Tag: Gift of Prophecy

Understanding God’s Heart

Posted on by DSilvan

Many times I’m allowed to go through experiences so that I feel and understand God’s heart. When our older children called only when they needed something, my heart was broken. I didn’t hear from them because they were busy living life. I yearned for our lost closeness, our connection, our friendship. God showed me that’s how He feels when I only call on Him when I’m in trouble. He yearns to hear from me always, even when things are going good because He loves me immensely.

Other times He allows me to go through things to reveal how my actions hurt. He let me walk through a time where people didn’t hold their thoughts captive, didn’t choose to believe the best in me and held me to perfect standards. My heart was broken. The Lord met me then saying, “just like those friends “chose” to believe the lies the enemy planted in their thoughts, so too are you in regards with your husband. This is how his heart feels when you keep choosing to listen to the enemies taunts, read in to what isn’t spoken, assume the worst scenario and demand perfection. Beloved, hold your thoughts captive, cast away the lies, believe and ponder on only the good. Remember to live out Philippians 4:8 ~

“. . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Then there are times He leads me to Scripture to give me clarity and explain why it hurts. He encouraged me to read Hosea. God taught me that the pain I was enduring was because an idol, a passion, was being placed above me. I felt unloved, neglected and forgotten. He spoke gently saying that this is exactly how He feels when we choose our lusts and passions over Him. Running to these things for provision, comfort, fulfillment, security, love, and not putting Him first in everything breaks His heart. He showed me some idols He saw in my life like sugar, my husband, people’s approval. In His jealousy, and for my protection, He would not let me have these because He is purifying me. He called me to endure this so I’d understand the pain in His heart when we chase idols rather then placing Him first and foremost.

Recently He said, “when the unexpected storm hits do not get shaken for this is to be anticipated as My child. My Son went through trials and persecution, so will you. Rejoice that you are marked as Mine. Remember, I am with you and this circumstance will not overcome you because I am with you. This trial is testing your faith and building endurance for the race. I’m refining your trust in Me. In the good times trusting Me is simple, but in the tumultuous, unfair and unjust situations, when the fire seems scorching hot, trusting Me is not an easy task. However, as you continue practicing keeping your eyes focused intently on Me, you will be able to traverse the deeper waters I am taking you to. I will develop all this in you over time. Remember the story of My disciples I took in the boat with Me? I was sleeping quietly appearing to be unaware. All of a sudden that furious storm hit and they were terrified. They didn’t need to be confused, bewildered, or fearful…they need not cry out for Me for I was there with them . . . but their faith was little. I am with you, too. To get bigger faith Denise, you must work out those faith muscles by facing obstacles, calling on me and watching me quiet the storms. This will be painful, tiring and challenging. I will refine you and take you to higher levels of faith as I complete my work in you. There’s nothing to hard for Me.”

Look for Him in every situation because He is constantly teaching and counseling us to know His heart.

Refining My Trust In Him

Posted on by DSilvan

Thirteen years ago in a study, God spoke to my heart as He illuminated words in Scripture . . .

“Before I formed you in the womb, Denise, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ~ Jeremiah 1:5.

His rhema pierced my heart as it jumped off the page. Yet, I was unsure of what He meant.

In December 2016, a man prophesied over me saying, “you have a spirit of Elijah on you.” Honestly, I didn’t give it much thought . . . in fact, in my skepticism I questioned his validity for he is merely man. Hearing these prophetic words left me confused. Three months later, I was waiting to catch a plane to Seattle in a chaotic and loud coffee shop when God in His faithfulness and willingness to provide understanding gently whispered to me, “look up ‘spirit of Elijah.’ ” The first article that google popped up had just been written, “Elijah – Boldest of the Prophets.”  The words poured into me like water does to parched soil. I felt God sitting right beside me telling me what He wanted me to understand. As Bill bought Starbucks, I secretly wept.

This was very intimate and personal to me, I’ve always seen similarities between Elijah and myself. Fearlessly following God into crazy circumstances like chasing a pimp down an alley as he hurt his prostitute, yelling at him to “Stop!” while my husband thought I was going to get shot. Then forgetting God’s mighty works and foolishly fleeing in a time of weariness due to fear.

Despite my stumbling, God is always patient with me. These last couple of months, He brought back to mind these past encounters to say again, “you are a bold prophet of mine, you will stand up in the face of difficult situations, speak truth when I ask you to speak truth in the way I reveal for you to share them.”

Being a prophet for Him is not always an easy task. I haven’t particularly liked it. People do not always welcome receiving a redirecting word. Being a people pleaser and desiring people to like me has caused me to wrestle with being obedient to Him when asked to speak. He is teaching me how to share corrective words in a gentle and compassionate manner.

