362. Romancing with God on the Dance Floor

Lakah

The Gardens of Lakah showed me how much God, who is Father, Son, and Spirit, loved me and desired a deeper relationship with me, restoring me to be part of a family. I didn’t really understand family, because my own experiences didn’t give me a full understanding of what family and relationship really were in my childhood. Now, as an adult with a family, I looked to my work and what I then discovered in that relationship, but I wasn’t always successful. The Father, however, desired to reveal to me my sonship identity within family – not independently, not just between me and God, but within the family of God. There was only so much I could handle at that stage, so God revealed the amount of truth I could bear, while mysteries that I couldn’t yet handle would be unveiled to me in the future.

That’s what happened in that dance-floor experience, similar to what Jesus said to his disciples in John 16:12: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at the present.” All of us have the Spirit of Truth within us, guiding us into all truth, but we may not always be able to handle that truth. Like in the famous film quote, “You can’t handle the truth,” I couldn’t handle it all at once. Some truths were unveiled gradually, allowing me to handle more and more until those truths deconstructed the lies I had believed. My experiences were progressive, often mysterious, but that’s okay – we don’t have to understand everything.

Segullah

God brought me into the Segullah relationship – a deep, treasured connection where He declares, “You are my treasured possession; you are the apple of my eye.” This was the revelation I received through these dance-floor encounters, showing me who God is and revealing my true identity and destiny as a son. I didn’t fully understand sonship initially, but through these dances with God in my heart – a place of intimacy and revelation – I became entwined with Him, moving deeper into union and unveiling who I really am. This slow, intimate dance, moving between light and darkness, wasn’t about fear, but about trust in the Lover of my soul, who was capturing my heart more and more.

The song “Behold, you have come over the hills upon the mountains, to me you will run, my beloved, you’ve captured my heart” perfectly captures what God did in the garden – He captured my heart. He desired this deeper intimacy, and I pursued more of Him. The romance of this relationship continued as we danced to the song of all songs, not one I heard with words, but one I felt – a frequency resonating with the truth of my origin in Him. This dance revealed my identity, my DNA as a son of God, and the very essence of who I am. Through this, I began to go beyond into the mystery of sonship – far beyond what I could imagine – but God danced me into it, and later I would resonate with what I’d experienced there.


[This is an except from Mike’s current teaching series, Restoring First Love. Get the full length videos every month, only at eg.freedomarc.org/first-love]


Darkness and light

Psalm 139:10 says, “Even there your right hand will lead me, and your right hand will take hold of me.” At first, I found it difficult to understand why there was darkness, but then I came across this verse. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father, symbolising where we sit in a position of authority beside the Father. He holds our left hand with His right, giving us authority and guiding us. He led me in the dance – I wasn’t leading, I was following Him.

When I felt overwhelmed, as if the darkness was too much, I remembered Psalm 139:11-12: “If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is as bright as the day.” This isn’t about physical darkness, but about revelation and the illumination of truth. There were things not yet illuminated to me, mysteries I couldn’t comprehend. Even though everything is known to God, to me, many things were still unknown. Yet God prepared me, placing the frequency of those experiences within me so that the mysteries would eventually lead me into the light of revelation.

Psalm 139:13 is a passage I’ve meditated on a lot: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The psalmist could declare this with confidence, but I struggled to say it because I viewed myself through the lens of my humanity and failures, rather than my sonship. But this was what God wanted to engage me in – the truth of who I am as His creation, even though I couldn’t fully accept it at first.

Psalm 139 continues: “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” This doesn’t mean we have a limited number of days, but that our ordained days as sons of God were written and belong to us in our sonship. It speaks of the eternal nature of who we are in God. God’s thoughts towards me, as it says in verse 17, are vast, beyond my ability to think for myself. But over time, He revealed them to me, helping me to see myself as He sees me.

So, I humbled myself under God’s mighty hand, accepting His view of who I am, rather than trying to validate myself through my own works. I was danced into the light of revelation and also into the darkness of mystery – those things I couldn’t yet comprehend with my mind, but which my spirit resonated with and was drawn to. Later, these mysteries were unveiled as I grew in understanding.

Activation

So, get relaxed. Begin to focus on your breathing. Breathe in very, very slowly, hold that breath, and then begin to let it out. As you’re breathing in, you’re breathing in the unconditional love of the Father. That unconditional love is filling you, touching every fibre of your being. It’s flowing through you.

Picture that door in your spirit and choose to open the door. Your choice is an invitation to the Father, for Him to come and hug you. Hear His words: “I love you. I love you, my son, my daughter. I love you.”

Hear some of the vast sum of His thoughts. Let them restore you to His original desire for you. Maybe you’ll resonate with them in your spirit. Be open to an infusion of His thoughts about you—of who you really are.

Now, let the Father take you by the hand and lead you. Maybe He’ll lead you to the dance floor, entwine with you heart to heart, and dance with you into the light and into the mysteries. As He dances with you, allow your spirit to draw from Him. Let your spirit resonate with that truth. Let even the mysteries be deposited within you—the truth of your identity, the mysteries of your destiny.

