Author: Teresa Seputis
Editor: Al Vesper
Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals
Self-Promotion and Ministering Without Love
by Teresa Seputis
1 Corinthians 13:1-2 says: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
This applies to prophetic ministry, whether it is prophetic preaching or one-on-one prophetic ministry. We are to minister in love, and if we minister for any other reason.... we are not really ministering, we are just making noise. If our motivation is to show off our great prophetic gifting or to impress people with detailed words of knowledge.. we are not moving in God's love and our ministry is ineffective. And when we "minister" like that ... according to God's economy, we are nothing.
So if our motive is to impress man, we certainly will not impress God.
Learning By Example (by a bad example)
A relatively unknown prophet was the key speaker at a series of renewal meetings. The flyers for his meetings acknowledged that he was unknown and billed him as someone who had "ministered with" several well known prophets, listing them by name as though these people were providing a reference for him.
The meeting started well, with exuberant praise and worship. The pastor made announcements and warmly welcomed visitors.. then introduced this prophet. He got up and began to both toot his own horn and also to speak against a spirit of religion. You've seen comedians who insult the audience and the audience responds by laughing. This is what was happening here, under the guise of prophetically "exposing religious spirits". His basic approach was "I'm OK.. you are NOT." He would say things like "I am free from religious spirits, but most of you aren't" and "the only ones who don't think this is funny are those ones with religious spirits.. so if you are not laughing then something is wrong with you and you better repent."
Everyone laughed. Who would dare not to laugh?? He had made "not laughing" synonymous with publicly confessing that you have a religious spirit. But he was not helping the people open themselves up to God. Instead he was causing them to erect shields to protect themselves from his accusations.
This particular prophet also liked to name drop... such as sharing that he was staying at a famous prophet's house and caught a cold from him.. Then he said, "I am not going to tell you who he was.. ok, yes I will.. it was" and he gave the name of a well known and well respected prophet. He also made several boastful statements, such as "When I get under this anointing, I cannot miss" and "when I am under this anointing, I know you better than you know yourself."
This man wanted to impress people. He was self-promoting and arrogant. He did have a prophetic anointing, but he was misusing it to draw men unto himself... to make a name for himself and to lift himself up in the eyes of his audience. He was not ministering in love. He was much more concerned about himself than about the ones he was supposed to be ministering to. He may or may not have succeeded in impressing some of the ones in his audience. But he did not impress God. According to 1 Corinthians 13:1-2, he was "nothing".
Who Is Being Promoted? You Or God?
When you get up to minister, ask yourself who is the one being promoted? Who is the one being built up and exalted? Is it you or is it God? Are you trying to draw people to yourself or to God? Are you trying to minister to them or trying to impress them? True prophecy is revealing God and God's plans and purposes in the person's life (1 Corinthians 14:6, Gal 1:12). The Holy Spirit and the prophetic word testify of Jesus (John 15:26). Our purpose in prophetic ministry is to point the person to Jesus, not to ourselves.
We don't need to convince people that we are a great prophet or a powerful speaker. We merely need to point them to Jesus.. to toot His horn instead of trying to toot our own horns.
One way we can judge our motives (after all it is sometimes hard to be truly honest with ourselves) is to examine where the focus of our attention is. It is on ourself and our own agenda, or is it on God and His agenda?
Here is one simple test:
Are you be willing to look unimpressive and deliver a generic prophecy such as "God really loves you. He knows you have been through a difficult and painful relationship and He desires to bring His healing and His grace to you .. He values you and has a good plan for your life."
Or is it important to share all the details even if it would embarrass the person? (Such as: you are having marital problems and your wife is threatening to leave you, or your teenage daughter has a substance abuse problem and is prostituting herself.)
If we need to let everyone know we are getting an accurate word of knowledge (even though it could embarrass or devastate the person), then we are not ministering in love. Instead, we are ministering in pride and self-promotion. And we have made our own personal agenda (impressing folks with our ability to hear God) more important than God's agenda of ministering to, healing and restoring this person. We are causing the person to erect walls of defense and self-protection rather than helping them open up to God's healing touch. This type of thing grieves the Holy Spirit and hurts the person we are supposed to be ministering to.
Who Is The One Being Edified (Yourself Or The One You Are Ministering To)?
First we must have right motives, and then we can translate those right motives into right actions.
Our motive should be to breathe the life of God into the person, to build them up in their faith, and to draw them closer to God. Our motive is also to encourage, exhort and comfort the person. (1 Corinthians 14:3)
We must be careful about ministering to feel good about ourselves.. or to try to make the person depend on us ("they need me") instead of drawing them to go boldly and directly to God. Do we need to feel that we "did good"? Do we find ourselves thinking things like "I did great.. look at all the powerful words I gave" or "Look at all those accurate words of knowledge I got.." These are dangerous motives that can lead to hurtful or inappropriate ministry.
At this point, let me say that is is perfectly natural and acceptable to be delighted and excited when God uses us to minister. We are to enjoy participating with Him in ministry.. it is His plan for us.. He choose to use us to minister instead of doing it without us because He likes to involve us. He enjoys watching our delight as He moves powerfully through us to minister to another.
But our posture is to be that God is the one being exalted, that we recognize that He is the one who is making this ministry happen and that we give Him all the credit/glory for what He does. Just as the believer shares the good news, but the Holy Spirit convicts and converts the heart, likewise we share His words prophetically, but the Holy Spirit bears witness to them and breathes His life into the person. We are allowed to cooperate with God to advance His kingdom, but He supplies the direction and the power and the anointing. Our motive must be to worship and serve Him, to obey as He directs. It must not be to do something important or impressive or powerful for the sake of wielding that power. Our focus and attention must be on the person to whom God is ministering .. and we must draw their attention to God and not to ourselves.
