Remain Steadfast. Ignore Your Circumstances.

One of the harder things I have had to learn to do over the years is to completely ignore my circumstances when it comes to praying for others. Whether praying to raise the dead, for those completely unconscious in the ICU, or any other seemingly-impossible situation, it can be a huge challenge to remain steadfast in faith. When everything in our circumstances scream “This is impossible! You will fail!” and especially those times when there is no one else standing in faith with you, those are the times where we truly discover what is inside us.

I have been blessed with good friends who are also not strangers to believing for and seeing Heaven’s interventions into humanly-impossible circumstances, but at the end of the day we can never rely on someone else’s faith, their beliefs, their encouragement, or anything else. The only one we can rely on is God, who never fails us and never leaves us to deal with things without His assistance, regardless of how things sometimes feel exactly that way. What we are given the opportunity to learn in such trying situations is something that Hebrews 6:12 states quite plainly, saying “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Impossible situations require not just faith, but patience.

Did Daniel simply engage faith when it took 21 days of fasting for an angelic messenger to fight his way past a demonic prince to bring a message to Daniel? Or was patience involved? When Jesus told the disciples to wait in the upper room, how did 500 believers dwindle down to 120 in a week’s time? Was it because some of them had faith but no patience?

In any situation we, as a choice of our will, must choose to remain steadfast—stable and steady, not wavering, not turning aside, and even if we do waver, that it only be for moments as we continue forward and onward. When we pray, we understand that we aren’t asking if God wants to intervene, but are seeking Him on how He wants to, and inviting Him to share His plans with us so we can walk it out.

In any situation we can have full assurance that it is the will of God for us to manifest the Kingdom of Heaven on earth because Jesus already purchased the solution. Our job is to walk it out. However, the only way we will successfully do that is if we let patience, steadfastness, and intentional single-focus be formed within us. While Hebrews 6:12 tells us that we must have both faith and patience, it does come with a promise—that as those things become formed and revealed in us, we will most assuredly inherit the promises.

And for those of you who are dealing with really difficult circumstances right now, I want this to be an encouragement to you. Remain steadfast. Ignore your circumstances. Keep pressing forward. God is with you, and He is always faithful.

What Religion Isn’t Ready For, It Will Revile

About 8-10 years ago, I helped run a prophetic training and activation group on Facebook, where I would put on practice-events so people could practice hearing God for one another and stretching themselves by doing it in unique ways such as them not knowing whom the word was actually for. During this time I was learning a lot about Christian traveling in the spirit (insights which are included in my book The Beginner’s Guide to Traveling in the Spirit, available on Amazon), and as Religion normally does, the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down.

In this instance I was being accused of prophetically spying on others in the group and traveling in the spirit to their homes, and not only was I being accused of this, but I was grossly unaware of it at first until a close and well-trusted friend told me what was going on. They had tried to rope him into it by having a group discussion without my knowledge so they could “deal with me.”

While there are multiple issues with all of this, the first is that I had no awareness of the problem they were planning to fix on my behalf because no one told me (and considering I wasn’t guilty of their accusations to begin with, there really wasn’t anything to fix besides their behavior). When my friend told this group of dissenters that nothing they accused me of fit my character and when he confirmed zero people had spoken directly with me about it, he did, which I appreciated.
I then spoke directly to the ringleader, who denied, denied, and denied some more, and then continued to tell me how much she loved me and my family and spoke all kinds of nice words to me. I confirmed again with my close, trusted friend that all he had told me was indeed the case and then readdressed her. She continued to deny everything, and yet while this was happening these secret conversations began expanding into the group dynamics and various group members began to show up where they never or rarely had before to dissent on various things I wrote on the subject of spirit travel. As it became rapidly apparent this woman was lying to me, I ended our communication (with her lying and denying to the last), and the group almost unanimously asked me to leave.

The ironic part is that this was a group to train people in the prophetic, and this was an opportunity to teach people how to discern spiritual things. If demons can masquerade as angels of light and angels can appear as humans, is it really that much to imagine that a malevolent spirit could pretend to be someone else in order to stir up trouble? Only if you are tied so closely to religion that you refuse to actually discern what is going on. A short few years later, Christian spirit travel became a big thing and now it is entirely normal in some Christian groups and some believers center their ministries around this topic.

