Preparing and Practicing to Prophesy for the Building up of the Church

In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus spoke the greatest prophecy in the Bible, I will build My church.

In 1 Corinthians 14:4 the apostle Paul says something amazing, He who prophesies builds up the church. To prophesy is not merely foretelling the future, but mainly to speak for Christ, to speak forth Christ and to speak Christ into others to encourage, edify, admonish, exhort for the building up of the church. To speak for Christ is to speak for God and to speak forth God’s revelation.

As a believer in Christ who desires to see the building up of the church I practice prophesying. According to 1 Corinthians 14:1 we should pursue prophesying.

Prophesying is like preparing a meal with many ingredients.

The main ingredient of a prophecy is the Lord Himself; we need to come to Him every morning with the aid of the Holy Word for Morning Revival. I need to be revived every morning by coming to the Lord and by coming to God’s Holy Word.

The other main ingredient is my enjoyment from the Holy Word For Morning Revival, where I like to “PSRP” the outlines, that is,

• Pray-read – over the outline and verses day by day,
• Study – the outline and the ministry with the further reading,
• Recite – crucial statements or enjoyment received from praying and studying,
• Prophesy – at this stage I prepare what I will say with the first few words crucial to lead to a main point.

During the week I like to enjoy the Lord and speak whatever I have been enjoying back to Him and also to other saints. This is part of “the cooking process”. At the end of the week after enjoying the morning revival, doing some PSRP over the outline, speaking to the Lord my enjoyment and fellowshipping with the saints, a top portion through the enlightenment from the Lord will come forth.

Once this comes forth I write down my prophecy and practice what I will say. Whenever I share my portion in the prophesying meeting I must exercise my spirit.

There are three more ingredients to prophesying, which are the “three B’s”. These are:

1. Bird’s Eye View. As much as possible I try to get a bird’s-eye view of the week. The outline functions in this way to give me such a view. A bird’s-eye view helps with the direction of the Lord’s speaking and leads into a burden.
2. Burden – that is, what is the Lord’s speaking to me in the week and to the saints. Once the burden is received, we can pray according to the burden.
3. Building. Our speaking should be for the building up of the Body!

To practice prophesying in the meeting is week by week, but the preparation is daily. I have learned to prophesy no matter what my condition is and no matter what the situation is. I learn to prophesy from the side of the truth and not from the side of my condition. The truth is absolute and high, and I realise I should not bring the truth down; rather, we need to come up to the level of the truth.

Finally I realise I should prophesy from a vision, speaking the vision we have seen from God’s revelation will bring us into the experience of the vision.

Praise the Lord for the practice of prophesying which builds up the church!

Sharing on preparing to prophesy for the building up of the church by brother M. S. (London, UK).