To become a mature prophet or prophetic saint, one needs to be sure they maintain a relationship with the Lord of opening their heart and soul to the leading, direction, searching eye of the Holy Spirit and one who regularly keeps their heart clear of offense, bitterness, resentment, a critical spirit, and other sins. The maturing prophetic person would do well to cultivate a life of personal and corporate worship, prayer, Bible reading, fellowship and submission to spiritual authorities in the Lord. It is, of course, essential to cultivate a good working knowledge of the Bible.

Prophetic ministry is not about some being able to hear and others not. We each are to cultivate an ear with which to hear the Lord and this is all the more critical for the prophetic minister. Prophetic ministry is about the discipline of hearing clearly and quickly in order to be able to stand and minister to people in any setting the Lord should direct. We cultivate hearing and then speaking. If that means ministering in presbytery, then we can line up the people and listen and speak as long as the human body can endure. Our goal is not to make things up, but to hear the individual word of the Lord to an individual, a church, an area, a country, nation or government!

Prophetic ministry has two directions: 1.Prophetic hearing - standing before God on behalf of the people and; 2. Prophetic declaration - standing before the people on behalf of God. Jer 23:22 states: "But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have announced My words to My people." A personal relationship with the Lord is essential to cultivating a heart and an ear to be able to hear the Lord.

Fellowship with Him. Love Him. Devote your life to Him and He will not disappoint you. He will reveal the secrets of His heart to those who fear Him. When we trust Him, He trusts us. What a delight to be in relationship with the Creator of the universe who calls us His friends. Jesus said in John 15, "I no longer call you servants, I now call you friends." You and I are called into the most grand of all relationships when we are called His friends. That we get to share His heart and reveal His mind to others is a by-product of the most glorious of all privileges.being His friends. Friends..there is no one like a friend.

Hearing His Voice

Hearing God's "voice" is an important part of every believer's experience. Scripture teaches that every believer should be able to "hear" His "voice". I believe that indicates every believer should be able to receive communication from God in such a way that the individual will know it is God. Jesus stated in John 10 the kind of relationship we should have with Him. "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep".... "I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me,"... "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:" John 10:11,14,27

"Hearing" God's "voice" should be the normal experience for a follower of Jesus. In chapter 15 of the gospel of John, Jesus also says: "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. (verse 15)

He wants to reveal to us information from the Father. Again in chapter 18 He states "Every one who is of the truth hears my voice" (vs.37) In fact, it is by hearing God's voice, His rhema word, that we are nourished and fed. "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'" Matt.4:4 (NKJ) The ability to "hear" God's "voice" is critical to successful living as a Christian.

One Critical Factor

I believe leaders can and should train every believer to receive guidance from the Lord. But our ability to hear can be sharpened or dulled by one critical factor that has to do with our attitude of heart - a willingness to OBEY what we hear. To listen with a heart to obey is critical to hearing properly. To listen and then to do what He tells you is key to a continuous flow of communication. When we hear a directive from God, we have, at that time, an option; we can respond to the light he has given us and He will give us more light, or we can hesitate, and the light will fade.

This principle is shown in Jesus' words in John 12:35 " Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you; he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. (NKJ) The process goes like this: First we hear from God... Second we obey what light He has given... Third we are given more. The sad truth is that the other trend goes as follows: After we have heard from God, we either ignore or out right disobey His directive. Then we will lose the light we had opportunity to walk in. The next step away from hearing God's voice is that we then begin to lose the things that we had already attained to. It is stated more clearly in Mark 4:23-25: "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. And he said unto them, Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." So to hear with a heart to obey is the key to hearing more; and if we disobey, Scripture tells us we will have what we did have, taken away. Oh how important it is then, to hear and obey.

