Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4:16).
Just like Jesus, our elder brother, we can engage with our heavenly Father and enjoy an intimate relationship with Him; just like Jesus, we have all the resources of heaven available to us to achieve all we are called to do in our lives. Being the Joshua Generation means embracing our inheritance and birthright as sons of God.
Positioned
Sonship (which is not gender-specific) is not just about having a restored soul and becoming whole, wonderful as that is. Sonship is about being positioned, seated, enthroned in heaven so that our governmental position can be expressed on the earth. Sonship is about being in the Father and the Father being in us. When we are positioned in the Father, He can position us as His express image into creation, anywhere in time and space.
For example, one night as I was about to go to sleep at home in the UK, I said to the Father, “Hey, I’m available for an adventure!” and I went back in time to the 1760s. Someone in America was praying for help because their child had died. I found myself there, outside the house; they invited me in; I prayed for the child, who was healed and restored; and I found myself back in my room at home.
I started to wonder, how could I have gone back into the past and changed it? I was facing the well-known time travel paradox: if I changed the past, surely I have changed the present! Then I realised that to God there is no past, present and future: to Him it is all ‘now’. If I am in Him, I am not limited by time or space any more than He is; He can allow me to travel wherever and whenever, as I make myself available to Him.
Father’s business
That may sound strange, but it is the kind of thing you get to do when you are a son. You get involved in the Father’s business. When people are praying, He directs you to act in response to people’s prayers. Sonship is about being part of a family, in relationship with the Father, with Jesus, with the Holy Spirit and with one another. As a family, we will be about the Father’s business: the restoration of all things back to His original desire and design.
The whole of creation responds to us as sons. Sonship is then about being a gateway for the Father to touch the earthly realm through our lives. Jesus said “the Father who lives in Me does His work through me” (John 14:10 NLT); that is, not independently but in complete cooperation and relationship with one another. They were one. We want to get to that point where we are ‘joined to the Lord and one spirit with Him’ (1 Cor 6:17 NLT); where we cannot tell whether it is us doing something or the Spirit doing it (and it really does not matter either way, because we are one).
Precision
Sonship is about being a gateway for the Father to touch others. The way we do that is changing. It used to be that the ‘man of power for the hour’ would stand up at the front, prophesying over people, laying hands on everyone and knocking them flat on the floor. I have done that. That is the old ‘mediator’ model. Often it was like a blunderbuss or a shotgun approach: blast everything out there, tag it with ‘in the name of Jesus’ and hope that some of it would stick.
God does indeed want us all to be equipped to release His love and power into other people’s lives, but to do so because we actually see what is going on; then we can direct the flow of the grace of God to touch the precise areas that need healing. Most physical disorders are the result of emotional hurt and pain, so if you do not heal the emotions, the physical symptoms just keep returning. You need to get to the root of the issue – and it will be different every time! So how do you do that? By reading the thoughts and intentions of people’s hearts. Seeing into someone’s DNA, you can identify where trauma is trapped in cells, and where they are stuck and fragmented; not as some kind of magic party trick, but in order to bring healing as a precision instrument. If we can all be equipped to be like Jesus, to do the things Jesus did in the same way that He did them, then we will be able to go on to do the greater works like He promised we would (John 14:12).
A daily to-do list?
I asked Jesus one time how He knew what to do, and how He should do it. I had the idea that maybe He would go to the Father each morning and get a list, probably written on a scroll. And I thought it would be very specific: heal this blind person by spitting on the ground and making mud; heal this other one by speaking to them; and this one by touching their eyes. But that was not it at all – He just had the heart of the Father to heal people that day and then, creatively, as a son, chose which way to do it.
When we are in the heart of God, we can choose our reality. We like to have a formula, but if a formula always worked then we would not need a relationship. I cannot assume that because I did something in a particular way one day, then I should do the same thing in the same way the next. God has not set it up that way, because He only works through relationship – He is one God in three persons, and relationship is at the core of His nature. So my mandate for the day is not a list of things I should or should not do: I am seated with Him in heaven, knowing His heart; and throughout the day I am continually connected to His heart, so I can always be where I need to be and do what I need to do, flowing in relationship with Him.
Love
We are called as sons to be part of the Joshua Generation, forerunners of heavenly intimacy, who have spied out the land beyond the veil; who have been wooed by the Father into restored sonship. The Joshua Generation are called to experience the precepts, character and nature of God Himself; to experience – and demonstrate – the reality of the very essence of God who truly is love.