PROPHETIC GIFTS

How Do They Work in Us?

Today we will study the prophetic gifts and how they work in us. When we do, many will realize that they have been working in them, but did not understand them. Even so, this is not a science but a relationship. We are listening to a Person, not just learning formulas and procedures.
Prophecy Works Through Friendship with God
In Amos 3:7 we are told, "Surely the Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets." There is nowhere in the Law that the Lord obligated Himself to do this, but He does it because He does not want to do anything without sharing it with His friends, which is the basic essence of prophetic ministry – friendship with God. The prophets are those who have become so close to God that He does not want to do anything without sharing it with them.
Many question whether one must be called as a prophet or if it can be pursued. Both are true. Some were called before they were born, and they cannot do anything else. The prophetic is also something that the Scriptures exhort us to seek, so He would not tell us this if He would not let us achieve it. Because the real essence of the prophetic is friendship with God, this is something He wants all of His people to pursue. This is why Moses said that he would that all of God's people were prophets (see Numbers 11:29).

The prophets see what He is doing because they stay so close to His throne – they see and hear what is happening there. I have heard it often said that we should not seek the gifts, but the Giver. This sounds noble and wise, but it is contrary to the Scriptures, and it is the immature that follow such glib-sounding phrases that divert them from the truth of the Scriptures. We are exhorted in such places as I Corinthians 14:1 to: "Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." Pursuing the gifts of the Spirit is a way that we pursue the Lord. The Father is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and the gifts of the Spirit are a way that we do this.
Of course, we pursue the Giver first, but this does not exclude pursing the gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are not gifts in the sense that we think of gifts, like presents. A better translation could have been something like "tools of the Spirit." The gifts of the Spirit are not given as a reward, or to just bless us, but are given so that we can do His work. This work of the Lord is worship; it is our service, done because we love Him.