spiritual maturity – Sons of Issachar

494. What Enoch Teaches Us about Readiness and Change

Mike Parsons –

I do believe that God speaks to us. And if He is sending someone to speak, then He has something for us to hear. I would say that message is: get ready.

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I do not really look at the appearances of the cloud of witnesses, or Enoch, or anyone else, as though they are meant to mark out some new era of rest or shift in season. In reality, since Jesus came, we should be living in a time of rest. This is the age of the Kingdom. I have never been much for dividing things into different ages, or assigning each one to a different period of maturity, because I think some people have walked in maturity from the very beginning. Still, I do believe that God speaks to us. And if He is sending someone to speak, then He has something for us to hear. I would say that message is: get ready.

Enoch, after all, walked with God. And he still is walking with God. The only difference is that he is not doing it here. So, if there is any message in the reports of Enoch showing up to people, I think it is the same: be ready. Be ready for whatever happens, and be listening for what it is that Jesus, or the Father, is saying to prepare us for it.

Now, I do not believe we are waiting for a Second Coming, or the end of the world, or anything of that kind. What I believe we are waiting for is the restoration of all things. And in that process of restoration, things on earth will need to change. If we are going to see “on earth as it is in heaven”, then earth as it is now cannot stay the same. But God is not going to wave a magic wand over creation and simply make everything different. People have to change.

For the world to change, people have to change. Not just political systems or social structures, but people. And for people to change, they must find a reason to do so. So I believe that everything humanity has placed its trust in – everything that keeps the world as it is – will be challenged. Those things will no longer feel safe or secure, and people will start looking for something more solid. What they should find is the manifestation of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, the revealing of the sons of God who carry heaven’s light into the world’s apparent darkness.

There may well be shakings of systems that cause people to lose trust in them. That could take many forms, but I believe God prepares and warns us beforehand. So why would Enoch in particular be appearing? What is it about him that is significant? Perhaps nothing beyond this: Enoch walked with God, and still does in the heavenly realm, and retains a body that allows him to function in this realm. That alone sets him apart from most of the cloud of witnesses who have laid aside their earthly bodies.

I have engaged with Enoch a number of times, and on several occasions God sent him with what he called “quests” for me to fulfil. Enoch understands the nature of walking with God in both heaven and on earth, and so he carries insight into how those two realities intersect. When it says Enoch walked with God, I do not think it means merely that God showed up on earth to stroll with him as He did with Adam in the garden. I believe Enoch walked with God in both the heavenly and earthly realms, and at some point God took him fully into that heavenly realm for a particular reason.

When he came to me in what I now call the chamber of destiny, he gave me specific quests that brought significant changes to how I did things. Each one opened up a new level of understanding and maturity, another way in which God wanted to operate through me.

I think right now many people are having experiences of God – some mystical, heavenly – but they do not always understand the purpose of those experiences in the context of restoration. What difference do they make on earth? They are enjoying their encounters, but are those encounters transforming the earth through them? Are they manifesting heaven on earth through their lives? That is what needs to change. And I believe God is about to accelerate those changes.

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445. Walking In The Spirit: A Journey Into Heavenly Realms

The Restoration of All Things (blog series)

277. On Earth as in Heaven

215. Revealing the Sons of God

434. God’s Fiery Love

Mike Parsons

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The cross was a powerful point where God dealt with every accusation made against us, reconciled us to himself and didn’t count anything we may have previously done against us. So why do we—and why does religion—keep bringing it up? Because religion keeps reinforcing the need to maintain a certain standard of behaviour. You have to do this, and do that, and if you don’t, you feel guilty. Christianity has its own set of laws now—which is a mixture of covenants. Read your Bible, pray every day, witness, go to church—these become the Evangelical law. Catholics might have communion, confession, sacraments. It’s all performance-based.

But God’s fire is God’s love. People talk about God’s fire as punishment, especially in political rhetoric—like “they’re gonna pay the price now!”—but really, God is a consuming fire, and that fire is always for purification, never punishment. He has no punishment to give. We’ve made God out to be a judge who must punish sin, but that’s a misunderstanding. Fire, like a refiner’s fire, is about removing impurities—transforming, not destroying. He wants us to be pure gold, purely who he created us to be.

