Prophetic Discernment in the Northwest

I watch trends in the prophetic environment of the Pacific Northwest. From my post as editor of the Northwest Prophetic website, I have an unusually broad view of the prophetic words spoken to, from, and about the Northwest. I see three general categories of prophecies for our region.

I observe that there are a goodly number of prophetic words that are relatively generic “comfort, edification and encouragement.” There’s a second group of words that can be described as speaking to our destiny, our calling, perhaps even our future in the Northwest. And there are some words that are spoken to the region that invoke images of natural disasters: earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis are prominent in them. (This is not an exhaustive list, of course; these are the three main categories; see the NWP website for a more complete list.)

The first group (“comfort, edification and encouragement”) is pretty easy to understand, and it’s not hard to respond to them.

The second group (speaking to our regional destiny) is also straightforward: not complicated to understand, though an appropriate response to these may be a bit more complex.

It’s the third group (invoking images of disasters) that I’m going to focus on here. How shall we respond to images of disasters in prophetic declarations over our region? Many of these declarations include an additional emphasis on the concept of judgment, which I’ll address later.

I propose that there are five basic possibilities for interpreting these disaster prophecies:

1) The prophet made a mistake. (Here is one example.) This may be a false prophecy (the work of serving the wrong God, or serving with a wrong heart) or simply a bad prophecy (it was a good attempt, but they missed it). For whatever reason (and that reason may or may not be important to discern), the prophecy was in error. Frankly, there’s a whole lot of this going around. Remember Harold Camping?

2) It’s a personal word. I recently read a testimony: a prophet declared an earthquake coming to his region in two weeks. Three weeks later, his report was that he must have missed the timing on the earthquake, but could I pray for him? Everything had gone haywire in his personal life for the past week.

I’m of the opinion that the vast majority of what God speaks to any of us about is for ourselves personally, and most of the rest is for our congregation or community of faith. Only a tiny portion is for the greater region or nation. Prophets who think everything they hear is for the nations may be deluded.

3) The prophecy is a metaphor. (Here is one example.) We’re not really discussing natural disasters; we’re talking about an event that’s coming in another realm than the natural (Spiritual? Economic? Political? Social?) that does now, or will at some time, involve some of the effects that a natural disaster involves: this may include upheaval, rapid change, troubles, etc. As an example, God has been speaking to the prophetic community in more than one region about a move of God that’s coming, and he’s consistently been using the metaphor of a tidal wave.

4) It is a literal, but conditional warning. (Here is an example.) We already know that some promises are conditional; some warnings are conditional as well. Not long ago, there were some credible prophetic warnings of natural disasters in my region. Several prophets in the region judged them to be both literal and true, but heard Holy Spirit saying that since we are heirs and representatives of his Kingdom in our region, we had the authority to change what was in our future. We met together, cancelled that particular future, called another, more appropriate future into being, and cancelled our own disaster preparations. The deadline passed without event.

I believe that prophetic promises fit in this category as well: when God promises a move of the Spirit, it’s appropriate for us to pray that event into the region. King David did that here.

5) And it may be a warning about a literal, physical event. (Here is an example.) God may be warning his children in order to take specific action (as here and here). Ancient records teach us that the prophet Agabus warned the church of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem early enough that the Christians escaped.

I believe that specific warnings for specific individuals are not particularly uncommon – they’re part of God leading his kids. But legitimate prophetic words prophesying literal, physical disaster appear to be remarkably rare. (That rarity may be a characteristic of this kind of word, or of the season we’re in, or it may only be rare in the particular group of prophetic warnings I’ve personally been seeing recently.)

When Christians prophesy foolishness, or when we misunderstand what God is saying and talk publicly about it, the people of God look really foolish (see here). As a result, God and his Kingdom look foolish, and (presumably) hell rejoices. May I suggest that this may not be the best use of prophetic gifts.

It’s time to take up the subject of judgment. In the past few weeks, I personally have heard perhaps a dozen prognostications of disaster on this region or that region which have declared that God is judging the described region for certain sins, though the particular sins under judgment seem to vary, depending on who’s making the declarations. As I take these to prayer, I’ve been reminded that God is not, in this day, doing the “judgment through nature” thing that Old Testament prophets were known for.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that God is not doing judgment right now. Since this is not the topic of this article, I’ll quote a few supporting verses and move on:

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. 1John 2:2

And

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17

And

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 2Corinthians 5:18-19

Apparently, this is a season (“dispensation” for the theologically inclined) in which God’s agenda is about reconciliation rather than judgment. Smiting people is not on his to do list right now.

Here’s where I’m going with this, and I have the same hopes for two groups of people. I’m hoping that these will be heard by those among us who are hearing and seeing images of disaster, judgment, destruction from God, and by those of us who see or hear prophetic words or declarations of disaster, judgment or destruction.

May I suggest that we exercise 1 Corinthians 14:29: “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.” It’s interesting that “judge” in the Greek is the root for the word used as the “gift of discernment” in 1 Corinthians 12:10: the command is to discern the prophetic word. The word means to “separate thoroughly,” and includes the concepts of discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not.

Discerning the prophetic word is a requirement of any prophetic word shared publicly, and that includes words declared in public meetings, but it also includes words released in email, on blogs, on Facebook, or by Twitter: just because we are not in the same room where the prophetic word is first spoken is no excuse not to obey the direct command of scripture: prophetic words are to be discerned, judged.

I would also counsel us to consider soliciting wise discernment, judgment, of those prophetic words which we judge are strictly for our own lives and not to be released publicly. Several times, I’ve taken what I’ve been hearing from God personally and submitted it to prophets and other mature believers whom I trust. Sometimes they’ve affirmed what I’m hearing; other times, they’ve helped me fine tune or re-interpret what I was hearing.

