(By R. Loren Sandford) If you’re at all like me, you’ve grown frustrated and discouraged at the flood of unfulfilled prophetic words spoken and published in recent years. For the sake of God’s people and the world, we must do better than this! Here are five elements essential to prophetic accuracy and integrity. Let’s repair the damage before too many more people reject both the gift and, ultimately, the One who gives it.
Character
No one will ever prophesy accurately through the filter of a broken core character. Broken character produces broken words, just as a bad lens distorts vision. No prophetic word will ever be the real thing apart from the heart and nature of the Father imparted into us. The words themselves might be accurate, but if the spirit in which those words are delivered fails to communicate the heart of the God whose nature is love, then it will not be the word of God. Absent a wilderness experience for the shaping and refining of character, so-called prophets will be loose cannons on the Lord’s deck, dangerous to others and even to themselves.
My son, my co-pastor, once said that we are looking for kingdom people to hold leadership positions in our church. He defines such people as those who are changing and being changed. He’s right. Are we embracing the Father’s heart, gazing so deeply into the face of Jesus that we are being transformed into His image? How willing are we to confront those parts of ourselves that have yet to be redeemed, or to embrace the pressure and pain sent to reveal those flaws? My own prayer is that He will let me have His heart, His humility and His grace so that I might accurately and fully speak in His name. READ MORE