It is at this point that something the scriptures call a "spirit of slumber" begins to set in. This is described in Rom. 10 and 11 as something that happened to the children of Israel when they continued to be disobedient to God's word. "But to Israel He saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people... According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear.." While in the state of spiritual slumber many Christians continue to go through their religious routines but after a while even spiritual activities begin to seem dull, boring and even burdensome. While having ears they do not hear. They find themselves not receiving the nourishment, strengthening or encouragement that comes from "hearing" God's "voice". It is at this point spiritual famine or drought sets in.

When we discover ourselves in that state of spiritual slumber, God has now gotten us to the place we are ready for a "wake up" call. We are ready to hear His voice once again. It is when we get hungry enough and thirsty enough; and we begin to want to hear His voice once again, that He will instruct us once again what it is He wants us to do. The great Shepherd of our soul will seek us out and speak once again. At this point the cycle of opportunity to hear and obey begins again. It is then we need to be as the prophet of old in Is.50:4,5 "The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back."

Spirit led living

Another description of what I am talking about is in Rom 8:14 "For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." The Christian life can be defined in terms of walking in fellowship with God or, "walking in the Spirit", which can further be defined as walking in instantaneous and consistent obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Our goal as Christians is to be Spirit led in all things. In fact the Scriptures tell us that as Christians, we have received the Holy Spirit, Who is also called the Spirit of Truth, Who will lead us into all truth.

Spirit led living is reliable. In fact it is the only way to truly live the Christian life. It will lead us away from sin and toward God and His plan for our lives. That is what Gal 5:16-18 means when it says: "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law."

In contrast to Spirit led living there is what could be called "flesh led" living or even "religion led" living. Some protest "religion led" living and rightly so, but what is it?. Unfortunately, there are some who attempt to pervert or disintegrate the Christian walk into a life lived according to a set of rules or specific behaviors. That is "religion led" living. And even more unfortunately, this is often even done with the Bible as the rulebook. Am I saying the Bible is bad? Of course not! I am saying, however, that even the Bible can be used wrongly to bring condemnation, manipulation and control into people's lives in a way that God never intended.

So does being "Spirit led" mean we do what ever we feel like God is saying without any external checks and boundaries? Of course not. To further address this we need to contrast the ideal with the dangers.

The ideal - We are in fellowship with God to such an extent that we perfectly hear and instantly obey what He tells us to do, through out every day of our life.

The danger - we occasionally mishear and even worse, neglect to obey what we hear.

The ideal - if we are, in fact, Spirit led in all things, the Spirit will lead us into conformity with His stated will, which is objectively and impartially documented in the Word of God, the Bible.

The danger - we mingle our own feelings and desires with what we think God is telling us through our subjective attempts to be 'spirit led" and simply come up with religious sounding rationalizations for doing what we want to do. (The heart is masterful at this and is why we MUST have a reliable external measuring devise for whether or not we are truly being led by the Spirit. i.e. "fruit" inspection <2 Tim. 3:16>)

Boundaries and Markers - The Spirit and the Word & the Spirit and the Church

If we are being Spirit lead it will lead us into the Word. If we are being Spirit led it will lead us into the fellowship of the saints. It will lead us into love, joy, peace, integrity, honestly and righteousness. It will lead us away from the works of the flesh which are clearly stated in that same section of Scripture in Gal 5:19-21 "Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."

In other words we do not have to guess at what a "Spirit led" life looks like. It has the fruit of the spirit in evidence (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) Gal 5:22-23. It will lead us into conformity with the stated will of God in His Word. If we are spirit led, we will be exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit called love. Since love it the fulfillment of the law, we will be automatically fulfilling the righteous essence of the law, though certainly not through trying to 'keep the law'. The Spirit and the Word and the fellowship of the saints are a three-fold platform that will keep us honest and help us walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel.

By maintaining these things in our lives, we will continue to grow in fellowship with the Lord, and effectiveness in hearing His voice and proclaiming His words.

[Please Note:

This is intended as a discussion series. Please feel free to send your discussion (comments or questions) to prophetic-school@godspeak.net. We will have online discussion each week, MC'd by Jim Wies, the author of this series. These discussions will NOT be put on the WWW page.]