How Personal Prophecy is Useful

Let us talk a little bit about personal prophecy. One of the best ways to explain what personal prophecy is, is that it’s a simple or more complex message from the Spirit of God, from the heart of God, to you. So God wants to speak to His people. God desires to speak heart to heart with you and communicate His thoughts and His feelings and His directions with you.

So, one of the primary things that a person should concentrate on in their life as a Christian is to develop the ability to hear God speak or to hear Jesus speak to them heart to heart. Jesus taught a parable, the parable of the Good Shepherd and in that parable He said that the sheep hear His voice and He calls them by name and they listen to Him. And He goes on to say that the sheep won’t listen to the voice of a stranger. And it’s very interesting but there’s a large portion, more than half of the church have not got the ability to actually hear Jesus speak to their spirit.

It’s very important that we learn to hear the voice of Jesus that we learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit in our Christian lives. It’s more important that we develop the ability to hear from Jesus then it is for us to receive personal prophecies. So, I want to underline this subject and say it’s very important that you develop the ability to hear from God personally one on one. And so, when personal prophecies come along in your life, when you start to hear personal prophecies spoken over your life, many of the things that are spoken will be confirmations of what God has already directed you or shared with you about your life and about your future.

So, how is personal prophecy useful? Personal prophecy can be useful for you to get a very true representation of what your identity in Christ really is. God is very good at telling a person positive, character attributes that are good about a person. God is very good at revealing to a person that for instance that they’re very humble or they’re very teachable or they’ve got a child-like faith. Or any number of things. So, if for instance you’ve been a person who, went into things intellectually with your mind and you are passionate and you are driven and you are somewhat insecure and so therefore you came across in a boastful sort of way, in a prideful sort of way. Then it’s very encouraging when you have done a lot of work in your life and God has done a lot of work in your life, that prophecies start to come true with God saying that you’re humble, that you’re very humble and He’s pleased with your humility.

When people have an argument on Facebook , I personally  try to bow out of them these days but it seems that when you disagree with a Christian on Facebook or YouTube, or in some public forum, if you present an argument that may be hard for them to argue often I’ve been called prideful by these people that are arguing with me. When Jesus started to tell many times that I’m humble it helped me a lot . I started and managed a prophetic website that did email prophecies for people and I built a team of about six people and there was always people requesting for me to pray for them to have the gift of prophecy. So I prayed for them and I asked them to prophesy over me as a test case that they’ve got the gift of prophecy and I’d give them feedback. Well, two thirds of the prophecies I received from the people new to the gift of prophecy said that God loved me and Jesus loved me and he was proud of me .About fifty people out of the three hundred people  said that I was humble. It’s re-assuring to you when you’re living a life, a Christian life and you’re developing day by day in the Christian walk to be reminded by God about something that you’ve done work on.

So for God to say to me that I was humble is very encouraging, edifying, and it challenges me to become more and more humble as the days go on. So, when I exercise my faith, I often interact with angels and saints from Heaven and God and Jesus in visions. And many people have prophesied over my life that I’ve got child-like faith. And it’s true. I’m like a child. I’ve just got this innocence that just believes that God is love and God loves me and God wants to show me things and for me to experience His Kingdom in a greater measure than most other people. So when someone prophesies and says that you’ve got child-like faith, it’s very encouraging because Jesus actually said unless you enter the kingdom such as a child, you’ll by no means enter the Kingdom. So, it’s very encouraging to know that my faith is like that of a child and I’m in that perfect sweet spot which will allow greater revelation and a greater experience of the Christian faith because of my stance, my faith stance that I have. So, one important thing that most Christians need is a sense of their identity in Christ, who they really are. Who does God say you are? What does God say about you? What does God like about you?

What are the qualities that God sees are beneficial and beautiful in your life? Now, I know that God could speak to me for a hundred hours straight. I know I asked some people in a prophetic exercise I did on a prophetic group that I ran called Prophetic Training Group. I asked people to list two qualities that they see in a certain person and get those qualities from God as a prophetic word and I asked someone for two qualities and they said, just two?  She said, “God could speak for hours about the things he likes about you Matthew,” and it’s true. God could really speak for hours about the things that He likes about you, dear reader. He loves so many things.

