I learned very quickly what it looks like when people begin to operate freely in the gifts without truly knowing God as their Father. I learned quickly what it looks like when an orphaned people filter real encounters with God through their woundedness and fears and then begin to project that onto everyone around them. When people operate in the gifts without remembering who God is and they don’t know God’s heart, they begin to filter their encounters through their wounds and judgements or their religious traditions. Unfortunately, they display a picture of God that is not accurate.
This was when I understood that before I could simply teach people how to discern God’s voice, I had to guide them through a biblical foundation of Jesus Christ—because He is the full picture of who God the Father truly is and who they too will reflect as a new creation. Any experience that doesn’t reflect the heart of Jesus needs to be examined closer or tossed out completely. Jesus is our scale on which everything is measured.
When I began to stir people’s belief that they actually do know God’s voice, people began walking into breakthrough moments with Holy Spirit! There were no formulas or pre-scripted plans, no long hours of prayer or begging God to speak to us. It was simply unity among us in our belief that we are one with God and He is speaking today! I’m talking about hard cases—fragmented, broken people, even Baptists who believed they were too depraved for God to speak to them were having sincere experiences that shifted their mindsets about who God was and who they were to God! I also began to observe that if we were in a group setting, community began to form in a very powerful way. People were not only prophetically confessing what God was speaking over them, but they began to get prophetic glimpses of one another too, and they started holding each other accountable to the word of God that was being seen and spoken. Once beggars, now they were upright and praying as children who were postured securely beside their all-powerful Father!
I came to passionately believe that everyone is prophetic simply because I believe Jesus demonstrated walking out a prophetic lifestyle. I believe that every miracle moment that Jesus performed was a prophetic act testifying to who God is and who the world is to God! It’s said in John 21:25 that Jesus performed so many miracles that not even all the books in the world could contain them. If all those acts are prophetic acts of God speaking of His nature, revealing His ways, then He has a lot to say! And we are included in the group Jesus described in John 14:12—believers who would do what He does and even greater things—so God is continuing to speak through us today! It appears as if God may be a jabber box, but it’s with His voice that He draws us out and back into His arms, revealing to the world that He is alive!
God created us to know His voice, and it was through prophetic encounters that I was reconciled back to His amazing love. I believe all the gifts reveal the nature of God to us, but the prophetic creates a place of being known where we find wholeness and healing, we find family and community, we experience salvation only found in Jesus.
John 10:27 says that His sheep know his voice. It is through hearing His voice that I believe my children’s children will inherit a legacy as a people who are known for walking with God.
My belief that all are prophetic in nature applies to children as well. My boys walk in the prophetic very naturally, and it’s beautiful. Watching them is actually how I learn quite a lot about the prophetic gift. When I began growing in my understanding that God is speaking to all of us today in unique ways, I did what a lot of us who begin to embrace the prophetic do—I went out on what is called a “treasure hunt.” A treasure hunt is when a group of people pray for Holy Spirit to give them specifics about a person and the details about where they are. They then write those details down on a piece of paper that they will later show the person as proof that God wants to speak to them specifically, so much so that He gave details about them prior to ever meeting them. It’s essentially creating an opportunity for people to know they are known and loved by a very alive God who is speaking today. It’s a fun equipping exercise.
I wanted my boys to grow in confidence that they too can hear God’s voice and practice loving people in radical ways, so I took them on a treasure hunt at a local church that does it every Saturday night in Springfield, Missouri. Before hitting the streets, all the participants prayed, including my two boys who each held a pencil and their own piece of paper to scribble down the pictures or words they felt Holy Spirit was sharing with them. I looked to my right and my youngest son, who was probably five at the time, was drawing a bunch of upside-down crosses. I gasped in silence. I hoped no one was looking. Here we were sitting in a church, praying for Holy Spirit to speak to us, and my son was over here feverishly drawing upside-down crosses all over his page as if he was possessed by some other spirit that was not holy. I looked to my left and my oldest son was drawing skulls and crossbones.
I tried to focus—I prayed and heard a specific location where we were supposed to go and that I’d find a woman in a red sweatshirt there. Shuffling my boys’ papers behind mine, I drove my boys and a friend to the location I felt we would find our “treasure.” Immediately upon opening my car door, I could hear a woman screaming and crying out. I turned and there was the woman with a red sweatshirt, on her knees crying out. I remember being so nervous. This woman was in real emotional pain, and I had no way of knowing how she’d respond to a group of us approaching her.
As a side note, I have never been afraid to let my boys be around brokenness. Because of that, they have seen Jesus countless times free the captives, heal the sick, and deliver the oppressed. They not only know Jesus loves them, they’ve seen Him love others in action, which only builds their trust. In their time of need, and they will have times of need, they know the name to call out to!
