15 Signs you may have the Gift of Prophecy and 2 Warnings – Prophetic Series Part 4

This is part 4 of our prophetic series.  In this post we will talk about the 15 Signs or Traits that you have the Gift of Prophecy.  If this is the first time you are seeing this series here are the first 3:

The Gift of Prophecy

Prophetic Words, Sowing Seeds and Money

How do prophets hear from God?

If you are new to the gift of prophecy and you are not sure if you have the gift here are some characteristics of the prophetic gift:

1. You desire deep intimacy with God. You have a deep prayer life.
2. You hear God speak to you in many of the ways in which He speaks to the
   
   
   
   
   

   prophets

3. Always seeking to hear the Lord on situations.  Prophets always looks for what God has to say
4. You have premonitions or received information from the Lord on future events that you’ve seen come to pass.
5. If you are a Seer, you will see things in the spirit that others cannot see.  You may even believe it was your imagination at first.
6. You are keenly aware that your words have authority and what you speak actually happens.  Sometimes you may even be afraid to verbalize some things because you don’t want to see them happen.
7. Other people have told you that things you’ve prayed or said actually happened
8. You are drawn to the prophetic and probably have a lot of dreams and see symbols of eagles
9. You’ve helped people get free or delivered from situations
10. You have a standard for righteousness and can see many problems within your church that others may not see
11. You feel separate and apart from most people in your church and see the need for deep repentance
12. You generally do not follow other people, you follow God and what He is telling you to do. This means that you are a loner and you may not have a lot of friends, if any at all.
13. You’re often misunderstood.
14. You are a black and white person. There is no in between.
15. Your deepest desire is to turn people away from sin and towards God.  From sin to repentance to restoration.

If you read any of the prophets in the old testament you will see these 15 traits in them.

What is the purpose of prophesy?

(1 Corinthians 14:3 AMP) “But [on the other hand] the one who prophesies speaks to people for edification [to promote their spiritual growth] and [speaks words of] encouragement [to uphold and advise them concerning the matters of God] and [speaks words of] consolation [to compassionately comfort them].”

Most in the body of Christ are under the impression that prophecies are only suppose to be comforting and encouraging but this is only part of the picture.  Again, if you read the bible in its entirety you will see that before the blessings of God there has to be repentance from sin.  Prophesying repentance is not a touchy feel-good subject but we can’t get to the blessings until we go through that.

On the other hand, there are prophets that only prophesy judgement.  How can they not see the end of the road?  How are they unable to see that at the end of the judgment we have blessings?

The process is sin to repentance to restoration. So sometimes the prophetic word can be a rebuke and it is just as anointed as the one that encourages.

All prophets are intercessors but not all intercessors are prophets. 

Remember, intercession is a gatekeeper type of gift.  Because the intercessor has access to God and communicates with God on a regular basis, God gives them the gifts they need to intercede for others.  So they can move from gift to gift to gift as is needed for prayers to be answered.  Therefore, the intercessor can start out operating in a word of knowledge (a one time now word) then move into a prophetic word (a word for a future date) and then move into the full gift of prophecy.  Keep in mind, a person can be a prophetic intercessor and not be called to be a prophet.  If you are an intercessor and you want to know this difference…usually the prophetic gift is completely shut off outside of intercession.  So, when they start interceding it’s on and when they stop it’s no longer operational.  Prophets can prophesy without going into deep intercession.  Although, it’s highly unlikely to be sustained without an active prayer life.  You can’t actually be God’s spokesperson without regular communion with God. Prayer is a part of communion with God.  Therefore, prophets from God have an active prayer life.  If you are receiving prophetic words with little to no prayer life, then you need to question the source of the words you are receiving.

All seers are prophets but not all prophets are seers.

If you can see into the realm of the spirit, you are prophet because what God is showing you in the spiritual realm is something that you will need to prophesy into, warn others about or stop it.  You can be a prophet and not have the seer gift.  Because remember there are other ways that God can communicate with you besides spiritual sight.

Not everyone who receives a prophetic word from the Lord is a prophet

Just because you can hear God and He gives you dreams and visions doesn’t mean you are a prophet.  It just means you have the ability to communicate with your Father in heaven because you are a child of God.

I’m going to say that again…

If God gives you a dream and it happens as He showed it to you this does not mean that you are a prophet.

I’m going to say that again…

God spoke with Mary in the bible, He spoke with Elizabeth, He spoke with Joseph through dreams and none of these people are prophets.  They are children of God and God communicated with them.

Then how will you know?  Go back and read the 15 traits above, if you are not able to connect with the majority on the list, there’s a possibility you do not have the gift of prophecy.  You may be a child of God who has the ability to communicate with your Father, which is amazing because a lot of Christians do not have this developed and this can be taught.

