Watson You Can Prophesy

Supernatural - Simple - Safe
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-3007-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 238 Seiten

You Can Prophesy is written to equip the next generation in prophetic ministry and edify those who practice this important gift. Packed full of original, practical and biblical teaching which has taken the author a lifetime to glean, You Can Prophesy gives you a strong foundation and deep insight into prophetic ministry.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Watson, Nick

Leseproben

CHAPTER
2 Prophetic Atmosphere Before you start to read this chapter, I ask you to stop and bring back to your mind some of the very best Christian meetings you have ever been in. Think about that conference when the praise lifted you, the exuberance of the people around you boosted your faith, the preacher challenged and inspired you, and the Holy Spirit touched you. Remember the prayer meeting when God came into the room and your intercession moved heaven into action. Bring back to mind the Sunday meeting in your local church when everyone knew something special was “in the air”, everything was so anointed, so beautiful and so powerful, the gifts of the Spirit were flowing, people were filled with joy, they were raising their hands to the Lord, some fell on their knees before God in adoration, others were crying in sheer gratitude for his forgiveness, grace and healing power, they rushed out the front to be touched by God and to testify of his goodness and greatness. These experiences illustrate the second way in which God releases prophetic ministry, which is through prophetic atmosphere. This can also be called the “spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10). It occurs in a corporate setting such as a prayer meeting, a small group or a church service. A common situation that frequently attracts the prophetic presence of God is when a group of believers have a “hot seat” meeting. What happens is that whoever wants prayer allows the rest of the group to pray for them. It is amazing how regularly in such situations God “shows up” and gives prophetic words to people who would not normally be used in such ministry. True church worship is the most frequent and normal way to create a prophetic atmosphere. This is indicated by the fact that people in our church and yours will frequently say something like: “During worship, the Lord showed me this or that.” Corporate prayer, praise and worship attract the prophetic presence of God. In response to our drawing near to Him, the Lord draws near to us. In a corporate prophetic environment like that, virtually any Christian present could prophesy, even those who are not especially gifted in hearing the voice of God, and who don’t have a recognised prophetic gifting. With the “spirit of prophecy” present, anyone who has faith, and a desire for prophetic ministry, is able to tune into what God is saying to that gathering or to various individuals who are there. My goal in this book is to enable Christians to do so on a regular basis. Just because a person prophesies under a corporate anointing does not guarantee that he will prophesy again. There are three reasons for this: i. Personal Growth A believer must grow in faith to be used by God in prophetic ministry (Romans 12:6b). ii. Corporate Atmosphere It is important to understand that while some people may prophesy under a strong corporate prophetic anointing, they have not been given the resident, spiritual gift of prophecy. These people may never prophesy again, or at least not until they are in such an atmosphere again. This was the case with the seventy elders who received prophetic impartation from Moses. So Moses went out and told the people what the Lord had
said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them
stand around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud
and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the
Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied —
but did not do so again. NUMBERS 11:24-25 Twice, as recorded in 1 Samuel chapters 10 and 19, Saul, who was the first king of Israel, experienced the influence of a prophetic atmosphere. Saul met a company of worshipping prophets who were prophesying. Such people create a prophetic atmosphere. The same Spirit fell on him, and Saul prophesied. There is no record of Saul prophesying on any other occasion, which means he only functioned when there was a corporate anointing to “piggy-back” him into prophetic ministry. iii. Earnest Desire If a believer wants to function regularly in prophetic ministry, he must earnestly desire the spiritual gift of prophecy. Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. 1 CORINTHIANS 14:1 In the Old Testament, prophecy depended on receiving a Holy Spirit anointing from above. Although certain ones were called into the prophetic office, there was no such gift as the spiritual gift of prophecy. In the new covenant of the New Testament, we depend on the Holy Spirit prompting us from within. If a Christian earnestly desires to flow in prophetic ministry in a consistent, lifestyle manner, he needs to receive the resident internal gift of prophecy that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 14. Once he has received that gift, he must develop it, because the Lord gives all his gifts in seed form. He then expects us to grow our gifts into consistent, fruitful ministry expressions. Some people never flow in consistent prophetic ministry or they allow their gifts to become dormant and then remain that way for years. They do not grow in faith and they do not water the ministry seed-gift that God gave them. The key point for the development of your prophetic ministry is that any experience you have of God using you in prophetic ministry through the creation of a prophetic atmosphere is designed by God to make you hungry for the spiritual gift of prophecy. That gift is the third of the six ways by which the Lord releases prophetic ministry. It is the subject of my next chapter. BUILDING PROPHETIC ATMOSPHERE Every Christian should know the basics of how to attract the Presence of God. This creates a prophetic and healing atmosphere for the Holy Spirit to say and do God things. i. Prayer Prayer attracts the Presence of God, as we see in so many verses of Scripture including these: “... Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Emphasis added). LUKE 3:21-22 Prayer attracted the Presence of God in Acts 1:14, 2:1-4, 4:24,30,31. Paul had a divine encounter when he was praying (Acts 9:11,12). My assumption is that Ananias was also praying at the time “the Lord called to him in a vision” (Acts 9:10). Both Cornelius (Acts 10:2,3,30,31) and Peter (Acts 10:9-20) had divine encounters while they were in prayer. The prophet Daniel was in a twenty-one day period of prayer and partial-fasting, when he received an angelic visitation and prophetic revelation (Daniel 10:12). The prophet Isaiah had a vision of the Lord and was ministered to by an angel when he went into the temple. I guarantee he did not go there to play his X-box, but to pray and seek the face and mind of God, in a time of national mourning (Isaiah 6:1-7). Call unto me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you know not. JEREMIAH 33:3 KING JAMES 2000E1 In answer to prayer, the Lord shows the praying believer great and mighty things by three primary means: • By spontaneous prophetic revelation. The modern translations of the Bible tend to limit the Hebrew word translated here as “show” to the narrower meaning “tell”. • By developing an inner conviction of what the Lord is saying, which also fits with the translation “tell”. • By demonstration. Anyone with prophetic experience knows the Lord also reveals His answers in this way, that is, by causing things to happen, things that are clearly connected to our praying. ii. Praise and Worship Praise (Psalm 22:3) and Worship (John 4:23,24) attract the Presence of God. No real Christian needs me to convince them of this. It should be the normal Christian life to experience God in our private praise and corporate worship times. Church should not be boring. People should go home saying: God met with me in church today, or I experienced God in church today. They are more likely to do this if they came with the positive attitude of meeting with God, ministering to Him and being available to bless others. Let me point this out to you: If God seeks those who worship Him in spirit and in truth, it follows that He is looking out all over the earth to find true worshippers. When He sees someone worshipping, He will climb over 10,000 times 10,000 mountains to get to them; He will go straight past literally billions of people to come and spend time with them. And when God comes, all things are possible, because He brings all of His glory, His blessings and His resources with Him. Hallelujah! (Psalm 16:11; 2 Corinthians 3:18). I think more attention in corporate worship needs to be given by songwriters and worship leaders to the lyrics. I believe too many Christians’ worship is based on the music and not the lyrics. I am not saying God doesn’t get equally blessed by their sincerity, love, passion and faith, regardless of what the song is or says. I am not saying God doesn’t respond equally from Heaven to earth, because their heart is touching his heart. However, what I am saying is...