“He will teach you” is the most basic revelatory experience: being in the School of the Spirit. No matter how mature or infantile the believer, each of us is enrolled in this revelatory experience. God is actively, personally, and intimately involved in our lives! The process of receiving a renewed mind and implementing His guidance and personally preparation for proving the what-God-wants of our own lives is a fundamental of the Life.
Prophets tend to reshape this aspect of their personal faith walk because of the manner in which they function as a leader and communicator of revelation. Yet, more than any other revelation aspect of their ministries, their very lives are a prophetic picture, and Holy Spirit teaching the prophet exhibits to all believers more clearly how God does this.
All revelation more fully reveals Him: there is an aggregate of prophetic revealing beyond the message of revelation that also deepens our understanding of “how God does stuff.” So, the prophet should be a template for people that helps them understand how He speaks to all believers, not an exception that appears to say, “God speaks to me so you should understand that He doesn’t speak to you.” Rather, “God speaks to both of us and the scope and function of my revelation is more complex and aimed at a greater audience and assignment.”
In any case, prophets are internalizing a personal, intimate, and transformation experience with Holy Spirit that calls for their continued adjustment, obedience, and submission to God’s purposes. Prophets will experience as much personal change as they create through their kingdom function, and prophets must learn the flowthrough of revelation for others as unique from the flow of personal, intimate, and transformation teaching of Holy Spirit that remains with them.
I heard two experienced prophets about three years ago during the span of a couple of days, and the contrast between them was startling in terms of remaining teachable and transformable. One of them was so obviously reaching back decades to a previous level of function that his present personal living didn’t back up that it was painful to my spirit. He was reaching for a flowthrough to the people that simply didn’t exist like Samson who didn’t discern that his strength no longer functioned. He was discernably not living in “internalized personal revelation.” He was a deceived prophet who had previous experienced a flowthrough that is “one for the record books,” so to speak.
About that same time I heard a prophet broken by personal humility, filled with a “now word,” who shared something fresh and full of life. She was walking in a “just heard from God this morning and He broke my heart again with His passion for purpose” prophetic experience. She was internalizing personal revelation as a basis for a powerful, international flowthrough! She was open to revelation of her own heart even more than the secrets of men’s hearts or the secrets of God for nations.
I would have avoided a personal word from the former, and looked for seventeen confirmations before I even attempted to interpret it. I would have welcomed a personal word from the latter but valued just as much or more hearing and experiencing the corporate word I was part of as much as a personal word. I didn’t feel the need for a fireworks show or angelic dusting to make her ministry open the “deep,” if you know what I mean.
It is not that prophets with weak internalizing of personal revelation cannot prophesy, prophesy accurately, or prophesy powerfully at an international level; it is more about the distracting spiritual atmosphere and aroma they emit. Revelation should reveal as much about God as it does about His secrets.
What I mean is that prophets cannot drop out of the School of Holy Spirit no matter how long they have been functioning or at what level they function. Their wellspring does not change. They require and receive from personal revelation the same as every other believer. They do not “know it all.” They have not passed the point of needing Him as Teacher and Guide. To not only be mature but to function maturely, they must remain like little children with Holy Spirit.
Again, the prophet belongs to God in a special way. The prophet’s life is a prophetic message all by itself, and sometimes the experiences speak more loudly than the prophecies. In all cases, the experiences and the prophecies of the prophet cannot be separated. A prophetic word spoken by one prophet would not be the same word spoken through another, even if were essentially word for word. By that I mean that the message of a prophet and the life of a prophet reveal the Father’s heart about a matter and function together.
The prophet experiences many things that flow through that are not personal, so the prophet must learn to distinguish between personal revelation that is part of Holy Spirit as Teacher and Guide and prophetic experiences that are Holy Spirit inspiring their calling and ministry to others. Prophets will feel God’s heart on situations that reveal what He feels about people, conditions, nations, and generations. The prophet will anticipate events with a premonition of the feelings that event will engender. The difference between what flows through and what is personal must be clear.
Prophets can share too much of their personal experiences as flowthrough. Prophets can internalize too much of the flowthrough.
