Chapter 9: Be Yourself

We prophesy in part. We know in part.
I Corinthians 13:9

The Body will only come to maturity when each does their part.
Ephesians 3:5-7a

Learn to just Be Yourself

We prophesy in part. We know in part. And yet the Body will only come to maturity when each does their part. If each has their own part, then other people may not be able to do their part if you don’t do yours first!—nor could they do the part that you can do—no, they may not even be able to understand it! This means uniqueness is the standard, diversity is the rule and teamwork is therefore fundamental to enabling the Body to be able to be and do all that it is called to.

Furthermore, God once told me he speaks to everyone in their own way and that may be why there can be no universal system of personal prophecy interpretation. There is too much room for personal individuality, but also because God will not allow himself to be reduced to a puzzle or board game and somehow be figured out by Man. His secrets are reserved for those who fear him, he told me, not for those who devise a better system of interpretation.

He will not allow the carnal mind or his enemies for that matter to ‘figure him out’ and actively resists people doing so. This means even if there are aspects of prophecy that are familiar and comfortable there will always be an element of mystery, an unknown factor, something confusing that we must stop and ask him to explain to us himself. Prophecy is revealing the Mind of the Divine, so far above the realm of human thoughts—what else would we expect?! People often get frustrated by this but I think it’s best to just accept it, stay humble, stay connected to the Vine and when you have any questions especially in personal prophecy, just keep telling him “I don’t understand but Lord, you know. I will ask and you will teach me.”

And what this means ultimately is that no two prophets are going to be the same—no two humans are the same either, but when you develop your soul and spirit by rich interaction with the Holy Spirit your uniqueness increases all the more. No two prophets are the same. So you may have people you look up to, people you admire in the Lord’s service and want to be like and sure, they rub off on you, anointing is transferable to a degree, but ultimately you must be your own voice, carry your own mantle, be authentic in your own life and ministry to the Lord. You must learn to simply be yourself.

Grace means Strength—it means the Anointing!

When God taught me about the Kingdom and the real ministries of the Holy Spirit that enable people to walk in it from Isaiah 61, I saw how woefully inadequate the modern church is from a ministry standpoint. It is not only one thing that ails the modern church but a series of failures of so many areas and on so many levels. So I began to explain my insight by comparing the church to a salad.

The Holy Spirit pours grace—anointing—out to the church to meet every need she can have. These graces or flows of strength from God to Man are what is behind every functioning ministry. The Kingdom is not a matter of logos but of dunamis. God makes all grace abound to us so we, having all we need at all times, can abound to do every good work. So see to it that no one misses the grace of God and no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Paul was not boasting of his own strength when he said, ‘I worked harder than all of them; yet it was not I but the grace of God what was WITH me.’ Grace is Paul’s word for the anointing, the enabling power of God to Man to meet every need, give every strength. There is no strength without grace, Jesus actually told me. So going boldly to the throne of Grace to find mercy and get help in our time of need makes perfect sense—which when I saw it everything was so yellow and there were so many people there, and Jesus said even if we don’t see it that’s where we are when we are seeking strength in any area. He even told me to bring people there! Amen!

So there are many God-ordained ministries, rooted in spiritual gifts often, rooted in the Holy Spirit always, which we receive by an impartation of God’s grace, and which we use to release God’s grace in it’s various forms for the common good. If everyone is allowed to offer the ministry God has given them, the local body will become very healthy, free, whole, wise, funded, delivered, enlightened … But when Man thinks he can improve on God’s methods and substitutes his own ways instead of the ways of the Holy Spirit, we get control not order, we get knowledge without power, and often it’s merely carnal knowledge of God’s word, not even true understanding of Him. Man’s Ways CANNOT produce God’s blessings he told me! The way most people minister in church will NEVER produce his Kingdom.

Religion without Power? Run Away!

We so often find churches which function with only one kind of minister, a pastor, who mostly only teaches. He is also often overseen by a board of directors or denominational guild which scrutinize his messages for adherence to their list of pre-approved doctrines and sermons—he’s accountable to them, and if they don’t like what he says, he gets the boot! He ministers primarily by talking. And without direct prophetic revelation, or rhema, he can only talk on topics Men understand in the Bible, I mean the logos and their own human reasoning of it. Unfortunately the Kingdom is not a matter of talk (logos) but of power (dunamis) and this only comes from having a personal experience or revelation (rhema) of his Living Spirit, which only comes from a flow of grace (charis)—or an angel or something but I mean it must come from a personal interaction with God.

Their services are mostly only held within the church building itself, and only on Sunday from 9 to 10 am let’s say. His pressing need is his funding which comes from the people he’s preaching to, and that also affects the kind of messages he can teach. Some churches do have midweek meetings, pot luck suppers, bake sales and Christmas bazaars. How quaint.

But in truth the real needs of people can never be met this way. This kind of ministry is modeled after man’s universities, social clubs and government programs. It is a form of godliness—but one that denies its power. And 2 Timothy 3:5 actually says from such people as this TURN AWAY. Well, OK, Paul makes a long list of bad attitudes in that verse but ends it by saying there are those who have a form of godliness but deny its power, and from such to turn away. But it is still right what I said. You don’t need to be guilty of every sin on that list to be a problem. And when dealing with the correct operation and administration of a church this is still correct advice. Jesus told me the way most people minister in church will NEVER produce his Kingdom and yes, the Kingdom is not a matter of word (logo) but of power (dunamis), and so the Holy Spirit must 100% be in charge! If you merely talk about the Holy Spirit but never let him manifest, you’re deceiving yourself. From such as these turn away! I have compassion and pity on ministers in this situation, but in fact the carnal mind is an enemy of God and ministers who only operate it are samoka—troublesome, annoying! And they block and insult and offend the Holy Spirit. How can they help their people find God’s readily available provision if they themselves are the ones blocking it? So pray for them—but also stay far away from them!

