How to Receive Prophetic Words

Hey, welcome to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. I'm always honored when, whenever somebody downloads my show. It's a, it is a privilege and I hope this show is a blessing to you. That's my whole goal, I just want to be a blessing to you and help you with your walk with the Lord. Uh, please check out our website and all the links with the show notes. There's all kinds of cool stuff. Free courses, merchandise, you can get a free evaluation on how to get a college degree from ICM, who is our sponsor, the International College of Ministry. So this show, I'm going to be talking about the prophetic gift but a little bit different take. I want to get into what happens after somebody gives you a prophetic word. What is your part. I think you're going to like this show very much. Again, thank you for downloading uh, Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self, me. Be sure and tell your friends about it and subscribe. Uh, share. That really helps us a lot. I appreciate you very much. God bless you.

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Okay, here we go, Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this show. I pray, Father, that your Holy Spirit would… would touch us today… that you would increase your, your manifest– manifested presence inside of us today. So, Lord, I ask you to use me as your voice today and help those that are, that are listening to hear and understand what you would want them to know. We give all honor and glory to the name of Jesus. Amen, amen. Well, again, thank you for being with me today. Today I want to talk more about the prophetic gift. You know, it's a very interesting thing about the prophetic gift just in general. In the book of Corinthians, Paul makes it very clear how important this gift is. In 1 Corinthians 14:1, he says “Pursue love, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you would prophesy.” In verse 39 of Corinthians– 1 Corinthians 14, it says do not forbid to speaking in tongues but covet to prophesy. And he goes on and spends almost an entire chapter talking about this gift and the proper use of this gift. And it's amazing to me that not every church– every Christian church is using and operating in this gift because we have a commandment to do that. We have a commandment to do that. Very clear. Pursue love, earnestly desire spiritual gifts, especially that you would prophesy. That's 1 Corinthians 14:1. Sadly, some denominations believe that oh, that gift passed away. That was only for New Testament times 2000 years ago. Well, that's kind of a convenient explanation of not using a gift that God commands us to use.

The gift is in operation today folks, and perhaps in your walk with the Lord you've had somebody come up to you and said, “I have a prophetic word for you.” Or sometimes the expression they use is, “I have a word for you,” and so they proceed to give you a word, okay? And they say, “This is what I believe the Lord is saying to you.” And sometimes that can be very confusing. And over the years, I've seen so many people respond in so many ways to this that it is very interesting and I want to, want to talk about that just a little bit more today, okay? All right, well let's go.

So here's the scenario. You… maybe you go to the altar for prayer. You know, there's an altar call after the sermon, and um, you come up to the altar and there… maybe some churches have prayer teams up there, usually a husband and wife, and they pray for you and they give you uh, something that they say is a prophetic word from the Lord. Now, some people when they get these prophetic messages from the Lord delivered, they're very, very very serious about it and some people even freak out about it, they're so serious about it. I have been around this gift operating since… I think I first started being ex– uh, get the experience of this gift operating was around 1986. So I've, I've seen it thousands of times and I've seen thousands of different reactions to it. And it's very interesting, first thing I want to say is when somebody says, “I have a prophetic gift from the Lord, a prophetic word from the Lord for you, I have a word for you,” it's okay, just listen to them. Now what happens is some people, they respond like “Oh my God, I don't think that's from God. What am I going to do? They gave me a word and I, I'm conf– I don't think that's from God…” I'm going, “It's okay. If it's not from the Lord, let it go. It's okay.” Sometim– if you're really concerned about it, you may do what I have done before. I a little, say a little prayer to myself as the word is being given. “Lord, I will only receive what is from you, in the name of Jesus Christ.” 

So if you get a prophetic word that you know is not true, what I do - and I've done this before - is I say, “Thank you very much. God bless you.” I walk back to my chair, wherever I'm going, and I just let it fall to the floor. Now, there's many times I have received prophetic words. A couple comes up to me, says, “Dr. Ray, this is what I hear the Lord saying to you.” And sometimes I hear them and I listen to them, I'm really not sure about what they said, but I say, “Okay.” I just sort of store it away. And I've done that a number of times. The, the old expression in charismatic churches, it's called “put it on the shelf.” And so I sort of tuck it away and I just wait and see what happens. But I want to say something right now on the front end. If somebody prophesies over you something that is not of God, don't worry about it. Don't freak out about it. Just don't receive it. Just don't receive it. Now, of course, the first thing is you need to know how to determine if something is from the Lord or not. You know? Does it line up with scripture, does it bear witness with your spirit, uh, is there peace about it? You know? Is there confusion with it, do they have prior knowledge? In other words, it's up to you. It's up to you to learn how to discern if a prophetic word is from God or not. 