God isn’t one that points fingers at the things you’re not good at. He just elevates and encourages you in the gifts that you have and encourages you to move into certain things that you find a challenge. So prophecy, through words of knowledge, talking about character traits in a person’s life can be very encouraging for a person,   and very uplifting for a person to hear and for them to understand these things about themselves. There may be things that the person hasn’t really seen about themselves. There may be things that are revelations to the person. A person may not think that they’re too patient or a person may not think that they’re called to be a writer but when five people in a row in the course of a year have said that the person is called to be writer and they’re meant to write books, the person starts to get the information and the message that God is calling them to write. So God can see things in us that we can’t ourselves.

We’re so judgemental about ourselves. We’re so bound up with guilt and condemnation and insecurities that we have in our lives that we can’t see how good we really are and God is able to see past the clutter. He’s able to see past the mess. He’s about to look past the sin that you’re in, and He can look right down into who you are and speak out the gold that’s in you. He can draw out the gold and the beautiful things about who you are and what makes you such a wonderful person. And so prophecy is able to help a person identify who they are in Christ. It helps people to come to grips with the beautiful person that they are.

Prophecy can also encourage a person to grow in intimacy with Jesus intimacy and with the Father, and that is very important for the Christian faith. A lot of the gifts of the spirit and the a lot of the power in the anointing in the Holy Spirit come from a developed sense of intimacy with Jesus and intimacy with the Father. It’s out of relationship that we develop strength and we develop the ability to minister to other people and so through personal prophecy, a person can grow in intimacy with Jesus.

When people are hearing time and time again that Jesus loves us and Jesus is proud of us and the the things that Jesus loves it’s only natural for us to respond in intimacy. It’s only natural as God draws close to us through personal prophecy. It’s only natural for us to feel better and draw closer to God because of the exchange, because of the information flowing from God’s heart to us. It encourages us to draw closer to him and have a more intimate relationship with him. So prophecy is useful in developing our sense of our identity in Christ. Prophecy is also useful when it comes to us developing intimacy with Jesus Christ.

Prophecy is useful also in identifying gifts in the people, talents in the people, and the callings that people have in their life. So a prophet or someone who is prophetic can call out gifts that are in a person so often I see in people when I prophesy that they’re called to write, that they’re called to write a book. Often you’ll see things in people that are already in you. So, you’ll often see words of knowledge in people that are similar traits that you have so you can call them out in people because it resonates intuitively through the gift of prophecy with your spirit that these people in that aspect are the same as you. And so I often prophesied over people that they’re called to write and now I’ve, now I’ve written a book called Writing and Self-Publishing Christian Non-Fiction and that’s available on Amazon now. I’ve written a book on how to write a book and how to go about writing a book because there are so many people that I prophesy over that have got a gift and God wants to use them to write. So that’s just one instance. Writing is something that fulfils your life and something that I’m called to do.

I’ve seen a vision in Heaven of fifty books in a bookcase and the Lord Jesus told me that those fifty books were fifty books that I’d written in my life. I tried to sneak in and have a look at the titles of the books because I would have known what to write if I had have known the titles of the books but I couldn’t see the titles. So that was pretty funny that I tried. So, writing is a really fulfilling thing that I do. It’s the main focus of my life and I get a lot of personal satisfaction out of writing and having people read what I write and write reviews and write to me and ask me questions and thank me for writing books. So it’s a major part of who I am and so having people call that out in me that I’ve got more books to write and God is really pleased with my writing is encouraging to me . One person said, Don’t worry about the negative reviews you get. God has called you to write certain things and He was speaking forth your words through you when you wrote the books that you did and so don’t be afraid of what people say.”

 For him to communicate that to me took a lot of pressure off me and took a lot of worries and anxieties away from me because I was getting a few negative reviews on one of my books.

So prophecy can identify a person’s calling or a person’s gifting. I’m also called to be a prophet and I’m called to be a prophetic evangelist, a teaching prophet, a prophet that equips people. And so having people prophesy that I’m called to equip people, having people prophesy that I’m called to evangelise people, having people prophesy that I’m called to write on the three aspects of the prophetic that I’m gifted in, and this really encourages me and edifies me and confirms with me that my life is on the right track and I really am doing what God has called me to do.