Closing With A Good Example
One time I was on the ministry team of a prophet, ministering at a woman's rehabilitation home. This prophet would sort of combine preaching with personal prophetic ministry. She would preach for a bit, then give a person a word, and then preach some more and then give another word. Her words were accurate and life-breathing. (Now at this particular rehab center, it was against the rules for pregnant women to participate. One lady had been a prostitute and left the streets and drugs to come to this rehab home. She did not know she was pregnant when she started the two month program.. and was now a few weeks into her program. She had recently accepted Christ and God was beginning to remold and heal her self-image. Earlier that same day, she found that she was pregnant. She was feeling very bad about herself.. after all that child was the product of her former life as a prostitute and she did not even know who the father was. She was in danger of being kicked out of the program if the other woman found out that she was expecting. And she felt really bad about herself as an unwed mother, dirty and unclean.)
The prophet happened to pick this woman out of the crowd and saw the situation. But she did not say anything over the microphone... just gave her a simple and encouraging word about God making her accepted in the beloved ... that she was no longer under condemnation.. she was now pure and clean and holy.
Then there was an altar call followed by a time of open ministry.. anyone who wanted to could come forward and receive prayer. A team was there to pray for and prophesy over those who came forward. During this time, the prophet made her way to this woman. She privately told her.. "the thing growing inside of you is of God." If anyone had overheard the comment, they would not know what she was talking about.. but the woman knew. A release came on her and instead of feeling dirty and unclean, she began to feel redeemed and holy and pure. The Holy Spirit ministered so deeply to her, the shame broke off of her and she was able to begin to love and desire that unborn child.
This prophet was motivated by love and her agenda was to do with God what He was doing. She did not build herself up by delivering a spectacular word of knowledge or by promoting herself. As a result, God was able to do such a deep and healing work in the pregnant woman's heart.
And that is how we are supposed to minister.
Pulling Their Pants Down In Public
Revealing Too Much
I Cor 14:1-3,12 says: Follow after love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you might prophesy. For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not to men, but to God: because no one can understand him, however in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he that prophesies speaks to men to edify, and to exhort, and to comfort. ... Even so you, insomuch as you are zealous for spiritual gifts, seek that you might excel in edifying the church.
The goal of those moving in the prophetic is to edify, exhort and comfort. It is to build people up in God and to encourage them in their faith and in their relationship with God. Here is the pattern for new testament prophets, taken from the lives of Judas and Silas from Acts 15:32:
Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers.
Philippians 2:1-4, encourages us to move in Christ's love and comfort, from a heart of tenderness and compassion, not from selfish ambition or vain conceit. We are to minister in humility, and not to look to our own interests but to the interests of others. This posture in ministry is one that draws people to God, that helps them open to His good touch in their lives. It encourages and motivates them to move into the fullness of all God has for them.
This type of ministry does not embarrass or humiliate the person. It does not evoke terror or dread in them... they should not be made afraid of coming to their loving Father, who has good gifts for them (Matt 7:11). Rather, they should be encouraged to "draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. [To] hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." (Heb 10:22-23). Our role in this is to "consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. ... let us encourage one another... " (Heb 10:24-25)
All of us have some form of weakness in our lives that we struggle with.. it is part of being human.. none of us here on earth have been transformed fully into the likeness of Christ... so none of us are perfect. For some who are very aware of their own imperfections, prophetic ministry can be frightening. They believe the prophet can see the secret weaknesses or sins that they struggle with. And sometimes the prophetic minister can see it, but that does not mean that he/she is supposed to expose it.
There are some prophets that do "minister" this way ... who publicly expose and embarrass people. This is NOT God's heart of how to minister. God wants to draw His children unto Himself, to encourage and strengthen them.. to build them up. The person waiting for prophetic ministry should NOT be made to wonder if God is going to say something terrible about them.. they should not have to be afraid that He is going to reveal all of their dirt for everyone to see. This leaves the person feeling vulnerable and frightened. It makes their guard go up, leaving them leery and less able to receive from God's hand. And some do not come at all because they don't want to risk being unduly embarrassed or humiliated.
God does not intend for us to minister that way.. He does not intend for us to frighten or embarrass those He wants to speak to. It is important that when we are ministering prophetically, we do all that we can to make the ministry safe and loving. It is to encourage them and build them up, not to tear them down and humiliate them.
Learning By Example (By Bad Examples)
I was at a meeting where the prophet would call people up front and minister to them over the microphone. He had a tendency to expose quite a bit more than was appropriate. For instance, he called one couple up. He began to speak words of encouragement over the wife and to praise her for her patience and endurance in a difficult family situation. Then he began tell her that her husband (who as standing right next to her as she received the word) was a difficult man to live with, that he gets angry easily, that he is demanding and unloving, puts her down and .. well, you get the picture. How would you like to be that husband standing in front of the whole church and being talked about this way? This type of "ministry" does not help the marriage or the relationship, it embarrassed both parties and made a difficult home situation public knowledge. The prophet went on his way, but that couple had to come back to the same church the following Sunday.. where everyone now knew about the stress in their relationship.
This same prophet called another woman up and shared over the microphone that she was struggling with depression and contemplating suicide. Somehow I don't believe that built her up or edified her very much.
