At the International House of Prayer of Kansas City, we believe strongly that God wants to bring forth a company of people who prophesy (Acts 2:17-21). My husband, Kirk Bennett, and I lead the prophecy teams which minister every week at IHOP-KC.  The unique team dynamic that we have created takes the pressure off each team member to come up with 'a word' for each person who enters the rooms for ministry.  It also allows a prophetic synergism to take place, in which team members are able to 'build upon' the ministry of one another to an individual, as the Holy Spirit reveals more.  We are very excited about the anointing that is accompanying us as our teams step out to prophesy in God's kingdom.

 Throughout the Old and New Testaments, there is a thread of revelation by which God makes it clear that He wants to and will raise up a company of prophets.  In Numbers 11:29, Moses says, "Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!"  Moses says this during the time that he is leading the Israelites in the wilderness.  He was overwhelmed by the need of the people to hear the voice of God in their individual situations.  The workload was just too great for one man. 

 In Joel 2:28, a prophecy which is quoted in Acts 2:17, God promises that all shall prophesy: "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions."  Then, in Revelation 10:11, John is given even a stronger command: "And he said to me, 'You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings.'"

 Here we see a progression that is very significant.  Moses says basically, 'I wish all would prophesy.'  Then several times in redemptive history God emphasizes a promise that all shall prophesy, and at the end of the inspired Scripture, commands that there will come a time when we must prophesy.  This is not a peripheral issue in God's heart, but central.  Those who worship Him prophesy.  Those who have the indwelling Spirit prophesy.

  The Communication of the Indwelling Holy Spirit

 The angel in Revelation 19:10 tells John, "Worship God!  For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."  You can't separate prophecy from worship.  When you worship God, the spirit of prophecy is released, and it is the testimony of Jesus Christ, who is God, who dwells within you.  Matthew 10:20 says, "For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."  Often this communication from the Spirit within you begins as a vague impression.  Pay close attention to this.  Ask the Lord about these impressions. Pray about them, and see if you receive more.  Don't discount impressions, for they may lead you into the very counsel of the Lord.   

 Meditate on these impressions and let the Holy Spirit give you more.  Worship God intermittently, with long and loving meditation on the Scripture.  This is how to begin to enter into intimacy with the Lord, and the fruit of this intimacy will release prophetic revelation for you or for others. Intimacy with the Lord is the wellspring out of which the fruit and gifts of the Spirit flow. We have to abide in the Vine, as Jesus says in John 15:5, or we can do nothing.  And we want to be people who walk in the Spirit.  We want to be people who hear from God, who do great exploits and see signs and wonders.  We want to become the message we are speaking.

 The Genuine Voice of the Prophetic

 Intimacy with Jesus is required to carry the heart of one who prophesies.  You can still be accurate in your information through seasons, even if your heart is growing cold and drifting far from the Lord.  King Saul would be an example of this.  He was not pursuing intimacy with God, but the Spirit fell on him, and he prophesied all night (1 Samuel 19:24). We need an up-to-date relationship with the Lord, daily abiding in the Vine.  We are living in a day in which the prophetic and sorcery are evident in the land at the same time. Counterfeit voices are everywhere, espousing lies to lead the unsuspecting astray. We are going hard after the voice of the Lord in this hour, assured that we will hear His voice; as Jesus said, "Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice (Jn. 18:37)."

 Jesus' words always spoke of the Father in heaven.  He was always pointing people to the Father. His words were about the kingdom of God.  Fortune telling and sorcery lead people to the one 'prophesying', drawing people to them and away from God. Prophecy is not self-seeking and it takes dying to self to speak on behalf of the Spirit of the Lord. We must know the difference to discern the genuine voice of the prophetic.

 There are four identities, or paradigms, through which we teach our team members to prophesy.  They are (1) the paradigm of the Son (one who knows God as Father), (2) the paradigm of the friend of the Bridegroom (one who respects and cherishes the Lamb's wife), (3) the paradigm of the priest (one who goes before the Throne on behalf of others), and (4) the paradigm of the forerunner (one who prepares the way of the Lord). 

