If we wish to hear more prophecies in our churches, we need more outgoing ministry. God has something to say always, and prophetic direction is helpful to those who are being sent forth to reach the unreached in “regions beyond”. Or maybe to confirm the faith in recently planted churches by assuring their leaders of God’s power and presence in their midst. How on earth church leaders can do this without some element of prophetic direction is beyond me.
“Oh, but the Scriptures will provide that” some may say. But a “famine for the word of God” is not an absence of the knowledge of what God has done in the past, but a lack of knowledge of what He desires to do in the present.
God’s “daily bread” for us may be “a word from the Word” — a particular “rhema” revelation from a general understanding of the recorded “logos” know to us as The Bible. A “famine” of the Word of God is not a prolonged absence of the written Word but rather a “famine” of day-by-day revelation of the “be it unto me according to Your Word” Luke 1:37 kind that Mary received. One that leaps off the pages of your Bible and into your heart.
You will know it by the fact that it will be harder to disbelieve it than believe it — a flip from the unbelief that can come when trying hard to believe what you are reading or hearing preached. I feel as though I am standing on a stack of bibles, so great is the assurance that comes with a “rhema” revelation!
The loose sense of Luke 1:37 is powerful: “Every real-time word from God carries within it the power to create what it describes.” A word indeed — in deed — as distinct from an unspoken one that remains a thought. Active in the heart and visible in that which it produces, not passive in the mind and invisible and unproductive.
This is where prophets come in. Not prophetic ‘cowboys’ throwing loops over immature Christians but recognized ministries who are gifted and so able to speak God’s intentions with conviction and that resonate with authenticity. I am not a prophet, but in the absence of one the Lord has at times used me to set things in order, or to stamp His approval on people and projects divinely inspired.
Prophetic direction never overrides personal guidance, but it can fine-tune details and provide overall context to those who have become lost in the details and “can’t see the wood for the trees”.