Note also that there are two Greek words for “others” (as in “let the others judge”): one refers to “others of the same kind,” and in this case would refer to other prophets. But this verse uses the other word: “others of a different kind,” and would extend the responsibility of judging prophetic words beyond just “other prophets” to “All the other believers who are hearing [or reading] the prophecy are responsible for discerning – discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not – the prophetic word that is given.

The days of a prophetic word being unquestionable are over, if indeed they ever existed in any realm beyond the minds of the lazy or uninformed. Let me say it more directly: There is no such thing as a prophetic word that is beyond questioning, and anyone who insists that their words cannot be questioned should be treated as undisciplined children in the community of faith: they are part of the family, and they’re kind of cute sometimes, but they need to learn discipline before they’ll be able to contribute meaningfully to the community.

There is one more issue to be identified before leaving the topic: the discernment includes the necessity of “discriminating and deciding what is good and what is not.” I believe that a fairly substantial portion of the un-judged prophetic words circulating around right now are mixed: a good portion of the original revelation was legitimately of God, but the interpretation of that revelation was not correct.

Remember the prophet who declared “an earthquake coming to his region in two weeks,” but experienced an upheaval in his own life instead of in the region in that time frame? It’s my opinion that the prophet saw the original revelation clearly (an earthquake is coming in two weeks), but mis-interpreted the revelation (assuming a physical earthquake in the region, rather than a metaphorical earthquake in his own life), and therefore his application was wrong (he had urged everyone to prepare for death and destruction, when a more appropriate response would have been for him personally to prepare for change and upheaval in his own life).

If I could speak to those who speak prophetically and those who hear or read prophetic words to judge the prophetic words carefully: consider and decide: is this a true revelation? Is it from God? Is it speaking to me/to us? Is it correctly interpreted? Is the application consistent with God’s heart? Then receive that which is from God, and reject that which is not.

Even a dumb old cow knows enough to eat the hay and spit out the sticks.

Regarding Physical Manifestations,

Freaky Physical Reactions

If you attend a charismatic or renewal service, you’re likely to eventually come upon a scene which has left many people with questions: late in the service, when people are praying for folks, some people start freaking out, physically reacting. Some stand (or lie) quietly twitching, almost vibrating. Others jerk violently and even thrash about. Some shout, moan, roar or make other, less-describable noises. I’ve heard some roar like lions, others bark like dogs, and I’ve heard the clucking of a chicken.

The percentage of people who reacted strangely varied, from just a few, to most of the crowd, and it appeared that their reactions came from different motivations; some appeared more sincere, more genuine than others.

People who frequent such meetings are often completely at ease, even inattentive to the reactions. People who are not from a tradition that includes “physical manifestations” often find those manifestations distracting, confusing, off-putting. Neophytes often come away from these meetings with more questions about the congregation than about the sermon or the prophetic ministry:

• Why do they do that?
• Is that God?
• Can they control that?
• Are they faking it?
• That can’t be good for them, can it?
• That’s not going to happen to me, is it?

Those are good questions, actually. I try to encourage them.

John Arnott pointed out one time that there are many reasons why people react physically in a spiritual environment.

• Some folks react because God is touching them; it's involuntary, like touching a live electrical wire.

• Some of them, God isn’t touching them physically, but he’s working on their emotions, and their physical manifestations are simply a symptom of God addressing and healing deeply rooted emotional wounds.

• For others, it's psychological: they need to feel like they're part of what's going on, or they need to feel loved. For some of these, it's marginally voluntary: they may not know whether they can control the physical reaction.

• Others are moved socially: everybody is doing this; I need to fit in, so I should too: their reaction is voluntary, though the thinking behind it may not be.

• Some may be manifesting because their resident demons are freaking out.

• And there are mentally ill persons among us, who are legitimately reacting for their own reasons, real or imagined.

• I leave out those who are mockingly “faking it.” I actually haven’t ever met such people, and though I imagine they exist, I have difficulty imagining them sticking around without fitting into one of the other categories.

Among these motivations, are there any of these people that shouldn’t come to God, that shouldn’t bring these needs – spiritual, psychological, emotional, whatever – to God and invite him to work in them? Is there any reason to separate some away from God and permit others to come near?

If we accept John’s observation that these physical reactions come from many sources, we can answer the question “Is this God?” with, “Well, sometimes it’s God.” And we can make that statement without judging the person who is twitching undignifiedly on the floor: whichever of these motivations is making them flop, they deserve a touch from God, they deserve to be loved by God’s people, they deserve to be pastored, not judged, not excluded.

For some people, a touch from God won’t be the whole solution; they’ll also need to replace a lie with truth, and they may need deliverance. But the touch from God is a part of the process, is a part of the healing, and often it makes room for the other components of the healing.

I remember the night that I undeniably encountered really strange manifestations on people as they encountered God – this was the night that a man clucked chicken for twenty minutes as he was praying for me! I saw hundreds of people fall on the floor and flop around like a fish out of water. Afterwards, when most of the flopping fish were through flopping, and had been helped up, had straightened out their clothes and stumbled off to the parking lot, I was talking to the guy running the sound.

I asked him a blunt question: “Do you do that?” “Do what?” he asked. “Do you fall on the ground and flop around like a fish?”

His wife interrupted before he could answer. “Yes! Yes, he does, and I’m glad he does!” Um. Ok. “You’re glad he does that? Really? Why is that?”

“Because the man who gets up off the floor is not the same man who falls down there. God works on him while he’s there, and he always gets up a better man for it.”

She went on to tell me about some of the character issues that have changed, grown, matured, since he first landed unconscious on the carpet, twitching. In my evangelical vocabulary, he was growing more Christ-like while he flopped about on the carpet.