A long story for a short lesson, but the lesson is this: the enemy will always come up with ways to get Religion to get you to conform to its rules and regulations, and when you don’t fall under its thumb of control the Religion will attempt to crucify you in some way to stop you—much like it tried to do to Jesus.

If God has placed something in your heart, don’t let the naysayers stop you. Don’t let the voices of anger and negativity and opposition drown out your courage to move forward. Always remain firm in the unwavering truth that Jesus loves you, His Undying Spirit lives and breathes within you, and that with God all things are possible. If you can’t fail Him, and He is always with you, then anyone else against you is simply noise. Drown out the noise, ignore the reviling of Religion, and keep walking forward in Him!!

We Labor With All of His Strength

While talking with a friend the other night and doing some prayer-counseling, we got completely off-topic and began to discuss something I think people often mistake and/or misunderstand—the issue of co-laboring with God to do Kingdom work on the earth. There is this concern that some people have that if we say we are healing the sick or performing miracles than we are taking credit or stealing glory from God, which then bleeds into this false-humility thing where the moment God does something through us we start denying any involvement and weirdly start repeating an “It’s only Jesus, not me” mantra that comes off quite disingenuously. In reality, co-laboring is as it sounds—a partnering together with one another.

The Apostle Paul seemed to be acquainted with this issue to at least a small degree, and I think he did a good job of expressing how this works in Colossians 1:28-29 where he said, “He [Jesus] is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.” Another way it is translated is “I labor with all of His strength.” Partnering with God is all about us stepping out in faith to do the works He commanded us to do, but relying on His power, grace, and strength to complete that work, not our own.

I think we need to get a few facts clear. First, if we do not pray for the sick, the sick do not get healed. Second, if we do pray for the sick and they get healed, it was because we prayed for them. And third, when they get healed it was not because of any power we possess outside of the Spirit of God within us, but was the power of God flowing through us to make that healing occur. Thus, it is accurate when healing or performing miracles to say that both “I healed so and so” and “God healed so and so.” It would be most accurate to say “God healed so and so through me” or “God and I healed so and so,” but a lot of people seem to really struggle with this issue as though it weren’t true that our involvement played a huge part.

Signs, wonders, miracles, healings, and the like rarely happen without us, and they also don’t happen without Him. If we claim it had nothing to do with us then we aren’t being humble because it isn’t true—we are displaying false humility. If we act like we did it all on our own then we are displaying pride. Neither is healthy and both are lies, but in the bid to avoid pride, we tend toward false humility, as though one error is better than the other. Both are equally false.

The Bible has much to say about us growing up to become mature sons and daughters of God who are faithful with all that God has given us and who know how to rightly use the power and authority God has granted us (I cover the subject of power and authority as mature sons in my book Faith To Raise The Dead). When Jesus walked the earth doing ministry, He sent his disciples out in pairs (Matthew 10, Luke 10), giving them both power and authority to perform the works He had commanded them to do. When they came back excited about it, Jesus didn’t even tell them they were wrong—He simply told them there was a higher benefit they should be pleased about over and above performing miracles and casting out demons.

In the same way that Jesus reminded the disciples there is a higher benefit and gave them a mental reset after they performed wonders in His name, I think we need our own mental re-set. God is looking for those who will be faithful to co-labor with Him! God is looking for those who grow into maturity and can rightly discern what God is doing in a situation and co-labor with him in it! God is looking . . . for you!

I believe it is time we stopped living in fear that we are going to upset someone. There is far less risk of us stealing God’s glory (which has always been His anyway, and it’s not like Satan has succeeded in his attempts yet either) than there is of us living small because we are afraid we will either offend God by partnering with Him or offend people with religious mindsets when they see us doing it. We have been given the divine commission to do the good works that, get this, God has already prepared in advance for us to do!! That doesn’t sound like someone who is concerned about glory at all!! Let’s develop right mindsets about how this works so we can continue to labor to an even greater degree with all of God’s mighty power and strength to the glory of Jesus Christ!

Do I Have God’s Permission?