Salad Days—More than just Onions, I Hope!

The real problem is that the flow of God’s graces in their various forms are not allowed to manifest for the common good, therefore the fruit of those graces is also absent, so the needs those fruit are meant to address are also unmet. Each of these graces gives people a different blessing, a different strength, a different flavor of God’s multifaceted provision—be it healing, deliverance, prophecy, wisdom, emotional power, the development of Christ-like character, etc., etc., etc. These things cannot come merely by sermons droning on for hour after hour. No, they come by the flow of the live anointing, the flow of living grace. They cannot come by anything Man does without God.

So I compare this to a salad and I’m hungry so I say a good salad needs a lot of different ingredients and I like to add as many things as I can think of! Healing, both physically and emotionally, Intercession, Bible study for kids, Fellowships for moms, Charity clothing collection drives, Coordinated prayer for political leaders, nurses and school teachers, Prophecy in many forms, Soaking, Communion fellowship with the Holy Spirit, Deliverance, Extended times of worship, Youth retreat camps, Music training, Warfare against the power of darkness, witchcraft and sorcery, Prayer walking, Prayer driving, Prayer in any way you can think of it, Outreaches, Evangelism, Holiday celebrations yes, but also through Supernatural ministry training seminars, spending time at least each month for the Laying on hands for pets, cars, wallets … Praying for rain for crops, safety for cops, I can go on and on and don’t really want to stop … that’s nothing like being served a wilted side-salad of old lettuce—but more like having a huge double portion Jumbo Chef’s Salad, one that you have to share with two people as a main course just to hope to finish!

But when you only have one kind of ministry, and its only on Sunday, and it’s only talk, that’s what I think of like having a salad of only sliced onions placed on top of nothing at all.

Not a Matter of Talk, But of Power

The Kingdom of God is an experience, a state of being, it’s a mindset in a way Jesus told me, and it comes not so much from sermons and never through ceremonies, but from the flow of the Holy Spirit through prayer, laying on hands, yes, teachings—but never by the teachings of Man’s Mind or Man’s Ways based only on their reading of the ‘logos’ but actually only by teaching of the revealed ‘rhema’ of God, the living word, the Holy Spirit—We teach what God has revealed to us by the Holy Spirit otherwise we cannot build the Kingdom in people’s hearts. It has to flow from a personal spiritual encounter. This is why Paul was contending with false teachers who were ‘puffed up’ and leading people astray to trust in themselves with ‘fine sounding’ human arguments based on man’s fleshly mind and said—

¹⁹ But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. ²⁰ For the kingdom of God is not in word [logos] but in power [dunamis].

This is why I realized modern churches are so deficient in being able to accomplish the ministry that creates the Kingdom of God within people’s hearts. And I’ll say again, Jesus told me the way most churches minister WILL NEVER produce his Kingdom. Never! And that Man’s Ways cannot produce God’s Blessings.

Do YOUR Part and Let Me Do MY Part

So what this means for us here now is that EVERYONE has to be allowed to DO THEIR PART, to do the things God has empowered them to do. The diversity of ministries is very extensive and the way Men have run the church into the ground has destroyed these ministries across the board. So the graces or anointings they were meant to release to the people for the common good have all been squashed and the fruit is therefore expired as well.

We are dealing here with prophecy and there is an added dimension because prophecy deals directly with revealing the infinite mind of God to the finite attention span of people and how can God ever tell us all he thinks or knows about any one situation, let alone the dozens of situations we face daily? He cannot. His thoughts about you are like the sand on the shore, what about the other 11 people in line you are praying to get a word for? That’s all the sand on the shore times 12! How can God say all he wants to say to any of you? He simply cannot.

So inherently we must prophesy in part. And we can only hope to know, again, in part. This takes on more significance when you see the real breadth of ministries we have been given to meet the needs of God’s people and we realize there is just too much to do, too few people doing it, certainly more than any one person can do on their own.

Ephesians 4 even says that the purpose of the ‘Five-Fold’ is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, not to do it all themselves, and to cause the strengthening (edifying) of the Body unto maturity. And once each is enabled, equipped and allowed to do their part, the Body will grow up and edify itself in love.

¹¹ And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, ¹² for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, ¹⁵ but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—¹⁶ from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

We prophesy in part. We know in part. And yet the Body will only come to maturity as each does its part. So it is imperative that each is equipped and allowed to do their own part.

The Spirit of the Anti-Elbow!

This also means people will tend to specialize and this causes division. The vision by Mitt Jeffords he shared as, “A House Divided Against Itself Shall Not Stand,” is memorable and very key learning here.

He saw a Body covered in small churches at every joint and feature and they were all arguing angrily and finding fault with every other church at every other location angrily accusing them of not being part of the Body … simply because they were different! The elbow was cursing the hip for not being like the elbow and actually saying, “You are possessed with the spirit of the anti-elbow!” And the foot was saying to one of the churches at the knee, “Your purpose is not at all like our purpose; you are possessed with the spirit of the anti-foot.” The eye was insulting the ear likewise saying, “You do not see as we see; you are blinded by the spirit of the anti-eye.”

