Should Prophetic Believers Be Prophesying More or Less?
I’ve heard Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church say that prophets need to learn to keep secrets. That our first reaction to receiving revelation about someone is whether we have permission to share it. And that our default setting should be to keep God’s secrets until we are compelled or given permission to share.
This line of reasoning makes me wonder if our/my prophetic exercises at church or in life are not doomed to shallow results from the start because we assume we should hone our gift by sharing what we hear when we haven’t been given permission to speak.
Think about it. There are some serious implications here. We as a Body want to be growing toward maturity in character and in the use of our spiritual gifts. But if our very exercise is premature and immature activity, the very act of “practice” becomes destructive to deep spiritual growth.
I am baffled by the fact that there aren’t thousands of William Branhams and Kathryn Kuhlmans in the earth, turning the world upside down. There must be a reason, and we must be willing to question the way we do things if we ever hope to reach the prize.
So what do you think? I’d really love to hear all sides of the coin on this one. If you know someone who might want to respond, please share this post with them and ask them to comment.
Similar Posts
12 Comments
Leave a Reply
About Me
Daniel, is an observer, writer, thinker, explainer. Husband and father of two crazy smart kids. Living the prophetic life to bring honor to Father God and to love real people.
CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!
Order Today On Amazon
Order for Kindle
It depends on the context you’re referring to. If God grants us specific revelation for an individual other than ourselves, there is certainly a reason for it. While there have been occasions when I’ve received prophetic revelation about people for purposes besides ministering to them directly (i.e. – being led in intercessory prayer on how to pray for specific needs) most of the time it’s something that He wants me to say. That may be due to my experience ministering publicly, where it is generally all for revealing to the individual so they receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
On the flip-side, if you meant discussing prophetic revelation that the Lord has given you of a personal nature or as it pertains to the Body of Christ, I think those words are either given to minister solely to you or to be released in a due season to the Body. When discussing personal encounters I usually try to ask God if it’s something He wants me to share or not, because it can come across like we’re trying to look “more spiritual”. The ultimate deflective response to this is: If you aren’t sure if God wants you to speak… and you hear from God… why not just ask Him?
Jeff, my point is that how do you know that most of the time He wants you to say it? Isn’t that really just an assumption you’ve made based on your own logic?
Think about it this way: I could tell you a secret. I am going to give Sam a specific birthday present. Something he’s wanted for a long time. I’m so excited about giving him this present that I just had to tell someone, and I chose you. You hear that Sam is getting the present he’s always wanted and you go tell him because you want to encourage him – after all, he’s feeling depressed about life and you know that this information will lift his spirits.
By breaking my confidence, have you lifted Sam’s spirits? Yes. Have you ruined my surprise? Also yes. Will I think of you as someone trustworthy? No.
The difference is that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. So you can continue hearing things regardless of your character. Psychics hear things about people, because they have a prophetic gift. But they’re not maturing in prophecy because they’re listening to the wrong source AND they’re not connected to Jesus.
You could hear something prophetically that does encourage someone and still betrays His trust. I’m not saying you ARE. I’m saying it’s theoretically possible. My only point in saying this is that “I have experience giving prophetic words” isn’t enough of a support for why you do what you do. If you did something incorrectly or inappropriately for a longer period of time, does that make it more sound than someone else who does it for a short period of time?
Dude, I’ll take a present!
Why don’t you just ask the Holy Spirit if you’re supposed to share it? It’s not supposed to be this hard.
That’s a great point, Sam. I’m generating this conversation because I don’t think prophetically gifted people ask the Holy Spirit each time before they share.
Bear with me. I bring up conversation topics like these because I have a desire to see something happen in the body of Christ that still feels a long way off, and I choose to ask the question “Why?”
If we’re not walking in the level of revelation and we’re not uttering deep and mature prophecies, my question is “what are we doing wrong? What can be corrected?”
“If we continue to always do what we’ve always done, we’ll continue to get what we’ve always gotten.”
If we want something more, we have to be willing to take a fresh look at the how and why… to challenge assumptions that aren’t grounded in anything more than tradition or repetition.
Hmm. I honestly very rarely feel the urge to tell someone about the revelation the Lord gives me about someone else. The cool thing to me about prophetic is that it is unique to the person receiving it -an intimate word from God.
It is more rewarding to me to see how a person can be touched by the Lord than to possibly gain a little notoriety for something the Lord decided he wanted to use me for. I haven’t personally experienced unnecessary sharing of prophetic rev at our church but I appreciate the perspective this guy is coming
Strictly for the sake of argument (iron sharpening iron and all), how do you KNOW you haven’t experienced unnecessary sharing of prophetic revelation? Isn’t that an assumption?
