The goal of prophesying in the church meetings is the building up of the Body of Christ; we need to live a life of prophesying by being revived every morning and living an overcoming life every day, and prepare to prophesy in the meetings of the church.
Moses’ prayer in Num. 11:29 sounds throughout the ages, Oh, that all God’s people would be prophets, that God would put His Spirit upon them!
This was Moses’ desire – he was not jealous of those who prophesied (those who spoke for God and spoke forth God) but rather, he desired that all those in God’s people would be prophets.
God desires all His people to prophesy, that is, to speak for God, to speak forth God, and to speak the word of God to others. Our God is a speaking God; He created the whole universe by His speaking, and He brought in the new creation by His word.
God reveals Himself to us by His speaking, and He does all things through His speaking. When He speaks, His power is transmitted, and He produces life. Our speaking God desires to have a speaking people.
First He Himself came as the Prophet – Christ as the incarnated God came to speak the word of God, and He went through a process to become the life-giving Spirit, even the speaking Spirit, the Prophet in our spirit.
Through regeneration the Holy Spirit has come into us, and this Holy Spirit is the anointing within us.
Hallelujah, we have an anointing which teaches us all things; this anointing is the speaking God in us, the Holy Spirit, and this indwelling One teaches us concerning God and concerning all things.
He is the Prophet in us, and because He speaks, we also can speak and should speak.
The New Testament shows us that God wants us, the saved and regenerated ones, to prophesy as prophets. In the New Testament Paul wrote an entire chapter on the matter of prophesying, giving us both the spiritual base and some practical things regarding prophesying.
We believers are saved by God to be kings, priests, and prophets – we can rule with God, contact God, and speak for God.
Because of the divine life that we have received, we can speak for God and speak forth God, and God can speak within us and through us in the principle of incarnation.
For us to prophesy, we need to know God and experience Christ, for without an adequate knowledge of God and experience of Christ, we don’t have anything to say for Him, and we can’t speak Him forth.
The main work of the New Testament prophets is for building up, encouraging, and consoling others.
Living a Prophesying Life by being Revived every morning and Living an Overcoming Life
Prophesying is not merely an activity that we have to do when we meet with the saints; if we are going to prophesy, we need to live a prophesying life.
First of all, when we speak of prophesying, we don’t mean that we need to foretell the future; to prophesy is to speak for God, to speak the word of God, to speak forth God, and to let God speak in us and through us.
How can we arrive to such a state that, when we open our mouth and speak, we speak the word of God? Well, it starts in the morning; we need to be revived every morning (see Prov. 4:18; Lam. 3:22-24; Psa. 119:147-148).
God arranged things in such a way that every morning, every twenty-four hours, there is a new start, a new beginning; every morning there’s a dawn, a rising sun, and we need to rise up a bit earlier to spend time with the Lord.
According to the natural law in God’s creation, He gave us a new beginning every morning, so we have to go along with this natural law.
Every morning we should rise up early to contact the Lord and be revived; we need to call on the name of the Lord, turn our heart to Him, and allow Him to shine in us and on us.
When we contact the Lord in the morning, we enjoy His compassions, which are fresh and new every morning; oh, great is His faithfulness (Lam. 3:22-24).
His mercies are like the fresh dew in the morning. Every morning we must enjoy this fresh dew to have a new start, a morning revival.
For us to live a prophesying life we need to be revived every morning, having a new start every morning in the Lord by contacting Him in His word.
Then, after contacting the Lord in the morning, we need to live an overcoming life every day (Rev. 21:7).
How can we live an overcoming life every day? It is by contacting the Lord all throughout the day.
The way we can live a victorious life is by fellowshipping with the Lord moment by moment so that we may walk in the divine life light, even as He is in the light (1 John 1:6).
When we contact the Lord moment by moment through the exercise of our spirit and by walking according to the spirit (Rom. 8:4), we spontaneously live an overcoming life.
Living is not deliberate – it is spontaneous; as long as we fulfil the condition of contacting the Lord and fellowshipping with Him moment by moment, we will live according to the spirit and we will not do anything outside of the Spirit.
In this way, we will live an overcoming life.
Also, we should speak the word all the time, speaking the Lord to others in season and out of season (2 Tim. 4:2).
In ourselves we may think that no moment is opportune for speaking the word of God, but the Bible tells us to speak the word in season and out of season; when it seems that it is the good time to speak the word of God, we should prophesy, and when it seems that it is out of season, we still have to speak for the Lord. Such a prophesying life qualifies us to prophesy.
We don’t just prophesy in the meetings of the church – we should live a prophesying life by being revived every morning and living an overcoming life every day; also, we should exercise to speak for the Lord in season and out of season.
