Prophetic Ministry - A Ministry of Life

Summary

Preface:

This book is one of several books that I have written on the topic of prophetic ministry. The principles that I am going to share in this manuscript can be applied in many areas of your life. These truths are not just limited to prophetic ministry, but they are surely foundational truths that apply to the ministry of God’s prophetic revelation in the Church.

Since 1991, I have committed my life to bring a fathering spirit to the ministry of the prophetic. This came about after I had experienced some major abuses in the realm of prophetic ministry. Many of those abuses were purposed against me by others, but I was also guilty of an improper application of prophetic ministry. After running from my destiny in the area of the prophetic, God made it clear to me that He wanted me to pursue His heart to find the proper use of prophetic ministry in the Church. I have done just that and it is from that challenge by God that I am writing this book, Prophetic Ministry - a Ministry of Life. This book is basically about the power of God’s word and the proper administration of that word. God does all things by His word and He desires to speak His word into the nations of the earth. When He speaks, things happen. Change will only come to the earth when the voice of God is heard in the earth. When God speaks, He doesn’t speak from a realm of rules and regulations. He speaks from the realm of life. Only words spoken from His realm of life will bring His rule of life to the earth. My aim in this book is to bring a better understanding of God’s kingdom of life to your mind. By doing so, I hope to activate God’s true words of life from your heart.

Please pray and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you while you read the pages of this book. Many of the truths that I will present will perhaps oppose the traditional views passed on to us from generations of wrong thinking. The anointing on my life is to expose false walls and activate the pursuit of truth. This is a grace that God has placed upon my life. If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always gotten. I believe it is time to expect more of God and the power of God’s kingdom within us. Jesus said that the kingdom of God does not come by observation, but the kingdom of God is within us (Lk. 17:20,21). It is time to activate the power of God’s kingdom within our hearts!

I want to say a special thank you to the church of Abundant Life in Bellingham, Washington. You are truly the letter being written of God’s Spirit that testifies of the truths described in this book. I am honored to be in relationship with you and my prayer is that God will reproduce the kind of life that I have seen in you throughout the nations of the earth. You are the letter of authority that clearly endorses the truths of this book. Your Father in heaven is made known by your hearts. As a spiritual father in your lives, I cast my crown before the King of kings to say that the work of God’s Spirit within your hearts is sufficient for every good work. May Jesus be glorified through the testimony of your lives. Thank you.

I want to thank my wife, Bonnie, my daughter Joanna, my son Jonathan and his wife Danielle, my son Aaron and his wife Amani. You are also the endorsement letters of that which I have dedicated my life to believe. Thank you for your love and your support.

Introduction:

God is a God of communication. He wants to talk to us, with us, and through us. When God talks through us to others it is known as prophetic ministry. He does this in order to accomplish His greater desire. He wants everyone to hear His voice within their own hearts. The highest form of communication is the Holy Spirit speaking to the human heart. God desires to have a personal relationship with all of mankind. He desires that relationship for the sake of love and intimacy. He didn’t just send His Son Jesus Christ to the world to save us from the doom of hell. He sent Jesus to establish a line of communication with mankind. He wants intimacy with the human race. God created us so that He could love us. He created us so that He could know us as His sons and as His daughters.

Prophetic ministry is not a ministry of right information. Prophetic ministry is a ministry of God’s transformation in the lives of people here upon the earth. We will begin this book by talking about what constitutes words and their power. How do words affect the world around us?

We will talk about prophetic ministry. What causes prophetic ministry to be a ministry of God’s presence? What is true prophetic ministry?

In this book, we will find that who we are is more important than what we say. We will look at becoming the word of God in the earth that others can see. God has made a place where we can become His word of life to the earth. I will present to you a revelation of that place of grace that causes us to become expressions of God’s light to the darkness around us.

