, our standard. If it is not love, it is not God.

If you go back to the first 40 verses of Psalm 119 again, you will see another set of words which express things we need to do in order to know and experience and press into His ways. Those are words such as: walk, observe, seek, look, treasure, tell, rejoice, meditate, establish, delight, live, long for, cling, run, incline, reverence, and give thanks.

Again, there are yet other words in those verses which describe how God will respond to our walking and seeking: He will bless (that is, He will empower us to prosper, to succeed to the highest level), ordain, teach, open eyes, rebuke, take away reproach, revive, answer, strengthen, grant, enlarge our heart, give understanding, and deal bountifully.

These are some of the pathways and the protocols, the processes we will need to follow if we want to fully experience and demonstrate the life of God.

We need to take the time to read and meditate on scriptures like these for ourselves. Why not use the ‘Leave a Reply’ section below to share the insights you receive when you do, and encourage others?

Related articles

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

Find out more and get started today!*

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

82. Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#21-25)

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott – 

The veil is open: in the spirit we can walk through that veil which is Jesus’ flesh, into the heavenly realms. So we can live there. There is a whole dimension here that we need to enter into. The Promised Land is not just about here on earth, it is about bringing heaven to earth. As we saw last time, if we are to be truly effective we have to learn to rule in the heavens and then bring that authority to bear in this realm. Today we will return to looking into the characteristics of the Joshua Generation again, but as we do, I want to encourage you to look at them from that perspective.

Another Joshua

First, though, let me mention another Joshua for a moment, to help us grasp all this. This is a much later Joshua, who was the High Priest, being called to enter the heavenly realms.

‘And the angel of the LORD admonished Joshua, saying, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My laws, then you will also govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and I will grant you free access among these who are standing here’”’(Zech 3:6).

‘If you will walk in My ways and if you will perform My laws’: those are the things we do here, in this realm. We can read Psalm 119:1-40 to understand more about His ways: His ordinances, His character, His nature. It establishes precedent when we fulfil the ways of God. Then it talks about performing His laws: if we follow the principles of the kingdom, here in the earthly realms, we will see manifestation of the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

‘Then you will also govern my house’: ruling the house is something to be done in the heavenly realms. The house of God is a dimension of the realms of heaven. And we are also a house, a dwelling place, for God.

‘You will also have charge of my courts’: the courts of heaven are where God administers justice, and the jurisdiction of God’s kingdom, manifested in the heavens, can be outworked here on earth.

‘And I will grant you free access among these who are standing here’: standing before the throne, in heaven. The High Priest had access to come into the very presence of God. If we are able to govern the house, and take charge of the courts, we will have access to stand in the presence of God. In His personal presence, not just His Presence. It is the difference between smoke and fire. Smoke tells you there is a fire. The Presence of God that we experience here in worship is like the smoke. But beyond that there is his Person, which is the fire. This passage in Zechariah is describing protocols which we must go through in order to be able to stand in the fire.

Let’s get back now to our original Joshua:

21 The Joshua generation will encourage people to hear the word of God directly.

Joshua 3:9 Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, “Come here, and hear the words of the LORD your God.”

It is important for us as individuals to come and hear the words of God for ourselves, and to train up others to do so for themselves too. We need to come before the throne, to come into the courts, to rule the house. My intention in doing so myself, and teaching it to you, is that I bring you into it.

Entering into the realms of heaven is for all of us. Separate to that, I have a role which is to bring signs and wonders and miracles and healing. I am going to pursue that for myself. But you, too, need to find out what is written on your scroll, and pursue that for yourselves. We each need to fulfil the scroll of our destiny (which we can find in the heavenly realms), read it, eat it, get it inside us, into our heart, and start outworking it.

22 The Joshua generation will be honoured and respected by the next generation.

There is going to be a culture of honour. Jesus said, “if you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you will receive a prophet’s reward” (Matt 10:41). We have to receive people in their gift and calling in order to receive the reward in our own lives. We want to honour one another and receive one another, because every single one of us have gifts and calls, and we must look to help one another fulfil those and work them out.

On that day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; so that they revered him, just as they had revered Moses all the days of his life (Joshua 4:14).

23 The Joshua generation will free the next generation from the reproach and effects of the past generations, into new revelation of past activities.

‘Now when they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the sons of Israel camped at Gilgal they observed the Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month on the desert plains of Jericho’ (Joshua 5:8-10).

There are things we have done, and things that we have within God’s kingdom and within the church, in which we have operated up to the level of revelation we previously had. But now everything is moving up to a higher level.

Here they celebrated the Passover and re-instituted circumcision, which they did not do in the wilderness. They came to consecrate themselves to God; the reproach of the past was wiped away, the stumbling-blocks were removed, the purifying and refining was taking place. When we come into new revelation, even in the things that we have done already we will begin to appreciate new levels of meaning as God opens them up to us in their fullness.