This is something for you to know because the spiritual warfare, suffering and persecution that comes with being a prophet called of the Lord is very heavy and if you are not called to this, you will not be able to handle it.

Here are 2 Warnings for prophets

This is important to remember as you start growing in this gift. Most ministries don’t warn people about the pitfalls of this gift.  Therefore, most Christians start off well with the gift of prophecy and then end up in one of these 2 traps.

1. You must watch out for the spirit of Jezebel.  Remember that she preys on the prophet and looks to castrate and kill the anointing if she can’t make you one of her subjects and have you working for her (as a false prophet and one of her children).  While I use the word “she” please understand this is a spirit so it can be present in a man as well as a woman.

(1 Kings 18:4) For so it was, while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah had taken one hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty to a cave, and had fed them with bread and water.

If you find yourself in a group and the leader or 2nd in command carries the spirit of Jezebel, any person around them who says they are a prophet is actually a false prophet or one of Jezebel’s children or a eunuch in the spirit (Revelation 2:20-23).  Anyone who is a true prophet of God will not be able to stay around someone with a spirit of Jezebel.  The two spirits cannot coexist in the same space because they are enemies.

Most prophets come into their calling as a prophet through intercession.  They tend to start out on prayer lines or in prayer groups.  Hence, these groups always have the spirit of Jezebel lurking.  This spirit wants to get the prophet when they are young, if they have not yet fully developed in their gift of discerning of spirits and they may not even know that they have the prophetic gift, the spirit of Jezebel turns them into her slave working for her. Prophesying for her and against others.  Most prophets have gone through deep persecution and suffering because of the gifting.  The spirit of Jezebel is drawn to wounded people; therefore, if she finds someone with the gift of prophecy and they are wounded to boot, she will go after them.  She comes in finds your weakness, pretends to be the friend , forms an alliance and after she has pulled you in she starts training you.  If you are new to intercession and the gift of prophecy the training will basically be cursing other people.  Remember, the prophet’s words have authority in the spirit realm so she only needs them to use their tongue to kill others and open doors for her and close doors that she wants closed on others. She puts herself in the place of God by manipulation and control and in the end the prophet goes to her as their higher authority instead of God.

She basically prostitutes the gift for evil. Spiritual adultery.  If the prophet is not one who reads the word and understands what God would or would not do before you know it he/she is walking in deep witchcraft.

If you are currently a part of a group and you have discerned Jezebels, you need to get out.  You shouldn’t be tolerating it.  You’ll be under spiritual attacks initially because they are not going to be happy that they lost you, but you need out as soon as possible.

Revelation 2 to the Church of Thyatira

¹⁸ “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. ¹⁹ I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance, and that you are now doing more than you did at first.²⁰ Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. ²¹ I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. ²² So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. ²³ I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.²⁴ Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, ²⁵ except to hold on to what you have until I come.’²⁶ To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— ²⁷ that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’—just as I have received authority from my Father. ²⁸ I will also give that one the morning star. ²⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

2.  Watch out for the familiar spirits.  When God gives you prophetic word it comes by the unction of the Holy Spirit.  You can’t force God to give you a prophetic word.  If He has nothing to say, do the last thing He told you to do.  When I hear people say that other people pull prophetic words out of them, that is a little scary.  There is nothing to pull.  You either have a word or you don’t.  When you prophesy out of turn, when God has not said anything what you are doing is tapping into divination and familiar spirits.

When the Israelites got impatient waiting for Moses to come down the mountain, what did they do?  Build the golden calf.  When Saul was specifically told by the Prophet Samuel to wait for him and he went ahead and offered the burnt offering without waiting for Samuel, he sinned.  We have to learn to wait on God because when we act out of impatient then we put ourselves in sin

 (Isaiah 25:9) “It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation”

When we don’t wait on God a demon is always waiting around to bring the answer.  So why a familiar spirit?  Well these are the spirits that are attached to generations.  When you see patterns of sin happening in a family, there is a familiar spirit at work.  They create generational curses.  Yes, even after you are saved you can still have a generational curse attached to your family if it is not broken.  How will you know if you have a generational curse on your family?  There are patterns that happen when a curse is in place.  If you have a family with women who have miscarriages throughout the generations, there is a spirit at work.  When you have multiple marriages like 3-4 marriages over generations of people, it’s a spirit.  No one in your family got married?  Patterns of suicide.  Every family member eventually gets Alzheimer or cancer.  No, it’s not genetic!  It’s a curse that needs to be broken and CAN be broken, in Jesus name.  Don’t accept it. You are a child of God old things have past away and all things have been made new.  That means your life needs to reflect that.  No longer should you accept anything that was once a part of the old spiritually unrenewed man.  This is a part of your inheritance in Christ Jesus (Psalm 103:1-5).  The familiar spirits keep records of you.