I used to say this to my students: If I give you a bad prophetic word and it's just it's just wrong and you take that prophetic word and you run with it, okay, who's at fault? And the answer is both of us. I'm at fault because I gave a bad prophetic word but the recipient is at fault because they received it. Because you see, I've got the Holy Spirit and you have the Holy Spirit so my job is to do my part but your job is to receive it or not receive it and learn how to know the difference if that makes sense. And so I've literally had a - just rough estimate - a thousand prophetic words spoken over me. Many of them were not from the Lord, some were from God, some of them changed my life forever. But how you receive it or not receive it is really up to you. So in other words, my concern is, in the gift of prophecy, it’s not about the person giving me the word, my concern and my focus is what am I going to do with the word that has been given to me. Am I going to receive this? Believe this? Pray over this? Write this down and war over this in the Spirit? Or am I going to say, “You know what, that's not from God,” you know, I don't speak it out loud, “It's not from God, thank you very much. In the name of Jesus Christ, I just let that fall to the ground.” But again, there's no worry, there's no stress. I've heard a lot of things that were not from God spoken over me. I have zero concern over that. I just– some– if, if, if, it, if it feels like they spoke a curse over me or something… spoken something really negative over my life, I will just say a little prayer, a little– make a little proclamation, “I rebuke that in the name of Jesus Christ,” and I'm done with it. I'm done with it. So I'm not worried about it.

But it is critical to know how to receive a prophetic word and, which makes it kind of interesting. I'll just tell you a little short story, and this was literally about 15 years ago. I went to a, a home group, and a guy, he was a pastor or minister that was at the home group, and he looked at me and he said, “Dr. Self, I see you ministering in New Mexico and Arizona. And uh, I see a door opening for you out there.” This was like 15 years ago. It was something like that. I did not write it down but I just kind of have a rem– vague remembrance of what he said. And so I pretty much just sort of left that one alone because I had no desire to go to Arizona or New Mexico. I wasn't, it wasn't in my game plan but I thought, “Well, that's kind of, kind of interesting.” It wasn't something I was going to throw away, but it wasn't something that I really believed either. So lo and behold, 15 years later, a gigantic door opens for me in Arizona and New Mexico. The door was the Navajo Indian reservation which takes up parts of Arizona, parts of New Mexico, parts of Colorado, and parts of Utah. So happens that now with my satellite campus program, we have two satellite bible schools operating in the Navajo Nation, and in June, I was invited out there to do a conference and also hold a graduation for the Navajo Indian student graduates. And by the way, it's interesting, they don't really call themselves Navajo, they're known as the Diné. So I was at the Diné and did this thing and had this conference and graduation and I was able to minister to a number of the uh, Navajo, or - excuse me Diné pastors, and it was incredible. And then I remembered, “Oh my goodness, 15 years ago I had a prophetic word and it came to pass.” And it just, it was just amazing. It was just so cool. Remember what Jesus said. Looking at his disciples, he said “I will tell you the things that are to come to pass so when they come to pass, you will believe.” So this prophetic word that I wasn't sure about at all 15 years ago came to pass. Now, what it has done for me is I believe it has built my faith. I know that God was speaking to me and I know it was God's will for me to be there and it was very, very powerful. 

So you may get a strange prophetic word that just, you know, “I just don't see how that's going to happen.” But lesson learned here, is you never know. So if you can record these words, write them down, put them in a file, and periodically - I've had a number of teachers say this to me over the years - periodically go back and look at prophetic words that have been spoken over you and pray about them. Now, another interesting thing is that if a prophetic word that you receive or were given is from God, sometimes the enemy will attack that word and try to stop it from coming to pass. Especially if it has something to do with God's purpose for your life. The primary scheme of… the... Satan against you is to stop you from fulfilling your purpose and your call. He does not want you to do what God created you to do because if you do, that's going to increase the kingdom of God. Remember, I've said this on many, many shows and also through my teaching. Satan does not attack God directly, he attacks God indirectly. And the way he does that is he attacks God's people working in God's purpose. So he can attack God's purpose by attacking you and keeping you from fulfilling it and doing it. So the prophetic gift to, to me is critical and very, very, very important. But when a prophetic word is spoken over you, several things I would encourage you to do. 

