6 steps to not being afraid to fail in the prophetic

This is by no means a comprehensive guide to ministering in the prophetic.  Just a few things I’ve personally learned over the last few years.
Once I was praying for a friend.  I saw a Viking helmet on his head.  I don’t know how I saw it.  It could have been in the spirit, or maybe just in my imagination, but I believed it was from the Lord.  “What could that mean?” I thought.  Is that something negative?  I got an interpretation that I believed was from the Lord (and it may very well have been).  Here’s the funny thing however.  When I shared the word, I thought it was symbolic.  “Of course it’s symbolic.” I thought.  “How could a Viking helmet be a word of knowledge?”  Well it turned out the last few weeks, my friend had been watching a program on TV about Vikings and the Lord was showing him a lot through it.  So was my word a word of knowledge or prophecy?  Probably more of a word of knowledge than a prophecy, however I didn’t know that when I gave it.

  1. Don’t worry about whether a word is prophetic/symbolic or a word of knowledge.  

I would say 90% of the time, when I receive a word of knowledge, I don’t know it’s a word of knowledge.  Obviously there is a distinctive difference between a word of knowledge and a prophecy.  A word of knowledge is a current piece of information you receive from the Holy Spirit that you could not otherwise know.  A prophecy refers to the future. So what if you receive a picture, vision or word from the Lord, and you don’t know what it is? Is it a word of knowledge or a prophecy?  I am continually more and more convinced that we don’t necessarily need to know if it’s one or the other.

  1. Don’t be afraid of the dark.  That’s where God trains us in humility and childlikeness.

Sometimes getting a word from the Lord is like reaching out in pitch black darkness hoping to feel something.  You don’t necessarily feel confident.  That’s where words of knowledge are so useful however.  If you give a prophecy to someone, it’s sometimes difficult to judge the word, and determine how reliable it is.  However, if it’s a word of knowledge, it won’t take long to find out if it was from the Lord or not. I believe this particular dynamic in itself is part of the way God trains us in humility and child-likeness.  It takes some courage to share something you don’t understand at all. Something that seems strange or funny, or might make you downright look stupid if it’s wrong. I was praying for a young woman by the name of Victoria.  I kept hearing the word “victorious beauty” going through my head.  Again, I was striving to understand what it could mean.  Was it because I thought she was beautiful?  Or was it the Lord?  I just shared it, not really knowing what it meant.  Then she said “my middle name is Beauty.”  Sometimes the most encouraging word a person can get is a word of knowledge.  Just to know that God knows you, and sees you right where you’re at.  It’s powerful.

  1. Prophecy and words of knowledge go hand in hand 

Scripture doesn’t necessarily separate them like we tend to.  In 1 Corinthians 14:24,25 Pauls says “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.”  Paul refers to prophesy talking about secrets of one’s heart being disclosed.  I would say disclosing secrets of one’s heart is a word of knowledge.  It’s not necessarily predicting the future. Shawn Boltz, who ministers in a phenomenal prophetic gift once shared a concept he learned from the great prophet Bob Jones when ministering in the prophetic. He will share a word of knowledge, and if the word of knowledge is accurate, then he knows the prophecy is right also, so only then will he share the prophecy.  It lines up perfectly with Jesus speaking to Nathaniel in the gospel of John.  First Jesus spoke to his identity: “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!” then he went on and prophesied about his future:  “Truly, truly, I say to you,[k] you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

  1. If you don’t have an interpretation, don’t share it. 

In his book Basic Training for the Prophetic Ministry, Kris Vallotton teaches “If you have an interpretation, share it.  If the Lord is not giving you an interpretation, then don’t try to come up with one.”  Just share the word.  Chances are the person will have one.  Perhaps  we attribute to ourselves far too much responsibility for explaining words.  Many great prophetic words get messed up by bad interpretation.  I was praying for one guy and I saw Jesus giving him sunglasses.  Here we go again.  I thought it was symbolic, so I started giving him this profound interpretation of what it represented.  Then he told me “I’ve been thinking about that the whole day today.  How much I want to get some sunglasses.”

  1. Step out. 

I have been asking the Lord to give me names of people He wants me to share something prophetic with.  Let me tell you from personal experience, it’s not a very thrilling place to be when you get up on stage, and call out some names, and all that happens is awkward silence. And your brain is about to explode trying to come up with what to say.  I’ve done that several times.  I’ll share one last story. I was on a ministry trip in Arroyo Grande, CA.  I felt like the Lord gave me a name.  In the previous city I thought I got two names from the Lord however none of them were in the room.  It was very awkward.  This time we were in a ministry school so everyone had badges. I thought “great, I’ll just try to find the person with the name I got and I won’t have to get humiliated if they’re not here.”  I didn’t see anyone with that name.  So when the time came to minister on stage, I was afraid to call out the name, because I was sure there was nobody there with that name.  I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to call it out anyway.  I honestly thought it was part of my humility training – learning to be o.k. with looking stupid sometimes.  When I called out the name a young woman’s hand shot up in the air and she jumped up and yelled out “that’s me!”  The only problem was that the name I called out was Heather, and her name badge said Miranda.  “I go by my second name, but my first name is Heather!”  I gave here the word the Lord gave me for her, and she was very blessed.  There’s only one way to learn to step out in the prophetic.  That’s doing it over and over again, and learning to be o.k. with feeling awkward and stupid sometimes.