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

More details at eg.freedomarc.org/books

We’ve been conditioned to think God punishes those who reject him. But what loving father does that? Instead, God makes every opportunity—even after death—for people to accept him. At the point of death, Jesus comes as light and invites people into that light. Some accept. Others, conditioned by other beliefs or guilt, reject it. They go into the fire of God’s love, which continues working until every hindrance is gone. The fire doesn’t destroy—it transforms. Even if someone knows God, they’ll still pass through that fire because he loves us too much to leave us incomplete.

Whether it’s the altar of sacrifice, or going through the river of fire, or the fiery furnace of Daniel’s friends, the fire never destroys. Even the Lake of Fire, when you examine the original Greek, is about testing, not torment. The word “brimstone” (theos) is connected to God’s presence. God’s wrath (orgē) means passion—passion against what harms us, not passion to punish.

For me, going through the fire has always meant transformation. Never punishment. Always love. Sometimes challenging, but always an invitation to change, not condemnation. When someone dies, if they’re a believer, their spirit and soul go into the realms and become part of the cloud of witnesses. If they’re not a believer, Jesus appears to them as light and invites them into relationship. Many accept. Angels take them, and train them. Others don’t—some feel unworthy due to guilt or religious conditioning. They feel they’re being punished, but it’s their own shame. God isn’t punishing them—they’re punishing themselves.

We can minister to those in that place—preaching good news even there. Some don’t believe they’re worthy of love because of their lives, but God never stops loving. Religion has turned the message of love into fear. “You’d better be sorry enough so God will forgive you.” But love is what transforms, not fear.

Religion has made “sin” a verb—wrong actions. But in the Greek, “sin” is a noun. It’s not about behaviour; it’s about lost identity. “The wages of sin is death” means the consequence of lost identity is a life less than what God intended. Jesus dealt with sin—our lost identity—on the cross. He reconciled all of us. God’s not holding anything against anyone. Christianity often says, “You’re saved by grace through faith,” but turns that into a requirement for your own faith to save you. Yet even that faith is a gift. There are no works involved. Repentance (metanoia) doesn’t mean “be sorry.” It means change your mind—agree with God’s perspective.

God has forgiven everyone already. Jesus took our death, gave us his life, and came to dwell in us. Many just don’t know it yet. Religion doesn’t lead people to freedom—it creates another set of rules, conditions and guilt. Every stream has its own standards, and if you don’t meet them, you’re condemned. But God has made us righteous. He sees us as we truly are. If we can see ourselves as he sees us, our lives will be transformed.

Even fallen angels lost their identity. I’ve heard of angels missing others—missing Lucifer and those who fell. I believe God will restore all things. Colossians 1 says all things were created by and for him and will be reconciled. Some fallen angels don’t believe restoration is possible because they’ve been told otherwise. But when we minister to them with love, it can stir their memory. Those who haven’t fallen probably know restoration is possible—thousands have already been restored.

Sometimes we hear only the reflection of our own voice when we ask God things. It’s easy to hear what we want to hear. That’s why we need to measure everything against love. If what you hear doesn’t align with love, it’s not God.

When I ask him about choices, like whether to go somewhere or do something, God often says, “Do what you want.” He wants us to mature into sons who can choose based on alignment with his heart, not just wait for orders.

243. Not Counting Their Trespasses

406. Recognise the Finished Work of Jesus

316. The Purpose of the Fire

245. What Jesus Did

265. Love’s Good News

426. The Nature of God: Rethinking Our Beliefs

Mike Parsons

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People often ask doctrinal questions, but it’s important not to answer them with doctrinal answers, because doing so only reaffirms another doctrinal stance. What we really need to do is bring it back to the nature and character of God. Behind every doctrinal question lies an assumption about who God is and how He acts. The person asking the question might no longer resonate with that assumption, or they may be going through a process of having their previous beliefs challenged. For example, when God began challenging my own belief in penal substitutionary atonement—something foundational to my upbringing—it led to a cascade of further questions. Doctrines are interconnected. When one is questioned, others naturally follow, and this often challenges the very foundation of someone’s faith.

