Prophecy Nowadays

"... and say what God is actually speaking."

PROPHECY NOWADAYS either sends us to war or God is shaking things and we must hold fast or to find the move of God that’s coming we need to walk carefully and dig deep. It seems God is stuck on a dime, turning round and round, because we’ve heard all those before.

The God I know caused the earth to flood and saved only Noah and his family. The God I know filled Egypt with myriads of insects that I’ll bet He created for that incident. He made thousands of loaves of bread and fish from a boy’s small lunch, after all. The God I know made it dark in Egypt but light in Goshen. No one died there from poverty or plague. The God I know warned them to put blood on the doorposts then to eat the Passover Lamb, a moment that would set time for generations.

He filled the desert with so many quail that they stretched feet deep for miles. He pushed back the Jordan River some 6 miles, making it into dry land. He’d already done this once at the Red Sea, an event that 40 years later still terrified the inhabitants of Jericho. He saved a harlot and her family there with a red cord in her window and pulled down the walls with voices of praise.

Now let’s include the prophets, who often faced death for speaking. Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice which he’d drowned in water. Then he personally killed all some-odd number of the false prophets whose worship of the sky and the earth had produced nothing. Isaiah saw the throne room, pre-salvation, and declared he was not worthy. An angel then laid a live coal on his tongue to cleanse him, and God spoke, “Who will I send?” Isaiah replied, “Send me.” There’s Ezekiel who laid on his side and stared at a diorama of Jerusalem for a year. Then when his wife died, he didn’t mourn at all but shaved his head. Something unheard of.

Jeremiah stood in empty Jerusalem and mourned for the Father, whose heart broke over her desolation. Jonah was swallowed and vomited up by a whale to set his heart right over what he must say to the Ninevites. Daniel saw John’s Revelation hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. Not to mention, he survived a night in a den of lions whose mouths God sealed. His three friends, who have Hebrew names, walked around in a fire and didn’t burn or even smell like smoke. These are but a few of the miraculous things God did through prophets. Not to mention, the donkey who talked, prophetic.

Oh yeah, and there’s Jesus, born of a virgin, a promise of Isaiah.

Jesus, who raised to life the son of the widow of Nain — AT THE FUNERAL. This was before Lazarus’ resurrection. Good friend Laz was dead four days by the time Jesus showed up to call him out of the grave. “You should have been here!” Lazarus’ sister said. Didn’t matter that He wasn’t. God breathed him back to life again, another prophetic moment. For though Lazarus emerged wrapped in graveclothes, Jesus left His behind. He would never die again. He had never been dead in the Spirit.

“… a prophet must fill his inner being with the word that God has imparted and let it affect him completely. Only then can he step into the pulpit and publicly deliver a word from God with authority and power.” (Rick Renner, “Apostles & Prophets, pg. 488)

“… the Greek word pro contained in the word ‘prophet’ makes it abundantly clear that a chief occupation and characteristic of a prophet is his waiting before God in His presence—it’s as if a prophet’s ministry calling is both private and public.” (Rick Renner, “Apostles & Prophets, pg. 488)

Yet the modern prophet is stuck on a cycle that seems to duplicate in political seasons. Well, except for a few who hear God’s heart. But we must ask, Is the Spirit pumping out the same-old, same-old? Or is He still doing as He’s done for thousands of years? Making His point as only He can make it. Good men of God, God bless them, are speaking the words they were given, faithful to do it, and unafraid in the face of pressure. Yet when does the battle end and the predicted “move of God” enter? The church has become a dictionary, a thesaurus of similar stories. When God hasn’t changed from being unusual. Impossible.

We must shrug off the need for repetition to satisfy those who would rather hear a word than read the Word, and say what God is actually speaking, not settling for what sounds exactly like what others keep saying. We must be unwilling to string people along on an interpretation and reluctant to speak at all when it brings fear (2 Timothy 1:7). The Old Testament sets our example of God’s character. But the New Testament is our covenant, and in it we have been given all things that we need for life and to be like the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4). That includes the renewal of our mind to see and think and speak like God so that we don’t become copycats but are sincere individuals whose integrity is God-sponsored and hearts are for the peace that passes understanding – in ourselves and in others – and not anything else.

“Focus your minds on the principles, values and methods of God as revealed in Christ, and not on the selfish activities and practices of the world, because your old life—based on selfishness and motivated by survival-of-the-fittest—died, and your new life of love is submerged in God through Christ. And when Christ, who is the source of your new life in God, comes again, then you will be united with him in glory.” (Colossians 3:2-4, Remedy)

MARK 11:23-24
God gives us a big example, the removal of a mountain into the sea. Not a small one. Then tells us it is possible to speak to it without doubt and see it removed. This is where He wants us to live. We should not say, “I don’t have faith for that.” Jesus is the measure of faith, and we each have all of Him. So we have faith for it. But feeling like we don’t, we should grow and be determined to believe God however hard/impossible it seems. What our minds can’t comprehend, our hearts should. Or we can say it this way, Don’t let your mind’s incomprehension hold you back from what God wants you to believe for. Roll the care over on God. Say, “The doing of this is not up to me,” and rest in Him.

Image by Παῦλος from Pixabay


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com