Since we each have our own part, and we tend to be focused and specialized in what we are called to do, it is hard to see the value of what other people are called and equipped to do sometimes. We may not understand what they are doing, and they are probably not able to understand what we are doing either.

In fact the required diversity of the Body means this kind of infighting mindset will destroy itself if allowed to exist. The church led by the mind of flesh is in real trouble, lest they repent, and we pray and minister so tirelessly in hopes that they will.

I made an analogy above about the salad and said the man who only preaches, only on Sunday, only ministering by talking cannot build the Kingdom. I can only say this because Jesus told me this, otherwise I would be just like him probably, I mean the guy who is only making onion salads, and not even know it. We do need onions in our salads, it is maybe one of the most important ingredients, besides the lettuce, and the kale, and the tomatoes and the dressing. We need Sunday preachers to keep preaching, but never to teach Man’s Mind but always God’s revelation—and what would happen if in addition to preaching they ADDED prophetic prayer ministry, weeknight worship, intermittent intercession, public street preaching and charity collections? We need more kinds of ministers than only pastors, and them only talking, and only talking of Man’s mind, and only talking on Sundays. We need to minister in more places than just inside our church buildings and to more people than only those who come willingly to church to listen. And it must always be God’s rhema of the logos that they talk about!

Therefore that is why I said, uniqueness in the Body is the standard, and diversity of ministries is the rule, and each person must use the gifts they have received from God to release the manifold graces of God into the community for the common good. This means like it or not, elbows need hips, feet need knees and eyes need ears—teamwork is therefore fundamental to the success of our efforts. And yes, we all even need a few onions from time to time, hopefully not to be eaten all by themselves.

Not just ‘the Right Way’ but with ‘the Right Heart’

When God first began teaching me about hearing his voice openly he said he speaks to everyone in their own way. This is frustrating for beginners because they like being taught like they were in high school and want to know ‘how to do it the right way’ … the thing is, in the spirit, there is no ‘right way’—there is mostly only ‘having faith with a right heart.’

In the physical realm you learn how to tie your shoelaces the right way, you learn how to cook an omelet the right way, you are trained how to torque the bolts on an engine head the right way … in the spirit it is not like this. We simply say in faith and confidence, “Shoes, be tied!” or “Omelet, be cooked!” or “Engine bolts be tensioned to 110 foot pounds!” In the spirit there is no one ‘right way’ to do things, it is rather simply based on our faith, confidence and authority, and all we have to know to do is to say in faith, “So Be It!!”

What I mean is we have to think differently when we deal with spiritual things. It is the heart that leans on the Lord that hears him most. Yes, turn off the noise, calm your soul, purify your hearts. But other than that it is not possible to hear him because you ‘do it the right way.’

You’ve already noticed this when laying on hands, praying for deliverance, healing, etc., that which way works best? The one you believe in. If you believe you need to wait an hour for a prophetic word, then you will need to wait for an hour. If you need to fast for a week to get a prophetic word then you will need to fast for a week. If you know God will speak to you if you just quiet yourself down and listen, then all you will have to do is just quiet yourself down and listen.

If you believe you need to anoint someone with frankincense-scented olive oil to heal them, then you will need frankincense-scented olive oil. If you believe you need a team of intercessors to stand around you praying in tongues to heal someone then you will need the team of intercessors standing around you praying in tongues. If you believe Christ in you is enough and you already have the authority and all you need to do is say the word, then all you will need to do is say the word.

Symbolic, Literal or Spiritual?

Consider then that the Bible contains Scriptures some of which are symbolic, some of which are literal, and others which are spiritual or rather supernatural. When ‘mountains break forth in singing’ and ‘trees clap their hands,’ this seems merely symbolic or fanciful, but it is in fact what trees and mountains literally do in heaven. When Jesus said to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he was not being physical-literal, you can say in a way it was symbolic but actually it was spiritual-literal.

People confuse metaphors with literal descriptions of the spiritual reality, and how could they not? How do we know that trees in heaven clap their hands, and that you can walk on water there? It confounds our natural mind and normal experience. And so the Bible is a mixture of literal and symbolic, metaphoric and also spiritual realities that sound too fantastic to be literally true or real, but so often they are real and literally true only they are literally-spiritually true. But how can we know it?

The Holy Spirit is not a bird but fell … like a bird. I saw God one time and he was half on fire, from the waist down and he called out so loudly it shocked me, “I—AM—FIRE!” Oh, he was not ON FIRE, he WAS fire. Rather he IS fire. But clearly he’s not made of wood or paper. There must therefore be a different kind of fire in heaven. “That’s not in the Bible,” someone will say, yet it is, “Our God IS a consuming fire.” I saw the Father another time and he was an elaborate water fountain. I later found twice in Jeremiah where he said the Lord is a fountain or spring of Living Water.

The spiritual is not fanciful, or fantasy—it is reality but not a reality within the limits of the physical world. So we like to call it a spiritual realty. It is confusing! And I won’t pretend otherwise.

Deciphering Spiritual Mysteries—by the Spirit

So in prophecy we deal a lot with deciphering symbolism because there is always an element of mystery when God speaks, of the unknown, of confusion since you prophesy in part and know in part. God variously speaks literally, or with puns, figuratively, or about physical rules of the Earth, and he speaks metaphorically or sometimes about the spiritual reality of heaven openly. It’s really confusing!

