Having a desire to prophesize is half the battle, as Paul taught in first Corinthians 14:1 pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy. In some situations, I have not been in the mood to prophecy. It’s always in those moments, I hear the Lord say stir up your spirit.
You must have a desire, because if you have a desire, then God can work. We need to look for prophecy, expecting and wanting it to be a part of our lives.
Desire leads us to the next attitude every prophet needs: expectancy. If we are going to move in any spiritual gift, we need to have a sense of expectation. We expect God to have a word for someone, we expect God to do something right now. I don’t want to live an hour without expectation. There’s nothing worse than realizing, at the end of the week, that we’ve drifted through the whole week without having a meaningful conversation or moment with God. When we wake up in the morning, we want to have an expectation that God is going to do something that very day.
Expectation is all important. The heroes of the faith listed in Hebrews all expected God to do something with them. Expectation was the common thread in all of their lives, even though their ministry spanned two millennia and a dozen different cultures. They believed God would speak to them, and through them, every day.
Expectancy is the life blood in moving in the Spirit. We are all pregnant with purpose. When we live as divine carriers of the life of Jesus Christ then we develop an attitude, a mindset and a heart response that flows from that inner life source.
The secret place of our spirit always acts as a womb to birth in us the seed of the next part of our life journey and ministry. What new thing is growing in you today? What partnership with the Holy Spirit is required to bring that expectation full term and delivery?
We should be moving in the gift of prophecy every day. The Lord wants to grow in us a greater expectation in the Holy Spirit. I haven’t been perfect in that call, but the practice of expectancy has sharpened the gift and broadened my vision for the prophetic considerably.
We need to move in what we have permission for and prepare for the next thing God is birthing in us! When I want to move in prophecy, I believe that God can speak into a situation. I expect God to speak into a person’s life. This leads into the next step in operating in prophecy: believing that God is going to speak through us. Lord, anoint my eyes, ears, and mouth. With our minds, we should believe we have the mind of Christ 1 Corinthians 2: 16. We have been given the gift of choice, I want to dismantle my way of thinking and adopt Gods instead. I want to think how Jesus thinks, because God’s Spirit knows what is in God’s heart and mind, and that same Spirit dwells in us. Total wisdom, total knowledge, total understanding and power is available from God to us, and we need to tap into them.
After desire and expectation comes a specific burden for someone, somewhere, or something. When we expect God to use us to prophecy, we look around for the person who God wants to touch. Before opening our mouth, we need to pray for that individual, asking God for his burden for them. Prophets must be concerned for that person: Lord, please speak to him or her.
It is the burden which reveals God’s heart. When we have a burden for something and we’re praying, the Holy Spirit in us begins to put that into words. We start to feel that God wants to say or do something. This brings us into a sense of conviction, and it is conviction which produces expression. When we’re convinced that God wants to say something, the desire, will, and means to express it all fall into place.
We take a kind of risk because we expect God to move. We expect him to show up. Therefore, when we go into places with expectation, there’s a high probability that we will move in the prophetic gift. We need to anticipate what God wants to do and choose to work with him to accomplish it.
God gives us a burden about things because he wants to speak and act. As far as he is concerned, the burden is a declaration to us that he wants to speak through us and use us in this situation. He has chosen us to work with him because he has a burden for that particular person.
The steps are: desire, expectation, burden, conviction, and expression. We can stir up the gift of prophecy by having the right motives. When you want to see a person blessed, healed, restored, released, we are sharing the heart God. We have put ourselves into the place where God can use us.
All of us can prophecy; the gift of prophecy is resident in each of us. We may not be called to be prophets, but every one of us can prophesy, and I hope we will all seek that gift out more. Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophecy 1Corinthians 14:1.