 The Paradigm of the Son: Knowing God as a Loving Father

 When a person ministers, their ministry is always influenced by their understanding of who God is.  Our knowledge of God always needs to be growing and transforming us.  Knowing that we are beloved of the Father just as Jesus was beloved of the Father is paramount.  Jesus came to testify of the Father. We testify of the Father, just as Jesus did.  If our view of God is harsh, critical, abandoning, or legalistic, our ministry and the way we live our lives will reflect that.  But if we know in our hearts that God is a loving, tender Father and Shepherd who cares for our hearts and enjoys us, we will live and prophesy out of this reality.

 We can look into the reality of Jesus and the Father, how close they were, and their love and intimacy. I look into this relationship, and see no veil between them, and how they always have perfectly clear communication. I love that! I can see reflected in the relationship of the Father and the Son the close communion that the Father desires to have with me.

 You see, I have to know God as the One who wants to be near me, who wants to spend time with me, and who is preparing a place for me.  I have to know that I am beautiful to God before I can see others as beautiful to Him.  This transformation has to happen in our individual lives.

 The Friend of the Bridegroom: Cherishing the Lamb's Wife

 The friend of the Bridegroom identity flows out of the understanding that Jesus is the heavenly Bridegroom, the great Lover of souls who desired to be with us so fervently that He became human and shed His blood on the Cross to purchase us.  The understanding of the bride is important to grasp here.  We are the Lamb's bride, as is each person we minister to, potentially, even if they are not yet saved.  We are speaking to the Lamb's wife when we prophesy. How would you speak to someone's wife?  We want to speak over her the cherishing heart of the Lord.  We must walk in the identity of a friend of the Bridegroom, one who woos her to the Lord, and celebrates her with Him.  There is no place for criticism, judgment, or condemnation.  Rather, she must be made to experience the fact that she is the most important person on His heart, that His banner over her is love, and that He is calling her away with Him. Jesus knew we were called Hephzibah - literally, "my delight is in her" (Is. 62:4).

 The identity of the friend of the Bridegroom was expressed by John the Baptist in John 3:29, when he said, "He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice."  Notice that the prophetic minister is not wooing the bride to himself or his ministry. He is a friend of the Bridegroom.  However, he does stand and listen to the Bridegroom's heart for the bride, and he rejoices over it.  This requires an active listening, a daily listening, in order to develop a heart that moves with the very passions of Jesus.

 The identities of the bride and the friend of the Bridegroom are for each of us.  Each person you prophesy to is the cherished bride of Jesus.   The bride needs daily affection from the King.  She can't live without Him, and He doesn't want a kingdom without her.  He wants her leaning on Him, coming up from the wilderness (SOS 8:5).  We were made to lean on Him, and He wants us to desire Him.  The bride is also progressing in transformation.  She is becoming progressively more and more like her Bridegroom.  In Rev. 21:9, the bride has made herself ready.  Part of this preparation is done when we prophesy to one another.  We encourage, build up and strengthen the heart of the bride.

 As He calls me beautiful and I truly know it, I begin to see others as beautiful!

  The Paradigm of the Priest: Going Before the Throne for Others

 The priestly identity is also woven heavily throughout the Old and New Testaments.  The priest in the Old Testament had the function of coming before God on behalf of the people.  Jesus becomes the great High Priest in the atonement, ever living to make intercession for us, standing before the Father.  Second Chronicles 29:11 is a very powerful verse that describes the priestly function: to stand, to serve, to minister, and to burn before the Lord.  This is a very personal call, as is the call to intimacy.  No one can do this for you.  You must stand.  The Lord desires to hear your voice.  You are the only one who can engage your own heart, and cause it to burn before Him. 