My evangelical mind had trouble with that concept. But I was beginning to be convinced. I really didn’t understand (I don’t claim to understand even now!), but when something I don’t understand brings about the result of increased Christlikeness, increased fruit of the Spirit, then I can’t really argue with it, even if I don’t understand the process by which God works in them. I understand the results even if the process confuses me.

Reactions to the Manifestations

At those same meetings where some people who didn’t participate in the festivities. Some wandered about, wide-eyed, watching what was going on, others clung to their chairs, with the same wide-eyed curiosity. I love watching these folks’ honest fascination with what God was doing.

Others stood, often along the back wall, often with arms crossed, scowling, watching the shenanigans, usually with growing unease. I’ve been this guy, so I know that the mental process behind the scowl is not generally one of approval. These folks may ask the same questions, but with a twist, perhps twisted into a statement, usually a statement of disapproval, judgment, even condemnation:

• Why doesn’t somebody stop that?
• That is not God! That can’t be God!
• They could control that reaction!
• They’re faking it!
• That can’t be good for them!
• That’s not going to happen to me!

Often, they’re rehearsing in their minds all the reasons why this can’t be God. Confusion is replaced by indignation, then anger, and they leave the meeting, usually early, more justified than before, in their opposition to the physical manifestation of the touch of God. Often they’ll write an angry blog post afterwards, justifying their judgmentalism.

Curiously, some of their judgments touch truth in the matter. We’ve already described how some of the manifestations are from psychological or emotional sources, so it can legitimately be said, of some, that it is not God making them shake; some of those could be described as faking it, though I have come to question the need (or benefit) from identifying or judging that. And it’s true: most people (though perhaps not all people) can indeed squelch the reaction (the critics sometimes do that themselves!). But those who enjoy encountering God this way, choose not to squelch the experience. And the statement “That’s not going to happen to me!” is in some measure self-fulfilling.

A Comparison

So I compare the three perspectives: ● Those who twitch and moan (“those who manifest”), ● Those who eagerly watch the manifestations, and ● Those who stand back and judge. (Note: I have been all three of these people.)

One could make a biblical argument to each of these three people for the validity of physical manifestations (referencing Matthew 17, or 28, for example). But it’s my experience that the first group doesn’t need the argument, the second group isn’t paying attention at the moment (but will ask about it later), and the third group can’t be convinced, no matter how biblical the argument.

In my mind, the more important issue is the question of fruit: what kind of fruit does this encounter produce in each of the three groups? Let’s look at them in reverse order:

• The critics are an easy one: their fruit is bitterness, judgment, and anger. That doesn’t sound like it represents God well. Therefore, I decline to partake of this fruit.

• The curious observers are easy as well: they manifest genuine hunger, honest questions, eager anticipation, or legitimate confusion. They are willing to listen to testimony and teaching on the topic, but will judge both by what they’ve seen. Most of these onlookers will become participants before long. These characteristics (these fruit) seem to reflect God’s character well; they fit well on his children who are growing and learning. I find this to be very nice fruit.

• The fruit of those who manifest is harder to classify, because it’s so varied. Some, like my friend the sound guy, have an honest encounter with God and get up changed. Those are easy to discern: that’s God! But some seem to have an honest encounter with God, but develop a fixation on the encounter, missing the God whom they encountered, and these seem to be less changed. I find good fruit in some people, and less desirable fruit in some others.

The conclusion I’m coming to in all of this is this: I like some of what goes on, and other aspects, I’m ready to distance myself from. I have decided that what happens between them and God is really none of my business, none of my business. My business is about being impacted by God myself.

Some may ask, “But what about those who you lead? Don’t you have a responsibility to them? Shouldn’t you warn them?”

This is a good place for a testimony, a story: Some time ago, I took a group of fairly intellectual young believers on what we called a “Field trip.” We visited a church who had a guest speaker that was known for these kind of manifestations. I intentionally did not tell the group what to expect, except to say, “It will likely be different than you’ve experienced before.”

Sure enough, God showed up, and people started falling, twitching, moaning, whatever. Two ladies were convinced that this was fake, but were hungry for God enough to get prayer. They had been convinced that the pastor was pushing people over, and they stood there, braced against pushing, hands in their pockets, as he lightly touched their heads. When he removed his hands from their foreheads (and not before), they both fell down backwards (caught and lowered gently to the ground by people less skeptical than themselves). Twenty minutes later, hands still in their pockets, they woke up, confused as to how they had landed on the floor, but excitedly chattering about their encounter with God during the time they were out.

Another time, I took another young believer to a similar meeting, but the results were different. We talked about it afterwards, and she was indignant: “He pushed me! That’s just wrong!” I probed further, “So you’d say this was not God?” “Well, he sure wasn’t working with God! I landed on my back, mad, because he pushed, and because he wanted so desperately for me to fall down. But while I was there, God said, ‘While you’re here, do you want to make the most of the time?’ and then he showed me some really cool things while I was lying there!”

We concluded that the minister was, for whatever reason, relying on pushing, rather than on God, for the manifestations. But we also concluded that God likes the heart that is eager to interact with him, and is willing to use people’s fleshly and inferior responses in order to reach his eager children.

So in regards to the question of pastoring, my conclusion is this: If I am leading people to myself, then I guess, yeah, I need to have all the answers to all their questions. But if I’m leading people to God, then the measure of success of my pastoring them is this: do they know God well enough to discern for themselves?

Yes, I’m there to help them process the experience, and that’s valuable to them. But my role is not to make their judgments for them; rather my job is to support them in their own encounters with God, and to encourage them to encounter God.

Ministry Flows From Relationship

This God that you and I follow is an interesting fellow.