Here’s where I’m coming from:
I would consider even our level of prophetic revelation to be still in toddler stage, if not infant stage. For the sake of discussion, how do we know that what we’re sharing or what someone else is sharing is appropriate to be shared?
Just because a person feels ministered to or encouraged? That’s like saying that some televangelist once caught in adultery and now operating a much smaller ministry is exactly where God wants him, doing exactly what God wants him to do. He may be doing the best he can now, but he COULD still be influencing many more people for the kingdom if he only hadn’t committed adultery. Just because his current ministry bears some fruit doesn’t mean it’s the fullest measure of fruit possible.
I second that. If the Word isn’t for the congregation, the they don’t need it: and sadly, sharing individual words in a forum that’s TOO open can lead to the word being received improperly or not at all. I don’t necessarily have scripture for this opinion, but my experience tells me to keep those words to ones self. I think healing would be the exception, because everyone can rejoice in that, and it’s usually very powerful. Unless of course the thing being healed is a sensitive subject. No one would appreciate having a word of healing called out from the stage for an std, just sayin.
You can read my first two comment replies to see how it applies here. Basically, I don’t know that we KNOW we are to share revelation just because we’re in a more intimate or one-on-one setting. That still presumes that it’s okay to say what we want to say when we want to say it, without regard to timing.
If we are to be “friends of God”, we are going to hear secrets. It’s going to sound a lot like prophetic revelation. And we’re going to need to know how to keep secrets so that He will continue to confide in us and that confidence will grow deeper and deeper with time.
I think the quote you referenced from Kris is about the Office of Prophet. That office is a corporate gift from Jesus Himself so it has more influence (good or bad) over the church. It’s not an office to just “pop off” & needs a steady diet of prayer to know when to share & how much to share! Successful Prophets in the Scripture had the Lord develop a deep & mature prayer life.
Early on the Lord spoke very clearly to me & said “Pray it, don’t say it!” I said yes Lord. {As you can see it’s 2:30 am & the Lord has me up praying}. Since then the revelatory insight has increased dramatically. I process 6 -12 new words daily (in the marketplace & church) & I couldn’t possibly give them all except through prayer. Most days I’m “worn out” with the amount & find it hard to deliver them all. My mission from the Lord is to find others who will faithfully execute this type of ministry, freely give them the anointing, they need to fulfill it, activate, and release them.
So what is the purpose or benefit of unction, i.e. compulsion? If I don’t feel led to share, but I have pictures, senses, or knowledge popping into my spirit, do I simply justify sharing it because it occurs to me to do so?
I’m not really disagreeing with anyone here. I’m just wondering who’s keeping us accountable.
Our society is now built upon the do what you feel mentality. There is a way that seems right to a man, and its end is death. If we who receive prophetic revelation and insight share when it comes, is our little fruit of encouragement the payoff God intended? Or did we circumvent His HUGE blessing and settle for a little one?
I came across you post on twitter. I haven’t actually met you in person- only met your lovely wife (whom I just adore!)
I love the question that you pose. I agree with both sides. Here’s why: A few years ago I went to Kris Vallotton’s School of Prophets where he talked about the very thing that you just mentioned. He shared how he had a lunch with Bob Jones and Bob could look around the room and see what need was in every person and different “secrets” in their lives. Kris wanted to jump on- go minister to them- see them blown away! Bob said- these are secrets that are meant to be kept and when the timing is right the Lord will reveal His hear to them. (I’m totally paraphrasing). It blew me away. I began to ask the Lord every time I received revelation from Him to reveal the “time” to me as well. I have held onto prophetic words for years at a time since then. It has made it that much sweeter.
BUT, I do think that there is some weight to practicing. Practice does make perfect- AND when you are in an environment of trust and “iron sharpening iron”. You can learn volumes quickly if you are unafraid to give clear feedback. Most people that I have encountered that are new to prophesy, are freaked out by it. The more they practice it- the more they discover that is just simply hearing God. The key here is to not be afraid to give feedback. I think we should be teaching people that asking God for “timing” is key to growth as well.
I am with you that I desire greatly to see more Kathryn’s and William’s emerge. The church needs to get back to its foundation of being built on Apostles and Prophets.
Ok, so me here again. Haven’t been able to get your question out of my head! Its really gotten me thinking.
I’m curious if part of the reason why we aren’t seeing more Kathryn’s and William’s is due to the fact the the church “back then” wasn’t being taught that they could prophesy. Prophesy has sort of emerged in the past 30 years (guessing) as a gift that is available to everyone.
So what’s happened? Have we muddled it? Taken it for granted, watered it down, made it too commonplace? We do still have “Prophets” that are well known- and very few that are walking in what I would call “high” level prophecy. Now I realize that not all of us are called to be “Prophets”, but all can prophesy. I guess I’m now asking the same question- why aren’t our Prophets prophesying at a greater level? Man, I want to know that revelation!