“I felt worse after that person prophesied over me” a number of people informed me. “I don’t know what it was as he was so accurate about my past, but I came away feeling yuck.”

I Corinthians 14:3 says that a prophetic word is to be encouraging, edifying and comforting. Thus, when we receive a prophetic word and we don’t feel encouraged, built up or comforted, then something has gone wrong. The person giving the prophetic word may have been not hearing God clearly and using more soulish thoughts than spiritual sensing. We may also not be in the right spiritual space and it may be incorrect timing to receive the word. Another issue may be that the person giving the word may have their psychic door open.

Psychic door open? What do I mean?

Sometimes before people become Christians, they may have dabbled in some witchcraft, New Age or Clairvoyancy, thus opening their psychic door. Conversely, someone in their generational line may have opened the door and it remains automatically open down through the generations. Satan loves jumping on the bandwagon and taking full advantage of any slight little opportunity he gets. Thus, if someone in your generational line has looked to sources other than God for their wisdom, insight and prophetic insights, then they have opened a door that continues down the generational line until it is closed.

If it has never been closed, then it is still open and Satan can just as easily confuse your thoughts and tell you about a person’s past, present and future. Revelation can come from both sides. If it is a generational issue, you may be totally unaware that you are receiving insight from the dark side.

Arthur Burk from the Sapphire Leadership Group (www.theslg.com) has a great teaching on this called “The Druids and the Psychic door”. You can watch this on Youtube free, roughly 20 minutes long. The druids violated their stewardship of the prophetic gift and they delivered true words but from a defiled source, pursuing revelation from the dark side. Arthur goes so far as to say that if you have a generational line that goes back to England, Wales or Scotland, then it is advisable to pray this prayer as many of these family lines were defiled by druids, either having druidic blood in the family line or a carrier of uttering curses about them. Likewise, finish your prayer by asking God to overtly release to you and any other descendant any treasures that belong to you.

The great news is that this is really easy to ‘close’ and deal with (unless you are still dabbling in witchcraft). There is a simple prayer you can pray along these line…

“Heavenly Father, I repent on behalf of myself and every person in my past generational line who has looked to someone or something else apart from you Heavenly Father for wisdom, insight, truth and discernment. I am truly sorry for myself and my relatives not looking solely to you for these things. Heavenly Father, I ask you to come now and cleanse my family line of all times that we sought wisdom, insight, truth and discernment not from you. Heavenly Father please come and shut that door and seal that door closed now with the blood of Jesus. Heavenly Father, would you also please release all treasure stored up for our generational line that has never been released to us yet. Thank you so much Father God.”

Spend time with God asking Him if there is any further action you may need to take eg have some inner healing prayer ministry to deal deeper with the issues if there has been a major involvement in any witchcraft etc. Our aim is to draw closer to God, able to hear His voice clearly and to release His promptings to others to encourage, strengthen and comfort. Anything that comes in the way of this should be dealt with as soon as possible so that it doesn’t hinder or defile the process.

Other important steps to keep in mind include:

• Be careful what you fill your mind with eg what you watch on tv, what you read etc. Garbage in = garbage out.
• Cultivate your personal relationship and intimacy with Father God, Holy Spirit and Jesus.
• Devour the Bible. Love reading the Word of God and applying it to your life.
• Be accountable to someone for your prophetic gifting.
• Always get the person you are giving a prophetic word to to record the prophecy. If they can’t do this, then at the least have someone they know and rely on to be there with them.
• Have regular prayer ministry eg annual check up. This deals with little things before they become major footholds in your life.
• Be accountable to someone re your blindspots or prophesying out of your passion. This can skew your thinking.

My prayer for you, my readers, is that

• you grow in your intimacy with Father God, Holy Spirit and Jesus
• and that you will grow in your prophetic ability to see, hear and sense what Father God is communicating so that you can release accurate words to everyone you meet for the purpose of encouraging, strengthening and comforting them.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Make up glasses/jugs of different coloured liquids to resemble various drinks. Ask everyone to select a person and then imagine with God what sort of drink that person would be and why. Then allow time for everyone to draw or share it.

2. Group Activation: Ask for the names of any businesses connected with people in the group ie business that people own. Get into groups around those people. Spend a few minutes hearing from God and then ask people to prophesy into those businesses. Warn the business owners that they are not to make business decisions based on a prophetic word shared at this time but to weigh it correctly. Remind people that they are to hear God’s heart for the business and to be careful re any prophesies that would sway decisions needing to be made etc.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time reading about a prophetic person in the Bible and their life and the prophetic words they gave and the impact of those words. Ask God to show you how this Biblical person is similar to you.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight to you a failing business or a business that is not going well at the moment. Spend time with God asking Him for His view on the business. Ask God what He would like you to do with the information that He has shared with you.

5. Advanced Activation: The massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand occurred yesterday. Spend time with Father God asking Him His heart for this city and formulate a prophetic word that you decree over the city. (You don’t need to travel to Christchurch. You can declare and decree it from your home.) Ask Father God if He requires any further action from you eg send the prophetic word to someone in Christchurch etc.