The Practicalities Of The Prophetic

Some people walk in an incredible confidence in their prophetic gifting. It is not a cockiness; it is not a pride or arrogance. It is pure confidence. They know that God has gifted them and they know that God will show up when the open their mouth to prophesy at His direction. There is usually a great deal of humility that goes with this confidence, because they know it is all God and not them at all. But there is an assuredness that God will show up and put His words in their mouth when they prophecy. They have learned that God is reliable and they have come to put their confidence in Him in this area. In a sense, they have been given the authority of Jesus to prophesy and they know it. Jesus walked in great authority and confidence as He taught and ministered. The bibles says, Matthew 7:29, that "He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes."

At the same time, Jesus was committed to only do what the Father was doing and not do His own thing. It was because of this that He could have the assuredness that God would back Him up with power and anointing. Jesus explained in in John 5:19, where He said, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." Likewise. the prophet does not speak on his or her own. Rather a prophetic person sees what God is doing, listens to God and gets their direction from God. And it is because they are being led by God that they can have confidence that the words they speak when they prophecy will be God speaking through them.

Please don't get me wrong. Prophets are still human beings, and as such it is possible that they can make a mistake. Their words still have to be prayerfully judged and evaluated. I believe that any prophet -- even the "greats" like Paul Cain, Bill Hamon, Rick Joyner -- can occasionally make a mistake. These mistakes tend to be pretty rare in seasoned prophets, but they can occur. So we must never attribute infallibility to a prophet... even to a prophet with an excellent "track record". All prophets know they are not infallible. But at the same time, God wants them to have confidence that He will show up and minister through them when they open their mouth (at His direction) to speak His words.

So, how does a person get that confidence? This may sound basic, but the first step in getting the confidence in a prophetic gifting is to actually possess the prophetic gifting. You cannot have confidence in a gift you do not have! Every believer can hear God's voice (John 10:27). God can and will speak to them. And in this level of hearing, God will often give us something encouraging or up-building for others. He likes to do that. That is available to all believers, but that is not necessarily the "gift of prophecy" operating.

Christian International teaches that there are three levels of prophetic anointing. The first is the spirit of prophecy, and it is when God sovereignly moves over a meeting to release the prophetic and "whosoever wills" can prophecy under this type of anointing (1 Cor 14:31). It is available to everyone, but it is only available at those times when God decides to move corporately over a group in this manner. Then there is the gift of prophecy (1 Cor 14:1). That gift is given by the Holy Spirit to some believers but not to all believers. The gift is given at the discretion of the Holy Spirit for His kingdom purposes. It is not based on personal merit, but on God's sovereign plans. There is another level called "office of prophet" which is not a "gift of the spirit" but a mantle of the authority of Christ for governmental purposes (Eph 4:7-13). This office is given to a relatively small group of people who Jesus has sovereignly appointed with "leadership responsibility" in His body, to help the rest of the body grow to maturity in Him.

Other organizations may teach a different distinction of "levels" of the the prophetic. But they pretty much all agree that there is a level that is available to all believers, and then there are other levels that are available only to those whom God has specially gifted or called in the prophetic.

The confidence I am speaking about is not "available" to those who God has not explicitly gifted in the prophetic. It is not available to those who do not have the "gift of prophecy" or the "mantle (office) of prophet." Unfortunately, many of the ones who God has gifted and called are not yet walking in the confidence God desires to instill in them. There is a learning process that they must go through to get there.

So, how does God develop that confidence in His prophets? Well, He does it over a period time. Often the prophetic person has some fears and inadequacies that the Lord must address (often in the refiner's fire). God also begins a process of giving the person a "track record" so that they can see He really is faithful to show up when He directs them to speak. They also go through a learning process to fine tune their ability to discern when God is directing them to speak and when He is not directing them to speak. They learn to stop putting their faith in their ability to "hear God" or in their ability to move in their "prophetic gifting" and they being to put their faith in God's faithfulness to show up, in God's faithfulness to lead and direct and in God's faithfulness to speak through them. This is a process and it takes time.

When I first started out in the prophetic, I did not have that type of confidence. In fact, I used to always get in trouble with the person who mentored me back then because of my lack of confidence. She had been moving in the prophetic for a long time and she walked in a great deal of confidence. I did not, and she could not understand why. I think she had forgotten the process God took her through to learn to walk in it because that was a long time ago for her. She was so used to the assuredness that God would show up when she prophesied. I don't think she could not remember what it was like before she gained that confidence. We went our separate ways about two years ago. At the time we separated, that confidence totally eluded me.

But over the past two years, the Lord has orchestrated many situations to increase my confidence. I did not have the faith to do this back then, but now I find it easy to spew out a lot of specific facts and details. It began by speaking them here and there as God gave them to me. He might show me three specific facts and I would venture out with one of them, and it would be accurate. That would give me courage to try sharing another detail the Lord gave me. Over time, I got more and more bold in sharing the specifics God gave me. And guess what? So far they have always been right! As a result, I have gained a great deal of confidence in the "prophetic gifting" that God has placed in me. Also, the Lord put me in situation after situation where I was "forced" to minister propheticly. And I began to see how the Holy Spirit showed up while I was doing this. I would see Him come and breathe His life and His deliverance into the person as I spoke the words He gave me. God gave me a lot of opportunities to practice ministering with Him. And I began to see that when I minister at His direction, He shows up and He does the work and He supplies the anointing. More specificly, I have gained a confidence that when I prophecy, God will be faithful to show up and direct what I say.

There was a time when I used to be terrified to minister to people. I was afraid that I might make a mistake or lead them astray or misrepresent God. The Lord began to speak to me about that fear and tell me that it did not please Him. He told me I would grow out of it as I saw His faithfulness over and over when I ministered prophetically. When I first started, I placed a great deal more confidence in my own personal hearing than I did in the "prophetic gift". I knew I could hear God speak to me clearly but I was not so sure about my hearing of Him speaking to others through me. (I am sort of a backwards case. Most people are the reverse, they have more confidence in their ability to prophesy than to hear God speak personally to them.) The Lord made "confidence building" a priority for me over a prolonged period. He showed me that confidence in Him in the prophetic is related to faith in Him, and we must have faith to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). It took God well over a year to build this confidence in me.

In fact, God showed me that moving in the prophetic was similar to other types of ministry I had done... such as renewal prayer or healing prayer. When I first started out in either of these, I was not convinced that God would really show up. At first I was surprised and delighted when He did. Then over time, God showed up over and over again when I ministered. And I begin to gain a confidence that He will show up when when minister at His direction. Many of you have probably had a similar experience with renewal prayer or praying for the sick. You eventually reach a place where you know God wants you doing this and you know that He will "show up" with His power and anointing when you do it. It is the same sort of thing for those who have been gifted in the prophetic.

As I said earlier, the process of God building confidence in me in the prophetic took well over a year. It has only been recently that I have really noticed and enjoyed this confidence.

God is in the process of taking many of His prophetic people through a confidence building experience. He wants to demonstrate to them just how faithful He is to show up and minister through them when they prophesy. God wants them to know that they don't need to put their confidence in their own ability or in their "gifting." He wants them to know they can put their confidence in Him because He is faithful.

Some of you are in the midst of this process right now. God has given you a prophetic gift and He is working to orchestrate confidence building situations for you. He is demonstrating to you just how reliable He is to show up when you operate in the gift He has placed within you. There may be times when it feels frustrating because you get glimpses of that confidence, and then it "goes away". You desire to walk in it on an ongoing basis, but don't quite know how to get there. I have some good news for you. It is from Phil 1:6, and it says be "confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

God will get you there. He is faithful.