But there is no need to panic but just remember you will ALWAYS have to go back and ask God, “I saw a tree, and I think it was like in the psalms, but it was half green and half dead, and I don’t know what it means.” The right way to interpret a prophecy is not by going to a book of dream symbols, as useful as they may be, or looking on-line at www.Dreams-Revealed.com for answers. Is that a real site? It could be, I don’t know—but don’t go there if it is! There is no such ‘right way’ in the natural to do this. We want a code book to look up the symbols from a list and tell us what God means to say to us, but we cannot interpret prophecy this way.

Then how can we interpret a dream? How can we decipher his symbolism? How can we find out if God is speaking literally, symbolically or spiritually? We must learn we can only decipher and we can easily decipher these things BY THE SPIRIT. Interpret by the Spirit … lean not on your own understanding and don’t get caught up looking for a better system of interpretation. That’s great wisdom that Jesus told me.

No! Only Test a Prophecy by the Bible, they Say!

Then someone will always protest and say, “I know what to do! Test a word by the Bible!” Easy! Problem solved!

And it sounds wise, but is it? I’ve said this before and I don’t get tired of saying it so I’ll say it again, people say they are only teaching from the Word of God, so everything they say is correct, but actually they still only teach the version of the Word of God they want to believe, the interpretation they understand, the version they can comprehend. Cults use the Bible, the people who killed Jesus all read the Bible and yes, Satan used the Bible to attack Jesus as well. Jesus also told us that there are so many verses in the Bible you can ALWAYS find a verse to back up whatever you want to say is true. This is however not the correct use of the Scriptures. Everyone with an opinion and verse has their own interpretation of what God prophesies, what it says in the Bible, or what he means with his Word. Just saying you need to use the Bible to test a prophecy sounds helpful and right, and in a way it is, but it is not always as useful as we think it is.

Or people say you need confirmation, so you mean you need to hear it twice? Why? Because Satan can’t lie to you twice? Imagine Abraham about to kill Isaac and the angel shouts, “STOP!” And he says, “Well, that’s one angel yes, but it’s not TWO angels so … guuhhaaa!” Imagine if he stubbornly wanted a second opinion before he stayed his hand? Getting a ‘confirmation’ is not what most people think it is.

Is he a Cheeta’? Or is she Lion?

Or I really like to use the example of the Lion which I think I mentioned before. Let’s say you see a vision of a lion. So what does it refer to? Is it Satan. Is it Jesus? Is this a demon, or bad people, or the strong people of the Lord, or is it you in calm strength, or you in a bad mood? The Bible has about 80 verses that mention lions and it is used to describe the entire range of beings and actors from God on one hand, to the godly, to Jesus, to angels, and the saints, but also to Satan, to demons and evil humans alike. God likes to use puns so it could mean someone is ‘lying’ to you (you know as in he’s ‘lion’ — he is ‘lyin’ to you). A famous example of that is Jeremiah’s almond branch vision by which God meant he was ‘watching’ over his word to perform it. What? Well, in Hebrew ‘almond’ and ‘watching’ are homophones, words that sound alike but actually have different meanings. And lastly the Bible verses sometimes say ‘lion’ because he means literal, physical lions!

So you tell me now, which verse in the Bible will give you the right interpretation of your vision? The answer is none of them will tell you. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. So you must take the vision back to the Lord, yes, you can read the Bible and you may find a verse when you are asking him and that’s probably the right meaning, but it’s still helpful just to ask him, “Lord you know. Teach me. What are you trying to tell me here? Is this the right verse?” He may give you a verse and often does and so yes, use the Bible and ask God to explain the prophecy to you. But without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is a closed book of prophecy and no one can understand its real or correct meaning.

So read the Bible, use the Bible, become familiar with the Bible. God will speak to you through the Bible. But it is by the quickening of the Holy Spirit that he is doing this. So read the Bible but also become more familiar with the leading and voice of the Holy Spirit. Become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Test a prophecy and get confirmation … by the Holy Spirit.

It’s Going to get Personal

And because God speaks to each of us in our own way it also means the way you interpret a prophetic word is largely personal to you since you’re the one who heard it. Yes, there are general trends and some fairly common symbols, especially if they are in the Bible, but there is still a lot of ways you can guess wrong based on basic biblical symbolism. You see a fish being caught, an evil looking snarling lion chasing you, a snake trying to bite you, a scroll being given to you, a sheet filled with all kinds of delicious animals … sometimes the symbolism is pretty obvious, but I think it is never 100% so. God speaks to you in your own way and so God giving the same symbol to you and to your friend can be meant by Him to convey two maybe very different meanings.

So I mean there can be no objective, textbook, universal system of prophetic interpretation—there is really so much room for personal preferences, cultural differences, human idiosyncrasies—and God always likes to mix things up. So no, there is not a universal code book you can use to crack a prophetic message, although there are some common experiences and it may be somewhat safe to sometimes carefully guess at a meaning based on general and somewhat common symbol interpretations occasionally—but that’s a lot of uncertainty—but there is really only one right way to do it every time which is by asking the Holy Spirit and having him tell you the answer. He reserves his secrets for those who fear him. And no, it’s not by going to Amazon and buying ‘The Code Breakers Guide to Dream Symbolism Finally Exposed!’ Even if it is on sale for $19.99.