Prophetic words are not about right information. Prophetic words from God carry the ability to bring God’s transformation power into the earth. God does not do this by the legalism of His word. He does this by the power of His presence. In order to understand how God’s words function, we must first understand how God’s grace operates. We will study the foundations of God’s grace in our lives and the life of the Church.

We will conclude with a detailed look at the administration of God’s kingdom upon the earth. If we don’t understand His government, we won’t be able to understand the proper expression of His word. If we don’t understand His government, we won’t become proper expressions of His word.

Let’s begin by looking at The Power of Our Words.

Chapter 1

The Power of Our Words

Words are powerful. God does everything by His word. When God speaks, life happens. What do words constitute? Words are much more than what can be expressed in verbal languages. God is not limited to speak words only in English, Portuguese, Spanish, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Albanian, Russian, French, German, Dutch, nor any other human verbal articulation. Not everyone speaks in languages that can be heard with the human ear. What about sign languages? Many people don’t have vocal cords, yet they still speak. Words are manifestations of heart issues made known to the realm of what can be seen. God expresses the issues of His heart in ways that far exceed any earthly language. The Scripture says that what may be known of God is manifest within all men (Rom. 1:19). All of creation is a manifestation of the invisible attributes of God (Rom. 1:20). Surely the manifestations of the attributes of God through creation can be attributed to God communicating with mankind. His words can be seen and heard throughout the earth.

The mountains of the earth speak of His majesty. The seas declare how awesome God is and how far beyond our understanding He can be. The sands of the sea declare how numerous his thoughts are toward us. The noonday sun proclaims the brightness of His glory. The intense struggle of living things to grow proclaims the power of the life of God. The birds flying south in the winter and north in the summer declare that all things are guided by the direction of the Spirit of the Lord. The waters from the heavens and the waters in the deep parts of the earth declare an endless supply of God’s blessing to the earth. The fires within the earth declare the secrets of God that go beyond our understanding and the power that comes from a revelation of who He is when we are faced with the reality of that hidden fire. Even the heart of man witnesses there is a God. All of creation continually prophesies of His glory. The continually changing seasons declare there is a God and that He is good. All of these things, and more, are the expression of words to the world. When the apostle Paul was in the city of Lystra (as recorded in the book of Acts) he confirmed this truth. He said that even when God had previously overlooked the ignorance of the nations to walk in their own ways, they still had a witness of His word to them through the rain of heaven and fruitful seasons. Was this not the word of God to those who were bound in ignorance?

Acts 14:16 …who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. 17 Nevertheless He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness."

There are many kinds of words. Words are powerful. They are much more than expressions of mere communication. Words leave an impression in the spirit and residues that others can find. Words are the release of the issues of the heart, and they can even be felt reverberating in the atmosphere through the power of thought. Thoughts are the first stage of words being expressed. Thoughts in themselves are words, and they leave an impression in the atmosphere. Your thoughts can influence the thoughts of others. When you think negative thoughts, others around you will think negative thoughts. When you think positive thoughts, others around you will think positive thoughts. When you are exposed to someone who is thinking intensely, their thoughts release a spiritual energy that will influence your own thought life. You can perhaps think of times when you were around others who were thinking thoughts with extreme focus and you found yourself thinking in similar patterns. It may have been someone contemplating actions of suicide. It may have been someone exhibiting a strong focus of hate or disagreement in some manner. It may have been thoughts that came to you while working together with others who were disgruntled with their job or their employer. They could be thoughts of either great pleasure towards you, or displeasure against you. Thoughts can influence others because thoughts are expressions of the heart and the heart is the source of all words.

Pr. 4:20 My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; 22 For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. 23 Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. 24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. 25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you.

Many times, the thoughts of others have influenced me while I was preaching. When members of a congregation have focused their thoughts against what I am saying, it has even made me stammer in my speech. I have even had difficulty connecting my thoughts (at times like that). In the same respect, when members of the congregation become passionate in agreement with what I am saying, their thoughts actually cause what I am trying to say to flow more easily and clearly. People’s thoughts can be powerful.