Another prophet also liked to expose more than he should. He had a favorite saying, "Let's just lift the covers up a bit and take a peek." Then he would go on to expose their secret struggles or sins and then he would pray for them deliverance style. One time he ministered to a group of leaders from my former church (all godly and committed people). Many were exposed and had "spectacular" deliverances as he "ministered" to them. Some were huddled in little balls on the ground crying and shaking. About six months later, this prophet was in the area again. He was again invited to minister to the same group of leaders. As it turned out, some of the leaders did not want to come back and receive ministry from him again. In fact, a few of them, to this very day, remain somewhat leery of the prophetic. Those who did go to him the second time had pretty much the same sins/shortcomings exposed again. And they were once again "delivered" of the same stuff they had been delivered of the last time. This is not ministering under God's Spirit -- it is emotional manipulation. And it did not produce any lasting fruit in their lives.
Do Not Manipulate
God sends us to encourage and build up, not to manipulate people or play with their emotions. We may see a weakness when speaking over them, but do not dwell on this. Instead, dwell on the strengths and purposes God has for that person. We are to minister God's life, the person is to be encouraged and built up, edified, motivated to walk after God (to open themselves to God's good and healing touch). For God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Heb 11:6). And part of our job is to encourage them to diligently seek (and find) Him.
Do not embarrass the person or put the person into an awkward position. Model God's goodness and grace as you minister. Help them to open to God instead of erecting barriers of self-protection and defense.
When people watch you minister to someone, they should see the love of Christ flowing forth (1 Cor 13 teaches that we are to prophesy in love). As they watch you minister to someone, hope and encouragement should build up in their own heart.. so that they are eager for their word instead of feeling fearful or worried about what you might say/expose. We are to be kind to one another at all times (Eph 4:32), including when we are doing ministry.
Appropriate Levels Of Exposing
Having said all of this, there may occasionally be times where we are called on to deal with and expose something. This does not mean that every grisly detail has to be laid bare for all to see. Sometimes we can make vague references to a situation, and it will be enough to convict the person's heart and lead them to repentance.
The goal in "exposing" is not to embarrass the person. It is not to impress others with the level of detail you know about someone's secret sin. The goal is to help the person repent and turn back to God and be restored. So we must exercise care in exposing. We must not destroy the person or force a scenario where there is no room for restoration.
Sometimes we can use generalities that speak specifically to someone, but are meaningless to everyone else. For instance, one prophet friend of mine had to rebuke a person for sexually abusing a young boy .. the offense took place in a dark room with the curtains drawn. The rebuke was given in a public setting but in a private way. The prophet spoke these words "Don't think that God did not see what happened in that dark room with the curtains drawn. He knows what happened there, and He is calling you back to Him. Turn back, turn back."
One time in a presbytery, the Lord was encouraging a person who really had a heart after God, but who continued to fall prey over and over to the same besetting sin. The man knew precisely what his sin was. The prophet first gave him many promises and encouragements. Then he said something like, "There is a large stone in your path.. a boulder that seems impassable. You have taken a chisel and chipped at it and chipped at it .. but it is too large for you to overcome on your own. You have wondered if this obstruction will ever be removed from your path. And the Lord wants you to know that even right now, He is removing that boulder and taking it out of your way." The man knew the boulder was the besetting sin.. and the Lord empowered him to turn it over to God and once and for all be free of it. No one else listening had a clue of what was going on.. nor did they need to know. But God ministered powerfully to that man and set him free.
Let's examine a real-life situation from the bible where Nathan had to expose sin and bring correction to King David. This is found in 2 Samuel 12. We know that David was a man after God's heart. Yet David had sinned (committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband Uriah). We know that "this thing David had done displeased the Lord." (2 Samuel 11:27) As a result, David's heart was separated from God and he was out of relationship with God. And David had committed some pretty serious offenses (murder, adultery, etc). So God sent a prophet to deal with him.
Yet Nathan did not publicly proclaim the king's offense and cry out against him. He did not stand on the street corner and preach against the king.. instead he went directly to the king. We cannot tell, from the passage, whether Nathan's words fell ONLY on David's ears. They may have been delivered in court, where others could hear as well. But we do know that Nathan got as close to a private audience with the king as he could. We know that his intent was to convict/restore David, not to publicly condemn or embarrass him. David, when confronted with his sin, immediately repented (2 Samuel 12:13). To which the prophet immediately proclaimed restoration "The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die."
The purpose of Nathan's ministry was not to expose David's sin to all in the kingdom... it was to restore David to right relationship with God. He limited the scope of the rebuke to a need-to-know basis; he did not broadcast it publicly. And that gave room for David to repent and be restored.
Closing With A Good Example
A prophet friend of mine came to my area to do some ministry. There was a man who had a heart for God, but who was living in sin.. unfaithful to his wife. I knew of this situation, but did not share it with her. She met the man before a meeting and God told her all. She pulled me aside and told me how much she disliked his behavior and decisions, based on what God had shown her. She proceeded to accurately describe his family situation to me. She did not tell me anything I did not already know, from natural knowledge, as I was close to the family. She had accurately seen this man's sin.
The meeting became one of those meetings where God had a word for everyone who was present. When it came time for her to give a word to this man, I braced myself, expecting a rebuke. But she did not deliver a rebuke. Instead, she told him what the desires of his heart were, and how God would give them to him as he made right choices before the Lord. She invited him into deeper intimacy with God, holiness, and invited him to make a commitment to walk in His ways. It was a positive and uplifting word, but there was a clear choice presented to him. He had to explicitly choose God's way. Now she knew and he knew and I knew what that choice entailed.. part of it was to stop being unfaithful to his wife and to repent and walk in holiness before God. Very few others in the room had a clue about this situation, and she never spelled it out for them. She never specified what that choice was, but he knew.. and when she mentioned the word choice, his eyes narrowed and he got an ugly expression on his face. He later told me "She had me pegged and I did not like it." He understood what was going on and the choice being set before him. Sadly to say, he made a bad choice and continued to be unfaithful. His wife divorced him and his family fell apart and he does not appear to be walking in the desires of his heart.
