Episode 2 – Whats Been Misunderstood About The Prophetic

Biggest causes of misunderstanding around the prophetic: The lack of proper boundaries for the prophetic to operate in a safe way is a big cause of misunderstanding.

Transcription

 This is the Prophetic Cutting Edge Podcast hosted by Joshua Snope and Phil and Laura Lee Colley, brought to you by Destiny Strategies Prophetic Ministry, where we make it simple to hear God’s voice, to empower you for your purpose.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Prophetic Cutting Edge podcast, where we make it simple to hear God’s voice and empower you for your purpose. I’m your host Joshua Snope with Phil and Laura Lee Collie. Hey, great to be here. So what have you guys been up to? It’s July. What’s been happening? Been to any churches doing any training lately?

Uh, yeah, we have Josh. We’ve, uh, we’ve been to a few. Different churches, um, which is what we do on a regular basis. But we’ve been out to Dubbo and we spent a week out there with the church and it was great time out there. Uh, you know, speaking into, there’s, there’s a number of churches there, so we spoken to those different churches and, and ministered to the people out there, which was great.

And we were at, um, Wollongong as well, uh, with, there’s a couple of different churches that we work with there and, and we’re ministering at. And uh, and we also by Zoom, we, uh, were introduced to a Kazakhstan, uh, community as well. And, and we were doing more, more, um, more zooms with them, which is exciting.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We often get a lot of people from all sorts of countries, um, tuning in and joining us on our Zoom, uh, practice nights, don’t we? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and you also had a conference earlier in the year, in February. Can you tell us just very quickly about that catchy up draft? Yeah, yeah.

We, uh, we do a conference on a regular basis. In February and um, yeah, that was exciting. We had a lot of, a lot of people there really enjoyed themselves growing in God, uh, you know, just developing in, in their understanding of who God is. And I think that’s one of the things about the prophetic that really brings things out to people, really getting a better understanding of who God.

Mm mm And you also launched a book in that, um, we launched a book in that conference, didn’t we? Uh, can we quickly just talk about that book? ’cause it’s a really good book. The book is called See the Signs and Wonders Through Prophecy Dreams and Numbers. And yes, it is a good, it’s a, it’s a hot book at the moment.

Actually, we only printed a hun a hundred. And, and, and they just went and because we did the great book launch and, and now we’ve just done our second edition. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And I know that there’s so many, uh, uh, powerful things in that book and practical tips, and it’s like a combination of your 20 plus years of experience in prophetic ministry.

Jam packed into that book. And I also read a little section at the back as well to do with, uh, hearing God through numbers, so I know if people get the hands on that book, it’s going to be life changing, um, and, and obviously great value as well. So, um, so moving along, um, you know, with this podcast, we’ve called it the Prophetic Cutting Edge.

Why, why the name Prophetic Cutting Edge? Well, you know, we wanna be on the cutting edge of what Gord is doing and, and, uh, and so we thought that was a good name. Um, you know, we all wanna be on the cutting edge. We wanna be there where we can, you know, make things. Cut, cut through to what, what’s the truth?

Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. And, and yeah, and, and bringing an understanding. We wanna talk a lot about the different prophetic, uh, environments, so to speak, and the, the good, bad and ugly of the prophetic. ’cause there’s been a lot of misunderstanding in the past and, and people have felt they can’t be part of or don’t wanna be a part of anything prophetic.

And, and so we wanna bring clarity and understanding and how to have the right guidelines too. To actually bring honor to God and, and maybe bring healing and breakthrough to those areas. Mm. Yeah. And, and there’s also this really awesome picture, um, of an ax. Can you talk about that? Like why would we have a picture of an axe for a podcast?

Yeah. So it comes from the story, um, of Elisha of In Two Kings four, where, where, um, you know, the. The, the prophetic companies or the school of prophets there asked him if they could move and, and ’cause they, they were running outta room. They needed more space to grow the prophetic community. And when they moved, uh, one of the guys borrowed an ax from someone and was cutting a tree, but the ax head fell off and went into the, into the water.