As a Christian author, I network with other authors and writers, as well as those who aspire to publish in the future. Some groups are Christian-writing focused, and one of the major blockages I observe Christian writers having is the issue of making sure we have “God’s permission” to write the things we want to say. In some cases, this issue prevents people from ever sitting down to actually write the things that are on their heart. I want us to take a look at this issue of permission from God and see what the Bible tells us about it, as this is a tactic the enemy uses to stop people from doing all that God has equipped them to accomplish.

In 2 Samuel 7 we see David talking to Nathan the Prophet, sharing his concern that God has given David a palace and victory over his enemies, but that God doesn’t have a place to reside. That night, God spoke to Nathan and basically said “I’ve never needed, wanted, or asked for a physical temple. Yet, David wants to build me one, so I will bless him greatly and I will let him get the materials and have his son build me a temple in the future.” It was never in God’s heart to have a temple of stone to begin with, as He had always planned to commune directly with mankind. And yet, when David voiced a desire in his heart of something he wanted to do *for* God, God spoke to the prophet and gave David the green light.

Why does this matter?

Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to “be in the middle of God’s will” that we don’t understand God will often adjust what He is doing or how He is doing it to match up with the desires in our hearts. God didn’t need a temple. He didn’t really want a temple any more than He wanted Israel to have kings. But God gave David a desire in his heart and decided to make that a part of His divine plan, thereby letting David do all that was in his heart to do and simultaneously putting him in the center of God’s will for his life.

Often, we can ask God for permission on some project or in some area of our life and we hear nothing. If God doesn’t clarify anything specific one way or another and it isn’t already explicitly clear in scripture one way or the other, I believe we can simply carry out what is in our hearts to do with wisdom. Even if God didn’t specifically say “Go ahead,” God has also not prohibited us. If we look back at the Temple, God didn’t start that–David did. But God saw what was in David’s heart and said “Okay, I can go with that. Do what is in your heart to do for me.”

Elsewhere in scripture it says “God gives us the desires of our heart.” That can be taken two ways–first, God fulfills our desires. Second, the only reason those desires exist is because God put them there. In either case, we cannot let our own fears stop us, and while I see this regularly with writing, it isn’t specific to writing.

There are so many different dreams and ideas people have that they never step out and make happen because they are afraid they will somehow be walking outside of God’s will for their life. What they are forgetting is that all of life is meant to be a partnership with God. God would walk in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, not because God needed exercise, and not because God was trying to map out the garden. He created every square inch and knew every leaf and root in the place. God wasn’t walking there because He needed something—He was doing it to be with Adam and Eve and what they were doing.

I think we can all agree that we don’t want to live outside of God’s will, but my point here is that unless we are in blatant disobedience, God actually wants us to be creative, to explore, and to try new things. God wants us to dream and step out and expand our horizons. God doesn’t have a specific to-do list for each of us that He is keeping divinely hidden so we have to work really hard to search it out, hoping that we get it right, fearful that we don’t mess up.

If you have been holding back from doing something, whether writing a book or anything else, all because you are afraid of “walking outside of God’s will” then it is time to deal with the fear. The world is waiting for you to be courageous, take a risk, and do what is in your heart to do for God. If God hasn’t said “no” and it isn’t blatantly against what you already know God stands for, then you have permission. God is looking to raise up mature sons and daughters who are able to maturely handle the word of righteousness and act accordingly. We teach three year olds how to put clothes on, but we expect thirty year olds to be mature enough to buy their own clothes at stores of their choosing, dress themselves, and do their own laundry. God is, in many ways, the same. We don’t always need to be told what to do—sometimes God is waiting for us to do what we already know because He has given us sufficient instruction in the past.

God has already given you permission. It’s time to unleash your dreams.

Featured Image used with permission by my granddaughter Sage Rivers at Lupineandsage.com

Don’t Be Led By Fear

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]I was chatting briefly with another nurse on the intermediate care unit today and she was telling me how she is retiring soon to take care of her elderly parents, and that while she feels she is doing the right thing, she is really afraid that she might be making wrong decisions at the same time. She told me about all of the precautions she is taking with her parents related to the current year-long medical scare. And she asked me a question.

“Do you think I am going overboard?”

I didn’t really have the time to go into the immense corruption, proof of planning prior to the fact to release such a medical scare, the obvious and constant media lies, the immense dangers of the poison shot, and why random face textiles don’t solve any problems for healthy people.