Even in a case where the rebuke was well deserved, it was delivered in a gentle and positive way, where there was much hope of restoration and where he was not publicly humiliated. This prophet did not pull the man's pants down to publicly expose his nakedness (sin) before the whole body. She did not reveal more than she had to.
She ministered in love, looking towards a restoration. And that is how we should minister too.
Beating Them With a Stick (rebuking)
2 Tim 3:16 to 4:2 says: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction.
This is a passage on teaching and rebuking. Note that it is given to a pastor, who is in relationship with his flock and who is lovingly and carefully watching over them. Rebukes and correction are not given lightly, but "with great patience and careful instruction" and also with encouragement.
These instructions were given to Timothy, as a pastor, not as a prophet. And the rebuke is to come not from a prophetic source, but using scripture. In the New Testament, the role of rebuking and correcting falls primarily to the pastors and apostles. Why is it that so many current-day prophets think their job is to rebuke and sometimes to harshly correct?
The Bible makes it pretty clear that the role of prophecy is to "strengthen, encourage and comfort" (1 Cor 14:3) and to "edify the church" (1 Cor 14:4). The words "rebuke" and "correct" are not in this list of things that New Testament prophecy is supposed to accomplish on a regular basis.
In the Old Testament, prophets did bring correction, rebuke and even warnings of impending judgement... in fact this pattern is repeated over and over.. Noah, Jeremiah, Jonah, Ezekiel, and on and on... But even in this there was room for repentance and healing. The city of Nineveh repented and judgement was adverted (Jonah 3:7-10). God told Hezekiah that he would die, but then extended his life after he cried out to God (2 Kings 20:1-6). Over and over God said though His prophets "turn to me and repent, and I will repent of the judgement I was about to bring on you..." (Jeremiah 18:8, Jeremiah 26:3, Jeremiah 26:13, Jeremiah 42:10, Exodus 32:12, just to name a few). So God's intent of Old Testament rebuking/judgement prophecy was not to condemn, but to cause a turning of the people back to Him... to win their hearts back to His ways.
Rebuke and correction is not a regular aspect of New Testament prophecy. In fact, these types of operations usually fell to the apostles and leaders (who planted the churches in the first place. We see this frequently with Paul, particularly in his interactions with the Corinthians). The role of correction and rebuking also fell on those who were appointed to care for and oversee and pastor these churches, e.g. Timothy and Titus (2 Tim 2:14, Titus 1:9, 2:6, 2:15).
I am not saying that God NEVER uses New Testament prophets to warn, rebuke or correct. But this is not their common role. That type of assignment typically goes to those who are very mature in the office or to ones who are in some sort of relationship with the one who is being corrected. And when God does use modern-day prophets to correct/rebuke, it is not usually in a harsh and condemning way, but in a loving way a that turns the person back to God and helps them align that area of their life with God's perfect will for them.
Learning By Example (By A Bad Example)
One Sunday a woman visited my church. She used to be very close to my pastor but had not seen him in over 10 years. She and her husband were in the area and stopped to visit her old pastor (my current pastor). Of course, he was delighted to see her. He took a small group of us out to lunch with this woman. She recognized my name from the various internet writings I had done and sort of felt as though she knew me. I had never heard of her before, and did not feel like I knew her. We were in a group setting, so we hardly had any time to converse with each other. We spent less than 10 minutes talking to each other.
The next day, I received an email from her... a "prophetic" rebuke. God had apparently shown her that I was in rebellion to my pastors. She accused me of everything from having a bad relationship with my husband (who she had not even met) to not being able to hear God's voice to being unsubmissive and in rebellion against my pastors. (In reality, I have a very good understanding of biblical submission to God appointed authority, and I teach and walk in it. Also, I happen to be in good relationship with my pastors. In fact, I really LIKE them and I am very comfortable with them. They appear to like me too <smile>.)
She had obtained this "revelation" about me from a combination of "hearing God" speak to her about me during the service and watching me at church. She did not pray for me or even pray about it. Instead, she wasted no time to send me this "rebuke from God" ... the email arrived less than 24 hours after our brief meeting.
This woman believes she moves in some level of the prophetic. She thinks that God's purpose in bringing us together those few brief moments was so that God could rebuke me through her. Unfortunately, this is not the biblical model. As stated earlier, rebuke usually comes from pastors, not prophets. And it usually comes from people with whom we have a caring relationship, not from total strangers.
Driving A Heavy Truck Over A Weak Bridge
What this woman did was inappropriate. She made some incorrect assumptions about me (or judged me). Then she proceeded to deliver these judgements to me in the guise of a prophetic rebuke.. she did not have a relationship with me. She had no authority or permission to speak into my life. I did not know her well enough to value her inputs or to believe she cared at all about me.
When God desires to bring correction, He typically does it from someone who the person is in relationship with, not from a total stranger. And it is typically done in a non-condemning manner that breathes life into the hearer and moves them towards restoration.
What she did was to attempt to drive a "five ton truck of correction over a one ton bridge of relationship." That does not work.
Judge Not
We should take care not to judge those around us (Romans 14:13) .. for Judgement belongs to the Lord. In fact, the Bible directs us not to judge one another but rather to judge ourselves (1 Cor 11:31). Moving in the prophetic does not give us a license to violate the principles that are clearly set forth in scripture.
There are times when we, in a nonjudgmental way, need to warn or rebuke our friends. We might have a dear friend who is making some bad or hurtful decisions. We may want to talk to them because we love them, to warn them of the consequences of their actions and to help them to get back on the right path. This is ok, this is part of relationship and body ministry. But it is done in love and compassion and out of a mutual relationship.. where we have earned an authority to speak into this friend's life. This is not about prophetic correction, this is about walking together in a loving relationship.
