by Jesse Steele
to move on again, they start building monuments all over again… and it just keeps cycling on.
Hank: So, you’re saying that my church isn’t part of God’s family?
Michael: No, I’m not going to go there—having an opinion on this group or that fellowship. I’m just saying that I want to press forward into all God has for us. I’m not going to give up Eternal Joy for Eternal Nostalgia.
Hank: How do you do that—practically I mean?
Michael: We avoid doing things in ways that invite a divided household. People can come and go. You’re welcome here. You can pray and worship with us, we’ll welcome you in the name of Jesus and if your friends don’t know Him then we’ll welcome them to the name of Jesus. If you go to another fellowship on Sundays or Friday afternoons or whenever, we won’t bother you about that.
Hank: I like that. Can I join and help build one in another city?
Michael: Heaven’s no!
Hank: What’s wrong with helping other cities with the same thing?
Michael: Nothing, but we’re not building an empire!
Hank: Can’t other places follow the same ideas? They came from the Bible after all.
Michael: Exactly. So do it! You don’t need to join us. Others don’t need us creating some organization-imperial overhead to manage them. We are completely managed by the Christians in this locality. If someone else wants to do the same thing, great! They can call us, talk to us, email us, visit us, ask us questions… We’ll love them, visit them, maybe ask them to visit and help us learn more. That was the New Testament and that’s not a household divided against itself.
Hank: But couldn’t standards slip? I mean what if someone goes off in the wrong direction and it becomes a disaster?
Michael: As painful as mistakes are, it’s far worse to build an empire in the name of preventing the natural mistakes of learning. Empires beg for corruption and attract a hunger for more and more power. We want to let young, budding ministries be free to flourish without us getting our fingers in the way.
Hank: So, how would another city start one of these things? It looks like it takes a lot of money and people… and a calling.
Michael: It starts with prayer. People who were with us three decades ago came to prayer meetings four times every day for 15 years—that was before we had anything you see here.
Hank: FIFTEEN YEARS!?
Michael: Yep. God’s House of Prayer must start as a desire in our hearts first.
Hank: Wow. How did you ever think that up?
Michael: We didn’t think it up. This isn’t the result of creative brainstorming or market research.
Hank: Isn’t market research important?
Michael: Sure, but not for designing the actual model itself for God’s House. He already revealed it in Scripture. Prayer in our hearts and on our lips, worship and intercession going together, helping the poor, and taking a stand for the truth even when it’s not popular… we didn’t invented those, nor can we change them.
Hank: There are a lot of great ministries out there, though.
Michael: Sure there are. We have friendships with a lot of them. But only the House of Prayer is rightly called God’s House. If it’s not a House of Prayer, it’s not His House, it’s our house.
Hank: Is it bad for us to have houses?
Michael: No, just don’t confuse your house with God’s House. And when planning the administration of God’s House, follow His design.
Hank: And what is that?
Michael: We already talked about it: Do in the earth what is already done in Heaven.
Hank: You’re really focused on that.
Michael: God is worshiped in Heaven, even right now as we speak. It never stops. Prayer constantly goes up before Him.
Hank: Yeah.
Michael: That motivates me. I want to see it here.
Hank: He’ll come in good time.
Michael: But I don’t want to wait any longer than I absolutely must. I want to see a glimpse of God’s Kingdom of Heaven here in the earth, even now.
Hank: So, we should just sing and pray all the time?
Michael: Well, it would be best if someone was praising and praying at every hour of the day. Then the spiritual forces of evil will have no rest from God being praised, neither will God Himself.
Hank: But God rested on the Sabbath.
Michael: But we still praise Him every day and He didn’t rest from being praised. He rested from His work.
Hank: Okay, so, we praise Him. But at some point we have to do actual work.
Michael: Praise and prayer is where it begins. When we do that, helping the poor, knowing how to speak the truth in love… all the rest of it falls into place. But we can only begin to bring God’s Kingdom through His House. And we build His House by maintaining an undivided Household that is run the way He wants it run.
