Testing Prophecy
God can bring you into a place of revelation, insight and peace about how to test prophecy. This will result in the Christian being secure in their own walk with the Lord about testing prophecy.
The believer should, on a daily basis, cast all their cares onto the Lord, and tell God all their anxieties, worries, problems, questions, and let God answer.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. (1 Pet 5:6,7)
The true believe will always be open to the Lord to instruct them, teach them, rebuke them and bless them. Without true flexibility and reachability you can never truly grow as the Lord wants for you to.
Test 1: Is the prophecy scriptural ?
Does it line up with scripture. If it doesn’t, is your interpretation of scripture correct? If it is true prophecy, and the Christian uses scripture to refute it, then this teaching and warning from Jesus must be understood.
“If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt 6:23)
Also if you are using scripture to reject prophecy, have you understood the intent and the heart of scripture, or have you simply read according to the letter:
“for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor 3:6)
Jesus rebuked many of the Pharisees who quoted from the Word of God, but they quoted out of context.
If the prophecy is not scriptural (according to the right interpretation of scripture) it should be rejected.
Test 2: Prayer
Communication with the Lord is essential in testing prophecy. Things to ask God in prayer:
Is this person speaking from their own heart or are they truly listening to the Lord ?
Are they walking in their own ambitions, or are they truly seeking the heart of God ?
When praying you must ask yourself, are you making quality time for prayer, do you ask God to help you to listen to the answer?
You must ask God to overrule you for any reason if you are rejecting true prophecy.
You must ask God for boldness to reject anything that is not from God, but you must fear God to reject a true prophet.
Test 3: Peace
Do you have peace ? This is one of the greatest reasons for Christians rejecting prophecy. Many believers don’t want to receive some prophecies, so this will naturally cause them to be conflicted which will result in them not having the peace they should have, and they get deceived.
Then say they don’t have peace, therefore the prophecy mustn’t be from the Lord, when what is needed is for them to humble themselves and ask God for peace if the prophecy is from God. When God gives you a sense of no peace, it will be different to when it is not of God.
Once you have been through all your motives, and if you are true to God you will know whether the peace you have is from God or whether the peace you don’t have is from God.
Test 4: Confirmation
Is this something other prophets are prophesying that God is speaking to you ?
For example - prophecies about world situations: many prophets in this time are prophesying the same prophecies about economic disasters, wars etc. On a personal level, God will speak to you through the Holy Spirit, through scripture and also through other Christians. God does not always have to confirm prophecy, as the Lord has spoken everything you need to know through scripture – the problem is when the saints do not listen to scripture.
Therefore a prophet can prophesy anything to you, that you have not necessarily been prepared for by the Lord already (although scripture prepares you for all things!)
Saying “God hasn’t spoken to me, therefore I reject the prophecy” is a great error.
God can speak in any way, or any time, or by any means He wishes, whether the Christian is prepared or not.
Test 5: What is the fruit of prophecy ?
Does the prophecy inspire you whether through the fear of God, or through the love of God, to be holy, to walk in love, to seek God at a deeper level, to evangelize, to walk in mercy etc..?
Walking in the prophetic will mean that your whole mindset, understanding, reasoning must be changed to be brought into alignment with the Word of God. This will result in power and Gods authority over your life.