        6. Learn how you hear from God. 

I recently finished a book I highly recommend by Doug Addison on dream interpretation called Understand Your Dreams Now.  Doug often encourages people to journal as one of the key ways we learn how we hear from God.  When you write things down you have a record to check and see how things played out, and how accurate a word was.  Write down not only the word, dream or whatever, but how it felt, how God spoke to you, what did you sense, what did you see.  This is a practical way to train ourselves to hear God’s voice.

Hopefully my stories of success and failure will encourage you to step out, and share God’s love through the power of the prophetic, even when it feels like you’re in the dark. “I wish… even more that you prophesied…” 1 Corinthians 14:5

What is one area that feels like you’re in the dark, but you know you need to step out in faith and do what Holy Spirit is leading you to do?
Feel free to comment, share any questions or disagreements below. :)

 

 

Image courtesy of  Hans Splinter on Flickr

Trust to hope. Hope to faith.

Peter sees vision of unclean foods. Acts 10:9
God speaks through the day-to-day dynamics of our humanity.  And He doesn’t have a problem with it.

It’s interesting that the vision Peter saw about eating unclean foods, was in the context of being hungry. He got hungry when he started praying, so he went and asked the cooks to make something for him. Apparently he didn’t see anything wrong with interrupting his prayer to order a lunch. The fact that he saw the vision in this context could potentially make it easy to doubt the vision was from the Lord and just think “I was hungry. No wonder I’m seeing weird visions about food.” I wonder if God would have given him a different vision if he wasn’t hungry at the time?
I’m sure there have been a time or three when I disregarded what could have been from the Lord, thinking it was “something I ate” or “a movie I watched” or circumstances in my life that were playing into my imagination.

Whenever the Lord reveals something or speaks to us, there’s always plenty of rotten apples of doubt and fear laying around. They’re easy to pick up. If that’s what you’re focusing on.
Many legitimate prophesies sound foolish or unrealistic. Until they’re fulfilled.
Trust is Faith’s brother. Just as Doubt is related to Fear.
When Jesus prophesied about demolishing the temple and it being rebuilt in three days one group was furious. The other was confused, but chose to put one foot in front of the other and trust him even though they didn’t understand.
It’s normal to feel confused. Just as it’s normal to feel fear.
You can feel fear, but still act courageously. Similarly you can be confused, but choose to trust.
Trust leads to hope, and gardeners have proven that hope is the best soil to grow faith in.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on yourown understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.” – David the giant killer.

4 keys for Bouncing back in the face of failure

The dreadful sandal scandal

I bought my wife a gift. It didn’t go so well. Here are a few things I learned in the process.
Much of what we aspire to requires courage. Recently I realized that you can not grow in courage if you don’t grow in failure. To the degree you learn to be o.k. with failure, you will grow in courage and creativity. Courage and creativity go hand in hand.

A glass of water and unwittingly entertaining angels

cup

Never underestimate a cup of cold water.
If you give one to a disciple of Jesus, even of small rank, you get a reward. Matt 10:42
If you receive a cup of cold water from Jesus, it’s not just a cup of cold water.
It’s a water seed. If there was such a thing.
There is when it’s coming from the giver of life, it’s like an acorn. The potential of an acorn is not just an oak tree.
How about an oak Forrest?
“…but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14
An acorn has the potential of an oak forest.
A cup of water from Jesus has the potential of a “spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Built-in.
Right inside of you.
Never underestimate the little things of life.
I’m convinced that some of the amazing people who have hosted me and our family have bound to have entertained angels at some point. And they didn’t even know it. Hebrews 13:2

Events unfolding in Ukraine were foretold by John Paul Jackson in 2012

Events in Ukraine

Ukraine is very close to my heart.  How could it not be, after I spent 18 years of my life there.
Here are some events about Ukraine/Russia that John Paul Jackson foretold in Jan. 2012 (exact time not verified, but definitely in 2011 or 2012).  Looks like for the most part they were quite accurate.  Unfortunately.
If you have a problem with the word, please use scriptural guidelines and judge the word, not the person.
Here are a few key points that I find very interesting.
“…you’re going to start seeing Russia take on a whole new nationalism.  And Russia’s going to create a crisis in order to spawn nationalism, because it realizes it’s losing its youth.
…and Russia is going to end up black mailing many of the small satellite nations that used to be part of the Soviet block, and demand that they come into a whole new alliance, and a whole new agreement.
 And Poland will be black mailed.  I hope they don’t succumb.  The Slavik countries, Hungry, Romania, Ukraine, Khazikstan… All these are going to be black mailed by Russia. “If you want our oil, if you want our  gas, you will come back in.  Because if you don’t, we will close the pipeline tomorrow.
 And they’re waiting for the price of gas to get up high enough so they can close the pipeline to those countries and still be able to function economically in their own state.  But they have to wait till the price of gasoline gets high enough before they can cut the pipeline off.”
To see the original video I transcribed this from, just click here.
I would love to hear about other prophesies that you know of that have to do with Ukraine.  Please comment and share below.  And let’s really pray for Ukraine and in general for Gods Kingdom to invade this situation.
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