There are times that we, in the prophetic, can see the weakness or sin in a person's life. That does not mean we are to reveal it to them or to condemn them or bawl them out for it. I once heard a story about Bill Hamon that has really stuck with me...
Bill was training a woman to move in the prophetic and she was ministering with him in a prayer line. Each person that came up had some sort of sin or failure in their life and she saw it under the prophetic anointing. She noticed that Bill was giving encouraging and edifying words, and so she said nothing. After several people had been ministered to, Bill took her to the side and asked her why she was not giving words. She explained that she was seeing their sin and dirt.
"Oh," Bill replied, "I see that too. But they are still God's children and He loves them dearly and He usually finds something nice to say to each one. So I ask Him what He wants to tell each one and that is what I tell them."
Sometimes God Reveals To Intercede, Not To Deliver A Rebuke
Also, there are times that God shows us things so that we can intercede or pray for the person. He does not intend for us to talk to them about it.. but to talk to Him about it on their behalf. Eph 6:18 encourages us to be constantly and continuously in prayer and intercession for our brothers and sisters and "watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints." Sometimes God shows us things so that we can pray for them.
When God shows you something negative about someone, do ask Him **WHY** He is showing that to you. Chances are that He just wants you to watch and pray for them. He may not want you to confront them with that information.
If it turns out that He does want you to talk to them, then you need to discern His timing. Often He will show you something in advance and have you pray and intercede as He prepares their heart. Then, at a later time He will open the door for you to talk to them. If God does open a door for you to talk to the person, you might want to try a subtle approach instead of a "thus sayeth the Lord". Go with a heart and attitude to help them, not to put them on the defensive or to accuse them.
One time I was on the ministry team at an inner healing conference at my church. As I sat in my chair, the Lord showed me this particular woman, and showed me how she was bent over and crippled with bitterness and unforgiveness. Now in God's economy that is clearly sin. This was someone I knew and liked.. and I found myself repelled by seeing this sin on her. I wondered why God has shown this to me... but decided not to discuss it with her until God discussed it more clearly with me. I am afraid I did not handle this revelation well.. I felt appalled by what I had seen on her and I avoided her the rest of the day. I guess I judged her without meaning to.
That night, during my quiet time, the Lord rebuked me and showed me that I was to intercede for her. So I spent a lot of time praying for her that night. The next day, I ended up ministering to her. She had come up about something specific that had nothing to do with addressing the bitterness she carried. I assumed this was the time to address what God had revealed to me.. but He stopped me. He told me "not now." So I dealt with the issue she came up for and did not address the bitterness during the ministry time.
I did continue to intercede for her on and off over the next month.. As it turns out, about a month after the conference, a friend of hers was praying with her. The bitterness came up.. she saw it, repented of it, addressed it and became free of it. I never did get to minister to her about it nor did I get to tell her that I had seen it on her... but God did address it in precisely the right way at precisely the right time.
The point of this story is to share that sometimes God shows us things just to have us pray about them, not to have us address them.
Closing With A Good Example
I would like to briefly share about receiving the first corrective word I ever received. The Lord began to speak to me and prepare my heart hours before the prophet spoke to me. He stirred my heart that I was not walking in the fullness of what He had for me.. that I had been disqualifying myself and holding myself back. I could see this as He spoke to me and I found myself praying and asking Him to change me. He was already stirring my heart towards repentance in this area that needed to be changed.
Later that day, a prophet from the east coast called me.. we had never talked to each other before, but we had been trying to touch base on something related to the prophetic-school for several days. Over the course of the conversation, the Lord gave her a word for me. She asked me if she could share it with me. I said yes.
She then, in a very natural and conversational style, shared how God had a call and a plan and a purpose on my life. She shared how every time He tried to raise me up or thrust me forth, I tended to disqualify myself. She shared that I needed to settle within myself that God had called me and I had to choose to go with Him. She said that I could not advance in God's plans and purposes for my life until I settled this matter. Then she shared some examples from her own life of similar struggles she had gone through and how God helped her to overcome them. She built all kinds of hope in me about correcting this situation and moving on with God.. that He had a call on my life and good plans for me. She ministered in such a gentle and loving way that it took me about 10 minutes to realize I was being corrected. I never once felt judged, rebuked, condemned or put down.
After she was done, I asked her if what I had received was a corrective word. (I was not sure if it was because I felt so encouraged and built up by it.. I felt God breathing His life and hope into me.) She explained that it was a corrective word, and the purpose of God's correction is to restore and breathe life and put us back into the center of where we belong.. it is never to tear us down or make us feel terrible or scare us away from God.
Then she did something that really surprised me.. she offered to walk along side of me and help me to come to victory in this area of my life. She made herself available to help me, to answer questions and to encourage me. It took me about a month to really settle this within myself and to stop disqualifying myself (e.g., to stop fighting God when He tried to use me). But even after that was settled, we stayed in relationship. We are still friends today.
Conclusion
You see, when God sends a prophet to correct, He usually sends that prophet to help and assist the person to get and remain in the center of God's perfect will for them. When He sends His prophet with correction, He usually sends them with love, mentoring and support and encouragement. If God sends us to prophetically rebuke someone, then we had better be prepared to walk along side of that person, to be in relationship with them, and to help them walk into the fullness of what He is calling them into.
