My appointment and endorsement of the role or office of a Prophet, was as often described, by other prophets, throughout the scriptures when prophets were appointed eg, Samuel (1 Samuel 3:4-5) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:4-5).
Yes! That was the audible voice of the Lord Jesus appointed me as a prophet, and Paul describes this in Ephesians 4:11 “And He Himself gave some to be …prophets” NKJ or “He Himself appointed some as.. prophets“ amplified.
I did not want to be a prophet, although the gift of prophecy was prominent in my early years of ministry, for often this created jealousy among fellow Christians because of the accuracy and clarity of His word from this gift, which was a real shame for this gift is meant for the body of Christ, not just one person as we see in (1 Corinthians 12:10).
Those ones who came to me and asked me for forgiveness of their jealousy, often went away with the gift of prophecy after I forgave and prayed for them. This gift did not mean I was a prophet, yet it did begin my walk into the understanding of the prophetic.
It was more than 6 years later before I had the encounter with Jesus and His appointment to be a prophet. In my early years as a prophet, I would not reveal the title, as was not sure how pastors would be with it,or take it. Yet the pastors I were mentoring or helping would introduce me as or call me out as prophet.
It was not until 2-3 years later that the Lord spoken to me and said “I want you to put the word prophet on your card” when I asked do I remove Itinerate pastor, He said “No, as the title pastor will allow you to be able to be welcomed to the pulpit and once there you can speak from your office/ role as a prophet”.
Honestly I still struggle with the role because of the responsibilities. For example the Lord will ask me to speak words to people or a person that I know which carry great weight and importance and the outcome of their choice can have incredible outcome or the opposite.
For example, one morning the Lord asked me to ring a man, He said tell him if he does not take timeout to rest he will be dead in 3 days. So I did as the Lord requested, He decided to take this word seriously and three days later he was in a cafe having coffee, when his watch alerted him his blood pressure was over 200 (as I recall around 250).
Then he remembered the word the Lord had given him and the moment he was obedient to it his blood pressure went down to normal. He rung to say if he had of continued his daily routine with lots of stress, this event would have killed him according to the medical reports.
This type of thing is common but in a variety of ways. This used to worry me a lot, until the Lord taught me my role is to be obedient and deliver His word, If I do not then the consequence was on me, but if I do deliver the word in the way He said then my job is done, the rest is up to the people or person who receiving it.
I have noticed over the years, that His word can come direct or subtle, a good example of this is one morning a few years when the Lord took me to Psalm 127:1 and told me I would be preaching that night on it. I said Lord I have no appointment to preach tonight, He was silent. I was planning to go to a church that invited people off the streets feed them and had a service that night.
When I arrived I met a friend on the sound desk and we organised a catch up lunch the next day. Then went found a space and lay on the ground worshiping. I did notice my friend talking to the pastor but thought nothing of it. Then the pastor got up and introduced me to preach/ speak. I shared the word the Lord gave me and noticed a sense of awe, so prayed and went to my seat.
The next day as I came into the church to meet my friend for lunch, I was met by a big man surrounded by people. He came up to me and said I have heard about you? I commented was it good or bad? Since I was unsure how to answer his comment. He said do you know how important the word you brought last night was? I said I knew it was relevant as the Lord had asked me to bring it and by the face of the pastor when I shared it. He said “we have just received 5 million dollars to rebuild our church after the earthquakes. He continued we have the plans and were ready to start building, until you spoke last night.
It was then we suddenly realised we were going to build what we previously had, which was already out of date for what the Lord was doing in ministry. So we have had to stop everything and go to the Lord and seek Him for what He wants us to build. Thank you for your obedience!
Will you come and help us?
My overall joy of the role of a prophet is equipping the saints for their ministry and watching them grow in strength and wisdom from His word and lead others to relationship with Jesus as they operate within their chosen fields and callings the Lord has appointed them into.
I long for the days as is says in Ephesians 4:13 (NIV) .. we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Amen