The Importance of the Prophetic

Throughout this lifelong journey of being connected to Jesus and His Kingdom, I've discovered that God absolutely loves to speak to people. One of the ways we get to partner with Him in this is through the gift of prophecy. To simplify things, prophecy is the act of hearing what God is saying specifically in the moment for a person or a group, and speaking it out. Often, the presence of the Holy Spirit accompanies the message in a powerful way, and people's lives are dramatically touched.

In the New Testament, Acts chapter 21 gives us an example of the prominence of prophetic activity among early followers of Jesus:

In this one chapter, we see Spirit-inspired prophecies from the local believers in Tyre (verse 4), Philip's teenage daughters in Caesarea (verse 9), and a recognized prophetic person named Agabus (verses 10-11).

It seems everywhere Paul went on this leg of his trip, the Spirit of God was speaking to him through prophetic messages.

In 1 Corinthians 14: 24-25, we see how important prophetic gifts are to the community of believers. Paul writes that we must "eagerly desire" the gift of prophecy, and goes on to talk about the impact that hearing God's voice can make on people who haven't encountered Him yet:

"But if all of you are prophesying, and unbelievers or people who don’t understand these things come into your meeting, they will be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will fall to their knees and worship God, declaring, “God is truly here among you.”

Last night as I was sitting with a group of distracted teenagers, the Spirit of God began speaking. I looked at one young man I had never met before, and sensed that God had called him to lead worship. Not knowing whether or not he had any sort of talent for this or not, I took a risk. It turns out he's just begun to play guitar and the "in the moment" prophetic word stirred spoke powerfully to him that God knows him and has huge plans for his life.

Looking at another student I saw a picture of him in front of groups of people announcing that Jesus is present to heal sicknesses. As I shared it with him, the Holy Spirit confirmed the message with a strong sense of His presence.

Prophecy brings the reality of God down to an experiential life level. So many times I have found that when we listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and speak out in confidence the things we sense Him saying, the whole atmosphere of a room is transformed. All it requires is the confident expectation that God will speak to us, and the ability to setp out and take risks.