 Revelation 1:6 says Jesus made us kings and priests, or a kingdom of priests, to our God.  In the Old Testament, all the prophets were priests.  They spent hours standing before the Lord and telling Him how good He is.  It was also their job to burn the sacrifice for sin.  I believe this was often difficult for them, and they had to constantly check their hearts.  For example, suppose my family, the Bennetts, came up to the temple to give our yearly atonement for sin, and all we brought were two little pigeons.  I bet there were times the priests had to check their hearts.  Suppose our family was very sinful that year and everyone knew it.  Maybe the priest was tempted to think, "This is all they brought?  They need to bring something more, like a fresh young bull."  I really feel like the priests had to check their hearts when they came before the Lord on behalf of the people, asking themselves, 'Am I judging the people today?'    

 In the same way, being discerning, we discern sin in others.  What is the priestly thing to do?  We have to check our hearts, and go before the Lord in prayer on behalf of them.  We need to ask the Lord why He is showing us this sin.  Most of the time, it is only to pray for them.  Very few times is it for any other reason, and never is it to go to another priest, and say, "Hey, do you know the Bennetts?", and talk about the negative things you see in their lives.  It is difficult for us to understand the weightiness, the solemnity, of the responsibility we have to steward this information righteously.  In the Old Testament, the high priest searched his heart before he entered the Holy of Holies.  He knew the holiness of the Lord could kill him in that place.

 The priest carried a vivid understanding of the sin in the land.  And if they stopped going before the Lord, the kingdom went down.  If the priests became corrupt as Eli's sons, so went the kingdom.  There were also times when the king went to war, ignoring God by not consulting the priests.  It did not go well for the nation.  My point is that being a priest before God on behalf of our families, neighbors, and nations is a weighty and powerful calling.  Like Hannah, you can change a nation by functioning in the priestly anointing before God.  Hannah cried out to the Lord in her barrenness, and He gave her a child, Samuel.  She realized the barrenness of the land was greater than her own, and she gave Samuel to minister to the Lord.  She had endured merciless cruelty from her husband's other wife because she was barren for so long, yet she chose to promise her child to the Lord.  She didn't hold on to him, to gloat or compete.  She was the favorite wife, and doubtless her son would have been the favorite child.  She could have gotten sweet revenge, but this was not the motive of her heart.  What a woman!  That was a priestly act, an act of sacrificial intervention that changed the course of the nation. 

The Paradigm of the Forerunner: Preparing the Way for the Lord

 The fourth identity out of which we function in the prophetic is that of the forerunner.  This is the anointing of John the Baptist, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the Lord.  God says He does nothing without revealing it first to the prophets (Amos 3:7).   The forerunner voice heralds a change of season, such as the second coming of the Lord.  One of the distinctions of the forerunner in the Bible is that this person spends an unusual amount of time alone with the Lord, in solitude.  They separate themselves violently from the norm.  By violently, I mean it takes a focused, deliberate, violent turning away from other things - good things, permissible things - to walk in this reality. 

 We are inundated with so many choices in our society.  We find ourselves wasting hours trying to make choices about things that we do not need, listening to voices that are at best distractions, and at worst, harmful to us.  How do we teach our children to be forerunners?  How do we help them recognize the voice of the Lord within them, and become voices themselves, instead of just echoes of our pop culture?  We have to model the lifestyle of the forerunner, living simply, praying, fasting, and separating ourselves from even the good, to cultivate the only necessary thing.

 I know a mother of four who gets up at 4:30 a.m. to spend hours in her prayer closet before the family wakes.  This is an example of the spiritual violence that Jesus referenced when he was talking about John the Baptist.  It is violent on the flesh.  This woman separates herself in order to cry out to God, and to hear from Him, as it says in Hosea 2:14, "I will lead her into solitude, and there I will speak to her heart." I love that!

 The forerunner proclaims good news.  It is a happy message.  It is a message that removes the barriers in people's hearts to receiving the truth of the love of the Lord, so that He will be received. It is a voice that, when spoken, will change your life and the world that you live in.  John the Baptist was a joyful man, and his message was extremely powerful and compelling.  He retreated to the deserts, about five hours outside of Judea and Jerusalem, but people came on foot, in the heat, to hear him.  There was a spirit of repentance that accompanied his ministry.  The people repented and were baptized.  And he was a voice that remained steady in the face of persecution.  He prophesied even under the pressure of the Scribes and Pharisees, who spoke strongly against him.

