Awakening Your Prophetic Voice

Every day you make choices that are based on belief and agreement. At this point in the study, we have learned the truth that God is pursuing us, we have practiced hearing His voice and understanding our identity as His child, and we have identified how to make choices from a place of righteousness and purity. We are living temples of Holy Spirit, who is leading us into incredible freedom when we agree with the incredible life He reveals to us (see 1 Cor. 2:16)! We have been set up to succeed because we not only know our Father but our life of faith reveals His great love to the world! Every day we are a manifestation of Heaven on earth!

Read John 5:19. Do you believe that God has given you the ability to know, see, and hear His ways, just as Jesus could? What are some ways Holy Spirit reveals God’s desires for your life?

Read John 14. It’s important that we get the picture that Jesus is painting clearly. In verse 7, whom did Jesus come to reveal?

In the Old Testament, God’s chosen people proved over and over that they didn’t know Him; they were terrified to even say God’s name. A construct was established, known as the Old Covenant, which kept the Israelites veiled from God’s heart. God was mysterious, and they were unable to really know Him because they had been blinded by this covenant. As we know, this setup was not God’s heart for His children, so He sent Jesus to establish a better covenant known as the New Covenant. Isaiah prophesied of the day when God’s heart would finally be unveiled to the entire world. “On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations” (Isa. 25:7). We know Isaiah was talking about Jesus!

Second Corinthians 3:15-16 says that even to this day when Moses’s writings are read, a veil covers the heart of the Israelites so they do not understand God, but when they turn to Christ the veil is taken away. It is Jesus who came to reveal the Father and establish a covenant that leaves no question of the Father’s amazing love for the world.

“So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.
” —2 Corinthians 3:18, NLT

What Jesus was presenting was so radical to the Jews, not only because He identified Himself as from God and of God, but because He was calling God Father, revealing a side of God they had been blinded to! Their relationship with God had been based on performance and laws; they carried a great distance in their hearts and minds toward God. Thus, Jesus was considered heretical and dangerous! Jesus came to fulfill the requirements of the Old Covenant and establish a New Covenant that would be purely built on a love that not only forgave sin but transformed sinners into saints and is available to any who should receive it. This love empowers believers to live in unity and embrace a like-minded lifestyle with God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. This love’s atmosphere is called grace! It’s what we breathe and exist in. Grace is equal parts undeserved love and power that transforms. In that environment, we walk in Heaven on earth as God’s children and we reveal His likeness!

Like Jesus, we now can reveal to the world the Father’s heart through power and love. Jesus set the standard of the lifestyle of the faith we profess today!

Once the Father affirmed Jesus’ identity as His Son (see Matt. 3:17), Jesus began to walk out that belief, which demonstrated His agreement with what He saw His Father doing and heard His Father saying. Your belief is always saying yes to something, and because Jesus knew that He said this to us:

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father (John 14:12).

“They will do even greater things.” Jesus wasn’t talking about going back to works based off the law of the Old Covenant. He was talking about both the empowerment that comes from God’s grace that we receive by faith, not performance, and God’s undeserved love for us in that we are called His children. We have been empowered with a lifestyle in the New Covenant that is transformational to not only us but also to those who come in contact with us. We do because we can, because it’s what we believe! It’s who we are as God’s children! Just as Jesus came to reveal the Father, we are now revealing God by revealing His grace of power and undeserved love and demonstrating His nature and character to His children! This is the lifestyle of the New Covenant believer!

We know what happens next. Jesus’ execution was plotted and carried out because of the revolutionary, exuberant lifestyle that Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated as God’s child. Let’s not miss the fact that God didn’t force Jesus to die. It was Jesus’ agreement with the Father’s plan of establishing a better covenant through His Son’s death and resurrection, and Jesus made this choice with freedom. Jesus wasn’t mind-controlled by Holy Spirit, just as you aren’t forced to live from your identity as a child of God either. It doesn’t work that way. The Bible says that where the Spirit is there is freedom (see 2 Cor. 3:17). We know that to be free, one must have a choice.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit worked together in perfect unity in their agreement to redeem mankind through God’s perfect love with the New Covenant! Jesus’ choice to die for us came from a belief in not only who He was and His purpose, but also because of how He felt about you and who you are to Him!

“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.”
—Ephesians 1:5-8, NLT

How does knowing God chose you before you chose Him impact your belief about Him?

Grace (undeserved love and power that transforms us), kindness, all wisdom, and understanding has been showered upon us so that we can know God, agree with Him, and walk with Him. You have been chosen, built, and empowered to know and walk with God. Receiving this beautiful gift by faith will produce actions that come from our unity with Him, not a set of obligations and laws that veil God’s heart. Your lifestyle reveals His nature, the character of the One you were created in the image of because you know Him, you see Him, you know His voice and His ways, and your belief in Him will produce this incredible life!

Close your eyes and give your heart the opportunity to use your imagination. Imagine the perfect piece of land. You don’t know what it’s used for or its purpose yet. Just imagine a perfect piece of property. Now design a perfect building that will be placed on that land. Using your journal below, draw and list out the attributes of the land and the building. Take notice of specific features, sizes, shapes, functions, and colors of your building and land.

I saw a mountaintop land with an incredible overview of a city below. The building I saw was a house. The house was an intelligent and stylish A-frame design, and was made of almost all glass to take advantage of the gorgeous views. It definitely made a statement to all those who saw it and could be seen from great distances.

If you were the building and the land was where God had placed you—what does this say about you, how you function, how you are designed, and your purpose?

God was showing me, for example, that I was positioned in a restful place that would be a beacon of hope (light that can be seen at quite a distance) and that I have security (by design and placement), authority (strategic views), and provision (high-priced real estate). I was not only to be seen but had a voice to be heard. I would be attracting people upward and into great heights with Him. And the fact that the house was made of all glass spoke of my very transparent nature and willingness to expose my heart.

James 1:5 says that anyone who lacks wisdom should just ask and it shall be given. Just as Ephesians 1:5-8 states, God has lavished all of His wisdom and understanding on us.

Take this opportunity to not only hear what God is saying about who you are, where you have been placed, and how you function in that environment, but allow it to become wisdom that activates your beliefs. Do your part in partaking in like-mindedness with Christ and walk out that reality. Choices rooted in God’s abundant wisdom can change not only your current circumstances but also your life if you would simply agree and believe!