Lord Jesus, we want to live a prophesying life by being revived every morning and living an overcoming life every day. Amen, Lord, keep us coming to You early in the morning to have a new start with You, contacting You in spirit and enjoying You in Your Word. May we enjoy Your fresh mercies and new compassions every morning as we come to You to contact You. We want to live an overcoming life every day by continuing to fellowship with You all throughout the day. Amen, Lord, may we live in the spirit, living in contact with You at all times. May we exercise to speak the word of God to others in season and out of season, so that we may live a prophesying life.
Preparing to Prophesy in the Meetings of the Church to Build up the Body of Christ
May the Lord recover among us the matter of living a prophesying life every day so that we all may exercise our organic function in the Body to build up the church as the Body of Christ.
When we see that the main way for us to build up the church is by prophesying, we will seek to have this excelling gift so that we may function by speaking and thus build up the church.
The goal of prophesying in the church meetings is not our personal building up but the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
According to the Word of God and according to our experience, prophesying requires the three constituting elements of prophesying: a knowledge of the Word of God, the inspiration of the Spirit, and a vision of God’s economy.
First of all, we need to have an adequate knowledge of the Word of God; there needs to be the human element of learning (see 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Ezek. 3:1-4).
We need to spend time in the Word of God, fellowshipping with the Lord in His word; our spirit needs to be exercised to contact the Lord, and our mind has to be exercised to retain, understand, and enjoy the Word of God.
We need to read the Bible and the ministry, and we need to have an adequate knowledge of the Word of God.
The second element of prophesying is the instant inspiration of the Holy Spirit – the divine element of inspiration (see 1 Cor. 14:32, 37; 1 John 1:6-7; Rom. 8:4).
When we walk according to the spirit and live in the light, having fellowship with the Lord, He will inspire us as the Spirit, and our speaking of God’s word will have the inspiration of the Spirit.
We shouldn’t wait, however, to speak until we have the inspiration of the Spirit – we should take the initiative and speak the Word of God, and the Spirit will speak in our speaking.
This is to live a prophesying life. We need to have a vision concerning God’s interest and economy, concerning the church as the Body of Christ, concerning the local churches, concerning the world, concerning the individual saints, and even concerning ourselves; we need to have the view through the enlightening of the divine light (Eph. 1:17; 1 Cor. 2:11-12).
Also, in a practical way, for us to have something to prophesy on the Lord’s Day when we meet with the saints, we need to prepare for this a little bit every day.
The Holy Word for Morning Revival helps us a lot in this sense; we have a portion from the Bible to pray-read (a few verses), and we have a portion from the ministry to get into and prayerfully read and digest.
We shouldn’t just read the HWMR and try to understand it; we need to contact the Lord and read the portion, and then we should exercise to write down every day something from what the Lord has inspired us, something that He has touched us with.
Then, at the end of the week, on Saturday, it is good to go through the things that the Lord has touched us with, and compose a prophecy for the Lord’s day.
We need to be perfected to enjoy the Lord, to be saturated with the Word, to pray unceasingly, to fellowship with the Lord moment by moment, to walk in the Spirit, and to speak the Lord in the Spirit at all times.
Then, we need to compose a prophecy for the church meeting, and trust in the Lord to come in as the Spirit to inspire us and speak in our speaking.
Lord Jesus, we want to be perfected to enjoy the Lord, be saturated with the word, and pray unceasingly so that we may fellowship with the Lord moment by moment and walk in the Spirit. May we live a prophesying life day by day, speaking the Lord in the Spirit at all times. Amen, Lord, keep us in Your word, enjoying You and being infused with You, and grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of God and of God’s economy. Lord, recover living a prophesying life among us in the church life today so that we all may exercise to speak for the Lord for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1988, vol. 4, ”The Excelling Gift for the Building Up of the Church,” pp. 463-464, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 9, Moses Desiring That All Jehovah’s People Would Be Prophets.
- Hymns on this topic:
# We must ever preach the gospel / By perfecting in the homes / Through the word and prayer and singing, / Never laboring alone. / We must ever preach the gospel, / Learning how to prophesy / For the building of the Body, / Thus the Lord to glorify. (Song on, We must ever preach the gospel)
# The testimony and the prayer, / And all the fellowship we share, / The exercise of gifts, whate’er, / Should just exhibit Christ. / The Father we would glorify, / Exalting Christ the Son, thereby / The meeting’s purpose satisfy / That we exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864)
# Now the church life is so precious with all the saints so dear. / Enjoying all Your riches, our vision is so clear, / That all would prophesy of Christ from what they’ve seen, / According to Your scripture in First Corinthians fourteen. (Song on, God’s economy and His eternal plan)
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