 Joseph as an Example for End-Time Forerunners     

 In the Old Testament, Joseph is an example of the forerunner.  As you know, he had dreams of his own, as a kid - dreams that were truly given him by God.  But he spoke of them, and his brothers hated him for what he revealed about his destiny, and because he was their father's favorite.  They conveniently got rid of him, and he spent his life locked up in prison and in servitude, being prepared.  I don't believe he had any idea that he was going to deliver a nation, and his own family, in the future.  It took years of being shaped and molded, in jail, to make him a deliverer.  We dislike that part of the journey, but it is necessary for the prophet.  Joseph's wilderness was so very long, like King David's.  Both of them were given charge over nations after their wilderness experience.  David was anointed king, and then spent years running for his life from Saul.  Like Joseph, he had prophetic promises.  You know they both had to be crying out to God in their hearts, saying, "What about Your promises?"  And God was saying something like, "Not yet.  More preparation is needed." I also love that!

 I believe Joseph is an especially important example for end-time forerunners.  He was brought before Pharaoh to interpret a dream, and he was under a great deal of pressure.  He could have had his life taken at any moment for practically no reason at all.  He was nothing but a prisoner, a foreigner, and meant nothing to Pharaoh.  But Joseph had nothing to lose, and he spoke by the Spirit of God to Pharaoh.  This is a critical example because some of us are going to be called out of our wilderness to prophesy on the spot to kings and leaders of nations.  We are going to be no-name strangers, and we are going to get to interpret the signs of the times under pressure by the world, inspired by the Spirit of God.  We are in our wilderness now, being prepared, individually and corporately.  I believe the forerunner identity is corporate, as well as individual, and it is for the nations.  

The Values of Intimacy and Accuracy

 When we are speaking of what we value in prophetic ministry, we need also to address the values of accuracy and intimacy.  Prophecy is meant to build up and encourage (Eph. 2:22; I Cor. 14:3).  Although accuracy is highly valued, finely detailed and highly accurate prophetic words are not the "ultimate" goal. We need intimacy as well as accuracy. Both have to work together.  The goal of our prophesying is that people would come into an intimate encounter with the Lord. Intimacy on the part of the prophetic minister brings forth accuracy in their ministry.

 God's heart on this is expressed in Deuteronomy 13:1-5.  "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods' - which you have not known - 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul."

 It is possible to have your heart led astray in the process of receiving a word that is a sign and wonder.  Suppose someone comes to you and really 'reads your mail,' as we say.  They tell you facts about your history, your future, and the secrets of your heart.  But rather than drawing you closer to the heart of God, the encounter leads your attention away from the Lord and you become unduly focused on the person who delivers the word.  Perhaps you come to depend on them in the place of the Lord, or you develop an unholy ambition to attain to their anointing.  It is so important to keep all prophecy in perspective, remembering that we know in part, and we prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:9), and that no prophetic encounter should lead us toward the messenger and away from the Lord.

 At IHOP, we focus on the one thing first (Ps. 27:4); ministry is secondary. Jesus longs for us to know Him and abide in Him (Jn. 15:5). We behold Him, meditate on His goodness, His beauty, His redemption of us. He is the One who sings over us with the voice of the Father, the voice of the King, the voice of the Bridegroom, the voice of the Judge (Zeph. 3:17). We thirst for His affection. His goodness to us is clean, pure, not self-serving or manipulative. This overwhelms us, stuns us, and encourages us. It increases our longing to see His face, our longing for Him to come quickly!

"I love You, Lord, for Your gentle and humble spirit. Come quickly! We desire You, because You desire us. We press our hearts into Your knowledge (Eph. 1:17-19)."