Some time back, he went through a lot of work, starting with, “Let there be light,” and then using that light to make the sun and the moon, to make planets and stars, then to make plants and fish and antelopes and woodpeckers, and finally to make a species of beings – we call them “human beings” – in his own image. “And,” he said, “It’s really good!”

And God worked hard enough during those six days of creation, that when he was done, he – God – had to rest, for a whole day.

And when he had finished this amazing work of creation, what did he do? What did he do with this thing that took six days of God working to create?

Why, he went for walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, of course.

That was the high point of creation. God went through all of Creation for one thing: a relationship – a friendship – with his creation. God made us so that we could be close with him, so that we could be intimate with him.

And God said, “It’s really good.”

And that’s been a priority for God ever since: that we’d be close friends with him, and we’d be close friends with each other.

And you know the story: Adam & Eve sinned, and our race fell out of close relationship with God, but God had a plan to deal with that – a good plan, but it was an expensive plan. And through Jesus, we have a way back to close friendship with God.

And God still says, “It’s really good!”

For thousands of years, humanity related to God through Moses’ Tabernacle, and later through a Temple built on the Tabernacle’s laws. But for a very few of those years, King David had a tabernacle – a tent, essentially a pup tent – in his back bedroom or his back garden, where he and his friends worshipped God side-by-side, intimately, face-to-face, with nobody in between.

Both tabernacles fell into disuse over the centuries. And God has not chosen Moses’ Tabernacle, the place with tradition and history, as the model for New Testament worship. He chose to restore David’s Tabernacle, the place of informal intimacy, and he specifically emphasized that this was the way we relate to him: intimately, personally.

In these New Covenant days, God has completely affirmed this value. When the Son of God stepped into space and time as a human, he called a some human beings and “He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons.”

Clearly, their efficacy at preaching, healing the sick and casting out demons came from being with him.

I love how Jesus described our relationship from his point of view. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

Jesus considers you and me to be so precious, so alluring, that he sold everything – in Bible terms, “He laid aside the prerogatives of his deity,” and became one of us: God became human – so that he could have that intimate relationship with us again. We are his treasure!

And that’s been our foundation for doing anything worthwhile ever since. We’ve been saying it this way: “Ministry flows out of relationship.” Relationship with God. Relationship between us.

Without that, the best we have to give, is just us. Without an intimacy with God, there’s nothing supernatural to give.

Prophetic Obligations

Prophetic Obligations

I’ve been reflecting recently… no, that’s a cop-out. Let me try again:

God has begun to speak to me about some things in relationship to the prophetic gifts, and about some ways that the church as a whole has let prophetic people down. We who teach others how to hear God – how to prophesy – we have in some ways failed the very prophetic community we train. This began, I believe, with good intentions, and with accurate instruction, but without enough wisdom.

When we teach people to prophesy, we have been very intentional about “lowering the bar” of hearing God’s voice. That’s a good intention, but it does a disservice to our brothers and sisters who are called to prophetic ministry. Let me explain.

When we teach prophecy, we generally teach newcomers how Jesus said (in John 10:27), “My sheep hear my voice.” So if we’re his sheep, we hear Him speaking to us. The challenge is not to learn to hear his voice, but learn to recognize it, learn to discern his voice from among the other clamoring voices. That’s good, and I still stand behind this teaching.

We teach them from Luke 11:11-13:

11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

When we are asking God for a manifestation from the Holy Spirit called the gift of prophecy, then we should be able to trust what we hear, what we see, what we “get” when we’re asking.

And as part of that training, we put limits on prophesying: we teach that (as 1 Corinthians 14:3 says), “He who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men.” And so we limit the topics accessible to prophecy to this realm.

When we teach people the basics of prophecy, most of our teaching is in the context of personal prophecy. In fact, the vast majority of prophetic training I’ve seen or heard (and that’s a lot!) assumes the context of personal prophecy, in a public setting, and it emphasizes the limits of “edification, exhortation, comfort.” No predicting the future, thank you very much; no declaring judgment, no “You must marry this person,” no “Sell everything and move to Africa.” Just prophesy these: edification, exhortation, comfort. The end.

Within those limitations, there’s plenty of room for a whole lot of valuable prophecy. It is a significant and valuable venue for prophetic ministry, and there is much good that can come from prophecy within these limits.

Are these limitations on every exercise of all prophetic gifts? No, the Bible gives these limits for public exercise of the gift of prophecy. They’re pretty good training wheels for training rookies! But this isn’t the whole story.

There are actually three lists of gifts from God in the New Testament, and the prophetic is the only gift common to all three lists. The gifts from Holy Spirit are enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12, including the gift of prophecy, and the related prophetic gifts of the “word of knowledge” and “the word of wisdom.” The gift of prophecy is the focus of 1 Corinthians 14, and this is where the limitation of “edification, exhortation, comfort” comes from.

There’s another list of gifts, often called “motivational gifts” from God the Father, in Romans 12, and this list also includes prophecy. Here, the only limitation to prophesying is “let us prophesy in proportion to our faith.” I observe that this passage assumes that not everyone works in this level of the gifting; only some of the Body are gifted by the Father to minister regularly with the gift of prophecy.

The list of gifts from Jesus, the head of the church is in Ephesians 4, and it includes the gift of the prophet. The limitation here – a limitation on all five of these gifts including the prophet – is that the gift is to be used “for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry.” Here too, the passage assumes that not everyone has this gift: only a few members of the Body are called to be prophets.

So it seems the full range of prophetic giftings are not limited to only prophesying “edification, exhortation, comfort.” The calling of a ministry in the prophetic, and the calling of a prophet are not subject to those limitations at all times. (Though I would argue that the vast majority of prophetic words coming from someone called as a prophet should still fall into these guidelines, but “the vast majority” is not the same as “all,” which is how we’ve taught it.)