And he said, oh dear Elisha, this, this, um, this ax has been borrowed. And, and, and now I’ve lost it on the guy. And Elisha, ah, that’s. No big deal. Uh, so he threw a, a stick in and the ax head floated. Wow. And so we are living in it. There. That’s, that’s just so loaded. That story. There’s, there’s so many, you know, there’s 10 different topics we could talk on and that and will in the future.

And so being aware of, of the, the time that we are living in and what God wants to activate and create room for and bring an edge to and cause the miracles of, of ease, miracles, of ease. Yeah. Yeah. That’s so awesome. And, and I always wanna add something into that as well about like getting, getting our edge back, getting that prophetic edge back.

I think a lot of people, uh, have lost their prophetic edge, and I guess the purpose of this podcast is to help people get that back. Mm. Yeah. So that’s exciting and yeah, for everyone as well. So yes, the prophetic edge is not just for certain people on the platform. Yes. But your prophetic edge. And people of God there.

You know, it might look different to some people, but it’s you. There is an edge for you to be in sync with what God is saying and doing. Mm mm Absolutely. Absolutely. Alright, well let’s get into our topic. So our topic for this episode is what’s been misunderstood about the prophetic? So this is going to be a’s a good jam packed episode and so many things to talk about.

Yeah. So, Laura Lee, I might start off with you. Um, why do you think so many, many people have the wrong idea about what prophecy is? Yeah, that’s a good question. And I, I, there’s been so many different dynamics, I think we’ve been in with the prophetic ministry for, you know, uh, probably three decades now.

And, and, you know, we come into it initially with a, a prophetic community and loved every moment of it. There’s been, we’ve seen a lot of things along the way and seen a lot of, uh, different displays of the prophetic and different understandings and, and sometimes sadly, different controls of the prophetic and, and things that.

I’ve been labeled prophetic, but actually haven’t represented the nature of God. So that’s where I think there’s been a misunderstanding or people just being very weary of what this thing of prophecy or prophetic ministry or, um, prophets even that, that it’s like, oh, I don’t think I wanna touch that.

That doesn’t look right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s so important to, um, I guess, address those things and to provide a solution. And I think, you know, part of what we do and what Destiny Strategies is about is, is being that answer, isn’t it? Yeah, definitely. Mm. Phil, what about you? What do you see is, uh, uh, maybe one of the biggest causes of, uh, misunderstanding around prophetic?

Uh, I think. Um, I think some of the misunderstandings are created by not having proper boundaries in place that it can be operated in, in a safe way. And, uh, so that brings misunderstanding because people don’t know what they can or shouldn’t do. And so. They step out on what they think this is God, they may not have never had any training and you know, they can cause a lot of damage if it’s not done correctly.

And, you know, the, the prophetic is very powerful and, and so that can work for or against in the prophetic and be very powerful and, you know, build people up and empower them and they can, you know, can do great things. Or they can really destroy a person because they’ve brought a word the wrong way in a, in a damaging way.

And, and so that creates a lot of misunderstanding. Mm-hmm. Because they haven’t had, the person who maybe delivered that message may not have understood how to deliver it correctly. So it brings misunderstanding and, and misrepresents the nature of God. That’s good. And we’ve had many pastors, many leaders come and say, I want spiritual gifts in my church.

I’d love to have prophecy in my church, but every time I do, it just goes wrong. And something doesn’t just, there’s too much to clean up and there’s too much stuff to, um, to handle, and there’s too much misunderstanding. So, you know, I, I think I’ll give, give up how, or, or how can I do this? Well? And so I think as leaders and pastors, ministers, we need to be able to.

Give clear instruction of how this looks, that, you know, how do we glorify God in this and, and what are the structures? So we’ve found some churches have been able to introduce protocol and say, our culture is that we, we love the prophetic and we want the prophetic, but it has to be handled in these guidelines.

And so, and you know, there’s point people that, that help to, um, to orchestrate that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you’ve addressed some really important points there about, you know, a lot of people don’t trust the prophetic. Um, but you know, I think you’ve addressed, um, some valid, uh, reasons for that. But I guess it’s important for people not to just, um.