What I was able to share was possibly more important by far, and it was a simple truth we all need to be reminded of sometimes. What I said was “Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.”

At the end of the day this woman is demonstrating great love to end her career early and make sure her parents have the best latter-to-end of life they can have. And yet if she makes ongoing decisions based out of fear she will be miserable doing it.

I explained briefly how she has useful medical knowledge that she can use, but that any time she finds herself getting afraid and making plans from that place, she needs to back up and start making decisions based on what she knows, not based on how she feels.

So many times in life we can get derailed by the enemy by giving into the lies in our own minds that push us into emotional fear-based decision-making instead of walking out life in peace even in bad situations because we realize we don’t have to be reactive to darkness—we can continue to make choices from a centered place and not give room to fear.

My encouragement to you is the same as I gave her. We all have lots of things going on in life, but this advice will never steer you wrong:

“Whatever decisions you make, don’t be led by fear.
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Peace That Bypasses Understanding

In the past year I have been doing a lot of inner healing, working primarily with soul fragmentation (An Introduction to Soul Fragmentation is here), and the process been full of ups and downs—with a lot of downs. While the journey has been difficult, I have begun to experience the fruit of it in the more recent past, which has been a nice change. During this journey I have learned a lot more about the process of inner healing as a whole, which has been educational, but the Lord quickened something in my spirit one day that not only brought comfort but a fascinating revelation—on bringing peace that bypasses understanding.

Philippians 4:7 is one of the more often-quoted Bible verses, and it says, “. . . and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (NKJV). I was listening to a podcast, although I forget by whom, and they mentioned that verse. What I realized at that moment was that in order for us to have an understanding of something, it has to flow through our conscious mind. Yet, if God is bringing us peace that bypasses that understanding then it is dealing with the subconscious or unconscious mind—the realm of fragments and alters.

The reason this is significant is because fragmented parts have a moderate influence on how we feel—and yet when those feelings are negative it can be difficult to access and address them in a healthy way, helping those hurting parts to cope, heal, and move beyond the things that broke them off in the first place. And yet, Philippians 4:7 tells us that Jesus has a solution for us even when we don’t feel able to fix those issues ourselves. He will bypass our understanding, our conscious mind, and minister to those hurting parts directly to bring them peace.

While I understand that the verse is typically translated as “surpassing” is the word “hyperechō” which according to BlueletterBible.org means “to stand out, rise above, overtop, to be above, be superior in rank, authority, power, to excel, to be superior, better than, to surpass.” While I recognize that “surpassing” something means to move past it in a superior manner, the truth is that to “surpass” is essentially still bypassing—especially when we are talking about the conscious mind.

The encouragement here is that for those who are dealing with any kind of anxiety, depression, fear, or literally any other life problem, it doesn’t matter if we have the ability to understand why we are experiencing that issue in the moment. While understanding is often helpful in the inner healing process, the Bible tells us it isn’t an issue to Jesus—our understanding isn’t required for Him to share His peace with us. So, for everyone reading this, everyone struggling, and anyone who has fears or concerns, my prayer for you is this: May the peace that bypasses understanding guard every area of your soul, your mind, will, and emotions, in and through the power and love of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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No Longer Alone

One of the things that hit me pretty hard in the past few weeks is that we all have times when we feel like the world is crashing around us. It’s honestly quite hard when that happens, and it is even harder when we feel all alone in the process. Sometimes calling a friend helps us get back on track, and that’s something I highly recommend (provided the friend is loving, supportive, and kind). But what do we do when we feel all alone? I’m not talking about lonely—feeling like there’s no one around us—but alone, like no one is out there and we are in it for ourselves?

The best cure for being alone is to learn to experience the truth that we are never alone.

Jesus said and did a lot of really strange stuff. Really though, he did, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. I mean, who goes and tells people to literally eat his body? Or that he is bread? Who goes and sticks spit-mud into someone’s eye so they can see better? Who expects to find fruit on fruit trees when it isn’t fruit-season, and then curses them when they don’t make fruit? Jesus did all of that, and more. And yet, in spite of all of the strange things He did, His followers have grown from an initial twelve to what amount to billions over the past couple thousand years. If we can learn anything from the odd things Jesus said, it’s that He said them for a reason and that He said all of them because he meant each and every single thing he said.

Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” While Jesus didn’t say that Himself, He is God, which means Jesus will never leave or forsake us. But there is something Jesus said that is pretty similar, and I think it is important that we pay attention. In John 14-16 he was talking to His disciples about important things surrounding his death and resurrection, and had words of wisdom for them to continue on after he was no longer with them in person. During this time, Jesus said something of note:

In John 14:16-17 Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Again in John 16:7 he said, “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Jesus was pretty adamant that we would never be alone, and the Holy Spirit literally lives both with us and in us at all times. It can be difficult to accept this truth at times, especially when everything is going wrong and we feel completely alone. However, I think it is important for us to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit so that even when we feel alone we can experience His presence around us and encounter the never-alone that Jesus promised us.

It can be really hard when we feel all alone to spend time with an invisible God and have that feel comforting in some way. But when we build a habit of spending time with Him and we actually develop a friendship with Holy Spirit (2 Cor 13:14), we don’t have to feel alone anymore. A few ways to do this are through something called Soaking Prayer, Resting in His Presence, or a similar means of encountering God called Contemplative Prayer. I highly encourage spending time learning to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit in general, but especially for those times when we feel alone, He is always with us.

(Note: If you truly feel hopeless, alone and are at the point you want to hurt or harm yourself in some way, or even end your life, please call the national suicide helpline—1-800-273-8255. Someone is there to talk to you and help you through the tough time you are having. No matter how bad things feel or seem, there is always hope, and things can always get better. www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org)

Broken But Beautiful

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A few weekends ago, on Saturday, I was at the beach with family and the Lord told me to pick up the broken half-sand-dollar pictured above (Before I put it in my pocket and sat on it, the half was in one piece. Oops). I didn’t understand why, but I did it anyway, and God didn’t explain (It’s called “obedience”). A bit later, I took it out of my pocket and asked Him again why He had me pick it up, and He said to me:

“Even when you are broken, you are beautiful.”

As a stand-alone idea, this might already speak to some of you, and I hope it does. I thought it was a beautiful representation of God’s boundless love for me, and the same applies to you. However, there is a little more back-story to this, and why it touched me so deeply, and I hope it also does the same for you.

I have recently been working with a prayer counseling team for my own inner healing and personal transformation. All of the sessions have been good, and God has been doing really awesome things to bring greater freedom and wholeness into my life, but not every session ends on a high note. The session I had the day before finding this sand dollar left me grieving the loss of some things, and my weekend was emotionally on the rough side. It was important to go through the process, but it was difficult and I felt very broken after the fact. When God spoke to me that even when I am broken, I am beautiful, it made me cry—something I had been doing a lot of that weekend, but this was also healing in its own special way.

What God said to me reminds me of Song of Solomon 1:5, which says, “Dark am I, yet lovely”. The subsequent verses of that passage explain why the woman who makes the above statement feels she isn’t worthy of being loved, but the man explains to her that in spite of what she feels about herself, he sees her as altogether lovely and worth far more than she could imagine.

One of the beautiful things about God is that He is incredibly kind and gentle. When we are going through rough moments, He is there to encourage and uplift us. For everyone reading this who is going through a tough time, and you feel like your inner brokenness is weighing you down, just remember that even when you are broken, you are still beautiful. God loves you, is actively working to bring about good things in your life. In the words of John Lennon, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” Keep putting one foot in front of the other; keep moving forward. You will make it.

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Bearing Fruit That Lasts

As I said recently in a social media post, “Inner healing isn’t always fun, but it is always worth it. Sometimes the fruit isn’t instantly evident, but that’s how we’ve been trained to believe and expect things to happen in our microwave Western culture. The question we have to ask ourselves is not “does this look nice and tidy” but “does it bear fruit that lasts? (John 15:16a)”

Inner healing should bear positive results over time, but the unpopular truth is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that at the end of every session someone will feel more peaceful, joyful, or even more hopeful. Certainly one could make the argument (and many do) that if God was in it, then one should leave a session of inner healing with more fruit of the Spirit as a whole, and while that is usually true, it simply isn’t always true. Sometimes part of the inner healing process involves grieving things that you let go of. Grief doesn’t look very much like hope, joy, or peace. So while inner healing may be good, and healthy, and helpful, it is also a process.