Go wherever God takes you. Maybe you can dance with the Lover of your soul. Let Him romance you. Let Him sing the song of your life over you. Feel the rhythm, feel the frequency, feel the life that it activates within you.

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18. Experiencing Intimate Knowledge of God

Mike Parsons 

Knowing our identity as sons of God begins with really knowing God and not just knowing about Him. Who are we? As sons of God, we are royalty. We have a royal identity. We are priests – those who have free and full access to the holy things of God. We are a habitation of God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have made their home in us and want to be expressed through us. Bill Johnson says that ‘God is locked up in unbelieving believers’. He doesn’t want to stay locked up any more – He wants us to let Him out.

And we don’t want to be unbelieving believers either. We want to be believing believers, those who know what God says about us and act on it without question, without hesitation. And there is a call for real intimacy, to know God’s love intimately on earth and in heaven. If we are a habitation of God, then we have God on the inside: more and more, He desires to open up His heart to us and for us to open up our heart to Him. This is increasing in intensity: we have seen that the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit is as nothing compared to the latter rain that is coming.

Call to intimacy

We can struggle with the very concept of intimacy with God. The men in particular, even as we are singing ‘Romance me’ in our Sunday meeting, some are squirming because they don’t know how to take it, because they can’t get their head around being romanced by a man. But God is not a man, He is a spirit. Yes, He makes Himself known to us as Father, but God is a Spirit. ‘Hold me close, let Your love surround me’ – He wants to hug us, draw near to us, so that we can truly know Him, know what He is feeling, know what He is thinking, to feel His heartbeat. The Apostle John laid his head upon Jesus’ breast. Jesus is looking for a close, intimate relationship with us so that we can get revelation of His heart. He is drawing us into that intimacy. Sometimes we struggle, but our praise has the power to open up the heavenly portals so that we can have intimacy with Him, in the throne room, in the bridal chamber; so that we can find intimacy with the heart of God.

These and other chambers in the heavenly realms are places He wants to take us into, but we cannot enter into them unless we allow Him to open up that place of intimacy with us. We need to be willing, so that he can release truth to us, so that he can release our identity to us. The door is open in heaven, and God is calling us to love and identity. He is calling us to know by experience. We can read a book about God, we can even read the Bible, and know facts, but He wants more than that: He wants us to know Him by experience, to know what love really is, to know what acceptance really is, to know what forgiveness really is. He has made us a ‘kingdom and priests to our God’ (Revelation 1:2). And He says, ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock, if anyone opens to me I will come in and dine with him…’ As the Jesus Culture song ‘Come Away‘ says, we need to open up our hearts, and let Him in.

Open the door

Just as Adam walked with God in the Garden of Eden, so also we have a garden inside of us now, a place where God’s Spirit joins our spirit. He is wanting to open up a door for us so that we can have experience of heaven, but we have to open it up by opening up our heart to Him. And not just ajar, so that we get a brief glimpse; but to swing it wide and ‘let the King of Glory come in’. Jesus promises that if we will open up to His knock, He will come in and dine with us. Remember, dining is a very intimate thing in New Testament times; they would have reclined on the floor very close to one another; it was a place of sharing life. Jesus wants to do that with us so that we are able to hear His heart, to feel His heart, experience His love. And ‘Look, behold, a door open in heaven’ – as we open the door in our spirit, a  door in heaven opens and we hear a voice inviting us to ‘Come up here, experience my garden, experience the things of heaven with me’. We need to open the door in our spirits, daily, and when we open the door, a door opens for us to receive intimacy of relationship with Him.

I used to think I knew what His Presence was: now I know I didn’t have a clue. I don’t know all that much now, but I know more than I did, because I have experienced it for myself; because I have experienced going to heaven; because I have experienced what it is to look into His eyes, to look at Him on the cross, to see His eyes of love. There is so much for us to experience: let’s be hungry and thirsty, let’s not get stuck, let’s be eager for more. Because there is more to come. He is wanting to equip us to come into our destiny as sons of God. He wants to parade His sons before people and say, just like He did of Jesus, ‘This is my Son, whom I love, listen to Him’.

It is time for us to open up our hearts. It is time for us to become superheroes of faith. I am telling you, Marvel Comics characters will have nothing on the church when we come into our inheritance as sons.

Father, release a hunger and a thirst in Your people.
Release in them a passion for intimacy, for love,
So that each of them will open up their heart
And let the King of Glory come in.

Let the Holy Spirit come in and stir us to receive You.
Touch us afresh,
Help us to know who we are, and who You are.
Teach us to flow together with You,
To open up those heavenly gates and welcome You in.

Let Your people see that door standing open in heaven,
And hear Your voice inviting them to ‘come up here’.
Let Your Spirit brood over us.
Empower us as sons of the Living God
To be those superheroes of faith
Who know their God, and do exploits.

Amen.

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Soundtrack: Jesus Culture – Come Away