Sort of go, oh, you know, that didn’t work, so let’s just not do that anymore. Um, which I think a lot of people seem to have that sort of mindset and, uh, you know, we don’t wanna throw the baby out with the bath water. We want to, we wanna keep the good. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. And I think too, some of the things that create a problem or misunderstanding as well, is that it, it takes faith to step out, but to develop our faith, we need to do that in the right way so that we’re.

Operating in the best interest of everybody. Uh, so we want people to develop their faith, but we’ve gotta give them an outlet to do that. And to do that, we’ve gotta have a safe environment to be able to provide that opportunity for people to grow. Mm-hmm. And, and I think that creates a, a problem if those environments aren’t there because people know I’ve got this gift, but I’ve got nowhere to use it.

So when they see a little opportunity that may or may not be correct. They take it and they use it for as much as they can. Mm-hmm. Which is probably too far. Mm-hmm. And so it creates a problem. Mm. And so it, it’s managing those processes, I think, in how to operate safely and the correct way to do that while still encouraging people to do use their gift.

But having the boundaries in place to do it properly. Yeah. So we have had pastors and ministers that when they’ve had their people come and say, I’m prophetic and I wanna be heard, and I, you know, I’ve got a gift and God’s telling me this and, and I’ve got a word for the church. Uh, that there’s, we’ve, we’ve been in relationship with people when they’ve, the pastors have said, well, okay, uh, I.

I acknowledge that there might be a prophetic gift, but you now didn’t need to go and get some training and they get sent our way and, and the maturity comes into process. ’cause sometimes as prophetic people or people that feel that are hearing God’s voice and have a message to share, sometimes they, um, there is such a zeal.

That’s great. We want people to be ze zealous and, and, and, uh, and desire. But, but it get, it can get in the road. It can get in the road of representing God correctly because it’s, oh, I’ve gotta get this happening. And, and I, you know, it’s, it’s so important and I’m passionate about this, and, and God loves passion, but it’s gotta be put in the right direction.

Hmm hmm. And, um, what are some of the consequences when the prophetic is used in the wrong way? Because if people haven’t had that training, it’s sort of like inevitable that things might go wrong. Um, yeah. What are you thinking about that? So when people have, just, when there, when there isn’t a prophetic voice or a confirmation or a clarity of hearing God’s voice, in some ways that causes confusion or, uh, you know, a, um, you know, an apathy in a sense.

So, uh, we’ve seen that as well, that people have got frustrated because it, it’s God’s voice they need to hear. And ’cause that brings confirmation, not just man’s voice and God’s voice through the man and, and, you know, and having that distinction as well. And so it’s, um, it, it, it can really cause problems or apathy or disillusionment and discouragement and, and, uh, and people feeling like, I don’t know if I’ve got a relationship with God anymore, but it’s the prophetic that actually activates that as well.

I think people are after that experience of an experience with God. And the prophetic helps to do that. It’s not the only one way, but that is a way that God will have an experience with a person or a person will have experience with God. And it builds their faith. It helps ’em to grow and develop, but it also needs to be done the right way.

And I think sometimes, you know, the prophetic, we speaking to many different areas, you know, different groups, different people, and, and, uh, it, it needs to be done the right way to, to build up the body of Christ. That’s what the Bible says. But, but it’s, you know, desire earnestly to spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

So it has a, it has a key point to develop growth in people, in churches, in environments, in businesses, whatever it is that you are applying that to. Uh, and if it isn’t done correctly, then all of those things are gonna be hindered. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. In some form. Yeah. And that one Corinthians 14 one is what you just quoted for.

Sometimes people aren’t sure where to find that in the Bible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and Phil, do you have any sort of other, um, things that you’d like to sort of say about what, what sort of consequences or damage can happen when prophecies mishandled? Look, people, we’ve seen people that have, have received a prophecy and, and hasn’t been delivered, right?

