will

The Gift of Prophecy: 5

Integrity is created when we are prepared to break through, however many barriers, no matter the personal cost, in order to live in and be what is right and proper. 

Do not discourage gifting on the basis that it could be wrong or dangerous. We must use every opportunity to exercise our people in rightly dividing the word of truth.

~Developing Your Prophetic Gifting, by Graham Cooke ~

Prophecy has saved me from death more than once, as I’ve referenced in previous blogs: click here. On the other hand, lack of knowledge about prophecy has tormented me, as you’ve witnessed for yourself if you were following my blog this time last year. The pain I’ve experienced did not come from prophecy, but from a lack of knowing about prophecy. However, if we act on a prophetic word out of timing, God is faithful to redeem anything we do in faith in His name. Once you experience God you’ll understand why there’s no turning back. See the life saving power of prophecy and you’ll be hooked to this God ordained gift for mankind. The churches that do not teach the gifts of the Spirit are not only aborting something the Lord birthed, but murdering those who could be saved by the use of these gifts, keeping christians from walking in the perfect Will of God for their lives which includes using their gifts/callings.

God says that in the last day’s everyone will prophesy. Believing this Word from God means being committed to learning and practicing prophesy, as well as humbling ourselves to be the testing ground to work out the kinks, so that the next generation can live in God’s perfect Will, understanding, and use proper prophetic practices. Birthing something has always been a messy process, but that shouldn’t stop us from desiring to see, hold, and nurture what we give birth to and committing to grow it to maturity by seeking God’s Will and ways.

Predestination & Prayer

2 Kings 20:14-19 – The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the Lord. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” “The word of the Lord you have spoken is good,” Hezekiah replied. For he thought, “Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?”

God had just told King Hezekiah that he would die from an illness, earlier in this chapter, but when Hezekiah prayed, God used his prayer to change the outcome of his life. He added 15 more years to his life. (2 Kings 20:1-7)

After just going through that–watching God change what He had decreed, based on a single prayer–why didn’t Hezekiah pray for God to save them from Babylon too? His one prayer could’ve saved all of Israel.

Our prayers, or lack of prayers, can change the outcomes of nations. We should be praying for the coming generations, even in times of peace; and especially when the coming generations are reaping what we’ve sown.

#Pray #PrayForParis

God doesn’t change, nor does He think like us. He doesn’t change His mind, as if He can learn of some better way to do things. He has a plan that has been in place since the beginning of time. His plan includes your prayers. Your prayer is a tool in the hand of God. When you pray, His will comes on earth as was planned in heaven before the dawn of creation. Don’t water down the power of prayer. Every prayer is important, and every prayer changes the course of history.

Predestination & Prayer

The Process of Dreams

– Gen.37:5-8 – Joseph had a dream. When he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said, “Listen to this dream I had. We were all out in the field gathering bundles of wheat. All of a sudden my bundle stood straight up and your bundles circled around it and bowed down to mine.” His brothers said, “So! You’re going to rule us? You’re going to boss us around?” And they hated him more than ever because of his dreams… The brothers were saying, “Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him and throw him into one of these old cisterns; we can say that a vicious animal ate him up. We’ll see what his dreams amount to.”

Joseph had a prophetic dream, but then became a prisoner. He didn’t understand the fullness of the prophetic dream. He didn’t understand that he wouldn’t be a ruler over the house of Jacob, but over the earth, in the house of Pharaoh as well.

What if all the prophecies we receive, have a far larger application than our original interpretation?

Joseph was a great prophet, and he didn’t know the interpretation to his own word. Joseph used his prophet gift to try to manipulate his own jailbreak. He asked the cup bearer, who he helped, to get him out. God didn’t allow him to get out at that moment, because Joseph would’ve gone home to a dysfunctional family; to a father that didn’t believe he was alive, brothers that were trying to kill him, and they would’ve all starved to death in the 7 year famine. God doesn’t always grant our requests because we would settle for less than the best for our lives. Joseph went from the pit to the palace, and he wasn’t a prisoner in Egypt; he was a prisoner to a prophetic process. God puts the film into a dark room when He wants to develop a clear picture. He agitates the film in the solution to get the picture to come through.

Film Development in Dark Room

Don’t give up on your dreams. If God gives you a dream, He can bring you into it. It might not look like it is working out, but it will. There will be no question that it was Him that brought it to pass.

You have to be able to tackle the mountain of ME before you can take another mountain. ‘For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross (Heb.12:2).’ 

– The cross is the process of getting from where you are, to your dream
– The cross is the contradiction

We need to understand the paradoxical ways God works, and trust Him to take us through the process to our promised palace.