There come a couple of problems, when people take the prophetic gifts outside of those beginning limitations: we don’t make much room for other applications for the gift, and we don’t show people how to minister outside of those areas. Since most training for prophetic gifts has been designed as an introduction for everybody, the content has necessarily been limited to the aspects of the gift that apply to everyone.

And this is the exact focus of my concern: that when we have lowered the bar to include everybody in the prophetic training, we have failed to train two-thirds of the prophetic gifts described in the Epistles; we’ve generally failed to train any application outside of the prophetic outside the realm of rookies.

Where might gifted people appropriately take prophetic gifts outside of these rookie limitations?

1. Prophetic evangelism: prophesying to strangers on the streets and in shopping malls is becoming fashionable in many Christian circles, and it’s wonderful that the church is finally taking prophetic ministry to the streets, and I’m thankful for it.

The risk is small here, and there are usually (but not always) experienced leaders around to help temper the prophetic words given, and to train the givers of those words. There has been very little training focusing even partly on how to prophesy to non-believers, and this is a surprisingly different skill, a different (and appropriate) application of the prophetic gift. On the other hand, prophesying to strangers on the streets strikes me as a reasonable way to learn how to prophesy to strangers in the streets.

Recently, a friend of mine was sitting in a restaurant after hearing a very bad report from her doctor; she was questioning the promises that God had given her, which the doctor’s report had just challenged. Then a man she’d never met came up to her, apologetic and nervous, and told her, “God told me to tell you, ‘Never question in the darkness what I have told you clearly in the light.’” It rocked her world, and put her back on course, though her battle is not yet over.

I judge that this is an excellent use of prophetic gifts which falls outside of the traditional “personal prophecy in a public meeting,” but generally within the traditional limits of “edification, exhortation & comfort.”

2. Daily guidance. I don’t subscribe to the theory that God must tell me everything to do in my everyday life, but I know people that do expect God’s leading them in each little detail of their daily life. (We’ll leave the very appropriate questions of the degree in which personal guidance is appropriate for another day.) More to today’s point is the issue that very little training is given to the topic of daily guidance for believers. And yet, I believe that hearing God say, “Today, I want you to do this,” is a very valid use for prophetic gifts. Our initial verse tied the two together: “My sheep hear my voice,” is linked with “they follow me.”

Jesus said of himself, “…whatever the Father does the Son also does.” John 5:19 So I suppose if we’re going to be like Jesus, we’re going to need to know what Father’s up to, so we can (like Jesus) join him in that work.

There have been times when I have heard God say, “Turn around and go back and talk to this person,” and that experience has been the turning point of an amazing new season in my life. This application of the gift has certainly been valid in my experience, though it, too, is outside of traditional prophetic training..

3. Public prophetic declarations, especially on the internet. It seems that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of websites nowadays where someone, eager to prophesy, and (usually) with some measure of a prophetic gift, makes a public presence. Many of these start posting “prophetic words” – just like the big name prophets – addressing everything from what they think is wrong with the church, to “God’s word for this year,” to prognosticating when Jesus is going to come back and what He’s going to do when he gets here. (I confess to thinking that some of these outbursts may be an example of individuals falling short of the instruction, “let us prophesy in proportion to our faith.”

Let me hasten to point out that having a website or making public declarations in no way either validates or invalidates a person’s prophetic gifting or calling. My point is that while they may have been trained in “how to prophesy,” they have not been trained for this kind, this level of public ministry, and that knowing how to “hear God’s voice” is not a sufficient foundation for a public prophetic ministry.

And I must add that while there are a lot of eager little rookies foolishly prophesying their guts out on their blogs or on Facebook, there are some individuals who are called to a larger realm of ministry, and whose assignment it is to make such decrees. (I include a very small sampling of them – public words that have been judged by other prophets – on the Northwest Prophetic website.)

4. Prophetic correction. I have far more stories than I wish I did about people learning to hear God and suddenly recognizing that other people are doing things wrong. There are many, many people who have received prophetic words, generally uninvited and unwelcome, which outline just how badly they’re screwing up.

It is fair to point out that most of the “prophetic correction” that is sweeping the internet is in error (certainly by motivation, if not by content), and while that may be a symptom of the topics in this article, it is not to our point today.

I don’t deny that correction, on very rare occasions, becomes a very tiny part of mature prophetic ministry (1 Samuel 13:13 may serve as an example). I point out that the training we give is insufficient for this work, and that this is occasionally a legitimate exercise of the prophetic gifts outside the traditional limitations.

But on the other hand, I know of a few leaders who have fallen into sin, whose sin was revealed prophetically, and nearly always to their own great relief. In every single successful case, the revelation was presented to a small group of leaders, and the leader in question had been invited to be present. This is clearly not an application for “proclaim it from the mountain tops!” Matthew 18 guides us in this process.

5. Directive prophecy. Most teachers on prophetic gifts are clear: personal prophecy is not for the purpose of correction or direction. And again, this is a tiny part of the greater arena of prophetic ministry, but it is a part, and traditional prophetic training makes no preparation for this: neither for teaching us how to prophesy direction, nor teaching the body how to discern, judge and respond to directional prophecies.

While there are models of this kind of prophecy in the Old Testament (Samuel’s is one of the more exciting); in fact, it made more sense in the Old Testament, since only a few people had the Spirit of God and could access God’s perspective on the future. By contrast, we now live in a day when the Spirit has been poured out on all flesh, and every one of God’s children has the Spirit living inside them and directing them. Therefore the most effective use of directive prophecy today is generally in confirmation of what a person is hearing already, and in fact, I generally counsel the recipient of such prophecies to ignore them if they are not confirming something already in their heart and mind.