By speaking an instruction through a messenger God said, “Denise, let your testimony be your counselor.” He is sweetly showing me to switch my perspective and my attitude by saying to me, “Do not look at it as a negative responsibility, but rather see it as an opportunity to illustrate to them how you understand their point, how you’ve been in their shoes and how you’ve felt similar things, yet you were shown a different way to respond that honors Me. Denise, let your testimony of how I showed you to do it, be a counselor to them.” He’s been counseling, teaching and training me with words like, “I’m helping you find your voice. I’m refining your trust in Me as I take you deeper. Keep your gaze focused on Me constantly, so you do not sink in these deeper waters. Remember what matters is My thoughts towards you and My thoughts towards you out number the grains of sand for I love you with an everlasting love.”

He has also revealed recently to me that being His prophet doesn’t have to be a negative. I don’t always have to deliver a word that someone will feel as harsh or awkward. Graham Cooke is a prophet I enjoy learning from. I’ve been reading his book, “Approaching the Heart of Prophecy A Journey into Encouragement, Blessing and Prophetic Gifting.”

He illustrated beautifully how since Jesus came, we are in a season of grace. God can show me a difficult truth, a painful situation that if spoken directly would inflict more of a wound. Instead, in that moment, ask God what He wants me to say about that situation? How can I speak life in to that circumstance and call forth the beauty God desires to see in that person.  Isn’t that brilliant? Guaranteed a person knows where they are stumbling, they don’t need someone telling how they are falling, but rather believing in them and calling forth what needs to be seen instead to bring glory to God.

This is the prophet I desire to be. May God continue to train me to be a bold prophet for Him speaking truth in love, full of His grace, calling people in to the place God desires them to stand.

Pillars of Faith

Posted on by DSilvan

A year and a half ago God called me out of 5 years of rest by saying again, “Feed My sheep.” I obeyed. I don’t see these ladies as “my” group or “our” group, but rather “His” group that He’s chosen to put me in the midst of for a time. My goal remains to seek what He desires for them and to be intentional, diligent and faithful in discipling them in their faith as He guides me.

The previous year God gave me a vision of huge white ivory pillars standing before me. He impressed upon my heart that He was saying these women will be pillars of faith for Me. They will be My Warriors doing battle with Me. They will be strong, brave, courageous, supportive, unwavering, grounded, steadfast, established, solid, sturdy, unmovable and faithful . . . His spiritual warriors against darkness.

Last year I asked Him, “Father what do You want for Your women? How do You desire to mold them?” He revealed five areas: 1) Prayer, 2) Armor, 3) Spiritual Warfare, 4) Identity, and 5) SHAPE. Prayer is our battleground. He’s placed His armor on us to wear and Jesus fulfills each piece. As with Joshua He said do not be afraid for He reigns, is sovereign and all powerful, and Satan is not His equal but merely a created vessel that answers to Him. He tattooed our identity in Jesus Christ on our hearts and opened our eyes to how intricately and uniquely He created each one of us. His desire is for us to illuminate Jesus to others as we operate in the way He designed us to function.

During summer, my Father impressed upon me that He was not finished, so I asked Him, “What do you want next for them? Where do You desire to strengthen them?” He showed me four more areas: 1) Hearing His Voice, 2) Holy Spirit, 3) Forgiveness, and 4) Mentoring. He wants us to learn to recognize His voice and be intimately involved with Him for His sheep hear His voice and follow. We must be still and listen. His Spirit speaks to our spirit and reveals secrets to us as He lives within us. He has given us His Holy Spirit with power to help us and we must embrace and believe all that He supplies. He desires us to discover how important forgiveness is and how to release unforgiveness and bitterness so we can be set free to experience healing and peace. Keeping what He’s given us just for ourselves is not His end goal…He desires us to mentor others in our circles, to train our oikos with the treasures He poured into us and then step out in faith to share with those in our midst about His Kingdom.

My heart continues to hear God say, “I desire you to pursue the lost, the captive, the emotionally hurt, the sick, the physically wounded, and the spiritually imprisoned and bring them to Me for healing and deliverance. Trust Me for big things Denise and teach my daughters to do the same.” My desire is for them to see me hear God’s voice and respond, to watch me pray and war immediately for those in need, to see me believe God’s word and act, to see me believe mighty things and expect mountains to move, to watch me live as a disciple in the days of Acts, to hear me encourage the timid who step out to share, to watch me lift them up and build them up as they step out in faith to do what they never thought they could, to see me pointing them to Jesus for answers and praying with them…I desire to inspire them to do the same with others. I want them to soar into Pillars of Faith…becoming God’s Warriors for such a time as this.

