Acts 2:38-39 – receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
The Holy Spirit is for every generation and EVERY person the Lord calls.
I believe in prophetic evangelism, words of knowledge for the unsaved, gifts of healing across the whole community, expressing God’s heart prophetically in the earth to all peoples. I have been privileged to see non-Christians respond to a prophetic word and beginning their journey into the Kingdom.
Paul said that his preaching was not by word only, but by demonstration of the Holy Spirit.
1 Cor. 2:4 – My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
1 Cor. 4:20 – For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
Not many churches these days couple their message and their preaching with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, but this is the Biblical example laid out for us!
God wants us to work in the gifts of the Spirit because He wants our faith to rest in His power. We are ambassadors for His Kingdom and He has given us His power to carry out His will in the Earth. He gives us this power through the Holy Spirit:
Acts 1:8 – but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth
We can’t be a witness to the earth without the power of the Holy Spirit. Operating in the gifts of the Spirit is essential.
Ps. 139:17-18 – How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand
God is constantly thinking about us, and the Holy Spirit was given to us so that we can hear His thoughts about us anytime we want to:
1 Cor. 2:10-13 – The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.
~Developing Your Prophetic Gifting, by Graham Cooke ~
I’m really excited that this section of the book falls on this day! God is moving during this 21 days of posting about the prophetic. Earlier this week an opportunity came up, and today I’m doing prophetic evangelism at a public, not christian, event. I can’t wait to share God’s thoughts with people who may have never heard His voice or known His love for them! This is an opportunity I’ve dreamed about, and just so happened to find at the last minute. God pulled together all the people and supplies I needed to be able to accept this offer and the coordinator had even been praying to find someone to fill this position. I can’t wait to share today’s responses with you!
Spiritual gifts get people’s attention, thus making an entrance of the Word more vibrant and irresistible. As soon as a person realizes that God knows them intimately and cares about them, it drives them to want to know Him for themselves.
One time someone prophesied over me that God was going to heal my ear pain, and give me new friends. The person prophesying over me didn’t know I had left my normal friends, and they didn’t know that I had ear pains. In fact, no one knew that I had ear pains, because I had never bothered to tell anyone. God knew. God knew and was concerned enough to talk to me about it. Time and time again I find out how much God knows about me, and people who I’ve never met before prophecy/speak to me about very detailed and unspoken things in my life. God knows every detail of your life. Man doesn’t and can’t, unless they are listening to God’s Holy Spirit.
lovedisciple 