In my own life, there was a season where Papa required that I pray 1 Corinthians 14:1 before I pray for anything else that day; I petulantly prayed the verse every day, but told nobody about it. Some time later, a prophet called me out and said, “God says you’ve been asking him for prophetic gifts, and he says that it has been his plan to give them to you.” It changed my world.

6. Direction for our personal lives. “Shall I marry this person?” “Do I accept this job?” “What is my calling in life?” Certainly, this is similar to “personal prophecy,” but these questions are waaay outside of “edification, exhortation and comfort in a public gathering.” But they’re powerful and vital questions that cannot go unasked, and theoretically should not go unanswered. And it seems that there are never any good experienced, prophetic leaders around when people are asking these powerful questions in their private times with God.

I have often been frustrated by the emphasis some of us put on having God tell us what we should do, when he has given us a powerful free will, and when our own desires measure so strongly in the subject. In fact, when I asked Papa whether I should marry the woman who is now my wife, his answer was, “Son, you may marry her.” The emphasis was that my choice was very valid for my marriage.

Having said that, there are a very few occasions where God clearly points out who a person will marry, though if such a word is not a confirmation of something in our own heart, I would seriously question the word. (That woman, now my wife, heard God say to her, “He will be your husband” while I was engaged to another woman; she very wisely said and did nothing on the subject until after our second anniversary.)

7. Working with apostles and apostolic teams. While I know a number of prophets who do work with apostles, I don’t know a single one who has had any significant training in that line of prophetic work. But I judge that this ministry, when done well, is likely one of the most valuable parts of the prophetic ministry of someone called as a prophet.

My favorite example of this ministry was a few years back when Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets were called by God, as a prophet and an apostle, to visit all 50 states and make declarations about them. Their declarations were powerful, and their interaction was wonderfully instructive.

I realize the mixed message here: Yes, the limitations commonly taught (of “edification, exhortation, comfort”) are valuable, but no, those limits are not absolute limits.

My focus is about some concerns about prophetic ministry today, about how well we have trained our people to hear God’s voice, and how that is insufficient for many of the prophetic tasks and responsibilities before us.

Many years ago, shortly after I began to understand how to hear God’s voice, my young family and I were given an invitation. A friend of ours was moving to Canada to plant a church, and he invited us to join him. Of course, we took this to prayer, and in response, I heard God saying, “What do you want to do?” which I interpreted as permission to quit our jobs, sell most of what we owned, and start over in Canada. What resulted was a two-year exercise in persistence in an endeavor that God was clearly not blessing, followed by a decade of recovery from that failure.

Had I learned the skills that I needed to discern far larger issues than “personal prophecy, in a public gathering, aiming at edification, exhortation, comfort,” I believe I would have been better equipped to make that decision, and better equipped to handle the consequences of it.

This is my hope: that we as a maturing prophetic community would move beyond the valuable but baby-steps beginner’s training of “personal prophecy, in a public gathering, aiming at edification, exhortation, comfort.” I envision training schools (a few have already begun) and competent mentoring (I’ve seen greater advances here) where we are addressing not just beginner issues, but real-world issues of those called to prophetic ministry. I look forward to regional communities of mature prophets, raised up as sons and daughters by mature prophets and apostles, ministering in the “gates of the city” in every city or region, at least in the Northwest, and ideally, in the world.

An Introduction to Prophetic Gifts

Are you married? I am. I have a relationship with my sweetheart that’s pretty special.

A relationship between a believer and God is kind of like that. We are the beloved, he is our lover, our fiancé.  

I don’t know about you, but when my sweetheart and I talk, there are a whole LOT of things that I really prefer she not tell the whole world about. Some of it, nobody else would understand; others are private matters. There’s a lot that really belongs just between her and me.

It’s that way with hearing God’s voice. Most of what we hear (I estimate something on the order of 90%) is just for us privately. It’s small talk, intimate talk, just between God and me. Some of it is an invitation for prayer. Some is just building a relationship.

That leaves maybe 10% of what I hear that’s appropriate to be shared. Most of that (I estimate 90% or so of what remains) is just for sharing informally with the people I have relationship with: visiting over coffee, talking on the phone, sharing in church or home group. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt God say something, and felt the freedom to share it, then I send an email or a Facebook message, and it was exactly what they needed to hear.

That leaves just a tiny fraction – less than one percent – of what I hear from God that’s for sharing with people I don’t have a relationship with. Most of the time, God has people who DO know them through whom He can speak; he doesn’t need to use a stranger. There are exceptions, but this seems to be a good rule of thumb: If most of what we hear from God isn’t for us personally, then there’s something wrong with our love relationship with him.

I run into people from time to time who think that they don’t hear God’s voice. (Frankly, I used to be one of them; I understand this position well.) The problem is that Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.” (John 10:27) Are you his sheep? Then either you hear his voice, or he was mistaken, and I’m guessing he wasn’t mistaken.

Note that “hearing his voice” and “recognizing his voice” are different skills. You already hear his voice. He says so. Now learn to pick his voice out from the other voices. Hint: it’s not always in words; sometimes it’s in pictures, or feelings, or thoughts. He does things creatively.

Jesus taught more on this in Luke 11:

11 “If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

So if you’re asking God to speak to you, and if you’re pressing in to hear and to learn to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit, what will he do? What does Jesus say he’ll do? Maybe he’ll give you a serpent or a scorpion? Probably not. He’ll give the Holy Spirit. If you’re asking, and you see a picture, ask about the picture.

English is not God’s first language, you know.