If God sends us to prophetically rebuke, He will also send us to build and deposit into that person's life. That means we will probably have to enter into some sort of relationship with that person and to give of ourselves to them. Think about that the next time you are eager to deliver a rebuke. Understand all that goes along with the rebuke and make sure you are willing to do so, and to do so from a right heart... in love and gentleness, building and encouraging the person back into the center of God's will for them.
Tell Them No Lies
(Adding-To and/or Fabricating Prophetic Words)
Prov 30:5-6 says: Every word of God is flawless; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, or He will rebuke you and prove you a liar.Deut 12:32 says: See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.
Rev 22 ends with a strong warning against adding to or subtracting from that prophetic word. Rev 22:18-19 says "Warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
From these scriptures, we see that God is serious here. He insists that we accurately represent Him when we speak for Him (or prophesy). The delivery of a prophetic word is not the place to exercise our creative skills (2 Peter 1:20). Instead, prophecy is the place to clearly and accurately reflect what God wants to communicate (2 Peter 1:21).
There are many ways that a prophet can misrepresent God..
One way is to tell the person what you believe they want to hear. This may please and bless the person tremendously at the moment, but it can really hurt them in the long run. It may confirm to the person to continue on a wrong path they are taking. (Perhaps the person is in besetting sin or willful disobedience and we tell them that God is pleased with them and does not want them to change anything their life. But in reality, God wants them to turn and walk in holiness so that they can begin to fulfill the call on their life.) Or telling them what they want to hear may steer them away from God's plan for them into the wrong thing.
If we speak something God is not speaking, this is false prophecy, and this makes the Lord very angry. God addresses this type of false prophecy in Ezekiel 14:7-11. He says that if we tell someone what they want to hear when He is not speaking that to them, He will hold us accountable... we will become guilty in the Lord's eyes for any ensuing sin that results in their life.. This is serious stuff!
Another form of this is to give someone grandiose words. A grandiose word is where you paint a bigger (more grand) calling or anointing on the person's life than God really has for them. It may seem exciting and wonderful to the person at the time, but the long term fruit of that type of thing is disillusionment and discouragement. If you get them looking towards things God has not called them to do, then they may not want to do what God really has called them to do because it is not as "exciting" or does not sound as "important" to them. (This is like the story of a backwoods Ozarks family... they were dirt poor but were perfectly happy and content with their lives.. they had never known anything else.. this was normal life to them. Then one day, someone brought them a Sears mail order catalog.. They looked at the catalog and realized all the things they did not have. They began to covet these things and they became really discontent and unhappy because they could not have them. Nothing changed.. but the catalog moved them from being happy and content to being downright miserable.)
Let's NOT do this to someone spiritually. Yes, prophecy is to encourage and exhort (1 Cor 14:3). And yes, grandiose words tend to encourage and exhort for a season.. until the person realizes this word is not being fulfilled in their life. But prophetic words must be truthful.. because Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev 19:10) and He is truth (John 10:10). God would never speak anything but truth, and we are not to prophesy anything except what God is saying.
False words will not come to pass in a person's life.. God fulfills the words He has spoken, not ones the "prophet" fabricates. The person may look forward to these wonderful promises (full time ministry, international travel, prophet to the nations, etc) for a season.. but will eventually become disappointed when they never come to pass in their lives. Let's be careful to never do that to someone.
Learning By Example (by a bad example)
A friend of mine is the leader of a large international ministry. She is a prophet herself. She attended a meeting where another prophet was preaching and ministering. Near the end of the meeting, the prophet called her and one other lady up. He "ministered" to other lady first... he told her that she was defeated and depressed and said God wanted to fill her with His joy. He began trying to get her to laugh. She was not responding to his "ministry." The prophet kept telling her that the joy of the Lord was going to fall on her when he touched her.. then he'd pray in tongues and touch her.. but nothing happened.. she just stood there. He did this over and over. Still, nothing happened.
My friend could feel the anointing lift as this continued. He must have done this for over 10 minutes.. she began to feel sorry for the lady. My friend was standing up front right next to her the whole time. She began to pray silently, "Lord, I don't think I like him. Please don't let him minister to me."
After about 10 minutes or so, the prophet said into the microphone.. "By the way, you can all go home now. The meeting is over." He left my friend standing up there. (He knew the anointing had lifted and he did not want to minister to anyone else.)
Then the pastor of the church got up and told the congregation that anyone who wanted prayer could come forward and this prophet would pray for them. The prophet took off his cordless microphone and made his way to where my friend happened to still be standing. He asked her what she wanted prayer for. She did not really want prayer from him.. she had just been left standing there. She decided to be gracious and said she could use some direction from God on a decision she was facing. (She had a staff position open in her ministry and wanted to know who she should promote to fill it. That was what she was thinking of when she said "direction".) The prophet took the word "direction" a different way.
First he prayed that God would reveal His will to her and give her the direction she sought. That was fine. If he had stopped there, everything would have been great. But then he tried to minister prophetically, which he should not have done because he knew he was not hearing clearly right then. He told her that she had experienced some failures in her life. (She could not think of any specific failures, but decided she must have had some sometime, as everyone does.) Then he said that these failures were from God and were His way of correcting and disciplining her. "Huh??" she thought to herself.
Then he went on to tell her that God wanted her to be content where she is (in real life God was growing and expanding her ministry). He told her that she should not to try and move forward, but just stay precisely where she is. He said that God's direction for her is to be content with day-to-day life and not to try and move into any sort of ministry. He also said that God's direction for the decision she is seeking Him for is "no." (But she was not seeking Him for a Yes/No decision, but for which person to put into the staff position she had opening up in her ministry.)