This is therefore why I say we must interpret any dream or vision or word, how? By the Spirit! Get confirmation, how? By the Spirit. If you don’t know what to do? Ask him? But how? By the Spirit! Just get used to taking everything back to him and sitting quietly in his presence asking, seeking, knocking. Sitting where? By the Spirit.

I really heard God say that he will not allow himself to be reduced to a puzzle or board game. He will not allow the carnal mind to ‘figure him out’ and actively resists people doing so. … Oh, I’d better just share what he actually said when I had a dream of a Whale which blew me a Bubble way up in a Mountain Valley. I already shared a part of this in Chapter 3 and I don’t want to just repeat it, even if it is only a small excerpt from the whole interpretation, but here is more and maybe now it will also mean something much more to you as well.

What he first said the Whale meant was BIG REVELATION and added—

My presence brings you into my deep purposes, as this level (depth or height) you begin to see me as I am—no illusion. It’s the beginning of your life hereafter and evermore.

The Fullness of Christ is attainable by you not under the operation of your will and being but by the law of the Spirit of Grace and trust in you operating to conform you by my will and ability to my image.

Not the fullness of GOD, but the fullness of Christ—my Son—you can rise to maturity by my promises—set before you—my word spoken over you—in your hearing will draw you into Me so I can have my will over and about you—

Don’t separate journey and destination (destiny) regarding my prophecy—my prophetic, my spoken promises over you—you’ll soon come to see they are one and the same—I AM the way (the journey, the path) and the Truth and the Life (or the purpose, plan and destination) of all I have for you—I am the goal of your faith—I Am the exceedingly great reward for you, unto you, and all who believe in Me and Call upon my name.

The Whale is my calling of you, my destiny, my purposes, my plan, my endurance, my word of deep things too big and grand for your easy comprehension—you can’t swallow them. In fact, they have to swallow you. Being in the belly of the whale takes on a whole new significance now doesn’t it? It’s the place when you are arrested by my plans and purposes for you—you’ll be digested, transformed, changed—renewed by my word spoken over and about and spoken concerning you.”

Me: “That’s what I used to call an elephant symbolically.”

The Lord: “Yes, but you got caught up looking for a system of interpretation—but I will not give my keys to strangers. You can’t CRACK my Code, Edward—don’t even try—Men cannot figure me out—I resist their efforts to reduce me to a puzzle or a board game—my secrets are reserved for those who fear me, not those who devise a better system of interpretation.”

Personal Prophecy matures us as ONLY It Can

So understand Prophecy is FROM God, so it reveals his nature. The true nature of God affects the ministry of prophecy—so real prophecy is a reflection of his nature and it is meant to draw us into an interaction with him intimately. You mean it makes the Bible real? Well, it’s a personal interaction with the God who wrote it, so in a way that’s true. But it’s so much more than that as well!

Prophesy is the Holy Spirit speaking so we are not only learning about ‘prophecy’ like we can pour a jar of it into a test tube during lab class, poke at it with a stick or test it with litmus paper. God is speaking, this produces prophecy, so prophecy is inherently an expression of God himself, so it is also a reflection of him, a revelation of God’s character in its content, its method of transmission, its purpose and its effects on us. So dealing with prophecy means interacting with God and it is this dynamic, interactive process that changes people in ways only this can.

That’s what I just highlighted above in the word I just shared above where he said: “… you can rise to maturity by my promises—set before you—my word spoken over you—in your hearing will draw you into Me so I can have my will over and about you.” Only working with prophecy can do this.

Dynamically interacting with God through Personal Prophecy changes us in ways only it can. Nothing else can make us grow like this as we hear his promises to us and wrestle with the mysteries and the revelations, the blessings and the purifications and through possibly hundreds of personal encounters which are always such a part of the Prophetic Ministry. If you had no personal prophecy from the Lord you would be missing a huge area of development of your character and relationship with God, one that can only grow and be developed this way, by dealing with God ‘prophetically.’

There is simply no substitute he told me.

God Bless Our Mess? But didn’t He say to come out of it?

And yes, God told me he wants to come into our mess, to be called to come into our human, carnal, Babylonian captivity … but he’s not really coming into our world to fix it, to make a better system of slavery over us, or to improve Babylon’s Kingdom of Darkness. He calls that a dead system, a dying system meant only to enslave us. So yes, he wants to come into it to save us, to protect us, to reach us and to teach us with things we are familiar with … but he is not going to partner with a system of death that continues to harm us—truthfully, he asked us to come out of it! So calling him into our mess is right, and he will come, and he wants to come, but once he shows up he wants to help us get out of it—and the sooner the better!

So prophecy is unlike the other ministries such as healing, deliverance, intercession warfare and to a degree preaching sermons on salvation and Christian behavior … those areas are focused on dealing with issues of our lives here and now. Even eternal salvation begins when people look around them and say, “Get me out of here!” Prophecy touches all of these of course but then once the immediate physical and emotional needs are met, the demons are gone, the pain stops, the bills are paid and the peace of salvation rests in our hearts … then what? What’s next?

What’s Next? Next it’s Time to have some Fun!

Next all the fun begins!

Then he starts to show us his world.

Then we start to visit heaven, we start to have visitations of Jesus and the Holy Spirit and sit in the lap of the Father … then we start to learn about our real selves, our real home and our real purpose and destiny. Prophecy meets us in an earthly place, in time, right where we are at but then he draws us into a heavenly encounter of a heavenly kingdom and for eternal heavenly purposes.