Now, unfortunately, many people giving prophetic words add a lot to it. It drives me crazy but they do it. The proper way to give a prophetic word would be to say, “Susan, I believe I hear the Lord saying…” Speak what you hear the Lord saying and then stop. But unfortunately, what many people do in delivering prophetic words is they'll say to you - let's say your name is John - “John, I hear the Lord saying to you… now, I, I've been praying about this. Now, I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I want to give you this word and this is what I think God's going to do here because this word is so powerful. I really think this word's going to change your life. And here, and here the word is. And then I, I know that this probably means that you should be doing this and, and you should be doing that and, and I hope you really understand and receive this…” and by the time they're finished, you don't even know what the prophetic word was. Um in my training and in my college, we teach people to make it clear. Just say what you believe the Lord is saying and then stop right there. See, when a prophetic word is given, it does not have to make sense on… to the giver. The giver is strictly a messenger but it may make sense and should make sense to the recipient. So many times I've spoken prophetic words over people that made no sense to me at all. I didn't understand them but I would give them to a person and they would go, “Wow, that's incredible. That's a confirmation of what God's been trying to show me for the last couple of months! Thank you so much.” So if you, if you're moving in the prophetic, do not try to understand it. It's not your job to understand if you're a messenger, but it is your job as a recipient to try to understand it and to receive it and record it and determine if it is from God or not. Now, clearly, if something is unscriptural and violates biblical principles, it's not from God, God will not violate his word. Now, if you don't know God's word, that's going to be hard for you to discern. This again, is what I tell my students. You do not have to be a expert on the Bible to discern. What you do need to be is a person who understands the message of the Bible what is the message of the Old Testament. And the reason, for instance, for the law. Why did Jesus have to come? Why did Jesus– why did Jesus minister the way he ministered? Why did Jesus have to die? Why did he need to rise from the dead? Why did Paul write us letters? What was the the purpose of Paul's letters and Peter's letters and James’ letters? 

Now, this is not super complicated but if you kind of get the message and you get the principles of the bible, you'll be able to determine if what you're hearing is something from God or something from human imagination. Another thing that makes this so interesting is that imagination… imagination is a really confusing factor. So many times people claim that God has spoken to them and they want to tell you what God has spoken to them but it's their own imagination. Again, that takes the gift of discernment. How do you do that? Well, you pray. “Lord, give me the gift of discernment. Hello? Lord, give me the gift of discernment.” So is what you're hearing someone's imagination or is it a combination of part of it's their imagination and part of it is from God? And that's something very interesting. I've heard prophetic words that have a lot of just natural imagination and flesh in them but in the midst of what they're saying, they say something that I know is from God. I can tell you the same thing just having a conversation with people. Sometimes I'll just be talking to a person and listen to them and as they're talking to me, in the middle of the conversation they said something prophetic to me that was from God and they didn't even real– realize it. Children can speak prophetic words to you. They don't know they're speaking a prophetic word but they can do it.

Prophetic words can also come through all kinds of circumstances and, and ways that we, you know, beyond imagination. God speaks in a lot of different ways but I'm focusing here on the prophetic gift and receiving the prophetic gift. So if someone speaks over you and gives you a prophetic word and it hits you - now, most of the time, a majority of the time, prophetic words are confirmations of something God has already been trying to talk to you about or confirming a dream, confirming a vision, confirming a call on your life, or confirming a still small voice that you have not heard like you should. The gift of prophecy so many times is God's mercy because we have not– we were not listening to him the way we should so he sends another person to tell us what he's been trying to tell us, and it's confirmation. Then you need to receive it. 

What I mean to receive, that, that means embrace it. Embrace it in your heart. Think about it, don't, don't just shut it off right there. Write it down and when you write it down or record it on your iPhone or whatever, unless you're a Samsung person, Google person, Pixel person, record it or write it down and and listen to it periodically. Pull it out and listen to it. It's amazing, the impact on your life if you will review these prophetic words periodically, okay? I have a folder that of, of prophetic words that were spoken to me, you know, and to my wife and I. And I need to get better about recording because usually when I'm ministering, there's so many stuff going on and people want to pray for me and I'm praying for people, there's a lot going on. But if you can record this or write it down, then go back to your word. Matter of fact, I think there's a scripture in Timothy, says war with the prophecy. Go back to the word and look at it again and maybe look at it multiple times. Now, if the enemy attacks and you know God has spoken to you and you know it's not coming to pass and you feel some kind of, I call them harassing spirits or hindering spirits, that's when you need to go into spiritual warfare. “In the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you, hindering spirit. I rebuke every distraction. I rebuke every attack upon this word. God has spoken. His word cannot return void. Satan, get out of here.” Literally, do that. That's called waring with the prophecy. 

