E.17 — A New Career Path For Prophets
Season 2: Episode 17
A New Career Path For Prophets
Get the Podcast Playbook, to accompany the podcast here. Filled with devotionals, checklists, questionnaires and more:
In this episode you will learn:
Where the church needs to shift her focus
That the body of Christ can radically change the world for the kingdom through innovation
6 different types of influential prophets
Episode length: 28:05
Transcript
Paul said in First Corinthians 14 that we should all eagerly desire to prophesy. His admonition was given in the midst of his best sermon, the sermon of what love is and how it operates. If we want to learn how to best love and how to express love through prophecy, that I'm convinced that the body of Christ needs to dump an old model, one where prophecy and love is mainly expressed in the confines of the church, and embrace a new model or wine skin, if you will.
Prophets & Innovation
In this episode, I'm going to share how there is a new career path for prophets in the church and how this path leads to greater dimensions of love in all types of cultures and places of influence.
Welcome to God's strategy room.
As we move into the new epoch in Christianity, God is releasing Kingdom strategies and blueprints.
Join us as we dive deep into God's strategy room to discover the wisdom of heaven for the transformation of cities. I'm your host, Angela Meer. I am the episode lead for firehouse, a center for city wide transformation in Southern Oregon. Let's jump into this week's episode.
Okay, well, welcome back to God's strategy room. I'm super excited about today's episode, because as I was getting ready to begin recording, the Lord kind of hijacked my plans and said, No, I want to talk to you, I want you to talk to them about something else. And this is an episode about why prophetic people need to be innovators.
And if you don't feel like you're an innovator, or you don't feel like you're prophetic, don't tune me out right yet,
Because I want to share with you some things that are happening in the spirit that are going to cause you to be moving quicker into the prophetic and quicker into innovation. And so just stick with me as we go through this.
So let's talk about first and foremost, what types of prophets there are in the Bible, and how each expression of the prophetic innovates. So the reason why it's so important that we begin to look at innovation being tied to the prophetic is because up until recently, there's only been one career path for prophetic people. And that is the pulpit, at their church or in their region or a pulpit around the world.
And what that has caused the prophetic to be, is something that's very, very limited to the select few whom God chooses to cause to be well known prophetic voices. But there's coming on the earth a greater glory in this new epoch that we've moved into post-Coronavirus, and that is that
The glory of God is coming to cause the body of Christ to move into a kingly anointing.
And move away from an anointing that looks like being the tail and not the head, beneath and not above.
And part of the move is that we’ve got to begin to shift our thinking structures around the prophetic and around innovation. You see, we think of innovation, and maybe we think about people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, these various people who kind of are essentially people that are in their basements or garages, working on projects, and one day they strike it rich.
You know, this is typically what we think of when we think about innovation.
But innovation in the Bible is scripturally a very different thing.
City Gates
Innovation in the Bible looks like God moving through people to cause them to have more influence and more ability to have a real purpose in the earth. And not just in the church.
See, we've become so accustomed to “Everything that we do needs to benefit the church model.” But the reality is that everything that we do, as opposed to benefit, what we see scripturally is what we see is the word gates.
And you see this all through the Scriptures. In fact, just today, I was studying in Proverbs 31. And one of the things that it talks about over and over in Proverbs 31 is that the people who were at the gates, and what it means to be at the gates means that you're actually in a place of influence.
You're in a place where you're able to negotiate trade, you're in a place where you're able to have a lot of say about what's going on in the city. And this is kind of a shift that's happening.
What we've wanted in the past with the old wine skin, the old model that we've been walking out of, is that our influence is perhaps in the church, perhaps we are moving up through the ranks and maybe we've become an elder or we are, you know, gone from Sunday school teaching to youth group teaching. I don't know I'm just giving examples, but really what's happening is God is asking us to start being interested in the same things that he cried out for us to be interested in in the Old Testament. We see over and over the importance of the gates.
Ekklesia
Now we see this in the New Testament too when Jesus uses the word Ekklesia. And he says, “On this rock, my church will be founded and the gates of hell will not overcome it.” And he uses the word Ekklesia there for the word church, and see, oftentimes we think of the word church and we think of what we know of now.
But the Ekklesia really was a governing body.
It wasn't a word that came out of the synagogue, it was a word that came out of the Greek democracy in the culture that Jesus was in.
So the Ekklesia is this governing body that's being utilized at the gates in this city to kind of begin to affect the affairs so that everyone in the city is benefited, and is increased and sees more and more of the kingdom of God and more and more in their lives.
Okay, so that looks like a reduction of poverty, it looks like less and less suicides, it looks like your children, dealing with things such as the various things that we're seeing in our society now with children, things like child poverty, child pornography, and the various things that we've seen increase in our society.
