-- © GodSpeak International 2008 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from copyright@godspeak.net --
Community Of Grace
Prophetic Ministry
by Teresa Seputis
Thank you for coming to the
prophetic ministry session. We believe you will be blessed by it because that
is what the prophetic is supposed to do. According to 1 Corinthians 14,
prophesy (verse 3) "...speaks edification and exhortation and comfort
to men..." (verse 5) "...that the church may receive edification."
Thus, God's primary agenda for New Testament prophesy is the encourage,
exhort, comfort, edify. And that is what we try to do on our Prophetic Ministry
session.
You will not see some of the
Old Testament forms of prophesy (e.g., rebuke, judgment and correction) given
here, because we stick to the 1 Corinthians 14 guidelines. (If you do happen to
have sin or areas in your life that God wants to address or bring correction
to, He will do so in some other place; they will not be mentioned or dealt with
here.)
A Few Things You Need To
Know For The Ministry Session
- Tapes, CDs and Audio Files - We make audio recordings of the words.
We keep the digital master on file but you can purchase a copy in any of
three formats. Tapes are ready instantly, audio files may be uploaded
between Wednesday noon and the following Sunday Noon, and CDs are usually
available for pickup starting Tuesday night. The cost is $3.00.
- Mailing - If you would like to have the tape mailed to
you, please leave your address. There is an additional fee of $2.50 for
postage, etc.
- Confidentiality - We treat the
ministry sessions as confidential and do not share what God said to you
with others who were not present at the session. But you are not
constrained to hold your prophetic ministry confidential. You are free to
share your words with whoever you desire. In fact, we encourage you to
debrief with the appropriate person who might help you prayerfully walk
out the things God speaks into your life.
- Homework - There are two sections in this handout that
you should read on your own before listening to your prophesy tape. The
first section, JUDGING PROPHETIC WORDS, explains how to
prayerfully judge your word and the second section, PROCESSING
PROPHETIC WORDS, tells you
how to respond to the word once you have judged that it is from God.
[If you have questions about either writeup as it applies to your
word, please call 510-783-8062 extension 35 and leave a message and
someone will call you back.]
More About Your
Word
Chances are very high that
the Holy Spirit will give confirmations to your spirit as the words are being
given to you. But there are occasionally times when this does not happen. The
word may hit on an upcoming situation that you are not yet aware of. Or
it may touch on a blind spot (sorry, we all have them). You are free to process
your words with your pastor or a prayer partner or a Christian leader who you
look to for advice and counsel.
Please be aware that
prophetic ministry will not provide any easy fixes to your situation, as God
usually works through a process. However the word will probably give you
increased understanding and insight into what God is doing in your life, so you
can better cooperate with Him in it. Our goal is to help you connect more with
God and to be encouraged to walk out His plans for you and to help you be able
to hear Him more clearly yourself. God’s goal is to cause you to grow and
mature in Him, so that you can become more like His Son Jesus.
You should also know that
some words are figurative (or symbolic) and are not to be taken literally. For
example, one time we ministered to someone who was struggling with a besetting
sin and who had been crying out to God for help in overcoming it. God addressed their situation/concern in a
symbolic way so that the person understood the word but the others in the room
did not know the specifics. That way
the person was encouraged instead of embarrassed. The word went something like
this:
I
see you following God up a mountain trail. You make a lot of progress, but then
there is a big bounder blocking your path.
And you cannot seem to get around it no matter what you try. It has been
there for a long time and you haven’t been able to make progress. You have been
praying and asking God to remove the bolder.
And the Lord says that He is now coming to blast that boulder into small
pieces so that it will no longer block the path. The Lord wants you to know that He has heard your cry and He is
rousing Himself on your behalf to help you get rid of this boulder that has
been blocking your path.
JUDGING PROPHETIC WORDS
Please be aware
that all prophetic words are to be prayerfully judged. If you have any
questions or discomfort about judging a word, I strongly recommend you take the
word to your pastor or spiritual overseer and have them pray it through and
evaluate it with you. Here are some guidelines...
- Be sure to bounce it against Scripture...
Scripture is the final authority and anything that contradicts Scripture
must be rejected.