24 The Joshua generation will operate with the angelic realm.

This is something which causes Christians a lot of needless problems and argument. ‘Why do we need angels when we have the Holy Spirit?’ – you know the kind of thing. Angels and the Holy Spirit are completely different. Angels have a completely different purpose and function. And in fact all angels have their own particular functions.

For example, one night when Ian Clayton was here, he dropped frankincense on the floor and the aroma of it filled the room. It took me into the realms of heaven and I saw a canopy, and big angels being released from the throne. They had huge wings, and razor-sharp feathers which I could tell they were going to use as weapons. I knew instinctively who they were: they were the hunter angels. They go out to bring in a harvest. Their weapons are about cutting blindness off people’s eyes, which would prevent them from seeing and responding to the truth. And God is releasing them right now. They are different from the gathering angels, and the watcher angels, and other angels that we see. You notice, we even describe them by their function.

Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the LORD’S host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so (Joshua 5:13-15).

When you read that he ‘lifted up his eyes’, it means he was looking into the heavens, and seeing into another realm, another dimension. As you read the scriptures again, you will see examples of this in other places too, such as when Abraham ‘lifted up his eyes and looked’ and saw the three men standing opposite his tent (Gen 18:2). And in this passage, the captain of the host goes on to give Joshua strategy that will help him be victorious and successful. When we praise God, that high praise releases some of these angels. Read Psalm 149 and you will see more about that, how we execute judgments that are written, how we execute vengeance upon the enemy.

We are not fighting against flesh and blood. Earthly strategy just won’t cut it.

25 The Joshua generation will hear God’s strategy for warfare.

The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead” (Joshua 6:2-5).

When God said, “See”, how could Joshua see that? It hadn’t happened yet. The answer is that God was showing him in the realms of heaven what would happen. It is just like when Jesus said He did the things He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). In what realm did He see the Father doing them? The Holy Spirit will disclose things which are to come, before they actually happen, because we see – and can step into – a different realm.

Again, when this passage talks about a city with its king and its warriors, we can understand that solely in the natural realm. But above and beyond that, in the realms of the heavens, there are also mountains, and rulers and kings. We need to deal with them in that realm in order to deal with their counterparts in this realm. As I wrote last time, that is why we may historically have struggled to overcome in this realm – it is because we cannot do so effectively without dealing with the heavenly realm first.

Like Jesus, we also need to see what the Father is doing, in order to bring it to earth. If that is how Jesus operated (and He told us it was), then surely that is how we must operate too. Jesus lived constantly in two realms, in relationship with the Father.

The strategy God gave for taking Jericho was very clear, and very detailed. And the strategy that Joshua received in the heavenly realms, he had to carry out in this earthly realm. We need to be able to do that, every day, all the time.

That is what it means to be living in dual realms, to see what the Father is doing, to be constantly connected.

And that is what it takes to bring heaven to earth.

Related articles from Freedom ARC
Available in other languages

Soundtrack: Ascension Song by Laura C (via YouTube)

Image based on a photo by İbarihim Halil Uyğur on Pixabay

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

Get started today!*

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

81. Come Up Here – Bringing Heaven To Earth

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Over the past few posts we have looked at the first 20 characteristics of the Joshua generation. Before embarking on the other 20, this time I just want to explore something I have hinted at before but not really opened up fully with you.

The Moses generation

Remember how the Moses generation failed to enter in? They came out of Egypt but turned back instead of entering the Promised Land. The reason their mistakes are recorded in scripture is so that we can learn from them.

For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “THE PEOPLE SAT DOWN TO EAT AND DRINK, AND STOOD UP TO PLAY.” Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Cor 10:1-11).

A billion labourers

The Moses generation did not cross over into their Promised Land because they saw they would have to face giants. Will we cross over into ours? The Joshua generation are going to equip a harvest of a billion labourers, equip them in the supernatural, to bring heaven to earth. Those billion are just the harvesters, who will eventually bring in the full and final harvest at the end of the age. There will need to be that many of them because the battle is going to become more and more intense, as light comes into the darkness, challenges it, and overcomes it. Those harvesters are the Jesus generation, the ones who will see Him return.

Some of those reading this will be of the Joshua generation and some of the Jesus generation; I hope none of you are of the Moses generation – I do not want you to stay in the wilderness.

On earth as it is in heaven

So here we are. God is outworking His purposes, and the ends of the ages have come: we need revelation from Him if we are to engage with how things are in the heavenly realms and bring them into the earthly realms. That is what it means when we pray ‘on earth as it is in heaven’: it is up to us to bring heaven to the earth.

The Joshua generation will be forerunners who have spied out the land. What we may not have realised fully until now is that our Promised Land is not only about earthly things. To operate in the fullness of the kingdom, we need to operate in heavenly as well as earthly realms. Some of our spying out will be done in the realms of earth, but some of it will be in the realms of heaven.