It can come into our office cubicle and tell us how to fix our computer, how to defuse someone’s anger in traffic on the way home and how to handle the neighbor who won’t leash his dog when you get there … but then the mundane yields to the sublime and it begins to reveal the actual Mind of the Divine and his mind and his thoughts are SO FAR above the realm of human thoughts, human minds, human ways … this is where all the beauty resides … where we can spend hours and hours a day walking in heavenly realms.

It’s part of the journey of maturing, but one time I went to the Father to complain about a person I was having a problem with and I went right up to his throne and as I began to complain and immediately—he didn’t sympathize, he YELLED AT ME!—“STOP! Don’t bring these earthly problems up here. Jesus, come take care of this!” Jesus came suddenly to me and talked to me, counseled me kindly on how to deal with that person and most of what he said was about my bad attitude reacting to their sin, not even about their sin! I was embarrassed and realized something important about the heavenly realm and the concerns of the heavenly court. It’s a holy place not where we just go to air our human, earthly grievances. Jesus however is our high priest and he understands where we are at, as well as our human limitations, emotions, shortcomings, all of it, and he will help us navigate anything we encounter in our world. But the Father will not involve himself in such petty earthly affairs. Didn’t he say to come out of it!?

Jesus suffered like we did and can sympathize. The Father, no so much. The Father never experienced weakness, pain, failure, temptation. Jesus and the Father are ONE, yet they are not identical either.

So “GOD” will help us deal with every problem we face but notice the disconnect? So please mind the gap! God’s world is so different from ours that many prophets have said they heard things in heaven they are not even allowed to say on the Earth. There are heavenly things that have no comparison, no symbolism, no analogy in human language that can convey their meaning and purpose. They are purely heavenly ideas. What I mean to say is there is a realm we touch and begin to make our own, but which at first is alien, foreign and immensely confusing to us who are at first only familiar with the earthly mind and world. It’s easy to forget maybe when God is talking to you about your daily commute, but Prophecy is from the realm of heaven … it is OTHERWORLDLY by nature. God’s Ways, his Thoughts, His purpose—so don’t try so hard to figure it all out, because you can’t—Prophecy is inherently confusing. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something … and so I think it is best to accept this fact, get over it and enjoy the ride. But the temporary and corrupted earthly order of things is far inferior to the eternal, perfect heavenly order, and we just need to get used to differences in these two opposing worlds.

This therefore means the greatest trait of most usefulness in prophetic ministry is humility. And like it is inquisitiveness. Stay humble. Stay inquisitive. You don’t know it all, and you never will. Keep asking and keep your sense of wonder alive.

The more I learn the more I understand the wisdom in the prophet’s reply when God asked him a question and he only said, “Lord, you know.” I have developed a great distaste for prideful prophets.

Not Everyone is meant to be Fruity

So wrapping this up, I remind you what I already shared in Chapter 2 that God told me about the differences in people’s prophetic ministries when he showed me prophets are like grocery store workers, some handling the vegetable delivery, and others the fruit.

The spirit of a prophet is subject to the prophet,” he said and one thing this means is when He speaks his WORD which goes out over the WHOLE BODY much like a giant delivery van resupplying an entire grocery store that some of the stock goes to the Vegetable section while there is different stock that goes to the Fruit section. These seem very similar but they are not the same. Likewise when God delivers his Prophetic Word to the Body there are people who only ‘receive’ the ‘vegetable’ words and others who only ‘hear’ the ‘fruit’ words, the part they hear is subject somehow to their own limitations, subject to their own selves, interests, purpose, personality and calling.

And I have to say it, it’s practically begging me to say it, that this means not every prophet is fruity, some are clearly supposed to be in a more vegetative state.

So let many people share in a meeting, let them each do their own part, and a council can be a good thing, if it is handled right. And while things may overlap a little and there may be confirmation that way, it is guaranteed to not all be the same! By doing so we all hear more of what God is saying, whether it is to one individual personally, one topic of universal concern, or just edification to the Body at large.

Unity vs Unity—Two Opposing Kinds of Unity

God’s prophetic word to the Body is too big for any one person to handle all of it, so we must cooperate and there is a special kind of Unity in the Spirit that brings this kind of Psalm 133-blessing. But beware: Unity in the Flesh is destructive and carnal and a counterfeit of it. Be aware of man’s imitations and efforts to control and coerce under their carnal motives and desires—which they will do under the guise of ‘unity.’ The unity of man is a counterfeit and brings a bondage and a curse. Don’t be overly suspicious. Just be wise and aware, that’s all.

No Two Prophets were the same Then—or Now

Finally, what you notice when you read the Bible and look around the ministry landscape is how different everybody is. No two prophets in the Bible were the same. And no two modern day ministers are very much alike today either.

I don’t know who you consider a ‘real’ prophet. News travels slowly, much of it is private or censored by the media and it’s hard to know what God is really doing and with whom. Also prophets tend to be quiet, anti-social introverts sometimes. Not always, not everyone, but sometimes. Much more I think than any pastor or evangelist ever was!

And God even asked me to write a book on modern day prophets and the key prophecies they have given as a reference work but has not yet asked me to begin to write it. What a valuable resource that would be! Wikipedia is not much use here!

But I want you to just consider a few people who most of us can agree are modern prophets in some capacity. I’ll list 10. I’m leaving out 30 or 40 other well-known names—I can’t list everyone’s name here of course! And I probably mean no disrespect if your name has been excluded. Not everything is as it appears on YouTube. But let me very briefly show how these ten people are seen in their ministry just for you to consider what God is doing in our midst and how unique everybody really is.