So when you have a prophet that gives you information that is correct, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are from God because the familiar spirit knows everything about you.  They’ve been watching you since you were a child.  If you never prayed them off or got rid of them they are still there.

How to know when a prophet is working with familiar spirits

1. All roads lead to the money.  By the end of their message you end up giving them your money, giving them your car, your house, your wedding ring.  Watch out! (2 Peter 2 and Numbers 22)
2. The prophetic word that you receive from them will be 100% flesh.  You’re going to be rich.  You’ll live a mansion.  You’ll have a big ministry.  You, you, you, you.  It’s always centered around stuff.
3. They prophesy huge blessings but never bring up repentance or going to the foot of the cross.
4. When they do talk about someone’s sin it is insensitive and cause public shame, hurt and humiliation.  Some things should never be said in a public forum.
5. Therefore, there’s no love.
6. They operate with signs, wonders and miracles but there is no talk of salvation.  No one ever comes to know the Lord in those meetings.
7. They can tell you the brand of cigarette in your pocket but they will never pray deliverance over you to get rid of that demon of addiction.
8. It is a selfish spirit.  It is self serving. Prideful.
9. They tap into your desires and use it against you.  They look at the idol of your heart and use it to get you on the hook.
10. They never submit to the church authority.
11. They target weak minded or new Christians who don’t know enough of the word of God.
12. They can prophesy with tremendous accuracy because the information comes from the familiar spirit who is attached to you that gives it to the familiar spirit attached to them.
13. Here’s the conclusion you will come to after awhile, they’ve been so accurate about so many things but at the end of the day it seems to all come back to money and merchandising.  Yep, all roads lead to money.

The 4 worse things that happen to people or prophets after they come in contact with someone who prophesies from a familiar spirit is this…

1. They get a familiar spirit assigned to them.  If you never had one before you now have one because you sat under a prophet that had that on them.  If you sowed into their ministry, you sowed into a familiar spirit.  Therefore, you reap a familiar spirit.

2. Because you have this familiar spirit that has been assigned to you, you now have to question every dream or vision you received from the moment you got in contact with that prophet.  Because, they very well could be false visions and dreams now that you have this spirit attached to you.  Doesn’t mean that all of your dreams and visions become false but you need to bring every single one before the Lord and ask if they are from Him.

3. You have to go back to the beginning of your contact with the false prophet and erase every prophetic word they have ever given you. Why? They are false.  So hopelessness will set in.  Hope deferred because you are waiting on something to happen which will never happen.  The devil gave you false hope.  Go back to the beginning and make sure that you don’t follow things that you were told by this prophet.

4. If you shared things with this prophet that God showed you about your future, the enemy is now going to try to attack it, come against it and prevent it from happening.  Remember, they only work off of information.  So, if you told them now they know.  So if you find that things you were sure were from God are not happening that is because the familiar spirit got a hold of it…because you told them.  Now you need to war to keep what is from the Lord and belongs to you.  You may experience delays in your promises but you need to fight for them.

Now imagine these same prophets who operate with familiar spirits start a school of the prophets, what do you think happens to the people they mentor?  They impart a familiar spirit onto those prophets as well.  How else does Jezebel end up with 450 prophets?  They have to recruit.

This is why the prophets of old didn’t travel around with a lot of people.  You will find that most people with a prophetic gift that are really walking with the Lord are loners.  They can’t just have anyone around them.  They have to protect the anointing and their spirit. Otherwise, they pick up stuff.  King Saul who was not a prophet prophesied in 1 Samuel 10 because he was hanging out with prophets.  It’s contagious whether it’s good or it’s bad.

When Saul wanted to kill David because of the anointing that was upon Samuel anyone that went around him started to prophesy, even Saul, and no one could touch David.

(1 Samuel 19:18-24) “So David fled and escaped, and went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.  Now it was told Saul, saying, “Take note, David is at Naioth in Ramah!”  Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied also.  Then he also went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is at Sechu. So he asked, and said, “Where are Samuel and David?” And someone said, “Indeed they are at Naioth in Ramah.”  So he went there to Naioth in Ramah. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”

The leader of the group will determine the spirit of the group.  It all comes from the top.