Some doctrines may seem less significant, but if someone is asking about them, there’s usually a reason. The real issue is not necessarily the question itself but why they’re asking it. Understanding the motivation behind the question can reveal where they are in their journey. Perhaps God is working in them, nudging them to reconsider something. If they’re asking just to win an argument or prove their own belief right, then engaging in debate is usually fruitless—they’re not really open to listening.

So when someone asks about theology, I try to understand what’s prompting the question. Is God speaking to them? Challenging them? What’s He doing in their life that might explain why they’re now curious about this topic? Once I get a sense of that, I can align with what God is doing in that person’s life. I don’t want to get ahead of where God has them. If I tell them something they’re not ready for, they may react badly and retreat from the journey they’re on. I try not to give people something ten steps ahead when they just need the next step.

I often won’t answer the question they’re literally asking. Instead, I try to give the answer they actually need at that moment. This can be frustrating—some will say, “But you’re not answering my question.” And that’s true, but if God doesn’t want me to answer it right now, then I won’t. I want to share what God is saying to me to say, not just what I think I should say. The goal is always to discern what’s really behind their question, what’s in their spirit and heart, and then respond to that.

Rather than giving them answers, I try to point them to the Father. If they come to know who the Father really is, they’ll be better equipped to receive the answers directly from Him. That’s far more helpful than just believing or disbelieving something I tell them. Often doctrinal misunderstandings come from a distorted view of God, so pointing people to the true nature of God helps correct those distortions more effectively than tackling the doctrine itself.

In a recent Zoom on Patreon, I shared how mistranslations have distorted our view of God—how we see the cross, ourselves, and how God relates to us. These come from reading Scripture through doctrine instead of revelation. Take Isaiah 53:10—most English versions say it pleased the Lord to bruise him, suggesting God took pleasure in punishing Jesus. That paints God as abusive, which pushes people away.

But Jesus used the Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament—written between 300 and 100 BC. It reflects a shift in understanding. Earlier, people had thought everything came from God—good or bad—because they didn’t separate God from Satan. But over time, that changed. The Septuagint shows a growing revelation of who God really is—not a punisher, but a healer.

The Septuagint says the Lord wished to cleanse him of his wound—not bruise or crush him. That word cleanse is the same used when Jesus healed a leper. God didn’t punish Jesus—man did, inspired by the enemy. Jesus took on mankind’s wound so the Father could restore our identity. Penal substitution paints God as an abuser and makes love hard to grasp.

Similarly, Jeremiah 17:9 is mistranslated. It doesn’t say the heart is deceitful and beyond cure, but the heart is deep—who can know it? These distortions fuel a false view of humanity as wicked and unfixable, rather than whole, loved and made in God’s image.

Romans 5:9 is very often translated as saying we’re saved from the wrath of God, but “of God” is added by translators—it’s not in the original. The King James and Young’s Literal just say the wrath. So whose wrath is it? Not God’s—it’s the enemy’s. The one who comes to rob, kill and destroy. Jesus came to give life and to destroy the works of the evil one.

For then the blameless man made haste, and stood forth to defend them; and bringing the shield of his proper ministry, even prayer, and the propitiation of incense, set himself against the wrath, and so brought the calamity to an end, declaring that he was thy servant. So he overcame the destroyer, not with strength of body, nor force of arms, but with a word subdued him that punished, alleging the oaths and covenants made with the fathers. For when the dead were now fallen down by heaps one upon another, standing between, he stayed the wrath, and parted the way to the living. (Wisdom of Solomon 18:21-23 KJV).

So the Wisdom of Solomon, part of the original canon of scripture [and included in the King James Bible until it was removed in 1885] says it is “the destroyer“ who punishes and brings death, and Paul would have known this as scripture. So when he talks about ‘the wrath’, he is referring to the enemy’s destruction, lies and identity theft—not God’s supposed anger.

So, a few mistranslated verses have propped up an entire theology that presents a false view of God’s nature.

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

More details at eg.freedomarc.org/books