Hank: But in terms of each daily step, day by day, how do you know where to go? Do you do research?
Michael: We do research, yes, but the numbers don’t tell us everything we need to know. Neither can our creative juices interpret the numbers well enough to tell us what Heaven’s Kingdom looks like. In order to have an effective vision in the local House of Prayer, we must operate in the Prophetic.
Hank: Okay. I knew it. I heard about the Praying Prophets. You seemed like a nice guy… but now you pull this out on me. Look, pal, I’m not gonna’ roll around on the floor laughing and I won’t pay money for you to predict my afternoon lunch.
Michael: Good, because if you did those things I’d probably call for security.
Hank: That’s encouraging. I think Holy Rollers should be rolled-up hauled-off.
Michael: I don’t mean that. “Security” isn’t like a swat team, here. But we discourage people from acting crazy even when their expression of worship seems to pull them there.
Hank: So much of that stuff is fake…
Michael: I know. I think 80% of it is fake. But people need room to grow. And we don’t get much of that because we encourage people to consider others and not put on a show. We pray to God and worship Him because of our love for Him, not to fit into some culture of weird craziness. The only thing crazy here is our love for Jesus, which He finds in our hearts, not our demeanor.
Hank: So, if you guys aren’t crazy, what did you mean when you said that you need to operate in the Prophetic?
Michael: God leads you moment by moment throughout the day, doesn’t He?
Hank: Well, kind of. But I really don’t understand all that. Sometimes I don’t hear Him correctly, so I don’t like talking about it.
Michael: You’d be more likely to understand God’s daily leading if it you did talk about it.
Hank: Look, I’m not going to start blogging about how the world is going to end or start asking for money as an itinerate prophet.
Michael: You seem to me, as if I’m saying a things that I’m not saying. Are you listening?
Hank: Yes, of course I am, but you’re starting to sound crazy with where I think you are going.
Michael: Don’t confuse your speculation with what I actually think. Don’t do that with God either. Listen carefully so you understand what others are saying when they talk.
Hank: What do you mean?
Michael: You thought you knew what I was going to say, even though I hadn’t said it yet. Then you started arguing with what you thought.
Hank: But every time other people start talking about this, that’s where they end up. It’s all this ooga-booga holy-rollie stuff.
Michael: I don’t know how many people you’ve actually talked to…
Hank: Well, there was this one lady. Then, one time I spoke for five minutes at a conference with a guy…
Michael: Sounds like a lot of experience. But even then, I’m not those people. You need to want to understand others if you want to understand them.
Hank: That sounded redundant.
Michael: The Bible is often redundantly redundant and we still don’t get the message. The sa
me thing happens when we misunderstand God’s leading.
Hank: Huh?
Michael: People think they know what God is going to say and they don’t distinguish between their own speculation and God’s actual direction.
Hank: Well, that makes sense, I suppose, but it seems so hard.
Michael: It is very hard. But it’s more difficult going through life without knowing His daily leading. Don’t make up a voice in your head and call it “His Voice” just because He seems silent. That will really confuse you. Be still and listen to others. Don’t just recognize what they say, but also what they don’t say.
Hank: I can try harder not to put words in other people’s mouths. But when I think God is speaking to me, how am I to act on it without making a train wreck out of my Life? How am I to know if it’s Him or not?
Michael: First, don’t be afraid to say so when you think God may be leading you. Use words… sometimes. Second, you need to spend time with Him in prayer and worship. That’s what a lot of people are doing here in this room.
Hank: Oh, so that’s what draws people to this place.
Michael: They don’t like misunderstanding God, who is madly in love with us, so, they spend more time with Him here or at home and as they go throughout their day. Coming together makes it a little easier to stay focused. But praying at home and on the road also have their advantages.
Hank: I get the whole prayer thing, but using words to describe how I feel when I think God leads me… that went over my head.
Michael: If you think God may be telling you something, don’t be afraid to say that it was a feeling you got form Him.
Hank: But I don’t want to run around claiming, “Thus saith the Lord,” everywhere I go.
Michael: We don’t either. We only have three per year.
