By Joanna Millward
Before joining St Thomas’ Church Philadelphia I had a limited understanding of prophecy. It was used very occasionally on special occasions to encourage someone at something like a baptism, but other than that I rarely saw it used. However, since being at Philadelphia, I have discovered that not only is prophecy a great gift which blesses people, it is actually an essential tool which is vital for the church.
Prophecy is essential, as it says in 1 Corinthians 14:3, because it strengthens, encourages and comforts people. This is probably the most common way I have seen prophecy utilised as a gift: God talking to us about ourselves and each other in order to encourage us. Most of the prophetic words I have received from other people fall under this category. One of my favourite words that I have been given was from a speaker who told me he saw Jesus sitting in a garden with me, and he said that he heard God say that Jesus loved spending time and simply being with me. This came at a time in which I was struggling with striving, so this word really encouraged, strengthened and comforted me to just be with Jesus and not do. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that time of my life and I still find it to be beautiful and encouraging to this very day, two years on. Prophecies like this are essential as in addition to strengthening, encouraging and comforting us, through them we hear God’s heart for us. This builds up hope and leads us to a place of thanksgiving and praise.
Another reason prophecy is essential is because it helps us know how to pray. I often used to find myself praying to God and running out of things to pray for, meaning that my prayer life became very repetitive, short, and if I’m completly honest, not particularly heartfelt. However since listening to God in prayer I have found that prophecy provides us with an agenda for prayer. Hearing what God says when we pray means that we are able to agree with Him and say Amen to His will. When we ask God what to pray for and align our prayers with Him, we are letting the Holy Spirit lead our prayers rather than our own minds. This is helpful in our personal prayer lives, and also when praying for other people. By listening to God whilst praying for others, we hear God’s viewpoint on their situation and are able to pray from a heavenly perspective, speaking right into the heart of the issue. Not only does this mean that we pray more effectively because our prayers are aligned with the Holy Spirit, but praying in this way gives us confidence in prayer and therefore builds our faith for answered prayers.
When we dig deeper into this, we can see that prophecy and intercession go hand-in-hand. Prophecy is a powerful tool in counselling and personal ministry situations as it brings God’s insight. When we use prophecy to help us intercede and hear God’s insight we are humbling ourselves and ridding our prayers of our own agenda. It is very easy to judge a person’s situation ourselves and decide what it is they need praying into, however if we listen to God we know what it is that God wants us to pray into, and therefore we pray far more effectively. This saves us a lot of time as it means that we don’t have to figure out for ourselves what the root of the issue is. Prophecy is also essential in counselling situations because it helps us to focus our eyes on Jesus. It is often easy to get caught up in the issues and problems of a situation, however prophecy leads us straight to Jesus the deliverer.
These are just a couple of the many reasons why prophecy is an essential tool for the church; we will be looking at some others in upcoming posts. The main reason we love prophecy however is because it is how we hear from God Himself, and there is nothing better than hearing from the One who loves us.
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