One of the struggles of the inner healing movement is that it sometimes looks very counterproductive from the outside. What I mean by that is that if someone goes through deep inner healing and starts uncovering repressed memories of childhood abuse, traumatic circumstances that have caused PTSD, or other painful memories of past events, the long-term result will eventually be wholeness. In the short term, however, there may be an increase in emotional triggers and a grieving process for things that have been lost may occur. Mind you, Holy Spirit is the Counselor and Comforter, and during this process, He is ever-present to give both counsel and comfort, but that doesn’t always mean everything is fixed in ten seconds. To the outside observer, this tends to make things appear like they are making things worse instead of better, but that’s only if the goal is instant results instead of fruit that will last.

On the other hand, sometimes inner healing ministers, coaches, and counselors can be their own worst enemy. Certainly, there are conditions and circumstances that tend to take a lot of time and energy to wade through. At the same time, not every person or situation requires that same level of depth. If there is a high level of Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), Freemasonry, or other bloodline-related issues in a family line, those can take a good bit of time and energy to unravel, and even moreso if the individual is an SRA survivor as well. While bloodline issues tend to far more prevalent than we wish they were, the good news is that not everyone falls into those categories, and not every situation requires years of inner healing work to unravel.

The best thing we can do for ourselves and our families is to get inner healing early and often. I say early because the sooner one deals with things in his or her family line, the better one’s future will be, and this is also passed down to any children one has as well. If people get inner healing as children or teens, they won’t have the same level of problems as if someone is fifty and just beginning the journey. I say often because life throws things at us on an ongoing basis. Whether it is something as simple as remembering to forgive a coworker who upset us or something more complex such as breaking off occult curses that have recently been sent our way, engaging this process often, even if only to a minimal degree, ensures we not only maintain but continue to progress in our personal journeys to wholeness.

While Jesus is the Healer and Savior and delivers us from our distress, even He went through difficulties and problems. The Bible says in Isaiah 53:3a that, “He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. (NLT)” In Hebrews 12:2b it says of Jesus that, “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Jesus knew that some of the things he would go through would be exceedingly difficult. It was so hard that in Luke 22:42a Jesus even asked “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me . . .” The difficulty Jesus faced at that time was more emotional than anything else. He knew what He was getting Himself into, and He really didn’t want to do it. Yet as Hebrews 12:2 says, Jesus endured all of the pain and difficulty, grief, sorrows, and shame because He recognized that on the other side would be great joy.

At the end of the day, whether the issues in one’s life are simple and easy to move through or extremely complex, highly traumatic, and difficult to deal with, it is important for us to remember that we need to be looking not just for short-term easy solutions, but for long-term fruit.

Should We Prophesy About Dates, Spouses, And Life-Altering Decisions?

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Over the past century, God has been restoring the prophetic to the Body of Christ. People have been learning about the gifts of the spirit, prophets, discernment, hearing God’s voice, and more. One of the things that are commonly taught when learning about prophecy are the three things that we should never prophesy. The first is dates that things will or will not happen. The second is who we will or will not marry, and the third is about any kind of life-altering decision. Should we prophesy about dates, spouses, and life-altering decisions? Let’s find out.

My dad is a Charismatic-leaning Episcopal priest, and he doesn’t like dealing with the prophetic. Why? Because he absolutely hates when people say foolish things and tack a “well, God told me so it must be true/wise/good” on the end. He’s always like “That’s the ultimate trump card. What am I supposed to say to argue with that, even though it’s obviously a dumb idea?” His solution to issues like this is to avoid it as much as possible, much like the prohibition on prophesying about dates, spouses, and decisions. There is some wisdom behind this to a certain extent, but it is also somewhat of a reaction to past abuses, and there is a risk that we inhibit future growth by avoiding these topics entirely.

Before going further, let’s look a little at the levels of prophecy in scripture. In 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul outlines the gifts of the Spirit, and in 1 Corinthians 14 he expounds in more depth on the gifts of prophecy and tongues. Prophecy, in that context, is for building up others, strengthening one another, and comfort. There is another passage in Ephesians 4 that talks about prophets as a gift of Jesus to the Body of Christ. Some argue that anyone who can prophesy is a prophet, but the gift of prophecy from the Holy Spirit and the gift of the prophet from Jesus are two different things. Both can prophesy, but I suggest their functions are different. Furthermore, Romans 12:6 says, “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith . . .” Prophecy, then, has levels that are in some measure designated by our level of faith as well.