Hank: What!?
Michael: The Lord started to speak to a lot of us the more we had prayer meetings. There were so many, “Thus says God…” statements, it got insane. So, we made a rule: Each person can only claim, “Thus saith the Lord,” three times per year.
Hank: That seems strange.
Michael: It was very strange. That’s why we made the rule.
Hank: I mean the rule seems strange.
Michael: It’s not as strange as the problem it solved.
Hank: Did it actually solve the problem?
Michael: No problems will be fully solved until Jesus comes here and settles our disputes Himself. But, yeah, it did seem to calm things down.
Hank: I don’t get why it’s so important to talk about God’s leading in my life. That’s personal.
Michael: If you don’t have some kind of vocabulary for God’s leading in your life, then you can’t talk about it with others. Then you’re in a world of your own. That can lead you to some strange ideas. Christian fellowship requires words.
Hank: But do I have to claim that an angel came down and talked to me every time that happens?
Michael: No, just describe whatever it is. Maybe you have an impression on your heart. So, go to your accountability group or cell group or whatever and say you had an impression. Describe it. Ask for understanding. Talk about it. Explore it. Don’t leave that part of your walk with God in disrepair or it will turn into a disaster. That’s where the bad prophecy nonsense comes from. People try to “do” the Prophecy thing without talking about it among their Christian family. Iron swords sharpen each other as do Christians, even in terms of knowing what God is telling us.
Hank: I didn’t know that this is what you meant when you said Prophecy.
Michael: Listen to people to understand people, listen to God to understand God. Time and talking help us know each other. That’s why God wanted a House just for that purpose. This is where all that fellowship gathers together under one roof and so God moves among us all… together.
Hank: But why do you call it Prophecy?
Michael: We have to call it something. Otherwise we can’t talk about it and learn how to follow His daily leading Biblically. That’s the difference between us and other fellowships. Even Cessationists try to follow God’s leading. We merely use words to learn more about it, rather than it being some mystical, nebulous, vague thing that we try to do, but don’t understand… and then being afraid to talk about it for fear that someone will think we are adding to Scripture. Trust me, I used to be like that. It’s not fun—trying to get direction from God while thinking that He doesn’t talk to us anymore…
Hank: But isn’t Prophecy an attempt to add to Scripture?
Michael: Absolutely NOT. Even Scripture says that God gave some as prophets.
Hank: What does that mean then, in Ephesians 4? Paul and I didn’t quite get to that point.
Michael: Oh, so you talked to the Apostle Paul too, I take it.
Hank: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
Michael: Trust me, I’ve seen some crazy stuff in my days.
Hank: And from the House of Prayer you seem to even have caught a glimpse of God’s crazy love for you.
Michael: Right on—and that’s what Prophecy is.
Hank: Prophecy is about love?
Michael: YES. Prophecy is the clear message from God today in terms of His daily leading. Most prophecy is for the individual. Sometimes it’s for others. And on once in a while, it’s for a large segment in the Body of Believers. But in every case, prophecy always—always—leads back to love. It’s why God even wants to talk to us in the first place, even if it’s to correct us from our self-destructive behavior.
Hank: So the Prophetic isn’t adding to Scripture?
Michael: It’s not adding to Scripture because it is Prophetic. The Bible is for all time, that’s Scripture… 2 Tim 3:16-17. Prophecy is just for special times and special people. We say Prophetic to clarify that we are not adding to Scripture.
Hank: But I thought… Wait. I assumed what you meant when you use the term… I should have listened more carefully.
Michael: Listening is where it begins. After that, surrender to the truth.
Hank: But a while back you mentioned “bad” prophecy.
Michael: Today, it seems that there is an entire, so-called “Prophecy” genre. People blog and write these pie-in-the-sky ideas. They use cloudy-flower words and add a lot of superlatives and adverbs that make it really hard to understand. And they call it “Prophetic”. Sometimes, I just think that they write from their own creativity. I’m all in favor of creativity, but Beloved, we need to know the difference between our own creative writing and God’s Prophetic daily leading. God’s not as verbose as a lot of those so-called “prophets”.