God offered Moses’ generation the land of promise, but the vast majority of them said, ‘We can’t go in’. And earlier in their journeying, He had been willing for the whole nation to meet with Him on the mountaintop, but they were afraid of the thunder and lightning, the fire and the smoke, so they said to Moses, ‘You go, and tell us what God says. We can’t go in’.

In the same way God offers us all access to the heavenly realms now, because Jesus has opened them up for us – that is what was signified by the veil of the temple being torn in two at the moment of His death. His purpose is that we can experience everything He intends for us. Like the children of Israel, though, many are saying ‘We can’t go in’.

Responsibility

The kingdom of God is about government, about authority, about rulership. God wants us to learn how to rule in our own lives, and how to rule in the realms of the spirit to bring heaven to earth. We need to learn how to lead and equip the Jesus generation to possess  the land of promise. The Hebrew word for ‘possess’ means ‘to inherit by seizing, dispossessing and become heirs’. We were made as spirit beings, to have access to the spiritual realms. When Adam was first created, he had access to the heavenly realms. There was nothing to stop him. Only sin [essentially a loss of identity] caused him to lose that access. The glory that he was clothed with was removed. Let me put it like this: it is as if a bandwidth of revelation was removed from him, so he could no longer see into the things which were of a higher bandwidth – the realms of heaven.

Now, everything about God’s kingdom has a beginning and an end, but the beginning and the end are always the same. That is why Hebrew thinking is always circular, not linear like Greek thinking. Linear thinking speaks about layers of heavens – first heaven, second heaven, third heaven – but the heavenly realms are not really that way at all. They are dimensions of authority. It may have seemed simpler to our western minds to express it as first/second/third, but it has been misleading. We read ‘third heaven’ in Paul’s writings and leap to the conclusion that there must at least be layers below that of a first and second heaven through which we have to travel to get to the third. Hebrew thinking implies no such thing.

For God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, it will involve us fulfilling Adam’s mandate: to rule in the spirit realm and by so doing to reconfigure the natural realm. When we fulfil that mandate, we will see God’s glory fill the earth (Num 14:21).

We have to have experience of operating in the heavenly realms ourselves if we are to bring other people into it, and that is what God is doing amongst His people right now. He is opening things up so that we can gain that access, and begin to operate in two realms, earthly and heavenly. We learn to rule in heavenly realms, and then we bring that rule to bear in the realm of the natural.

Operate in authority

Before we can rule in the earthly realm, we need to operate in authority in heavenly places.

We have to go up and down before we can go to and fro. The trouble is, we have tried to bring heaven down while standing in the earthly realms. That is why we have been beaten up so much by the enemy: we have been trying to come against the spiritual forces of wickedness and darkness with the earthly dimension of authority we have here. We need to bring heavenly authority in order to defeat them. It is a different dimension of authority. To exercise heavenly authority we need to go up, and bring heaven down with us.

On the island of Patmos, in the spirit, John heard a voice saying ‘Come up here’ (Rev 4:1). That voice is still speaking to us today. Do you hear it?

Soundtrack: Open Door – Janine John Band (via YouTube)

Available in other languages
Related articles from FreedomARC

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

Get started today!*

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

73. A literal 1000 years?

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

Scripture teaches us that Satan is bound for a thousand years. In this short post I just want to look more closely at that figure and consider whether it is literal or symbolic.

cattle-20527_1280To do that, let’s look at some examples of how the Bible uses it in other places.

For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills (Ps 50:10).

So are the cattle on the 1001st hill not His? Clearly this is not a literal 1000 hills, it is just a big number – in fact it means all of them.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night (Ps 90:4).

Are a literal thousand years exactly like a day to God in heaven, or is it really saying that heavenly things are eternal whilst earthly things are temporal (and temporary)?

And it is the same with this scripture: He has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations (Ps 105:8). If that is literal, you are in trouble if you are part of the 1001st generation! Will the 1001st generation miss out on His covenant blessings? Will His word no longer be operating? That is not what it means at all.

You might think I am deliberately picking references to the number 1000 and 1000 years which are not literal. But I cannot find even one Old Testament reference to a literal 1000 years, nor did Jesus ever teach about it or even mention it. There is nothing in the epistles to indicate that there would be a significant period of a literal 1000 years. We have one short passage in Revelation 20, and people have built up a massive theology around it being a literal 1000 years when there is nothing else in scripture to back it up.

The conclusion has to be that the number 1000 is symbolic. It is made up of 10x10x10, and 10 is the number of fullness. The ‘thousand years’ is the whole of this period we are living in. And when everything is fulfilled, Jesus will return.

Related articles from Freedom ARC

Related article from Jonathan Welton: A literal new heaven and new earth