Prophesy!

The psalmist of the longest psalm spoke extensively of his adoration of God’s word. At one point, the writer confesses that to him, it was sweeter than honey. I can imagine this person was so enamored of the Word that he must have gone about speaking of little else but that. I picture him meeting a friend or an acquaintance and immediately after they were done with greetings, he would dive right in to extolling God’s word or reciting a scripture that meant something to him that particular day; perhaps he’d even throw in a testimony for good measure! Maybe some people found it weird, but I am sure there were many whose lives were deeply impacted by his words. Maybe the words he shared with them on that day is what averted a potential conflict, saved a marriage, and gave renewed hope and life to his listeners.

These are distressing times. You only need to turn on your social media platforms or the TV screens to encounter a barrage of negative news. The weather, the economy, social and moral breakdown, pandemics, wars and rumors of war are daily fodder for our eyes and ears. And yet Jesus said, ‘all these are the beginning of birth pains’. It will get worse. Many of these hit very close to home and for some of us, on a daily basis. It wears down the soul and breaks the heart. As a believer, if you are not careful of your daily mental diet (what you feed your eyes and ears), you can quickly be sucked into that dark, bottomless pit of hopelessness that is consuming so many lives. And soon you realize that as your perspective is dulled by the miseries of this world, your words also lose life and the enemy renders the very testimony of your life ineffective.

Christ reminds us that though we are in this world, we are not of this world. In him, we have a hope that can’t be extinguished but has conquered the world. For a believer, we are reminded to hold on to our hope for He who promised is faithful. Darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the people but the glory of the Lord has arisen over us. Our view of what is happening is eternal and we know it doesn’t end like this. And when we know and believe this to be true, then even our talk will be different. It will give life and hope to our own situations and that of our hearers. How do we do this? We prophesy! But it is not the prophecy that involves the foretelling of future events like in the Old Testament.

Paul calls his readers to ‘follow in the way of love and eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy.’ I found it interesting that Paul was calling us to all desire the gift of prophecy. I imagined all the chaos and conflict it would bring in the body of Christ, if we were all able to tell one another about each other’s future. However on reading further he explained that ‘one who prophesies speaks to the people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort’. Indeed, what a timely gift that we should all yearn and pursue in this present time; that we would all be able to strengthen, encourage and comfort each other with an appropriate word from the scripture. More so, that we would be able to strengthen, encourage and comfort our unbelieving brothers and sisters with the Word when they are going through difficult seasons, and in so doing point them to the light of God.

I am convinced that more than ever before, we need to prophesy! Prophecy is made possible by a believer’s testimony of God’s goodness in their life, shared with others. It is also made possible when the Holy Spirit is able to draw from the well of the Word that we’ve hidden in our hearts and use us to minister to others. It’s therefore necessary, my brother and sister to delight in God’s Word and meditate on it so that we have deep wells. You can begin by asking God in prayer to deposit in you a hunger for His Word. Then set a time when you read and meditate on the word and commit it to memory. Begin using it in prayer and soon you will be sharing it with others as the Holy Spirit guides you. I have experienced this in my own life. The darkness in the world can overwhelm us if we let it, but God calls each one of us to ‘Instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit’. I choose to prophesy!

(Psalm 119:103, Mat 24:8, John 17:16, Rom 15:13, Hebrews 10:23, 1 Cor 14:1-5, Rev 12:11 Ephesians 5:18-19)