As I have stated, thoughts are the first stage of words. They are the first stage of the expression of the heart. Thoughts are powerful, and when the words of our mouths match the thoughts of our minds, they become even more powerful. When I have thoughts of love toward my family it affects the atmosphere of my home. When I add words to my thoughts, it has an even greater effect. My thoughts of love towards my wife influence her, but I influence her even more when I speak my thoughts to her with words she can understand. This is what the Scripture means when it says that a husband is to wash his wife with the washing of the water of his word (Eph. 5:25,26). The thoughts, attitudes, words, and actions of a husband can determine the measure of liberty and glory experienced by his wife and home.

Words can also be seen as the actions of our lives. If I say, I love you, yet I beat you with a brick, which is the more powerful word? Is it the sound that is coming from my lips, or is it the feeling that comes to you when the brick hits you? I propose that the actions of our lives are powerful words. God proved that words are actions when He sent His only begotten Son to the world. His Son was the Word made flesh and that Word made flesh dwelt among us. The action of Jesus’ death upon the Cross was the greatest word of God’s love for the world. His action of dying upon the Cross was a full manifestation of His word of love to us.

It is not just what we think that constitutes the substance of our words. The actions that we take express the words formed in our hearts. Jesus addressed the essential issues of our actions in life as those of our hearts. He said that if we do something in our hearts, we have done it in our lives. He said whoever hates his brother has committed murder and whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Mt. 5:21, 28). God understands the power of words; He equates our thoughts with our actions and the things that we do are the truths of what we say.

When we conceive a thing in our hearts, we then think it in our thoughts, and these thoughts are words. When our hearts formulate thoughts in our minds, they are then translated into actions of our lives. These desires, thoughts, and actions, all constitute the expression of words in our lives. Even the spontaneous thoughts of our minds usually come from the character and nature of our hearts. Sometimes thoughts can come to us from an outside source, but it is only when our hearts agree with those thoughts that they become the power of words expressed though our lives. Words always carry the substance of our hearts and the substance of our hearts will always express words.

Words carry the power of life and death. Thoughts can change atmospheres. You have no doubt experienced the effects in a room when someone thinks negatively of you. Those thoughts are nothing less than words and they have a prophetic effect in the atmosphere. They can produce life or they can produce death.

God does everything by His word and he has placed the creating source of words within each of us. The Bible says that out of the heart flow the issues of life. It’s not deeds that get us in trouble, it’s words; but our deeds are our words. The Scripture teaches us that we are not to make oaths, but our yes is to be yes and our no is to be no (Mt. 5:34-37; Jam. 5:12). Why is this? It is because God understands the power of words.

God does everything by His word. How can we become a people who operate according to the prophetic principles of God and produce life in the earth? How can we allow words to flow forth in our lives that will change the world around us in a positive way? How can we release thoughts, verbal expressions, and actions that are all-powerful words, which produce the life of God in the earth? I want to be a part of a people who influence the communities of the earth by the power of God’s word. This includes our thoughts, attitudes, verbal and visual expressions, as well as actions. Laughter is a word that breaks the power of depression. Peace is a word that breaks the power of confusion. Hope is a word that breaks the power of despair. Faithfulness is a word that breaks the power of faithlessness. I want to live, breathe, and become the power of God’s word in the earth. God does everything by His word. If we can become people of God’s word, we can change the world. This doesn’t mean we become people of Scripture memory. The Scribes and the Pharisees were people of Scripture memory, but they were not people of the word of God. They quoted the Scriptures, but the true words that came from their mouths were words founded upon the attitudes of their hearts. God doesn’t do everything by the Scriptures. God does everything by His Word. I am not making less of the value of the Scriptures in any way. I am simply clarifying the purpose of the Scriptures. The Scriptures testify of Him and are a confirmation to the true sound of God’s words.

Prophetic ministry