We must be diligent and intentional about connecting and giving people a place to belong. God desires everyone to feel loved, cared for, valued, cherished and important. Being intimate with a few is important. Providing a place to be authentic, raw and real is invaluable. Encouraging one another, praying for each other and sharing a word the Lord gives for each one. Though I try to follow this model Jesus impressed upon my heart, each person needs to be free to find how God works through how he/she is wired. The most important key God encourages in me is to be authentic and unmasked with my life and struggles so that they may see I’m real and that our circle is a safe place to be real.

As for the people He has placed by my side, I want them loosed and released from all that has hindered them and bound to a trust in God that is unstoppable. I want them to embrace God for mighty works. I desire them to see God’s faithfulness and experience exponential transformation . . . to see His fingerprints all over their life. I want me to become less and them to become more.

God growing an army of Pillars of Faith ready to be His Warriors.

 

Rejoicing For I Am His

Posted on by DSilvan

Early on in reading Jeremiah, God grabbed my heart as He illuminated His Word and spoke directly to me…

“Before I formed you in the womb (Denise) I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ~ Jeremiah 1:5

I didn’t really know what God meant at this time.

And I still am discovering what this encompasses. What I thought this meant was as I learned God’s Word and stored it in my heart, I would be used to speak His Word to others giving them life, encouragement, direction and gentle correction. Yes, this is part of being His prophet. But I have recently found there is so much more. I’ve been learning how I hear from God, how He speaks to me through His Scriptures and my circumstances, and I am learning how to share what He impresses upon my heart for others in order to share His love and grace He has for each person He places before me.

Rewind to 10+ years ago, a burning passion to understand spiritual warfare was birthed as God connected childhood demon-filled nightmares to an encounter with evil at a Women’s Retreat. I began researching and gathering info on spiritual warfare, not yet knowing why.

One-and-half years has passed since God impressed upon my heart to attend that yearlong Healing Prayer class. For many years I’d studied under a cessationist and was taught that some gifts ceased after Jesus’ days and that words spoken to the 12 and 72 were not meant for me. Because of this, I went to this Healing Prayer class with trepidation and suspicion. However, I intentionally tried to remain open to what God desired to show me. Being like a Berean, I searched Scriptures to make sure what I was being taught aligned with His Word. He awakened me to what He had called me to as His current day disciple, yet sadly I had missed —

In John 14:12-14 Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

I asked God, “What are these ‘works’ Jesus speaks of? And God told me to read through John recording what Jesus was doing. God removed all that faulty teaching and transformed my understanding. He showed me personally the authority He had given me and what He was calling me to.

He continues to reveal why He spoke to me in Jeremiah; why He allowed me to experience darkness through depressions and anxiety; why he allowed me to see visions and dreams of the spiritual world; and, why he led me to a class on Healing Prayer.

In Luke 4:18 Jesus reads Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

Because I no longer live but Christ lives in me, I am called to do the same. I am to exercise the authority I have been given through Jesus. I am to embrace this incomparable great power He has placed within me. I am His ambassador sent to represent Him and His Kingdom. Because He lives in me, I will cast out the enemy; I will lay hands on those He places in my path and they will receive healing from physical ailments and sickness in the Name of Jesus. The kingdom of God will come near to them, (Jesus living in me) and the Father will be glorified in the Son. (Luke 10:1-24, Matthew 10:1, Mark 16:15-18) And, I am to speak His Word to help others see how to walk in the authority He has given us as His children.

These last 9 months have been a wild, challenging, joyful, faith-building adventure. I’ve experienced God in ways never before. He showed me He would draw people to me and He has. He’s allowed me to feel His intense power as I prayed for a young man’s deliverance in my small group. He’s allowed me to smell the presence of the Holy Spirit as fragrant roses to remind me His Spirit was present as I prepared to pray for a man’s healing. He’s given me divine encounters with strangers who delivered timely messages sharing God heals immediately, as well as over time — do not be dismayed. He’s allowed me to feel a person’s pain leave her arm through mine. He’s given me timely words to share with client’s during healing prayer prophesying life and hope to their situation. He’s compelled me to do things that this introvert, don’t like to pray out loud girl has done because He bubbled up so fiercely inside me I had to respond. But isn’t that just like God, using the weak to do His work. For when it happens all the glory goes to Him. He doesn’t need me to do any of this work, but He loves to allow me to participate with Him.

Looking back through all He has done in these previous years overwhelms my soul and encourages me to follow Him deeper. Just as the early disciples came back excited exclaiming all they had done in the name of Jesus. Proclaiming that even demons had to answer to them. But Jesus reminded them that the only thing they need to rejoice over was that their name was written in the Book of Life.