Ten Modern Day Prophets to Consider:

Maurice Sklar—who is a professionally trained Jewish violinist, who operates in healing miracles and in deep prophecy of wisdom. The Lord once asked him to read Proverbs 50 times and when he did God led him into an open experience with a temptress, a nude seductress. She was naked in a pleasure bath and enticed him to be her lover. Who is this overpowering seduction really? What is her real identity? She is the ‘other woman’ of Proverbs, that God’s wisdom, knowledge, discretion and understanding will keep us from: the immoral woman, the seductress who flatters with her words—she is Man’s wisdom. He resisted her temptations and overcome the test—and he cried for three straight days afterwards because of how painful that trial was! Maurice is a ruddy-cheeked, boyishly handsome violinist but in the Spirit is some powerful mensch of the Lord that he could overcome such an enemy of God’s people, one so close to our hearts as Man’s wisdom is! Mazel tov to you Maurice! Amen!

Bobby Connor—but there are just too many stories to share. Meeting a 500 year old man I already mentioned, yearly visitations with Jesus on Jewish New Year from which he writes the Shepherd’s Rod. Angels came over one time and played with him at his cabin in Moravian Falls for an hour before Jesus walked in and gave him global warfare plans. Too many stories! He was suicidal before he got saved but now walks in Joy overflowing. He was walking by some kids in church once who had with crazy hair and earrings and he touched one girl’s head and said laughing, “Hey, why don’t you make your hair GREEN! Ha ha ha!” A few steps more and people started GASPING! He looked back and the girl’s hair was BRIGHT GREEN in a hand print where he touched her and God said, “Be careful what you say!”

Bob Jones—an angel gave him a Prophet’s Mantle as a young boy—he fled from it! Military service, hillbilly living, backsliding to do anything to escape the call of God until he finally gave in and began preaching against homosexuality and abortion in the 70’s as Jesus told him to. Satan made him a deal: quit talking about these topics and I’ll let you live, but if you won’t stop, I’ll kill you. He said Ha! You can’t do that! But He did. In heaven he saw things very, very differently. God sent him back and he touched many leaders of the next generation. He often visited heaven: the first heaven he said was good; it’s what living people expect to see there in a way. The second heaven was very bright and he wasn’t very comfortable because he wasn’t yet prepared for it. Saints in heaven many hundreds of years were at home there it seems. But then he went to the Third Heaven where God had his throne—he said there were four other levels above that but he didn’t ever see them and had no idea what they were like. Back on the Third Level he was already in pain. The Light was unbearable, unapproachable, and yes, painful to him and he said he had to look at it through Jesus who was like sunglasses to him to be able to take it in and kept asking to go back down to a lower level because he was not prepared for this level of Glory. He said afterwards he usually always visited the First Heaven which he did routinely.

Bob was personally acquainted with Michael and Gabriel, and was attacked one time by Anton LeVey, who spoke to him telepathically and said he would kill him. He tried, but for some reason Anton died instead. What a mystery!

Larry Randolph—friend of Bob Jones and one of the Kansas City Prophets. A great musician, grew up in abject poverty, has dozens even hundreds of encounters but shares maybe 1/10 of what God has shown him, maybe less. ‘The Shift’ and other words are key.

Rick Joyner—spearheaded the restoration of the Five-Fold Ministry in the 80’s if I recall correctly and showed people what a prophet could be like—not a grumpy, cantankerous old man, but more like a wise father figure. His trilogy visionary journey of the Final Quest was groundbreaking. MorningStar is his ministry, an ‘eagle’s nest’ training people to walk as prophets.

Paul Cain—began in the healing revival in the 50’s. Went into seclusion for 40 years or so, reemerged and had a level of prophetic and word-of-knowledge gifting that rivaled being omniscient. The US government sent him to give a prophetic word of warning to Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War. He fell into sin in his later years after his mother died who was his primary intercessor. He finally and with some difficulty repented and was restored in the eyes of some, but some people never forgive and never forget. His level of gifting was so high it was disturbing. But he was a very loving, kind, humble and gentle man.

Bill and Marsha Burns—who give a Body-wide prophetic word EVERY DAY and have done so for many, many years. Small Straws in a Soft Wind and The Trumpet are their published daily series. Living in Asia I wake up 12 hours before they do in the US and I have my day and feel this way or that and then later when they send out their post so many times it’s uncanny that their insight puts words to what I was feeling, thinking or wrestling with all day before they even woke up to tell me. Everyone knows a horoscope is a demonic counterfeit. But a counterfeit of what? What is the real deal a horoscope is the fake version of? That’s the daily word from God to the whole Body they faithfully publish. Their ministry is such a blessed guidance and just gives me such a real sense of having an even keel in days when I really need it!

Mitt Jeffords—published a conversation with God every few weeks it felt like and they were typically 40,000 words long, nearly as long as a novel. Reading his prophetic encounters where Jesus would just talk and talk and explain his views on everything were so hard to digest because it seemed every paragraph or two I had to just stop, overcome with revelation and wonder and just sit in awe to take in what Jesus had just told him—deep spiritual things I had never ever thought of! Some words you may chew over include The Vision of the Twin Theaters, The Vision of the Today and Tomorrow, I Saw the Angels of Heaven, The Valley of Meddigo, My People Are Perishing, A House Divided Against Itself Shall Not Stand and finally The Chicken Who Was Transformed into an Eagle … and many more.