This prophet probably felt pressured to give a word when he was not getting one from the Lord. He was in a ministry setting and felt that people expected words. So he fabricated one. To make matters worse, he fabricated a directive word, which is really dangerous. Fortunately my friend was mature enough to recognize that and discard the word, but not all believers would be able to do that. What this prophet did was very dangerous and it was wrong.
Don't Make It Up If You're Not Getting Anything
If you are not hearing from God, then don't make something up. You are more accountable to satisfy God than to satisfy the expectations of those waiting for ministry. Do not let anyone's expectations pressure you into doing something God is not doing. Do not let them pressure you into saying something God is not saying.
If you do not receive something from the Lord, you have some options:
- Minister in a different way.. you might (for instance) pray for the person instead of prophesying to them.
- Just explain that you are not getting anything, apologize briefly and move on.
Either of these approaches are better than fabricating a word when God is not giving one. Personally, I like the first approach better, as at least the person gets some individual ministry that way.. and you can demonstrate to them that you do care about them even if you don't have a word for them.
We can have the best of motives.. truly desiring to minister and serve God and to meet the people's needs. But if we make up words, we might cause a great deal of harm to the person who we are ministering to. Don't fabricate. Look to God. If you don't get something from Him then don't deliver a word.
There is one more area I have to cover in this section. All prophets are human (fallible) and may hear wrong on any given word. I am not discussing that here.. we all make a mistake or "miss it" from time to time. That is why the Holy Spirit bears witness to the person's spirit (Ro 8:16, 1 John 5:6) and confirms words for them. That is why 1 Cor 14:29 admonishes us to judge prophecy. If we sincerely try to minister in truth and obey God, I believe God will provide His grace to cover occasional mistakes.
But we should never deliberately fabricate a word because someone wants one. And we should especially never fabricate a directive word.. we could steer someone away from God's path for them by doing that!
ASK GOD WHAT IS GOING WRONG
You might also want to consider two things when you are ministering and the power/anointing does not seem to be there:
- Ask God if you are doing something other than what He is doing.
- Ask God if you have to get right with Him before continuing to minister.
Let me expand on both of these:
- Ask God if you are doing something other than what He is doing
God might be doing something other than what you are trying to do. You might want to ask Him what He is doing and how you can do it with Him. He might want to take the meeting a whole different way.. maybe He wants to do corporate words or corporate worship instead of individual personal prophecy. Check in with God and ask Him why you are not hearing words and ask Him to show you what He wants to do.
This happened to me one time when I was leading an AOL activation group (an on-line prophetic workshop). Before the session began, I had heard God tell me clearly (or so I thought) that this evening was to be a session to seek God for corporate words and then to build on them. We were getting some words and folks were building on them.. but the evening seemed to be dragging. Some were leaving early. I asked God what was going on and why it was not going all that well.
He replied with a question. He asked me what the theme of the corporate words had been. Most of the words had dealt with people being discouraged and feeling like giving up and God was encouraging them to hold fast, to stand firm and to press in. Some of the words dealt with the enemy falsely accusing and condemning people when God had not condemned them.
"I have shown you their needs," God replied. "Now minister to them."
So I asked the group if anyone was feeling discouraged and/or struggling with condemnation/defeat and I asked if anyone needed prayer for that. There were only one or two in the whole group who did not feel they needed prayer for that.
So we stopped what we were doing and had the group pray for each other.. two at a time. First, we would select two people. The whole group would pray for them and then various ones in the group began to spontaneously have prophetic words for the ones being ministered to. When we finished with them, we would select two more.. and so on until all were prayed for. The Lord's presence seemed to flood the place.. people were being encouraged and coming alive. The joy of the Lord began to prevail and it became an anointed and powerful session. People began to show up out of nowhere to join us and also to receive prayer themselves.. as if God were drawing them in. There was so much power/anointing that we ministered this way for hours and hours.. much longer than our usual session.
Right from the beginning, God wanted to do what we ended up doing... I started in the best of faith, but in the wrong direction. The first thing I tried to do was not what God wanted to do that evening. And it was not working out well. But when I stopped and asked Him what was wrong, He showed me. When we switched to what He really wanted to do, He came with a lot of power and anointing.
- Ask God if you have to get right with Him before continuing to minister
You might have done something (action or attitude) to grieve the Holy Spirit. If ministry is not flowing, pause for a few seconds and silently invite Him to examine your heart with you, to see if there is something you need get right with God. Make whatever correction, if any, He requires and then begin to minister in His anointing.
One time I was part of a ministry team at a renewal meeting. I was praying for someone and God was just beginning to meet them. This really annoying person came up and tried to minister with me. In fact, he pushed me out of the way and took over.. I got offended and left to go minister to someone else. But not much seemed to happen after that... God was not meeting the people after I prayed for them. I stopped and asked God why.. He showed me.
I apologized to God for being offended. Then I asked Him what He wanted me to do next. He sent me back to the person who I had been ministering to when I had been pushed me aside. I apologized to her for leaving her and asked her if I could pray for her again. She said, "Please do."
God showed up powerfully and ministered to her in a very deep way and she experienced a major breakthrough in one area of her life. After that, there was great power and anointing no matter who I prayed for.
God would not anoint me to minister for Him when I had an attitude that displeased Him. I had to stop for a few seconds, check in with Him, then make an attitude adjustment. Then I had to obey what He showed me. After that, He came with His power and anointing.
Don't Manipulate In God's Name
An earlier section dealt with having good intentions but fabricating a word under pressure. That is wrong and is something we should avoid. The motives behind this mistake are not evil, even though the action that results from them is clearly wrong.
There are times when people have self-seeking and impure motives for fabricating words. They desire to manipulate others to do what they want in the guise of "prophetic direction."
Let me share an example of this from 1975.. I was very young in the Lord and totally clueless about the prophetic.
