Practical Prayer Tools For A Prophetic Person

Prophetic people flow best in their gift when they are close to God. It is true that at times God can (and does) use people prophetically when they are in the midst of a spiritual desert. But the simple truth is that the revelatory gifts are meant to flow from a place of deep intimacy with God. In fact, pretty much any gifting flows best when the person exercising that gift is in a good personal relationship with God.

Most of us know that and desire to stay close to God, but most of us (probably all of us) have our spiritual ups and downs. We have seasons where we enjoy close intimacy with God and we have seasons where He feels far away. Of course, we all want to be close to Him all of the time, but in "real life" we discover that is not easy to do.

To make matters worse, the devil knows that when we serve the Lord, we build up God's kingdom and tear down his. That automatically makes us his enemies, because he wants to preserve his kingdom as much as possible. He knows that we are more effective as God's servants when we enjoy a close and intimate relationship with our Lord. So the devil is going to do everything he can do to interfere with that intimacy. He wants to discourage us from being close to God, and to encourage us to move away from Him. Satan will use any weapon in his arsenal that he thinks might be effective in separating us for God: tempting us to sin, getting us too busy to have time for God, deceiving us into putting our time and energy into something that God is not doing, opposing us with over spiritual warfare attacks (sickness, hardships, etc), using guilt or false condemnation against us, lies and deception, etc.

The devil doesn't "play nice." He will to do everything that he can do to come between us and God. He knows that if we walk in intimacy or close fellowship with God, then we will do what God the Father is doing. The devil knows that God wants to advance His kingdom, which tears down Satan's kingdom. The devil wants to defend his territory, and that is why he will do everything that he can do to distance us from God.

On the other hand, God wants to draw us nearer to Himself. He wants a close and intimate relationship with each of us. He wants us to love Him with all of our heart and all of our soul and all of our mind. The problem is that we often ask God to settle for a small part of our time and energy instead of "all" of us. We miss out on much of what God has for us that way. If we want to have deeper intimacy with God, then we have to give Him more of ourselves.

At times approaching God can push our comfort level. That is because He insists that we come to Him on His terms. There are times when His terms can be difficult or uncomfortable for us. For instance, we have to die to certain parts of our sinful nature and ungodly desires so we can walk in His holiness. We have to allow Him to transform our natures to be more like Jesus. At times He digs deep and brings up painful memories that we have to deal with, or maybe confronts us with someone who we have to forgive. That can be a painful process at times.

In addition, God asks us to lay aside our own wills and agendas to embrace His, which can be hard for us to do. There are times when God's terms seem too difficult for us, making us hold back or pull away from Him for a season while we wrestle with them.

Even Jesus faced a time when God's terms were almost too difficult for Him. That time was in the garden just before He was arrested and crucified. Jesus found it hard to embrace God's will for Him. He struggled and wrestled with it and asked the Father if there was any alternative. In fact, He struggled with it so hard that He sweated drops of blood and He got so physically weak that angels had to come and strengthen Him.

Jesus did not let His struggle separate Him from intimacy with His Father. He brought his struggles to God instead of running away from Him. In the midst of His struggles, Jesus prayed, "Nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done" (Luke 22:42). He knew He would end up doing God's will, but He had to struggle very hard to get His will in alignment with the Father's in this one area.

Jesus served as our example. It is possible to stay in close intimacy with God even when we struggle with what He asks of us. We need to be like Jesus, Who brought His struggle to God in prayer instead of running away from God to struggle on His own.

There two spiritual forces are operating on each of us. God wants to draw us closer to Himself and the devil wants to push us further away from Him. Both forces reward when we are moving the direction that they want us to move, and both try to discourage us when we move the other direction. God tends to encourage us as we draw closer to Him, and He tends to discourage us (or convict us) when we start moving away from him. The devil does just the opposite--he encourages us (tries to make us feel happy) when we are moving away from God, and he tends to oppose us (or make us miserable) when we try to move back towards God.

A lot of people think the big question is, "How close am I to God?" That is an important question, but a more important question is, "What direction am I moving in regard to God? Am I moving towards Him or away from Him?"

Ideally we always want to be close to Him and moving even closer. But we sometimes get turned around and find ourselves moving away from God. That can be tricky to recognize, because at first we are still close enough to Him that we feel His nearness and we don't realize we are moving the wrong direction. But if we keep moving away from God (such as skipping devotions, cutting back on prayer and worship time, etc), we suddenly realize that we have moved very far away--and often we have no clue how that happened.

Conversely, we can be at a place that God feels far away, even if we are moving towards Him. There are times when we are moving on the right course, but it doesn't feel "good" to us yet because we haven't gotten close enough to Him to perceive His nearness. When this happens to you, don't rely on your feelings--keep doing what you know is the right thing. Keep pursuing God with spiritual disciplines like reading His word, praying, worshipping, etc. That means you are moving the right direction, and it is just a matter of time until His nearness will being to flood your senses again.

This teaching series is designed to help you move in the right direction (towards God), and to help you enjoy a greater depth of intimacy with Him. It will provide some useful information and some practical prayer tools that and assist you in moving into a deeper intimacy relationship with God.