Susan O’Mara—who is a quiet prophetess in Rochester, New York. God often speaks to her in rhyming verse. He’ll part the heavens, an angel will escort her into the higher realm and she will walk on stepping stones suspended in the cosmos and finally enter the veil of Glory where angels bow down and God the Father will say things like, “Daughter, I brought you here to tell you to tell my people that ‘I love them. Trust me.’ OK, you can go now.” Couldn’t he just tell her in a more simple way? To you or me he might, not to Susan!

Finally I’ll mention Brandon. The first video I saw he was wearing the worst pajamas I’ve ever seen. The revelation God gave him of walking through the tribulation with open eyes must have fried his brain. Openly seeing End Times events? It’s hard to watch his videos, let alone being the one seeing the visions I am positively sure. I just want to mention him because I admire his unprofessional sincerity—I mean his unpolished stage performance and un-staged honesty. When he saw Trump get shot in the ear a year before Butler, his word choice to describe what he saw was challenged and he openly admitted in a reaction, follow-up video to having made poor word choice, to being at fault for his inaccurate description, to needing to be more careful in the future—all indicators of a sincere prophet of God in my opinion—he said he saw the ear hit and blood pour down and saw the shockwave of the bullet and assumed it was a busted ear-drum, when in fact it was clearly from damage to the ear helix and scalpha, as everyone who has studied ear anatomy knows very well! Amazing the kinds of rude criticism people give his prophecy! So sure, he may need to study up more on Outer Ear anatomy before he shares future visions of assassination attempts, but regarding having the right attitude of unscripted sincerity, genuine humility and oh yeah, God’s unvarnished warnings of so many current events Jesus is telling the Body through him, he’s a fine example of a regular guy with normal struggles … who God has chosen to use as his authentic mouthpiece. I added him as my number 10 before the assassination attempt which has now put him on everyone’s prophetic radar. Last Days is his channel. And I still don’t even know his last name!

There are so many more to get to know like Vawser, Hamon, Wallnau, Sheets (both of them, since they are brothers), Christmas, Jacobs, Zedai, Wagner, Coverdale, Reed, Kunneman—Oh, I can’t forget George Washington, America’s first president, and too many others to name—Gruver, Jackson, Goll, Clark, Cooke, Dixon, Shaw, Branham, Duplantis and several other Johnson’s as well.

But just notice how unique these people all are. Some are pilots, some are soldiers, some are lawyers, some are housewives. Some are widowed, some are divorced, some are rich, some were homeless. Do all play professional classical violin? Do all know what it is like to fire a machine gun in combat? Can all write a contract? Can all diagnose liver disease? Some can’t do any of those fancy things at all, but God still speaks to them! Idiosyncrasy is the rule. Everyone is totally different! Well, no, in a way yes, they are all astronauts, they are all race car drivers and they are all presidential cabinet-level advisors. But in reality having personal communication with the Lord is their only common trait. There is not a uniform they wear; it is not whether they carry a ‘license to prophesy card’ in their wallets—it is God in Them, the Hope of Glory already being realized. Also I might add that everyone of them is disparaged, insulted, accused of being false, crazy, demon possessed—or all of the above. How much like the prophets who went before them; how much like Jesus!

So how to really know them and know whether they are God’s real prophets or not? The only real way as I said before is to get to know them after the Spirit.

So Be your own Weird Self (just don’t be too Weird)

So what this all finally comes down to is that no two people are really the same, and especially when God starts to grow your New Self, or rather accelerates the removal of the Old Self—which is more correct since the New Self is already made in righteousness and true holiness within us the moment we get Born Again—but our identity with it is obscured by our memories of our lives on the Earth, Jesus told me—but anyway I mean the more Christ-like we become, the more mature, the more purified from the Old Man, the more we are transformed into his Image, the more we put on the New Self … the more unique we will become as well. So no two prophets are going to be the same. There is no mold, no cookie-cutter pattern to follow.

And again, no one is going to force you to be a prophet, not even God, so you have to choose to agree to obey, to press in, to persevere … so this has to be what you want to do. What do you want to do? When God fulfills that, you may be a businessman, a pastor, a pilot, a soldier, a doctor, a missionary or a prophet—or any combination of those things and more—what do you really want to do? Ultimately God will give you that I think. He will give you your heart’s desire.

Yes, we obey doing whatever he wants us to do, even when we don’t like it, but he made us and made us for a purpose and he knows what that is—and that is what we really, really want to do as well—after all, that is what he made us for! So when all our stubbornness is gone and our pride is finally over, we conquer all the fear and he heals all the pain this is what we discover is really what we’ve wanted to do all along—and also what the Lord wants for us to do for him and his people as well. Paul said it like this, that he pressed on to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus had also laid hold of him.

To many of us, serving Jesus as his prophet is the only way we want to live—everything else is just too pedestrian, too Earth-bound, too boring! It’s a hard walk but really, we would have it no other way.

So the big take-away therefore from all this fancy talk and so many verses and sordid stories is the big secret about prophesying and being a prophet and mantles and gifts and ministry and all that is simply that you must learn … to just be yourself. That’s the big secret. So yes, be weird—just don’t be too weird! That’s the big take-away. We each have a part—so do your own part. You don’t need to copy anybody, don’t try to do their part—just be yourself. I hope you can do that! It is after all just about as easy as falling out of a sycamore tree!

Just be yourself! And do your own part. That’s all! Amen!