Therefore, I’m left rejoicing for I am His.

Santa Claus Metaphor

Posted on by DSilvan

Wrestling with letting go of old patterns of thinking and embracing and believing God’s Word still continues within me over this new adventure in healing. As I sit watching Christmas movies and wrapping presents, I’m pondering the many thoughts I have about this new me.

The thoughts swirl and bounce all over the map. The authority I have as Jesus’ disciple perplexes me and leaves me with many questions. Who am I to think Jesus has given me authority? Why did you wait so long to teach me about this?

This healing prayer ministry God led me to challenges me and stretches me on so many levels: Can I heal? Is God calling me to do this? Is this for every disciple? Because I’m in the class, does that mean I am one that God has called to do this?

I can’t stop thinking about all the people God keeps placing in my path that need help and prayer. It’s astounding how it seems like everyone is coming out of the woodwork and needs a touch of God. Have they always been around me? Am I just noticing now because I’m so focused on healing and prayer?

How am I supposed to survive in our couple’s small group I’ve been with for the last 12 years? They keep commenting on and looking at me as if I’m off my rocker. They occasionally question me if I’m being led astray stating that even the elect will be deceived? Are you going to the dark side? Perhaps I should take a break from them until I’m more secure in what you are calling me to do.

God has been on a mission to teach me how He speaks to me. He’s shown me various different ways He has met me and spoke to me during my lifetime. One way He communicates is by speaking simultaneously as I’m watching a movie. As I watch the image unfold on screen I can hear what God wants to say to me in a metaphorical manner . . . just like Jesus did in His parables. God explains His thoughts to me through the pictures I see displayed before my eyes.

As I was watching the Christmas movie Santa Claus 1 with Tim Allen, God spoke to me about my healing prayer journey . . .

ME: Random thoughts flit through my mind . . . “God what do you have planned? I just don’t see how You are going to use me. What is it going to look like?”

The scene in Santa Claus 1 when Scott Calvin was sitting on the bench watching his son’s soccer game and all of a sudden all the little children were lined up to talk to him . . . THEN all of a sudden —

GOD speaks: “That’s what you will look like . . . Scott Calvin with all those little children flocking to him. These will be my little children. They will come from everywhere wanting to talk to you. Seeking you for what you have.”

ME: “That doesn’t make sense. Santa Claus is a metaphor for You, Jesus. You are the One who has the gifts to give them. You are the One who is powerful. You are the One who can make miracles happen. You are the One who holds the answers. You are the One who they need. What will they get from me? I can’t be Santa Claus for them. How will I be able to do any of what You say?”

GOD speaks: “It won’t be you…it will be Me in you that does it all. They will flock to you because of what I will do through you. Don’t get confused, it’s always Me in you. Just like people flocked to Peter and Paul to be healed. My people will do the same with you.”

GOD speaks: “Do you see? You are just like Scott Calvin. He is wrestling with believing he is going to be Santa Claus. He is doubting that this is all real and that he will be able to do what is asked of him. You are no different, child. You are wrestling that I will do this through you. You are doubting that this is all real and that you will be able to do what is asked of you. His little boy believes his dad is Santa Claus, but Scott Calvin is really struggling with this new concept…Just as you are struggling with this new concept you are learning, but it’s not new it’s always been yours. Even though so many changes are occurring within Scott Calvin to point to this reality, he wrestles with grasping the idea . . . you look similar to him. Even though his body appearance is changing and he’s starting to look different than how he was . . . you are doing the same. He doesn’t like looking different to those who know him and he can’t explain why it’s happening. You feel the same way with all your friends who wrestle with believing how I am creating you into something different. You don’t like the changes and everyone’s eyes on you. Everyone on the outside is doubting this new you, just like Scott Calvin’s family is doubting all that is being said about him. Scott is beginning to see things differently and having different feelings that align with this new beginning and being surprised by it. You are experiencing that amazement, too. He can spot things about others and know things he shouldn’t know like whether they were naughty or good. You know when warfare is present. I allow you to sense it, to feel it, to KNOW it’s there. Trust that. Don’t listen to man when they doubt you and mock you. Trust the One Who is revealing that to you. As you move more freely in this, more will happen through you. Because of these things I do through you, people will flock to you. They will want to talk to you. They will seek you out. You will help them, you will listen to them, and they will receive the gifts they desire because I have all this for them. You are merely the vehicle I am choosing to use to deliver  what I have for them.

ME: “God are you really talking to me through a Santa Claus movie. I don’t think I can share this with anyone. They will think I’m crazy.”

GOD: Silence.

ME: Looking left. Looking right. Did that just happen? YES.