- Look for the inner witness of the Holy Spirit to
your spirit. Also look for a witness of His peace with the word (Col
3:15).
- Pray it through. Take the word back to the Lord
and discuss it with Him. Ask Him to show you if there are any conditions
He wants you to meet, any changes He wants you to make in your life or thinking.
Ask Him to show you if any parts of the word are not from Him and to
confirm the parts that are from Him.
- Compare the word against other things God has
spoken into your life through prior prophecies, personal devotions,
pastoral counsel, etc.
- If you have any question/alarm/fear/discomfort
about a particular word, run it by your pastor or a leader from your
church.
- Do NOT act on any predictive, directive or
calling/gifting definition words unless you get confirmation from other
sources. If this is a word from God, He will be happy to confirm it to
you.
- Do not "read into" the word what you
want it to say. Here are examples of what to avoid:
- A woman was given a
word that she would meet the man she was to marry in 5 years and he would
be a musician. She was in fact engaged to another man, who was not a
musician and married him a few weeks after receiving the word. She
redefined the word to meet her circumstances, changing its meeting to: her
fiancé would become a musician in 5 years. The marriage did not go
well and they separated three years later.. it was invalid to use this
word as a basis for marrying this man because she twisted the meaning to
fit her circumstances.
- A woman was given a
word that had a figurative portion about her standing at a light airy
window overlooking a green valley. She went home and noticed that her
house did not overlook a valley and did not have any light airy windows.
So she interpreted the word as "sell your house" and did so
without seeking any sort of confirmation from the Lord from any other
sources.
- A minister was
involved in a building project and began to encounter financial
difficulty; the money stopped coming in and they were about to default on
the loan. About that time, the minister received a word that God would
"protect that which was most precious to him and not allow it to be
lost or destroyed." He took that to mean God would supply the needed
money for the building project, since that was the circumstance that was
prevalent in his mind. But the money did not come in and the bank
foreclosed on the property. He lost it all.
He felt devastated that God did not keep his word and to make matters
worse, his daughter ended up in a life-threatening situation, and he had to
spend months nursing her back to health. Finally he confronted God as to why
God had not kept His word to him regarding the property. Then God replied the
word was never about the property.. it was about his daughter who had nearly
died. When he got the word, the circumstance it applied to was not yet in his
life, so he assumed it applied to his current circumstance.
PROCESSING PROPHETIC WORDS
- If you decide it is a valid word after judging
it, then either listen to the prophecy tape frequently or transcribe it
and print it out and review it often. Also, pray regarding it. Invite God
to work in your life to bring it to pass and ask Him to show you any
conditions in it that He wants you to meet to fulfill it.
- Ask the Lord to reveal any prerequisites that
must be accomplished before the word can be fulfilled. For instance, if
the Lord gives you a word that you will be used to bring revival to the
nation of Mexico, He may require that you learn to speak Spanish first.
Sometimes the prerequisites are spelled out explicitly in the prophecy.
Other times they are not. Ask God to show you what (if anything) your part
is and then ask Him to empower you to do it.
- Ask the Lord what His time frame is for the
word. So often people have jumped the gun and tried to fulfill a prophecy
in their own strength (or by their own resources) before it was God's
timing. This often creates messes to clean up. An example of this is
Sarah's attempts to have a child through her maid .. she had a true word
of God (that Abraham would have a son) but she tried to fulfill it in her
own time and through her own resources. It is important to know (and
follow) God's time table and His strategy for fulfilling His word.
- Once you are sure it is a word from the Lord,
stand in faith for your word to be fulfilled. This is "warring"
over your word, as per 1 Tim 1:18:
This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies
previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare
(NKJV).
- Words can be both for "now" and also
for later. So enjoy and process your word, but don't throw away the tape
once you are done. The Lord may impress on you to listen to it again at
some future date. And when you do, you may find that the word applies
strongly to you at that time as well. I cannot tell you how many times God
has had me listen to a prophecy tape from 5 or 6 years ago and I discover
that it is very relevant to what God is doing in my life
now.
-- © GodSpeak
International 2008 --
-- Do not republish without written permission from copyright@godspeak.net --