Q. I've noticed that some prophetic people struggle with pride, ego, control, and oftentimes even intimidation towards others. Why is this?
A. First of all, people often forget that prophetic people are tempted in exactly the way those with any other gift are tempted.
In other words, satan is an equal-opportunity tempter of men and women, boys and girls, both saved and unsaved.
Having said that, the more visible the person, be it the President of the United States, a well-known speaker, or a highly sought-out prophet or prophetic person, the harder the "enemy" would certainly work against such a person in all types of temptations.
Even with a Hollywood celebrity who is unsaved, the temptations toward pride, ego, the control of ones inner circle of friends, and so on, is a temptation that's freely "given" by satan. That's why we're often so enamored by a celebrity who remains humble. We're taken back, because it's sometimes unusual to find those combinations in the same person who possesses both fame AND humility.
Now, back to a person—ANY person with a visible gift in the Church—although Jesus' instructions were mainly to the individual, He taught about requirements for leaders who were also His followers:
"Jesus called them together and said, 'You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. [It should] not [be] so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.'" Mark 10:42-45 [emphasis added]
So the bottom line is this: Both the saved and unsaved—by default—are automatically tempted to be prideful, controlling and many other things. If you ARE saved, satan would have an even greater reason to tempt you. This is true of any Christian, and it includes of course, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists.
Q. Why do prophetic people seem to have a harder time hearing from God for themselves than they do for others?
A. Even as less-than-perfect Christians, it's easy to see why this, if you really think about it, is a good thing, rather than bad.
Why?
God made it that way so that we would HAVE to depend upon one another. I have personally prophesied to prophets who were at a level in their prophesying that I've only dreamed of.
Yes, in those few cases, my prophesying was accurate, even to the dates, cities and locations. But the humility of those prophets to receive revelation from a person (like me) was God's intent all along that it should work this way. It keeps the Church operating the way God designed it:
"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, 'Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?"
1 Corinthians 12:14-19
Sometimes, I'm an eye to a prophet and vice versa. Sometimes, I'm a mouth. Sometimes, I'm a foot. And so are we all—at any given time.
Q. I've witnessed several public prophetic ministers get all kinds of words at the same time, which SEEM disconnected with each other. What's that all about?
A. Sometimes, a prophesying person gets into a "zone" (as it were) where once their prophesying opens up, he or she begins to prophesy over anything and everything and they don't necessarily know how the puzzle pieces connect. It's the people receiving the words who are the ones who often know the connection.
I've been to more than a few meetings myself where a prophet begins to call up many people and skips around giving a word here and a word there. As he or she skips around, a word connects with people standing beside each other or even across the room. He or she is just moving with the Spirit of God—and God is in the process of connecting the dots all over a meeting place, and He does it simultaneously.
For example, I've seen where a name, a place, and birthdate is called out and that person stands up. Then the prophet might say, "Who's Sally Jones?" Sally stands up, and then the prophet goes back to the first person and says something like, "You lost contact with your daughter and God would like to heal that." Lo and behold, the Sally standing up IS that daughter. Now, while I just made up the specifics of this example, this exact type of prophetic happens in meetings with prophets and prophetic people often because God wants HIS work done HIS way and in HIS timing.
Remember that we are told in Scripture that Philip had four daughters who prophesied. It doesn't tell us what, and to whom or even why they prophesied. It only tells us the fact that it happened.
"Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven. He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied." Acts 21:8-9
That's it! There were four daughters of Philip. They prophesied, and that was that! Why would that be all that was told in Scripture?
The answer is so simple it defies, at times, the obvious understanding intended by the Holy Spirit. Because that's all God wanted to preserve for us—to know about those four daughters. God doesn't make mistakes.
God simply wanted us to know that prophesying was common, was Scriptural in the New Testament, was done by women, and what they said and how they said it were far less important than the fact that they did, in fact, prophesy.
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