Now there are some guidelines around prophesying I want to give to you, and these come from years of experience, where I've seen the gift misused, so please notice these very carefully, and bear them in mind also when you hear someone else prophesying. So here's some cautions about it and then there's a few do's, and some things that don't - so here's some don'ts about prophecy. Number one, don't use it for Christian fortune telling. [Laughter] People all want to know their future, and you can't believe the number of people that come up to me at various times, and what they want is for me to bring a prophecy about what God's telling them to do. You are responsible for listening to God. You are responsible for your life. If you come to me to tell you what to do, you're letting go responsibility for direction in your life, and for choices in your life. God calls all of us to the journey of faith, relating to Him, trusting Him and planning our way.
Trust the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him. He will direct your paths, so all of us are called to a faith walk. Don't lean on someone to prophesy what you should do. Don't lean on prophesy as fortune telling for you, waiting for God to tell you from someone else what you ought to do with your life. You are failing to be responsible when you do that - a very, very important one that. Better this way, that you make your decisions and then let God confirm, them and the prophetic word will often speak confirmation about what you already knew in your heart God was saying to you. That's a better way of dealing with it. Now can prophecy tell the future? Yes, it can, but not generally the operation of this gift. It's more the person operating in the prophet situation or prophet office, so we're talking here just about the gift of the spirit that all believers can function in.
When a person gets very good flowing in the gift of prophesy, they have a resident mantel over their life, and often they flow effectively prophetically wherever they are. Then God can establish them in an office in the church, which is for the equipping of people for operating in prophecy, and the person operating in an office of a prophet will often be able to bring quite directional words, quite specific words about things that will come and things God is wanting to do, and quite completely unravel what will happen in the future, so that's a strong revelatory gift over the office of a prophet. Now we're not talking about - we're just talking about believers functioning in the gift, so I encourage you to avoid seeking either to tell someone where to go and what to do, or to seek for someone to prophesy then over you. It becomes manipulative.
In the world of the occult people want to have their fortune told. There's a whole realm of the spirit with spirits of divination that operate to try and then impress their thoughts on people, so if you're going to move into that realm, take responsibility for your own personal direction. Let personal prophecy confirm it. That a good idea? That's pretty sound stuff. Here's the second one. Don't use prophecy to scold people. If you're getting a prophetic word that's telling you off, there's something wrong. Don't inject your own disapproval of someone. If we're prophesying, we prophesy love to build them. If it's not going to exhort them and build them, keep quiet. Okay, don't use the gift of prophecy to try to correct leaders, because you've got an issue in your heart about them. Don't use prophecy to bring out your pet ideas. [Laughter] It's not about us, it's actually about listening to God, and building up the other person. That's what the whole flow of the spirit is.
Now here are three other areas which are really important so note these ones. Don't prophesy and give direction over business dealings. There has been immense harm caused when people have wanted someone to prophesy about a business deal. Again this falls in the category of letting go responsibility for decision making, and this time trying to put it into God's hands, when He says you must take responsibility for your life. So in business you don't wait for someone to prophesy what you do. You have to work out a business plan, you have to pray over what you do, you listen to wise counsel, you follow practical wisdom and at times God can confirm things. If there's going to be prophetic words around business let them confirm what you'd already decided to do, or planned to do, or thinking of doing, rather than tell you some new thing you should do. It will inevitably end with loss, financial loss and problems, because it's operating outside the sphere God gave to operate in.