Or it’s been ahead of its time. It’s there’s a lot of things happen and those people sometimes will just walk away from, from the church, walk away from God, even at times because the prophetic word is very powerful. And, and, uh, and, and we’d liken it a bit to like a power tool. You can have a saw, a hand saw, and you can cut a piece of wood.

And if you miss that piece of wood, you cut your arm, you’re not gonna lose your arm. But if it’s a power tool and you’ve got a saw, you can cut your arm off, that’s a bit more serious. Mm-hmm. And so prophetic can be like a power tool that can be fantastic. It can speed things up, it can make things work well, but if it’s not handled correctly, it can do a lot of damage.

Mm. That’s good. And, and so we’ve seen people that have been damaged and, and. Uh, walk away from their relationship. Uh, you know, churches split because things haven’t been done correctly and, and misunderstanding comes in, or people take advantage of that, or they think, oh, I’ve heard from God, so I must be, I must be right.

Creates problems. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just thinking as you were saying that like, you know, in say for like on a building site where you’ve got someone building a house, if we could have used that analogy for like say the House of God or the kingdom of God, you know, we need the tools to build right.

And, and it’d be kind of ridiculous to say, oh, you know, someone did the wrong thing because they weren’t trained on how to use that tool. So now no one is allowed to use power tools anymore. We all have to go back to using a saw. And so the building of that house is gonna take so much longer. Yeah. Um, what do you think about that?

That’s a good analogy, Josh. Well done. I like it. And, and unfortunately that happens because, you know, the prophetics put aside spiritual gifts are put aside, there’s no building in faith. And, and so people. Uh, everything does take longer or it just stagnates. Mm. Nothing happens. Mm. You, you get a nice message.

You, you know, you, you come and be encouraged, but you’re not growing as you should because some of the, the. Tools, as you say, are not being used correctly. Mm. Or at all. Yeah. And it’s probably a good, I’m just thinking it’s a good point to say again, there are guidelines, there are biblical guidelines. There are, there are, there are some, um, uh, protocols that can be put into place.

So if you are, if you are listening to this, I don’t think it’s by chance that we are talking about if you’re listening to this and you’re a leader, a pastor, a minister that has prophetic people that. You might consider a bit, bit, a bit of a worry or a bit rogue or a bit bit, um, zealous and, and not mature.

Uh, come to us. Call, call us, talk to us. ’cause we do have some, we can give you some protocols to put into place to help bring maturity, not to shut a person down, but to bring them into maturity because a lot of the time, the problems can occur because of the immaturity. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Shifting over to more of a solution focus now, um, how do we assess whether a prophetic word is truly from God?

Yeah, that’s a good question, Josh. And, and sometimes, uh, there’s multiple answers to that. I guess some of it is, is timing. Some of it is understanding who it’s come from. Um, not that the word is necessarily wrong, but. That can have a bearing as well, because if that person, and, and sometimes this happens, uh, uh, you’ll get someone who, you know, people might say, oh, that person’s a flake, and, and, but they can hear from God and bring a, a, a, a good word.

But sometimes that good word is thrown out because of their immaturity in the way it’s delivered, the way some of the wording they might have used, et cetera. And, and so it’s, it’s working through all those things to be able to understand what God is saying, but it always lines up with his nature. Mm-hmm.

A prophetic word will all always line up with the nature of God and it won’t have a lot of pressure in it. God is not a God who pressures people. Uh, it it, it lines up with the fruit of the spirit, as we said before. You know, it’s gentle, it’s kind, it’s loving, it’s and, and. Corinthians 14 one starts with pursue love and desire spiritual gifts.

So that always has to be where it starts at the beginning. Pursue love and is that how it’s come across? Is that what the word is saying? Is it representing Jesus in the right way? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that’s a really good, like filter or test, isn’t it? Is it, is it coming from a place of love? Is it. Is it, um, is this God speaking?

’cause God is loved. Um, Laura, do you have anything to add to that? Uh, I think that’s good. Okay. Um, what role does the Holy Spirit play in helping us discern? That’s good. Um, yeah, so I, I, I think of the scripture, Hebrews five 14 solid food belongs to those that are full age. There’s those by reason of use, uh, develop their spiritual center senses and, um, and know how to d discern between good and evil.

