What Kind Of Prophet Am I ?

Im pretty confused because there are different categories for a prophet. Like office prophet and so on. I know Im not the kind of prophet that preaches to a multitude, but at my old church when the pastor was anointing us, my aunt said when he got to me he heard prophet, and also... Im an intercessor and usu. Have dreams of the people Im supposed to pray for. I know not every intercessor is a prophet while all prophets arre intercessors( heck, I dont even know what that means :/ ) I just want to know where I fit in, maybe you guys can help :)

Thanks for your answers.
 
Dont worry too much about the definition of your gift - God gives gifts to us for other people. You will get many definitions of what a prophet is and isnt on this site. Just be obedient to what God calls you to do. If He asks you to pray for another person then do just that.

Christians get so caught up in trying to define their gifts that they lose sight of the importance and significance of their gifts and actually dont use them. A true prophet will probably ignore all the hype around their gift and just practise it in humility anyway.

BTW most intercessors have a prophetic gift of some degree - dont compare yourself to others. Each person is unique in Gods eyes. Use your gift to the glory of God in humble obedience.
 
This is somewhat difficult to follow gents. Kevin, you seem to have homed in on major's use of the word "Thing"
from post#7.
Actually the word téleios means as you state, but what does in refer? what is it that is imperfect and what is perfect? A 'thing' seems to stand as a proxy definition. Paul does not specify except by context what the "that"(thing) is.
Whatever the 'That' (thing) might be, it has to have two states does it not? first state of being is 'imperfect' the second state of being is said to be 'perfect'

Question, if the second coming of Christ is the 'perfect' state(complete), how was His first coming an 'imperfect'(incomplete) state?
His second coming is only a prelude to the wedding feast and ultimate surrender of all to the Father...yes?

Major, you suggest that the Bible is the perfect state, whereas at the time of Paul's letter it was incomplete...imperfect. Yet the Bible has so many translations and interpretations, it is hard to envisage a state of 'perfect' here either.(though the originals must have been)

Consider the dialogue of 1 Cor 13:11,12,13. as being an integral part of Paul's thoughts here.
What then would the "that"(thing) be?
Could it be our understanding? Could it be a much better knowledge of God, that will conform perfectly...completely with His desire to be known, and to be loved by us?

Hi Calvin,

You make a good point. We as simple humans cannot definitively say what this word actually means. I say it is the second coming of Christ, Major says it is the Bible and you say it is a state of complete understanding. So to completely disregard the gifts of the Holy Spirit as operational today based mainly on this one scripture is not a good practise.

We need to understand why the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given and then we need to understand in what way are they supposed to be practised.

Prophetic words which warn the church about apostacy, lust, greed, lack of love etc are in effect today but mostly disregarded because people only want to hear words of encouragement.
Prophetic words which encourage the church are in abundance today - amazingly enough most of them revolve arround prosperity and living a blessed life in Christ. Some may be true others should be thrown in the dustbin.

I have personally been used by God to bring a prophetic word to our pastor, unfortunately it was a message of warning which he disregarded. When it was fulfilled suddenly he was shaken awake and wanted to know more, but God did not give me more so he went away disillusioned. I do not claim to be a prophet, but God does use His people to bring words of warning, rebuke, encouragement and discernment for the sole purpose of edifying the church.

To give another example, while I was praying the other night, I got a picture of a Lion running through the grass. The power, majesty and incredible intent in which this lion was running was exceptionally impressive. Then I got the scripture about the Lion of Judah - a Messianic Title. Then through further prayer, the Holy Spirit said that Jesus is just as powerful as He was when He created the universe, just as intent on completing His will and we can choose to run behind Him or be flattened if we stand in His way. This if I choose to bring it to the church is a prophetic utterence which will point the church towards the majesty and the second coming of Christ.

In my experience the gift of prophecy is very much alive today but we need to also discern between the false and the true. Just because the false prevails today does not minimise the true.
 
Hi Calvin,

You make a good point. We as simple humans cannot definitively say what this word actually means. I say it is the second coming of Christ, Major says it is the Bible and you say it is a state of complete understanding. So to completely disregard the gifts of the Holy Spirit as operational today based mainly on this one scripture is not a good practise.

We need to understand why the gifts of the Holy Spirit are given and then we need to understand in what way are they supposed to be practised.

Prophetic words which warn the church about apostacy, lust, greed, lack of love etc are in effect today but mostly disregarded because people only want to hear words of encouragement.
Prophetic words which encourage the church are in abundance today - amazingly enough most of them revolve arround prosperity and living a blessed life in Christ. Some may be true others should be thrown in the dustbin.

I have personally been used by God to bring a prophetic word to our pastor, unfortunately it was a message of warning which he disregarded. When it was fulfilled suddenly he was shaken awake and wanted to know more, but God did not give me more so he went away disillusioned. I do not claim to be a prophet, but God does use His people to bring words of warning, rebuke, encouragement and discernment for the sole purpose of edifying the church.

To give another example, while I was praying the other night, I got a picture of a Lion running through the grass. The power, majesty and incredible intent in which this lion was running was exceptionally impressive. Then I got the scripture about the Lion of Judah - a Messianic Title. Then through further prayer, the Holy Spirit said that Jesus is just as powerful as He was when He created the universe, just as intent on completing His will and we can choose to run behind Him or be flattened if we stand in His way. This if I choose to bring it to the church is a prophetic utterence which will point the church towards the majesty and the second coming of Christ.

In my experience the gift of prophecy is very much alive today but we need to also discern between the false and the true. Just because the false prevails today does not minimise the true.

Kevin.......I do not believe that we are to disreguard the gifts of the Holy Spirit at all my dear friend.

On the contrary I believe we need to rely on them more now as the 2nd Coming of Jesus is drawing close.