These are things that the ekklesia needs to be totally involved in in the community wide arena. So it's really looking at the gates of the city or city transformation, we're shifting away from church transformation, more towards city transformation in order to see the whole, the whole community impacted by the kingdom of God.
And so there's these shifts that are happening in the minds of believers right now, particularly around this idea of innovation. And so let's talk about the various types of prophets.
Number One: Prophets to Nations
We're going to start first and foremost, with prophets to the nations. The reason why I'm so excited about prophets to the nations is not only because I've been able to be a prophet to the nations, and have I also had a ton of experience in missionary work growing up and through my 20s. But also because there's a prophetic word over our ministry, by Bob Jones, that 1,000 prophets would go to the nations out of our city.
And so we believe that by providing a school of prophetic innovation, we're actually providing prophets a place to meet with and to begin to impact the nations.
Now, the question is, is what we see scripturally with prophets that are sent to nations is that we see that they're sent with a message, they come with the message, and then they speak to the nation, usually through crying out in the streets, or whatever. That was the typical mode, although there was various ways that we see Old Testament prophets prophesied.
But what's happening in this day and age is that the Lord is giving prophets to the nations innovative solutions to societal problems in order to open the doors for them so that they can impact both the poor and the rich.
You see, if you come into a nation, nowadays, there's a couple different things that you're dealing with. One is that there are a ton of nations that are closed to the gospel. So even going into nations that are closed to the gospel is difficult, because you're having to work undercover, as as kind of a, you know, undercover secret agent or whatever in the nations.
Another problem that we have in going to the nations is that oftentimes, we may only have a small region or small group of people that we're committed to, but what innovation does is it actually opens up the doors for you to have a whole wide range of impact, both with the rich and with the poor. Let me explain why.
Innovation Opens Doors
Let's pretend that God has called you as a prophetic person to the nations. And what he says to you is, “I'm going to give you a doorway into that nation and the doorway is going to be an innovative product.”
Okay, so we see that we're already seeing this already began to happen in the missionary movement is that we've been seeing a lot more missionaries begin to do things like water filtration systems that they bring into various regions or perhaps they help with specialized well equipment that's innovative that will that will help the whole tribe be able to get water in an easier way.
Or perhaps they bring innovative solutions from, you know, a more developed country that would be able to help that nation in need. And so we're already seeing that there's a move in the missionary movement to start utilizing products as a way to open gateways to open doorways for people to understand the gospel.
But what if the Lord gave you a product that was a solution to a very difficult problem in the nation that he was calling you to?
What that does is that is actually a key or a doorway into the things that God has for you in the nations.
And so basically, you are able then to open doors, not only with the people who are being effective. Let's just pretend for instance, that God gives you an innovative solution for sanitation, okay. And this is a sanitation solution that can be implemented in every village across the nation that you're called to, and sanitation will help eliminate all these wide varieties of diseases, make it easier for the people to begin to operate outside of a poverty framework, and begin to move into more wealth so that they can be more influential even in their own nation.
And then also, if you're being being given something that helps with sanitation, and you bring it to city leaders, or you bring it to regional leaders, or get this, you bring it to the president or the king, or whoever is in charge of the entire nation.
And God is all of a sudden opening doors to you for people who are both rich and poor.
And so the product itself may be the way that you're able to bring in a prophetic voice, a prophetic word and say prophetically, your prophesying over regions, even as this device that God has given to you for sanitation is opening doorways in people's hearts.
Okay, so this is one awesome way we can see innovation to the nations.
Number Two: Prophets to Kings
Now there are also prophets who go to Kings. And oftentimes when we hear the word King, we literally think about kings. But let me expand what that word means for you. Prophets to Kings don't necessarily mean people who are sitting on thrones over nations. Kings also are people who are in such realms of authority, that they have kingship over certain things.
For instance, Bill Gates has kingship over computer stuff, right? He has kingship, it's caused him to have massive wealth and influence. And even now he's operating in governmental type things. And that's caused him to have influence in places that a person who's been doing computers typically would not have influence.
Now, this is… No matter what your feelings are on Bill Gates, and I know that there's some different feelings about Bill Gates. I’m using him as an example, that he is a king in the earth.
And so we can look around, there's various other people who operate in that way. For instance, Jeff Bezos, the guy who runs Amazon, is a is a king in the earth and types of ways he's got all this influence. So begin to look at Kings as influence, okay.
Hidden Prophets
And so some people I know, for instance, with some prophets, they have people who God has given them as a prophetic voice. And that prophetic voices speaks to say, really big, well known names, okay, in Christianity, they have these hidden prophets behind the scenes, that every once in a while God will give them a word to speak to them to help direct and assist in the course of what they're doing, right? And so on.