I approached and showed her my list that met all of her descriptions. I told her I was just at a church praying and God told me about her specifically and where to find her and that’s why I showed up. She sat there stunned, wiping away tears. I asked her what was going on, and she began to describe in detail the brokenness in her life when a man walked up, an apparent friend of hers, and stood beside her as she shared her story.
After a few minutes, before we began to pray for her, my little boy tugged on my shirt and pointed discreetly at the man standing behind her. The black t-shirt that he was wearing was covered in upside-down crosses, skulls, and crossbones. I smiled and was reminded that I can certainly trust that my kids know God’s voice.
As our friend who was with us began to powerfully pray over the woman we were ministering to, I asked Jake and Jackson, my boys, if they’d like to lead the prayer over the guy standing with her. They agreed. My boys went through the whole thing. They showed him their papers, how God knew he was going to show up tonight and God had something to say to him, and then the boys laid hands on this man and prayed with power. When they finished praying we hugged them. As we walked away we could hear the man shouting in the streets that God had sent people to pray for him. Throughout the streets you could hear the man shouting that God was with him. It was a very powerful moment for the people we ministered to, but it was also a learning moment for me that my children hear God’s voice and I need to trust that God is not offended by the things we often are. My children today have ministered to hundreds of people prophetically, and God often gives them vivid dreams and incredible visions for our family’s future. We have a family journal that we place these words and promises in to so that we can steward them well.
Holy Spirit is in the business of revealing God the Father to us, not through sheer logic or persuasion by charismatic speakers but by revealing Himself to us in an infinite number of supernatural ways, which we often generally categorize as hearing God’s voice. God is speaking to us today in incredible ways, each way as unique as fingerprints.
If anyone reading this book believes they’ve never had a “prophetic encounter,” then they don’t understand the prophetic moment that led them to salvation. The moment when you “felt,” “heard,” “believed”—however you describe the moment you knew you needed Christ as your Savior—was a prophetic moment when you experienced God’s voice that led you to repentance! Hearing God’s voice is far more than the reason of salvation—it’s so we can know God intimately and taste and see the incredible life He wants us to have with and through Him.
Romans 8:19-22 says that the earth is groaning for the sons of God to be made manifest. This simply means that God gifted the earth with us for a reason! Through a relationship with God, we will see the plans He has for us. Upon being awakened and enlightened by Holy Spirit, you will do things far beyond what even Jesus did—His words, not mine! The earth is waiting for you to reveal the likeness of God in which you were designed.
I believe every human has had prophetic experiences with God, but they either don’t have the wisdom or maturity to understand it and they dismiss it or they believe they’ve experienced something supernatural and so they worship their encounters. The prophetic gift becomes an idol that they worship like any other idol in their life, making them unbalanced and loonical (a word I created to describe the process of becoming loony). Then you have those who just want to be “normal,” so they reject all of it and the people who believe in it too. What they don’t understand is they are shutting down the very form of communication that God uses to mature us into His love and likeness. They may have forgotten that Jesus is our standard for what is normal, not culture or doctrines. I believe this is why Paul says of all the gifts, you should desire the prophetic (see 1 Cor. 14:1). To embrace a prophetic lifestyle is to know and be known by God!
If you think God doesn’t already know that humanity is prone to manufacture hype or be a fickle flake, then you haven’t read your Bible. He knows how to mature us through those things. He’s been doing it since the beginning of time. And if you’re offended by God’s process with humanity, then you will continue to be blinded by the gigantic plank in your eye and likely never taste true wisdom that can only come from Holy Spirit. Growing with God requires trading off the old for the new, and you can’t partake in that outside of humility and keeping your eyes on Jesus.
My favorite story is of a woman who was actually not in our small group but a small group member led me to her. She believed she could not hear from God because she heard multiple voices in her head already. She had been struggling with hearing voices for a long while and she was exhausted. As tears ran down her face, she asked me to help her hear from God, but insisted that she couldn’t. I had no strategy or technique, but God is good and He wants to reveal Himself to us all.
When you operate in the gifts from a childlike posture, trusting in God’s goodness, you need no pre-written plan or scripted prayer because it’s not about you, it’s about Him! When you simply abide in sonship (and daughtership) and let Holy Spirit reveal how truly loved they are, you discover the very power that raises the dead, heals the sick, and the supernatural kindness that leads men to repentance.
I sat next to the woman whom I had never met before that night and told her not to worry about all the voices; she will know Jesus when she hears Him. She insisted she wouldn’t because the other voices were so loud, and my response was, “No need to silence the other voices; let’s just invite Jesus to the party.” I asked her to close her eyes, and all I said was, “Holy Spirit, come!” Within seconds of me asking Holy Spirit to come, her body relaxed and her countenance lightened. Tears rolled down her face, and she smiled so softly. I knew she was meeting Jesus. I asked her if she wanted to share what she was experiencing, and she began to describe a scene of when she was a small child, a memory that she had forgotten about that brought her incredible peace. I then asked her to close her eyes again because Jesus wanted to speak with her about that moment. She closed her eyes, more tears came, and she shared the most intimate, reconciling conversation Jesus was having with her.