Hank: How can we know the difference? There’s so much of that, some of it must be legitimate.
Michael: Learn to discern His leading in your own heart. That makes things so much easier. Pray in the Word.
Hank: That makes sense. If I know God’s Voice in my own life, it’ll be easier to discern whether He is truly speaking through another person.
Michael: God’s Prophetic leading isn’t merely for our entertainment. And talking to yourself creatively isn’t going to fill your desire to have a close connection with God. If God has a direction for you or the local Body, you and I aren’t going discover it through conjuring our way past writer’s block. And when He does give us a direction, we need to take it seriously. Maybe people misunderstand what God wants them to say, but still, when we think a word might be from the Lord, we need to seriously ask if it’s from Him and then act accordingly. We ought never treat His Word as entertainment and never ask people to censor a word that they think may be prophetic. If it can be improved by a person, then it’s not prophetic. If it is prophetic then God doesn’t need us to be His editors. So, keep asking whether something is genuinely a leading of the Lord, then, if you’re convinced it is, take it seriously.
Hank: What about Scripture? Shouldn’t we take that seriously too?
Michael: I can’t emphasize this enough, Hank, EVERYTHING we think we hear from the Lord must be weighed
against Scripture. If we don’t do that then we’re in hot water—or something else that’s hotter than water.
Hank: But what if someone says “Thus saith the Lord,” and he is wrong? Doesn’t the Old Testament say to stone him?
Michael: Well, under the Old Covenant, God said that if a prophet is accurate in his predictions of the future and then teaches people to worship other gods, that person should be stoned. But He also said that goes for anyone who teaches false religion. That’s in Deuteronomy 13.
Hank: Why was God so harsh against false religion?
Michael: Because false religion of that day involved human sacrifices. Were it not for such strict laws three thousand years ago, the world today would be an unimaginable Hell on earth. God’s Laws are always a grace, to give us a path that delivers us from evil.
Hank: Not a high-fisted hammer for the smallest transgression.
Michael: Exactly. That’s the spirit of prophecy also. So, when someone’s trying to connect with God from a pure heart—even though every prophet will always have room to learn—it’s okay to make mistakes.
Hank: So it was sin that God said to punish, not being wrong about what we think He tells us.
Michael: Just because a prophet can perform signs and wonders and predict the future doesn’t mean that we are to swallow everything that person teaches. In Deuteronomy 18 God said almost the same thing as 13, but added that He Himself would enforce a prophet’s words, and also, that if a prophet is merely wrong, claiming, “Thus saith the Lord,” presumptuously, you don’t need to be afraid of such a prophet—as long as he’s not teaching false religion. You should read those chapters. They may help you navigate through many situations today.
Hank: What about prophets telling the furure?
Michael: Prophecy can be foretelling of the future or forthtelling of God’s daily leading. Don’t make it too technical or complicated. If you want to know more I’d recommend some good books for you that you can take home and keep notes in.
Hank: I’ll check those out, but what do you think the biggest challenge is for Prophetic stuff in the fellowship here at this House of Prayer?
Michael: Probably boldness. Many times when we say Prophetic, we mean boldness.
Hank: Boldness?
Michael: Boldness marked the character of every prophet in the Bible from Beginning to End. God won’t lead you if you don’t follow boldly. Boldness can have a huge price to pay. But the rewards are also huge.
Hank: How are the rewards huge?
Michael: The rewards are people. Our reward is each other, the greatest reward we have is God Himself.
Hank: I can see how a good relationship with God can be a reward from boldly communicating with Him… prayer and daily leading. But other people too?
Michael: We prophesy because we love people as well as the Lord who was crucified for them. If you don’t clearly communicate the truth, then the people looking for it won’t need you. You’ll also waste a lot of time with people who don’t value the same things as you… eventually ending long friendships that amounted to nothing beyond the superficial.
Hank: I’ve heard a few other people talk about sticking to your guns.
Michael: For a while there, we started to tone down our own message about the importance of prayer and
