My first ever direct and personal word of prophecy was in 1997. Since then my life has been consistently and powerfully directed and encouraged by prophetic words.
A prophetic word is an encounter with God who knows the future. Sometimes those words tend more towards the general, other times they are closer to words of knowledge but in other cases they actually define a future which you have never imagined before.
Quite simply I love the prophetic. Paul in his letter to Timothy writes “my paraphrase”: “ Take the prophetic word and with it fight.” I always see this as an offensive posture rather than a defensive one. We are not to defend against fear but attack our fear of the future, going on the front foot in sporting terms.
As I write this series on discovering purpose the first two discoveries had to be passion and prophecy. I believe that even if you stopped here that you would have major keys to discovering your purpose.
The prophetic if pursued will literally pull you into the future or pull the future into today, there is an energy attached to it if you will be bold enough to let it. Many of you know that in February 2012 I received a prophetic word which has changed my life, my passions and my dreams. It has at many times made me a little nervous but actually the true prophetic word needs to create some tension or nervousness to shake us out of our complacency or mediocracy and reach for what God says we are called to be and to do.
I encourage you this week to consider the prophetic words over your life and if you don’t have one, get hungry as well as examine the word of God for things which he has said. Let these words make you a little nervous and present them to him as your offering and as you do allow him to tell you the keys to your purpose in life which lie in the prophetic words.
Don’t forget that the key to stepping in to your prophetic purpose lies in embracing the tension between your reality of today in contrast to the prophesied future, if there is no difference then all you have is a good word of knowledge, but if it is clearly different then you have a target to aim your faith at. The tension between the two will cause you to do something, to plan, to pray, to step out or at times to sit and prayerfully wait but a prophetic word pursued always has the capacity to change your life.