Oftentimes, prophets to Kings don't necessarily have a really huge platform, you may only know that they're a profit to a king, because you have personal relationship with them. But it's not because they have a big, big platform that causes lots of people to know who they are. Right? So, prophets to Kings.
Oftentimes, I think innovation is a way for them to get into these regions that are difficult. For instance, I saw an advertisement yesterday. And Amazon, the company, has hired people to help with helping with climate change and climate conditions, for instance. And and so this has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon's bottom line. But these people have have been hired by the company of Amazon to help with the climate change and climate conditions.
And so what it's done is it's opened a doorway for kings, right? And so I want you to begin to think what is the way that God has given me an innovative solution to be able to prophesy into various regions that aren't just perhaps geographical regions, but perhaps their technological regions, perhaps they are cultural regions, perhaps God's giving you an open door into school districts and school boards.
“A Man’s Gift Makes Room for Him”
And so you, by having an innovative solution, say if God's called you, you just have a heart for children, and you really want to speak to the school board, you want to be able to speak into what the school board is doing. What if God gave you an innovative solution to problems with elementary schools, and you're able to bring that to the school board?
What it does is it says that a gift makes room for a man and brings them before great kings. And so God's given you a gift prophetically through innovation, He’s prophetically spoken to you and given you something to innovate a solution to a problem in your community.
And it's a gift that brings you before the Kings that stand on the school board.
So innovation becomes this real powerful tool for you to be able to open doors in places that you've never been able to open doors before.
Number Three: Nabi Prophets
Here's another one. There are there's a type of prophetic person called a Nabi prophet. And what a Nabi prophet is is a type of person who doesn't necessarily see pictures, although they might, but Nabi prophets, the word there means “to bubble over”. So in other words, Nabi prophets just kind of bubble over with the words of the Lord.
And so if you are a Nabi prophet, and you had the bubbling over of the words of the Lord, oftentimes you don't know, when you're just having a good moment, or you're actually prophesying. And so for Nabi prophets, I have a Nabi prophet in my school this year, and he is somebody who, when he talks, he begins talking about something and the Spirit of the Lord will hit him, and he'll begin to prophesy and he won't even know it.
The thing is, is that if you're a Nabi Prophet, begin to listen to the words that come out of you, when you're like that, begin to kind of check into it and say,
“Lord, is there something here that you're saying? That this is a gateway, this is spiritual territory, that you're giving me as I'm prophesying out loud, bubbling over with these prophetic words. You're showing me how to operate in new places.”
A lot of times Nabi prophets, what they need is they need for God to increase their level of faith.
Because the bubbling over feels so natural, it doesn't feel supernatural.
It's not like they saw an angel and the angel said, X, Y, and Z. And then they told everyone, this is what the angel said, Nabi prophets operate out of such a kind of a natural overflow of what Holy Spirit is doing in their lives. And so oftentimes, if you're a Nabi Prophet, asked the Lord to increase your faith so that you can be moving out of a place of innovation and opening doors to bring you before people that he wants you to have influence with in the city.
Number Four: Seers
Another type of Prophet is the seer prophet. Now, these are the types of prophets that often will go into the heavenlies.
And they will see in the heavenlies, things that are going on, and those things that are going on help instruct them as to how to prophesy about what's going on in the heavenlies and what God's trying to do. If you're a seer prophet, oftentimes, what happens is that you are seeing something that's going on that's typically beyond your natural comprehension.
And so if you're a seer prophet, I would admonish you, I would encourage you, to begin thinking about what it's like to go into that place and let that place, that fear experience, begin to reform your thoughts, reform the way you are.
When I come back from seer experiences, because one of the ways that I operate in the prophetic is that I see what's happening in the heavenlies, I come back and I say,
“Lord, what is it that you want me to do? What did you show me this for? How do you want me to carry this into the earthly realm?”
Because he's not just opening it up. Sometimes he opens it up to show us a secret, right? But oftentimes I say to the Lord, how can I be fruitful with my secret gift? How can I steward it so that you can be sure that if I steward this gift, well, I know that I will get an increase? I'll keep getting more and more of this gift operating in my life.
So if I have a seer kind of experience, I will often say, “Lord, how do you want me to steward it?” and more often than not the Lord's wanting me to innovate a new type of wine skin. He wants me to rethink about ways that we've done things before.
This is all where God's strategy room comes in is that God is is showing us things that's going on in the heavenlies. So that we can begin to consider “what is it?” Remember what the prayer of Jesus was “On earth as it is in heaven.”
