The early church routinely saw many spiritual gifts expressed, including prophecy. I would like to see King’s grow as a local church where more people use the spiritual gifts in a public setting, especially prophecy. I also believe this is what God wants.
In John’s Gospel 10.11, Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd", and in verse 27 he says, “My sheep hear my voice.” This suggests that, as Christians, we can all hear the voice of God.
And in Acts, chapter 19, when Paul laid his hands on a group of believers, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in tongues and prophesy.
In 1 Corinthians 14.9, it says, "we prophesy in part," so we don’t have the whole picture, and we don’t prophesy perfectly, word for word. So, it is not absolute or complete (as Scripture is); it is conditional and must be weighed carefully.
1 Corinthians 14.1 urges us to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. And again, verse 39 says we are to be eager to prophesy.
1 Corinthians 14.3 teaches that those who prophesy speak to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and comfort. And verse 31 says prophecy is for instruction.
My own personal experience of the prophetic has been a bit of a journey. I must say that I am one of the very last people that I would expect to be able to prophesy. As a child, I was painfully shy and hated being in the limelight or up front in any way. I even ran away from nursery school to try to avoid taking part in the nativity play, which I dreaded each year, and when I was chosen to play Mary one year, it made it worse! All through my schooling and education, I refused to take part in any form of drama.
Years later, after I became a Christian, I started to receive what I believed to be revelation from God, usually in the form of pictures that formed in my mind.
One year, as a church, we had a series of six evangelistic meetings, and before the first one I received a picture which I believed I was to speak about. The leader invited me to share the picture and describe what I thought it meant. I did so with great difficulty (and relief after it was over) only to receive another one almost immediately afterwards for the following meeting. And so it continued for all six meetings. A blessing in all this was that a guest I had invited became a Christian at the end of one of the events.
Eventually, some people advised me to stop describing the pictures I received and instead just ask God to give me the interpretation and to speak that out, which I endeavoured to do. And then I was encouraged to speak out in the first person, so that the word would flow.
I then attended a Christian conference, where a man I had never met said to me that he felt that in a fairly short space of time someone was going to invite me to join a ministry team of sorts. I never saw him again, but possibly just two or three weeks later, I was in a meeting where a woman with a recognised prophetic ministry, Anne Watson, was speaking. Astonishingly, from the platform, she looked at me and said, “You come on my team,” which I did.
A few years later, I was at another meeting led by another woman, also with a prophetic gift, called Sharon Stone. She prophesied over me in the name of the Lord and said, “You are a prophetess; you have not opened your mouth and neither do I give you permission to close it.” I eventually became part of Sharon’s team whenever she was in the local area.
In conclusion, prophecy is for every Christian to aspire to. God speaks to us all, but in different ways, and we have to be brave and step out and share it if we believe we have a word from God.
Prophecy doesn’t come from our mind’s intellect, or rationalising; it comes from deep in our spirit. We may see, hear, or sense something in our spirit when we receive revelation from the Holy Spirit. The words flow out from our spirit, through our mind, and out of the mouth.
We don’t have to be articulate or perfect, and it pleases God if we step out in faith. In my experience, I have found that if I don’t earnestly desire to prophesy, I don’t usually receive a word, so I would encourage you to ask God to help you to be eager to pursue this gift.