A not-very-well-known healing evangelist/prophet came to town and held a crusade. I was enthralled by watching all of those healings. I became one of his financial supporters. About 6 months later, I got a special delivery letter from this prophet. I was excited and opened it. It said something to the effect of:I had been fasting and praying and seeking God for guidance. He told me that He wanted me to do this particular crusade that costs $10,000. I asked God how He was going to supply the money. He said that He had 10 faithful ones who He had appointed to borrow $1,000 and sacrificially give it to my ministry to fund this crusade. I asked Him who the people are, and you are one of the 10 who He gave me by name. God is directing me to tell you to borrow $1,000 dollars right away and send it to me....I was both flattered and horrified. Imagine being one of 10 who God has specially spoken to him about. Wow. Yet I was a starving college student, and often had days where I did not eat at all because I could not afford to. A thousand dollars was a great deal of money to me. Could God really be asking me to do this?
The next day, I got another special delivery letter from this prophet... it was identical to the first, but addressed to a misspelling of my name. (I knew I was on their mailing list three times.. under three different misspellings of my last name.) This 2nd letter began to raise some suspicions in me.. after all, if God had named me as 1 of 10, how come I was getting two copies of this letter?
Two days later I got a third special delivery letter, under the final misspelling of my name. I realized that this person was probably trying to manipulate me. So I telephoned a friend of mine who had also gone to his meetings and had given him some donations. Sure enough, she had received one of these special delivery letters as well.
I realized I was being conned. It made me so hurt and angry. To this day, I still remember this man's name. And to this day I would still have nothing to do with him or his ministry.
"Prophetic" manipulation makes God very angry. The 2nd chapter of 2nd Peter deals with this. It is too lengthy to include in it's entirety, but here are some of the key points from this passage:
- But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies
- In their greed these will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
- They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done...
- For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
The long and short of it is: Do not try to manipulate people by telling them that God is saying to do something that you want them to do. God does not like this, it makes Him mad. I believe we should shun (avoid) prophets who do this type of thing (Prov 3:7)... avoid them at all cost.
"But Teresa," you say, "this is an open and shut case.. very clear cut. Why are you even dealing with this here.. none of us would ever do that!"
Unfortunately, not all forms of prophetic manipulation are open and shut. There are times when we think we know what is best for a person (maybe a close friend) better then they know for themselves. We may be standing by and watching them make a wrong decision... and we might want to prod them to do the right thing instead. It can be very tempting, in this type of situation to say "God says" when in fact God has not said. We must be careful to avoid doing this.
Closing With An Example
There was a time where I was very tempted to manipulate a friend for her own good. This woman had a clear gifting/calling. God had shown it to me prophetically on more than one occasion. He opened doors for her and she ended up in an important role in a ministry as well as in a leadership role in her own church.
After some time in leadership, she began to come under severe attack. She seemed to be "stressed out" by fairly minor things. I prayed about it and felt God simply wanted her to stand firm. But when she prayed about it, she heard God say to step down from ministry for a season and make her own family her highest priority.
I "knew" she was making a mistake and I tried to encourage her to keep on standing firm. I knew that God had called her, He had gifted/anointed her, and He had placed her in a leadership position in a ministry. It seemed like a terrible mistake to step down from this just because a few day-to-day life pressures were getting to her.
She was not 100% positive she had heard God and said she would consider any prophetic direction the Lord had for her. If God did not give her specific prophetic direction, she was going to go with what she believed she had heard God say to her.
At that point, I was pretty sure I knew what God wanted her to do. It was really tempting to fabricate a prophetic word to help her decide to do what was right. God had not given me a specific word for her, but I had been walking closely with her, praying for her, and I was sure I knew what God wanted for her. I cared about her a great deal and did not want to see her make a mistake and step out of God's call on her life.
I choose to bite my tongue (you have no idea how hard that was for me.. because I really wanted her to do what I believed was the right thing for her). I did not fabricate a word. I allowed her to make her own decision.. and I was so sad the day she told me she went ahead and resigned from her leadership roles.
Then she opened up and began to share some details of her family situation with me... things she had only referred to vaguely and I had not realized the situation was like it was. She had a family member that was struggling with very difficult issues and it was affecting the whole family. The situation was much more intense than I had realized. I began to see that she had in fact heard from God and made the right decision. I was so relieved that I had not tried to manipulate her into doing what I had been so certain was God's will for her. I was wrong and if I had manipulated her (even with the best of intentions), I would have steered her down the wrong path and messed things up tremendously for her and her family.
Conclusion
We must not allow anything to pressure us into saying "Thus sayeth the Lord" when God is not saying it... not our own feelings, attitudes, etc, and not the expectations of others. If God is not saying anything, then we are not to say anything either.
Let me close with one last illustration, which happened about 4 years ago. I had heard all sorts of spectacular things about a prophet named Paul Cain... that he could give detailed and specific words of knowledge and that he really heard from God. One day Paul Cain came to do a series of meetings an hour away from my home. So I went, expecting to see some really outstanding prophetic ministry. That evening Paul got up and preached. He finished and sat down and they started a ministry time with a ministry team.. Paul did not minister there. I was so disappointed. I had driven an hour to see this great prophet, and he did not even prophesy.
As I was driving home, God spoke to me. "Teresa, what did you think of my prophet Paul Cain? I had been looking forward to showing him to you. I am so proud of him."
"Lord," I complained, "he never spoke a single prophetic word..."
"Yes, that is what I am so proud of," The Lord said. "I was not saying anything prophetically, so he did not say anything either. He is a true mouthpiece for Me... he only says what I am saying when I am saying it. That was what I wanted to show you about him."
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