Familiar spirits travel like wild fire so if you are hanging around people in the prophetic who have it on them, you are going to pick one up.  Prophets who operate with familiar spirits initially reap financial benefits and get elevated by the body of Christ because of their accuracy.  These demonic spirits only use this initially get the prophet hooked then what follows is a series of false visions, false dreams that not only lead other Christians astray but that false prophet as well.  They start going after things that are not real and end up nowhere.  Total hopelessness. Then the same spirit uses to false information to accuse them and tear them down publicly.  The end game is to kill, steal & destroy.

You will know you have a familiar spirit because God will show it to you.  In dreams you’ll have someone or something following you.  Sometimes you’ll see the same person or spirit in several dreams.  That is what it is.  They travel with you wherever you go because they need to collect information on you.  After you break it off yourself ask God to show you where and how you picked it up so you avoid this.

If you are reading this,  and you believe you may have a familiar spirit, then you need to break it off of yourself.  Here is more information on Familiar Spirits

Remember, you will pick up what you hang around so you must be able to discern, discern, discern the source of all prophetic messages.  Before you get too deeply involved in having someone mentor you, make sure you know what spirit is operating there. Take the time (months) to watch them, how they operate, how they treat people, is there any love there?

For those of you with the Gift of Prophecy, here’s one final thought God wants me to share with you…

Jesus stripped Himself of His divinity and came to earth to save you.  He was beaten beyond recognition, bled and He died just to save you.  That is how much He loves you.  Not only did He do this but He also bestowed upon you a spiritual gift of prophecy.  You were given the gift so that you could encourage others, bring them to repentance, deliver them and lead them to Him. Do you think it is right to take the free gift of salvation and the free spiritual gift that you were given and sell it to someone else? How do you think Jesus would react as He stands in your midst and listen to you tell someone to activate the word that can save their very soul they must sow a seed?  Do you think He would be pleased with that?  You would be selling what He died for.  Profiting off of the blood of Jesus.  He died for that person too!

This is so grievous.  Does it not grieve the Spirit of God within you? It should. I don’t care how they phrase it “sow a seed”, “partner with the word”,  “activate the word”, “for any donation…” NO!

Jesus is not happy.  These prophets & pastors always give this one scripture in the bible about the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17) as justification for what they are doing.  It was one woman in the entire history of Elijah’s ministry.  It was not the way that Elijah made his living.  It was a word for one woman, not a word for the masses.  Elijah lived by supernatural provision and words of knowledge as he moved from one place to the next.  As well as all the other prophets and disciples.  God gave them word of knowledge and wisdom on how to survive.  He brought people to them to support them.

The same God who gives you the prophetic word for people can give you a business idea, can give you multiple streams of income, can show you the hidden riches in dark places. Can He not? Won’t He do it?

It is wrong try to profit off of the blood of Jesus! He died to give you the word.  Now you must die to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes in order to give the Word to someone else.  Jesus gave Himself as an example. Ministry is a sacrifice, it is not a business.

God is allowing this to go on for a time so that the great separation of the wheat and tares will be obvious to everyone.  When He shows up to overturn the money changers table, that group won’t be able to hide because EVERYONE will know who communes with the spirit of mammon.

You will be tested in this area.  When it starts happening…Stay pure.  Flee from the spirit of mammon, greed & lust.  Don’t defile yourself. Serve God with a pure heart and clean hands.

Does this mean that you can’t ask people for a donation? No.  It doesn’t mean that at all.  There is nothing wrong with you asking people for a donation if you have a need in your ministry.  Ask and it will be given to you.  What you should never do is tell people that you can’t give them the word or the word has no effect without them sowing a seed.  Do you see the difference?  There is a difference.

I’ve been asked before to give personal prophetic words to be people for a donation, the answer is No.

I don’t charge for prayers and I don’t charge for prophetic words.  If I have a word to give you, I’ll give it to you. You need prayer, I’ll pray for you. There is no money involved. I got the gift for free, I give the gift for free.

Here’s another one…What if I give you $1,000 every month, can you give me a monthly prophetic word?  No.  What if the word I give you is one of rebuke, will you want a refund?  This will eventually lead to compromise. How in the world am I going to have a prophetic word specifically for you every month?  What if the Lord gives me nothing for you?  Now I tap into a familiar spirit and divination because of money.

All of this is a trap from the enemy.

If people are being blessed by your ministry they will donate to your ministry.  The Lord Himself will make sure they do it.  Don’t sell the gift.

You can read this article if you want to know more about sowing seed and collecting money, all the scriptures are here.

Here are the other posts in this prophetic series Understanding the timeline of a prophetic word  and How to start using your Prophetic Gift

I hope this helps to shine a light on somethings you may have discerned in the prophetic. Do you have any questions?  Write them in the comments. God Bless!