I think our differances on this subject lie in the definaition of the word "prophetic".

Example: you state that ............
"I have personally been used by God to bring a prophetic word to our pastor, unfortunately it was a message of warning which he disregarded."

I have had the same thing happen on more that one occasion to me. I just did not consider it "prophetic" but simply the ability to speak the truth to someone who I knew by observation was in sin or falling short of God's expectations of them. Then just as I am instructed in God's Word I went to those people and told them what was going on and how they shuld correct their actions. I personally do not consider that "prophetic".

MY understanding of "Prophetic" and how I am referring to it it here is when a person tells others that for example:

"God has spoken to me and given me a PROPHETIC word for all of you. On November 1, 1999 the moon will explode".

OR better yet a real one............"God has said to me that if we do not raise 9 million dollars by next month, I WILL DIE".

Those are called "Prophetic" by the church (some denomionations) when in fact they are predictions of future events.

Again..........There is FORTH TELLING which I believe is the product of correctly expounding the Word of God and then there is FORE TELLING which come from the perceived heart of man which tells us of an impending event or action we need to take because God has sopken to a man.

IMHO God has spoken to us by His dear Son and there is nothing we can or should add to what He has said. IF a person thinks he has a prophetic utterance, IMO we should be able to locate that in God's written Word of truth.
IF we can not then we open the door of opportunity for men to do what they do best and that is to SIN.

Hence we have the Properity Gospel teachers, and the Name it and Claim it crowd who have totally misrepresented the Word of God for their personal gain.
 
For the purposes of this site, prophecy is recognized as a doctrinal belief. Therefore, it is protected like any other Christian doctrines. I am moving this to the prophecy area however.

EDIT : We apparently have archived our prophecy section so I moved this here for lack of better options.
 
Kevin.......I do not believe that we are to disreguard the gifts of the Holy Spirit at all my dear friend.

On the contrary I believe we need to rely on them more now as the 2nd Coming of Jesus is drawing close.

I think our differances on this subject lie in the definaition of the word "prophetic".

Example: you state that ............
"I have personally been used by God to bring a prophetic word to our pastor, unfortunately it was a message of warning which he disregarded."

I have had the same thing happen on more that one occasion to me. I just did not consider it "prophetic" but simply the ability to speak the truth to someone who I knew by observation was in sin or falling short of God's expectations of them. Then just as I am instructed in God's Word I went to those people and told them what was going on and how they shuld correct their actions. I personally do not consider that "prophetic".

MY understanding of "Prophetic" and how I am referring to it it here is when a person tells others that for example:

"God has spoken to me and given me a PROPHETIC word for all of you. On November 1, 1999 the moon will explode".

OR better yet a real one............"God has said to me that if we do not raise 9 million dollars by next month, I WILL DIE".

Those are called "Prophetic" by the church (some denomionations) when in fact they are predictions of future events.

Again..........There is FORTH TELLING which I believe is the product of correctly expounding the Word of God and then there is FORE TELLING which come from the perceived heart of man which tells us of an impending event or action we need to take because God has sopken to a man.

IMHO God has spoken to us by His dear Son and there is nothing we can or should add to what He has said. IF a person thinks he has a prophetic utterance, IMO we should be able to locate that in God's written Word of truth.
IF we can not then we open the door of opportunity for men to do what they do best and that is to SIN.

Hence we have the Properity Gospel teachers, and the Name it and Claim it crowd who have totally misrepresented the Word of God for their personal gain.

Major, like I said in my first post on this thread - there will be many definitions of what prophecy is or isnt because of the various understandings of people on this site. Unfortunately the scriptures do not give a definition for prophecy. Some denominations regard litergy as prophecy.

I agree with you that "prophetic" words should be found in scripture, but there are occurences when prophetic words are not found in scripture, but their basis should be scriptural - hence the reason we need to test all prophecy.

An example of a prophecy which is scriptural would be "If you do not give your life to Christ you will die in your sins".
An example of a prophecy which is not directly from scripture but based on scripture principles would be "God will judge the city of XYZ because they have turned from His ways and refuse to repent".
An example of a false prophecy which is neither based on scripture or scriptural principles "God will bless you abundantly if you buy this little token from me because He said so, but if you dont have faith nothing will happen".

Predicting future events - well I have heard of people who have predicted future events in the name of God, but they failed to happen. There are others which predict in a very strange and misleading way or better still use riddels so they always have an escape clause. An example would be "God is going to destroy Iran in 10 days but if the church prays for them enough God will forgive them" - they always include a positive based on the works of man. If the prophecy fails they can blame others for their lack of faith.

A famous example was a so called prophet (he shall remain nameless here) who said in the early 1990's that South Africa will see major bloodshed before apartheid is stopped. Well that never happened, not to the extent he prophesied (all the white people would be killed). In that time it was easy to state that the worst would happen because there was a real chance that it could have but alas for the poor false prophet, nothing happened so what did he do? He changed the original prophecy, took it off his website and put another in its place. He is still very much around today, often seen in these new revival movements, which always seem to fail. He now claims his writings are more important than Pauls. All his prophecies today call on a so called army of God which will be raised up in the latter rain - he always writes in a very ambigious way and his writings can mean anything to the undiscerning. So far every single one of his prophecies have failed but he still commands a great following.

I have heard of some "prophets" who have predicted the future to an amazing degree of accuracy but they always seem to be difficult to find and stay out of the mainstream.

By the way the moon did explode in 1999, what we see now is just a painting in the sky :)
 
Thanks you guys for helping, and I do agree with you Kevin, I guess what a prophet is or does will be different to everyone. Idk Im still not sure what I am , but I guess it doesnt too much matter, as long as I do what God says. Rhanks all.
 
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