So prophecy can call out the gift in a person, it can call out the calling in a person, and this can be further confirmed as people move into the gifts and start to operate in the gifts. As they start to find that they truly are gifted in the way they are told in prophecy, they find a reason to live and a purpose for living in operating in the gifting and the calling that has been prophesied over them. If you start to move out in the gifting that has been prophesied, you’ll find that God has given you the grace or will give you the grace to move in that gifting, to move and operate in that gifting. You’ll find it comes easier to you than it comes to other people and God will specially grace you the ability to do a certain thing.

So prophecy can call out the gifting in a person, it can call out the callings in a person; a person can be told what ministry office that they’re called to be in and that can be prophesied. The person can also know that in their spirit that that’s what they’re called to do but having people come alongside them and prophesy that over their life is very useful to a person and it also helps them get over the trepidation and the fear and the panic that sets into a person when they’re called to do something. After they hear their calling prophesied they are able to get the courage to go ahead and leave their place of work or change their life in a drastic way to fulfil the calling that’s on their life.

So many people need that encouragement to step out and learn or start to practice the gifting or the calling and prophecy is very useful to do that in a person’s life. So, what else is prophecy useful for?

Prophecy is useful to give a person direction. A person can be given direction like for instance I was given direction to operate in prophecy and offer prophecy through a prophetic website. So asked for a donation for prophecy and a prophecy was given to me that I have a way of earning an income that would lead me to be able to finance things I wanted to do in the Kingdom. So I moved out and did that has paid for a few books to be edited and self-published so far in a couple of months and I have a backlog of books that have been written but I didn’t have the money to have them edited or have them published.

This new website has opened up an income stream that allows me to publish my books and this has been very helpful. All of that happening and all the money coming in from that has been because of a prophecy that gave me direction to step out in a business way to earn an income for myself. Before that prophecy I had never considered going into business for myself and doing something. I was on a disability pension. And I was quite happy with the income although I wished there was somewhere I could earn more money but I just didn’t want to go and wash dishes like I used to because I’m sick of washing dishes. So I hoped that I could come across a way of earning money that was enjoyable for me to publish more books.

So it’s enjoyable for me to prophesy. It was very helpful for the people that get a prophecy over their life and people are very encouraged by it. And so it’s become a good source of income. I’ve had other directions by Jeremy Lopez through his prophetic words on my life and I pay attention to the prophetic words and I pay attention to the word of wisdom, what he directs me to do through the utterance of the Lord. And so should you. So should you listen to the words of wisdom and words of direction that the Lord gives through a prophetic utterance from someone.  

So there are many good things that prophecy can do. It can build you up, encourage you, edify you, exhort you; it can inspire you, it can do all these things.

There are many things that could be listed in a book, useful things that prophecy can do but there I’ve mentioned a few key elements that prophecy is useful for other people. Prophecy also is a really good thing to do. Delivering personal prophecies to people really gives you over time a real sense of who God is gives you a real good understanding of the type of person, the type of entity that God really is.

Prophecy gives you a good understanding of the type of person that Jesus is and through delivering prophetic words, you get a sense of His love and you get a sense of His mercy and the compassion. Soon enough you start to develop the mind of Christ and you start to think like Christ. You start to get revelations from Jesus and from the Holy Spirit. You start to get the heart of God in your heart. You start to feel compassionate and loved for people just as God loves people and has compassion for people. The more you move in prophetic circles, the more you move in your gifting in the prophetic, the more you’ll start to take on the heart and the mind of Christ. And grow in your relationship with Christ in intimacy and you’ll have a passion for God the more that you move in the prophetic.

The prophetic is very useful to the people who are receiving it and its very edifying and encouraging for the person giving the prophecies. It’s always encouraging to give a prophecy to a person by email, by video, on Facebook.  It is also good to receive someone’s feedback, a couple of paragraphs of them writing feedback on the prophecy and how it blessed them and how specific points were so dead on and so exact and so right. You find out how your personal prophecy encouraged them and it’s very interesting and encouraging to get such feedback from people. It’s useful in the ways that I’ve shared and it’s useful in other ways that I haven’t shared yet. I encourage you to buy books on the prophetic and learn all you can on the prophetic because you’ll have many years between when you’re called to be a prophet and when you’re actually walking in the office. God bless.

For a personal prophecy off Matthew Robert Payne see http://personal-prophecy-today.com