Now having said that, I need to add a limitation of the real world: The truth is that everybody who does work in a gift of God has a limited understanding of the gift. Some have more experience than others, sure. But anybody who thinks they have it down is mistaken. I know people who have changed the heavens with declarations, raised the dead, declared the future in detail, and the truthful ones admit their understanding is incomplete. Really, when you think about it, it’s kind of hard for a limited human mind to understand an infinite almighty God.

The other thing: just because someone knows how to prophesy doesn’t change their character, their nature. If they’re rude in their conversation, then their prophecy is probably rude. If they’re prone to a religious spirit when they’re talking, they’ll be religious in their prophecy. Prophecy – like any other gift – has nothing to do with the ooky-spooky idea of God taking over my body. It’s still me. I’m just listening to my dad. If I’m a jerk when I’m listening to you, I’ll probably still be a jerk when I’m listening to him. Unless I’m really religious, and then I can hide it.

Change of Focus

There is a remnant of God’s people who are more passionately pursuing the freedom of the Kingdom than they are pursuing participation in human gatherings. For a long time, these have resisted the control of man’s religion and man’s rules and man’s approval, or lack of approval.

It has been right, it has been good that we have resisted that control that has been pharisaical and restrictive. It has been appropriate that we have resisted constrictions that some have wanted to put on our freedom in Christ.

For years – perhaps for decades – those pursuing freedom have needed to watch for those who would, knowingly or unknowingly, steal that freedom away. It’s not time to let down our guard, but it is time that we change the focus of our resistance. We are not to be bound. We are not to be subject to others’ fears and limitations.

In fact, it’s time to stop looking at what we are not; time to stop looking at what we are leaving behind. Instead of focusing on what we have left, it will be good to look at where we’re going. It’s time to fix our eyes on the One who is leading us, the One who died for our freedom.

A very wise man once said, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” If it was not this season before, it surely is now.

We have had to keep our guard up against those who would take our freedom, and it’s good to guard our freedom. But we’re coming into days when we need to keep our eyes on the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. We need to watch Father closely, because he’s moving more quickly, he’s speaking more softly, than he has done before.

We still run the race. We still guard against man’s control. But our eyes are on the King. Trust me, he’s much nicer to look at anyway.

Judgment: It's Not What We Think!

There’s a lot of conversation about judgment. We’re in the throes of a fascination with the last days, the “end times” and there is a substantial element of judgment in that whole conversation, and we talk about “the Great White Throne.”

There’s also a growing awareness among believers of how the world sees churches as judgmental. “Don’t do this, don’t like that.” It’s my observation that there is a growing polarization in the church on this topic – some are pronouncing more judgment and calling it holiness; others are judging the world and other believers less. Judgment is clearly on the mind of the Saints.

Judgment is Misunderstood

I believe that the topic is badly misunderstood in the church. I’ve certainly learned recently how badly I’ve misjudged the concept of judgment.

I suspect that the main reason we misunderstand judgment is because we are instructed by the wrong sources. Our culture has a great deal to say on the topic, from Judge Judy, to the evening news, to the entire legal system: our culture teaches us that judgment is largely about punishment: “Stop doing that!” “Go to jail!” “Pay this fine!”

Traditional Christian Culture supports this understanding: “God’s going to judge that,” though what it is that God purportedly will judge changes depending on which Christian subculture you’re listening to, but that’s another topic.

Here’s where I’m going: In one way or another, we generally consider judgment to be bad, to be about punishment. That’s not true! Punishment certainly is a part of judgment, but by no means is it the whole story.

Some years ago, when I was a potter, I entered several of my creations in the local County Fair. These were my creations, very personal. And do you know what happened? Judges came to look at my work. Judges! Can you imagine! And do you know what they did? They judged my creations! And then they handed me a couple of ribbons, and awarded me twenty bucks cash money.

Judgment, in the truest sense, does include punishment, but really, it’s more focused on rewards, particularly in the Kingdom of God.

In fact, I don’t think it’s judgment itself that is a problem, but the condemnation that is usually unleashed when judgment is performed inappropriately. I’m beginning to understand that while condemnation is to be generally condemned, judgment is to be embraced.

I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD…. For thrones are set there for judgment, The thrones of the house of David.

             -- Psalm 122:1,5 [emphasis added]

A Closer Look at Judgment

Let’s look at the biggest, most famous judgment of all, at the end of the world:

And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. … And they were judged, each one according to his works. … And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

             -- Revelation 20:12-15

This is, of course, not one judgment, but two. The famous one is in the last verse: if your name is not in the Book of Life, it’s “game over” when we come to that court. But that’s only half the story, only one of the books of testimony used as evidence in that courtroom.

The other judgment is about your works (and mine), and the testimony is a stack of books listing what we’ve done. The judgment is based on what is written in that stack of books.

So the Judge on the throne is making judgment based on our works, but the books that list our works have all the forgiven things wiped out of them, stricken from the record; a whole lifetime worth of the good things that we’ve done, said and thought are all that remain. When the Judge looks at those, his judgment is not going to be about punishment but reward:

"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
Put Me in remembrance;
Let us contend together;
State your case, that you may be acquitted.

            -- Isaiah 43:25-26

So the Judge on the throne is making judgment based on our works, but the books that list our works have all the forgiven things wiped out of them, stricken from the record: the only things that remain are whatever (hopefully few) sins are un-repented of, and a whole lifetime worth of the good things that we’ve done, said and thought. When the Judge looks at those, his judgment is not going to be about punishment but reward.

Jesus teaches on judgment rather a lot. This is the Parable of the Talents:

  “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 

  “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ 

  “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ 

  “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. 

  ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

                 --Matthew 25:14-30

And this is his Parable of the Minas: similar lessons, but a different presentation.

  Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. Therefore He said: "A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.  So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, 'Do business till I come.'  ….

  "And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.  Then came the first, saying, 'Master, your mina has earned ten minas.'  And he said to him, 'Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.'  And the second came, saying, 'Master, your mina has earned five minas.'  Likewise he said to him, 'You also be over five cities.'

  "Then another came, saying, 'Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief.  For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.' And he said to him, 'Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow.  Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?'

  "And he said to those who stood by, 'Take the mina from him, and give it to him who has ten minas.' (But they said to him, 'Master, he has ten minas.') 'For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.

             -- Luke 19:11-27

In the Parable of the Talents, every servant received a different investment; it would not be inappropriate to think of these as skills, giftings, opportunities: places where everyone is different. Those who were rewarded all earned the same profit – whatever they had received, they doubled – and they all received the same reward: “‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.” It is not inappropriate to come away with the understanding that whenever we make an increase for the Kingdom from our God-given talents, He will be pleased.

It is also fair to point out that when we are afraid of God, when we bury our talents out of fear that what we do won’t be pleasing to him, that reaction itself is very displeasing to him. That is not a good choice: those who make this choice will regret it; here judgment does indeed bring punishment.

The Parable of the Minas teaches much the same lessons, but this time, every servant received the same gift; think of these as places where we’re all equal before God: we have the same new life, the same access to the Holy Spirit, the same freedom to come boldly before his throne and obtain grace. In this parable, each servant came back with a different success story: some brought back ten times the amount that was invested in them, others only five times as much. Every successful servant was judged and rewarded by the King; in this case, the extent of the reward was related to the amount of their success with his investment in them. Again, it is not inappropriate to come away with the understanding that whenever we make a profit for the Kingdom from our God-given talents, He will be pleased.

And again, there was one servant who was afraid of the King, afraid of failing, and therefore hid his gift away privately; this servant’s judgment brought punishment: his gift was taken from him and given to the more successful servant. The servant’s fearful, self-protective choices did not protect him.

What Is (And What Is Not) Judged

While we will indeed stand before God one day and be “judged, each one according to his works,” it is important to understand what we will be judged for and what we will not be judged for.

Here are some things that we will apparently not be judged for:

·         Our gifts. Some of us have greater gifts, some lesser, but like the talents, all are given by God. Why would God judge us (reward us) for how much he himself has given us in the first place? In both parables, the servants were rewarded, but never for the king’s initial investment in them.

·         Our works. I grew up in a generation that has valued hard work, and I don’t mean to disparage sweat, but our hard work is not the thing that God is looking to reward. God is not in the habit of rewarding man’s works, and in the Old Testament, he specifically prohibited things that caused sweat (see Ezekiel 44:18): a picture of not relying on our own works to accomplish his purposes.

·         Our Opportunities. Some people have tremendous opportunities for their gifting; others labor in obscurity. A couple who labors faithfully to pastor a house church is not judged to be inferior to the inherits the leadership of a mega-church from his father.

Things judged:

·         Our Faithfulness. While our giftedness are not rewarded, what we do with those gifts will be rewarded. The choice to faithfully use the gift is rewarded, but the choice to hide the gift is punished. John Wimber taught that “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K,” and that applies in this conversation: choices that are safe, that are comfortable are probably not choices that bring the kind of rewards that Jesus talked about. Choices that are built on a value to extend the Kingdom, but scare us, that make us rely on God more, choices where we must walk carefully, hand-in-hand with Jesus are the ones that bring eternal rewards.

·         Our Results. While our hard work, our sweat, is not rewarded, the parable of the minas clearly demonstrates that greater results from the same gifts will result in greater reward. It is clear that the greater results don’t come from working harder, but from strategies like cooperating more with God’s purposes

For now, I’d like to encourage us to submit to God’s judgment. I have a strong expectation that Holy Spirit will be teaching us more about judgment in the months to come. He is not through with the topic.

The Feather is a Sign

I was at a prophetic gathering recently, where a man was painting a picture during the worship. The painting was of a feather in the Lord’s hand. I was sitting nearby and watched the painting form, watched the artist labor over it.

Toward the end of the conference, the keynote speaker took public note of the painting, commented on the feather, and offered prophetic perspective.

“First,” he pointed out, “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer. A quill is a pen. Many of you here need to be writing, writing out your experiences in God.”

Then he went on to tell the story that stuck with me; I don’t know whether he spoke of a real practice, or of a vision he had had. He told of an Eskimo who needed to feed his family in the winter, so he travelled out on the ice, where he found an air hole for a seal, the seal that he wanted to bring home to feed his hungry family.

He waited for the seal by the air hole, but he knew that the seal would see him waiting there, harpoon in hand, so he brought out a feather, and put it on the surface of the water in the air hole. The feather may distract the seal, or it may obscure his vision, but those are not the real purpose of the feather on the water.

When the seal came near its air hole, the feather would vibrate from the changing pressure in the water, from the bubbles under the ice of the seal’s exhalation as he prepares to inhale in his private air hole.

The Eskimo never needs to actually see the seal. He waits until the vibration of the feather indicates that the seal is right there, and he strikes without having seen the seal. Then he cuts the hole larger, pulls the seal out, carries it home and feeds his family. The prophet said that the feather was also a symbol that the “Lord’s family is really hungry; they’re starving. The Lord is looking for some seals to take to feed his family.”

The feather is also a lesson for us in trust. The Eskimo never saw the seal he was hunting until (and unless) the successful conclusion of the hunt.

I believe that we are in a day when we need to learn how to obey when God says, “It’s time to strike” even when we don’t see what we’re striking. It’s time for us to move forward with what God is doing in us, what he’s calling us to, even if we don’t know what that is or where it will take us.