I asked her about the other voices, and she realized that they were not there. When she recognized that Jesus had silenced the loud chatter in her head in mere seconds, you could see a supernatural rest come over her that she had not experienced in a long while. She had just encountered the Prince of Peace. She messaged me several days later, and she told me that she had not heard a single voice since that moment. She was so encouraged by that experience that she ended up buying one of my devotionals and giving it to her therapist, who then began to use it with her patients.
Personal prophetic encounters with Jesus propel breakthrough. It’s the moment when you are filled with insight and strategy that ignites life-giving hope! Breakthrough is the manifestation of remembrance that you and God are one, and in that moment of surrender it doesn’t matter what your circumstance is—it bows its knee to God! Holy Spirit uses these moments to create anchor points in our soul that become the very foundation that matures us into the abundant life we were destined for!
Breakthrough is not something we are necessarily waiting for because it’s built into our identity. It’s something we practice. It becomes a lifestyle of our faith. As an overcomer, Jesus has created us to be walking breakthroughs for everyone in our lives, including ourselves. I just so happen to do it through the prophetic gift. Sometimes I prophesy God’s heart over people, but I would say 80 percent of the time the way I create breakthrough moments for people is by helping them to hear what God is saying over them for themselves. Almost every day, I get to see intimate moments between God and His people being reconciled through the prophetic gift. I thank God He chose me for the calling of inviting the life of the party, Jesus, to people so they can experience not just how good God is but also how good they are too!
POWERFUL PEOPLE ARE A PROPHETIC PEOPLE!
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:13-19).
During a discussion with His disciples, Jesus asked “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” There was a lot of speculation about who Jesus was. By simply observing Him, people assumed a lot of things, but Peter wasn’t simply going off of what he observed; he was enlightened by Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” Jesus then went on to prophesy over Peter. He described how Peter was known in Heaven and would be known on earth—faithful and powerful.
Peter’s faith in Jesus was built upon revelation given to him from God. I believe this is a perfect example of what exactly God wants us to discern, enlightened by Holy Spirit—the revelation of how we are known by God.
God’s family is a people of sight, of vision. They are able to not only look into the mirror and see what God sees, but it’s okay that they see their limitations also and embrace them. They know Holy Spirit is who empowers them. How do you think Jesus hung around those twelve all the time? Do you think it was because He knew their Myers-Briggs personality assessment and related accordingly? Or was it because they were all theologically sound and really intelligent? That’s hilarious.
Jesus saw all their faults and their flaws, all their misinterpretations and shallow understanding, yet He embraced them. He didn’t keep them at arm’s length because they weren’t “safe” people. He rebuked them when they spoke out of fear and ignorance, but He wasn’t so concerned with them saying the right things all the time and sounding correct. Shoot, they were sleeping on the job, competing with one another, and concerned with their reputations. They were just like us. Jesus was able to push past the immature, the religious rhetoric, and find purity. Discerning the spirit, Jesus knew people the way they were known in Heaven and could easily see any spirit that was coming against their own knowledge of that truth.
Holy Spirit has enabled you to see. Practice seeing people how God sees them. Grow in your love for people so that you love even strangers the same way you love those closest to you. Discern the spirits that are coming against their knowledge of who they are in Christ. Otherwise, you will be constantly offended by everyone’s lack and limits, and you will grow powerless, choosing disconnection over connection.
Did you know that Jesus has set you free from what you don’t know? The prophetic gift is not so you can always have the answers. He set you free from trying to be right or trying to “get right.” It’s His righteousness that you’ve taken on. It’s His mind that you share in. The pressure has never been on you; that would be self-righteousness. Your job is to stop trying to look right and simply abide in His righteousness. It’s from this place you begin to look past other people’s lack and limits and Holy Spirit begins to show you what’s true! You then become the only yes in a room full of no. You begin to push past the blazing accusations that have been formed against every single human, and you become the one who stops and takes notice.
When everyone else is saying no and putting up boundaries and keeping one another at arm’s length, you become the one who says with their actions that they deserve to be known, regardless of their personality assessments, their tattoos, their sexual preference, their faith, gender, or skin color. Don’t you see? This is the power that God gave you—to see the world and love the world the way He does. It has nothing to do with agreement with their thoughts and their ways but everything to do with agreement with God’s thoughts. Holy Spirit enables us to walk like Jesus did, revealing that they are loved and known by the living God and can be empowered by Holy Spirit to walk in something new!