So seers get to go into heaven, they get to see what's going on, and then they bring it back to Earth,
they bring back the substance of what that thing is to the earth. And so this is a place of innovation for Seers, where seers can begin to extend outward into their community and begin to start showing off the kingdom of God in their city.
Number Five: Psalmists
Now, here's another fun one. There are some prophets who are psalmist, or they're songwriters. And in other words, they are prophetic people who operate very similarly to how David operated, King David.
And so what happens with our songwriter prophets is that they are hearing the sounds of heaven. And they're listening to the words of heaven.
And they're innovating these new songs, they're innovating new ways, and we have a student in our school of prophetic innovation, who is a worshiper, and she, her innovative product that she created last year was a new type of instrument.
This was so cool, you guys, she wanted to bring a new type of sound to the earth, there was a sound that she was hearing in the spirit. And so she innovated this product that God gave her so that she could create the same sound in the earth. And she believes that the sound will actually open up certain dimensions for God's people to enter into worship in a more wild way.
And I just think that's so incredible, that as a prophet who is a songwriter, or psalmist, that you can be innovative, and you can bring the prophetic unction of what's going on in heaven into the earth through innovation.
Number Six: Sons of Issachar
Now, there is one last prophet that I want to talk about. And that is a prophet that we only read about once in Scripture, but we see alluded to frequently, okay, and that is called the men of Issachar or people will call it the Issachar anointing.
Basically, this is an anointing for understanding times and seasons. It's one of the things that we're most familiar with, when it comes to the prophetic; that prophetic people understand “This word is for now, and this other word is for later,” or they understand the time that they're living in. And the verse that we get this from, it says the men of Issachar understood Times and Seasons that they knew what Israel must do.
If you are operating in an Issachar anointing, a prophetic unction, to understand times and seasons, oftentimes you are going to be, you are going to be given opportunity and access to innovation. Because we see this, I think, a good example of someone who works in the marketplace, as a prophet of times and seasons, is President Donald Trump. Now, again, whether you like him or hate him, I don't really care. But what I want to point out to you is that this is a businessman who understands the Times and Seasons that he lives in, he understands the way that the people works.
And he begins, he moves in this way of times and seasons, he knows when it's the right time. And then he knows when to wait for other times. And he's shown that in his business acumen as well is that he has an acumen for understanding what things need to be marketed when and where and why.
And so these times and seasons prophets, they're really exciting in the marketplace, or in the business sector, because what they can do is they can see the trends of what's happening in the heavenlies. And they can begin to prepare the body of Christ to enter into a fruitful return.
Innovation Isn’t One Thing
And so this is something that God is doing right now is that he is wanting his body, the body of Christ, to become more and more comfortable with innovation. And sometimes we think, when we think of innovation, oftentimes we just think that means new technology, it does not.
Innovation sometimes means new systems or ways of operating.
Maybe it’s seeing the courts of heaven in heaven and bringing that level of justice to the earth, right.
Maybe innovation looks like going into a region and recognizing what kinds of needs they have for their poverty stricken population, innovating new ways of approaching problems that society has.
This is on the heart of God right now.
Innovation Increases Wonder
And it's not only solutions for problems, but it's also bringing in the aspect of wonder.
You see, if we innovate something that is wondrous that causes people to wonder, what it does is it points to a God who is worthy of Wonder. He's worthy of all. And the thing is, is that we often talk about God's wonder, and we talk about his awe. But what we don't realize is how important it is that we have a people who understand His wonder and awe.
The reason why, the reason why wonder and awe is so important, is because wonder and awe puts us into the positioning of righteousness.
If we have a God who is boring, who doesn't come up with new stuff, then we don't have any wonder at all.
And so many Christians are walking around doing the old things over and over again, not getting very good results, because they've lost their wonder and awe.
And so I want to encourage you as we end this podcast, that God is wanting to put you in a position of innovation, so that he can open up more pathways for you to present the gospel, more pathways for the kingdom of God to be released on the earth, more influence in your city gates, more ability to be a prophet to nations, more ability to be instrumental in your songwriting, more ability to see the trends that are happening in the earth, and to be able to put the people into position for a fruitful return.
Innovation is a key to where God is taking us in the spirit. And so I want to encourage you, as you're thinking about the prophetic as you're thinking about moving forward, recognize that the prophetic is linked with love. And if we can operate with innovation and the prophetic, what we're doing is we're actually giving ourselves more opportunity to love more people and have more of an influence.
It's a career path that opens up doors to a wide variety of places, a wide sectors of society so that you're not just limited to your local congregation or a region. God is calling his body to be innovative so that he can put us before great kings. This is Angela. And I just want to say thank you again for joining us for God's strategy room. I hope you have a great day.