And, and so. Practice discerning, practice, discerning, uh, what is God and what isn’t practice of being aware of is that come from, we’ve gotta constantly ask questions. God actually loves questions and, and if we, uh, if we, if we are not sure about something and or if it’s new to us, it’s important to ask questions or, or important to allow, um, what is being, um, you know, how, how do I understand that?

’cause God wants to bring. New revelation to us as well. And so practice discerning what, you know, what is it about that, or does it represent the nature of God or does it represent the nature of man? Does it represent the, um, the enemy that comes to rob, kill and destroy? And so in every spiritual gift where we should be practicing it, hmm.

No, that’s really good and I think will help a lot of people to look at it from that way. Um, this has been really good, and I know that a lot of people listening will get, um, some good tips and value out of this. Um, what would you say to someone that is hesitant about the prophetic because of maybe a negative past experience or something that they’ve seen?

Yeah. Look, I, I, I think. Again, we talked about throwing everything out. That’s, that’s not what a person should be doing. You might have been damaged in the past. You might have had a word that has come from someone that’s, you know, not represented Jesus in the right way. It, it’s not a, it’s not a time to throw everything away because the Bible clearly states that, you know, pursue love, desire, spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

So God wants us to be. In that environment where we can grow and because as we said in a previous episode, that we develop our relationship with God there in, you know, activating spiritual gifts and, and being in communication with God. So it’s building that relationship. And yes, sometimes, you know, things happen and we wanna hide for a while, but we need to make sure we come back into that place of fellowship.

Mm-hmm. Sadly, I, it, it, this is can be a constant conversation for our, for, for our community. People come in or they hear it, they have a friend that says, oh, I just had this prophecy. What am I gonna do with it? It feels bad. I’m wearing it bad. It feels like it’s condemning me. I feel like I’m doing all the wrong things.

I feel like, you know, I’m being disobedient and God’s angry with me. And, and so, um, I don’t think I wanna ever get a prophecy again. And, you know, yeah. That conversation comes up a lot. Uh, and, and sadly, it’s, it’s, again, it’s because of. Wrong, the wrong way of, of bringing a prophecy or, or even, even someone actually using it incorrectly, um, in, in a way of that is not giving glory to God.

So, so I encourage you if you’ve had a bad experience, uh, in prophecy, uh, reach out, reach out to us and ’cause we wanna pray with you. And there are, there are some things that, you know, the, the guidelines that we use that they actually do line up, does your prophecy line up with the word of God? Does your prophecy line up with the nature of God?

And, uh, and, um, is it, is it bringing, is it bringing you encouragement or strategy and, and understanding? And if it’s not, it, it, you know, may, may have been not, it may have been a word from God somewhere there, but it may have been, may not have been, or it may have been bought in, in a, in a wrong, in, in a wrong motive or a wrong way.

Mm mm Yeah. Lots of things there to think about. Um. What’s coming up? Have you got anything planned? Any special events coming up soon that people can be a part of? Always, always. We always have, every other month we have a zoom night, uh, where you can just come and be introduced or just come and practice, or we have our regular in-person in Sydney and other places, actually other churches host us in other, in other places.

Yeah. Um, where you can come and, and, uh, get and, and get some training or, or, or come and sit in and, and observe, come in and have some fun. Awesome. And just quickly want to talk about the book that was launched in February because the book contains, um, all the training and all the 20 plus years of experience around the prophetic, as well as some other, um, interesting topics.

So, um, where can people find that book? See the signs and wonders through prophecy, dreams, and Numbers. Our book is the ebook. You can, you can instantly buy and download on our website, or you can, uh, you can, uh, request a hard copy that gets mailed out to you as well on our website, destiny strategies.com au or our Facebook Destiny Strategies or any of the links that should be with, with, um, this.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks again. It’s been really good to talk about these topics and I look forward to, um, our next episode. See you soon.

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