There's another scripture that says do not despise prophetic utterances. How can you despise prophecy? How can you despise prophecy? Well, you despise prophecy by ignoring it, by not responding to it. That's despising prophecy according to the word of God. So when somebody speaks prophetically over you, your job first off is to determine if it's from God or not. And it could be that you're not sure and that's okay. If you know it's not from the Lord, just in your spirit, reject it. Let it fall to the ground and do not worry about it, okay? You’ll not believe how many people I've ministered to over the years, “Dr. Self, I got this word. I know it's not from God; I don't know what to do.” Well, let it go. Kind of do the Frozen thing, let it go. I'm not going to sing that for you right now because my voice is just too powerful and it would just amaze you too much. Uh, let it go. Let it fall to the ground. But if it is from God, you have a responsibility to receive it, embrace it, mix it with faith, look at it, praise God for it. And, and do not allow the devil to take it away from you. Do not allow him. You have authority over snakes and scorpions and all the power of the enemy, okay? Submit to God, resist the devil, he will flee from you. So resist the devil out of your prophetic words. The gift of prophecy is incredibly powerful. This is why Paul said of all the spiritual gifts: healing, faith, discerning of spirits, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, tongues, of all the gifts he said the number one gift to pursue, to covet, is prophecy. And the reason is really obvious. A prophetic word, if it is correct and if it's coming from the Lord, is God's voice. It is God speaking to us. Now, I know as human beings we mess it up. We, we confuse it. We jumble it, we do all kinds of stuff with it. But don't throw out the baby with the bath water. Just because you've seen a misuse of something doesn't mean it's not real. Satan will only counterfeit what is valuable, you understand? So if you see a lot of counterfeit, that means there must be something valuable going on. If you see counterfeit proph– prophecy, that just tells me there's real prophecy, ‘cause Satan would never counterfeit something if it were not valuable and important. Just like money. Nobody counterfeits $1 bills, they counterfeit 20s and 50s, and $100 bills. That's an– a counterfeit is an evidence that something real is going on that is valuable. So I hope this makes sense to you. 

Uh, the prophetic gift is so powerful. And yes, it's misused and yes, it gets weird and yes, it gets wacky. But don't worry about it because in the midst of the weirdness, wackiness, God can still speak and change your life forever. I'm doing this podcast from Winter Park, Florida, and the reason I'm here, 15, 16 years ago it was because of a prophetic word, multiple prophetic words. And by the way, on that subject, if something is from God, normally you will hear it and it'll be confirmed multiple times. It's not just a one-time shot for i– in the Bible, how many times did the Lord tell us about Jesus coming and about His death on the cross and His resurrection? It was prophesied and prophesied and prophesied and prophesied, okay? As a matter of fact, Jesus fulfilled on the cross I think over 83 prophecies. What are the odds of that? So God will use multiple prophecies to confirm His will for you. So I hope this has blessed you. I hope this makes sense to you. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this podcast. Holy Spirit, I ask you just to help us to remember what you have said today and make it clear. Father, we thank you for the prophetic gift. We thank you that it flows and it goes and we, we know how to receive it and we know how to reject that which is not of you. And Lord, I ask for fresh filling of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, touch those listening right now. And if you will so receive, stir up the prophetic gift. Stir up the prophetic gift. Open up our ears to hear and our mouths to speak what you tell us to speak, Father. And I thank you, Lord. And I thank you, Lord. And I thank you, thank you, Lord. And I'm just going to say something kind of bold here. There's somebody listening, his name is Mike. You have lost a ton right– you've gone through a major loss just in the last few months. It's like, “I don't know how I'm going to continue, I don't know how to continue.” The Lord says, “I'm opening up a new door for you.” And He– I know– the Lord knows it's going to be difficult for you to walk through but you must walk through the new door. “And when you walk through the new door, I'm still going to restore that broken relationship what, just– broke your heart right before Christmas.” Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Anyway, love you guys so much in the Lord. Thank you for listening. Please, please, please share this and uh, help me get more downloads and more people hearing this. Um, I'm not asking for money, I'm not asking for anything, I'm just asking that this message can be heard by more people. Amen. God bless you and thank you for listening to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self.

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Thank you one more time for listening to Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self. It's hard to believe we just completed our 157th episode, so thank you, thank you very much. In the show notes and description that comes with the podcast, there's links to all kinds of stuff that will bless you and also helps us. You can– there's a link to purchase my book, Hear His Voice, be His Voice. That's how to move prophetically, how to know and do it in order. There's a link to our store, we have all kinds of t-shirts and cups, and caps, and also you can purchase courses in the store. Um, links to my other books. Please don't forget to um, uh, you know, if you feel led and I hope you feel led, go to icmcollege.org/donate to help us with our scholarship funds. We give away anywhere from $30 to $60,000 in bible college scholarships to ministers who feel called and know their call of God to go to bible college and get their degree but cannot afford it. We help them all the time so that helps us. Again, this show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry. We are running 24 hours a day all the time. You can work on your own pace. Uh, it's accredited through ACI, we're under the Florida Department of Education as an ecclesiastical school, got degrees in ministry, theology, Christian counseling, and prophetic ministry. AA, BA, MA, and doctoral programs, and we take life credit experience. We're enrolling right now at icmcollege.org/enroll. icmcolleg.org/enroll, and we are affordable. And you say, “Well, I can't afford it.” Well, we got a scholarship plan. God bless you, thank you so much for listening to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self.