The common teaching in spirit-filled circles is that while all people can prophesy for building up, strengthening, and comfort, only people with the designated title of “prophet” should go in further depth and speak about dates, spouses, life decisions, and other more “risky” things. The rationale there is that certain people have a special grace to prophesy those things that others don’t have as a result of their “office” as a prophet. While I definitely agree that there are real prophets and there are differences between the grace on their life and that of non-prophets, I don’t think it means that no one else can prophesy about the three areas in question.

One of the major reasons people teach that no one else should prophesy on these subjects is due to a combination of fear and wisdom. Fear says that bad things have happened before and people have made bad decisions from prophecies that were inaccurate, so we should avoid it entirely. Wisdom says that people have made bad decisions from prophecies that were in accurate so we need to pay attention to who, how, where, and when we deal with those types of prophetic words. The former is focused on how bad the problem is while the latter on how to avoid the problem, but in reality both have the potential to miss a third aspect of the situation: discernment.

If we do not teach the body how to rightly discern between God’s voice, our own mental clutter and baggage and noise, and the enemy, then no amount of rules are going to fix the problem. Hebrews 5:14 says that we learn to discern through constant use. If we are never put into challenging situations, we will never hone our discernment. As a teacher, I want people to learn and grow, so I see no value in making arbitrary rules out of fear to avoid a problem that might or might not come up. Actually, I expect that not only will we have situations that are less than optimal, but that these moments are teaching opportunities. Why should we expect people to grow if there is no challenge?

Initially when prophets came into the Charismatic scene, there were some pretty impressive displays of accurate prophetic unction, including words of knowledge of people’s names, birthdates, social security numbers, and other very detailed information about their lives that God would share with the person ministering. Then, as excesses came into the movement and God and people began to work on stewarding things better, God was having people learn how to hear his voice and there was a pulling-back on the so-called extravagant prophetic words. However, I believe it is time for the pendulum to swing back in the other direction. We need men and women of God who know how to not only hear very specific and important information, but when to share it and with whom.

Most of the time I have seen rules put into place about what may and may not be prophesied, it is in situations with highly legalistic, dysfunctional, and manipulative leadership. That isn’t to say that all leaders who make those kinds of rules are those things, but “you shall and shall not say these sorts of things from God” rules are rarely in the heart of God for a situation. Certainly, 1 Corinthians 14 tells us that the spirit of a prophet is subject to his or her control, and there are times and situations to exercise wisdom and restraint, but that isn’t usually what is happening.

As I see it, there is a measure of wisdom in stewardship, but also a good deal of fear veiled as wisdom. I believe we need to expect both the person prophesying and the person receiving the word to discern the veracity of the prophecy. We also need to make sure we are teaching people how to discern prophetic words and not just avoid talking about certain subjects. If God can speak through a donkey, then He can tell what he likes to whom He likes, and it isn’t our job to place man-made rules on who may or may not prophesy certain things. In fact, the moment we lay down those rules is probably the moment God is going to put someone in our path to break those rules, and while we will call them “rebellious”, there is a good chance God put them there on purpose to break them because they are stupid rules, although usually well-intentioned stupid ones.

I have learned over time that I am pretty bad about hearing dates accurately, so I personally just avoid telling people dates. Why? Because if I prophesy according to my faith with maturity, then I won’t mislead people when I already know I’m usually wrong about dates. I also have a high personal level of responsibility toward discerning and delivering prophetic words. I test it internally and make sure I am confident it comes from God before ever delivering it, as everyone should do before speaking a prophecy to someone else.

At the end of the day, if we want to see people grow in the prophetic, we can’t avoid the difficult areas. Mind you, we also don’t want to be foolish either, so as God pushes the Church to elevate the prophetic to new heights once again, we have some work to do. If we teach people not only how to discern God’s voice as the one giving the word, but to test every word we receive on the other end, then regardless of the situation, we can avoid a lot of problems while still engaging all that God has for us and the wisdom He wants to speak to and through us.

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