Hi there! Two weeks ago, we looked at Haggai’s simple prophetic word which simply stated, “I am with you, says the Lord.” This week, I’d like to look at another simple word, but not stated as simply as Haggai’s word. This one is a word we know God would speak to us. The word is easy. Peace.
God wants us to have peace and He speaks that multiple times in the Bible. Here’s an Old Testament example.
Isa 26:3 ESV You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.
Sounds simple right? Here’s the hard part. In context, this verse is part of a much larger prophecy. Still, no one has to prophesy the entirety of Isaiah's prophecy in order to prophesy peace. If the Lord stirs you up to speak peace into someone’s life, all you have to do is to go tell them, “I think the Lord’s desire is for you to experience His peace.” Can it be simpler than that? Yes. How about, “The Lord wants to give you peace.”
The question for you in that moment is, “What is the Lord saying here?” If He gives you a word for word prophecy, then prophesy that. Unfortunately, that’s not how it usually works. At least not for me. Here are a few possible ways that you know the Lord is speaking peace for someone else.
Php 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
How do you say that? If it’s a word for word prophecy, that’s what you go with. Though the first example is nice and that does happen from time to time, my experience with this kind of thing is usually from example two. Usually the Lord speaks a single word to me or two or three words, max. That’s it. So how do you know what to prophesy?
You have to seek God in that moment and ask Him to explain further. In that moment, I usually explore different angles or interpretations of the word, drawing from what I know about God. God’s will is life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). We are to encourage and comfort through prophecy (1st Cor 14:1-3). So it’s easy to lean towards the encouragement aspect of peace through God. There can still be other words that God could give from the word peace and you don’t want to assume anything. Here are a few variations of a prophecy that the Spirit leads from the word peace.
You might read those and think, all that could come from peace? Yes! It’s not what you know about God and peace, it’s what the Spirit leads. The more you know about God will equip you better to prophesy, no doubt. However, what is the Spirit saying? If I heard the word peace from the Spirit, I’d explore various angles but would also be asking God what to say. Usually, He’ll lead you in a certain direction. Many would say that God should just come out and give a word for word prophecy and that’s the only way to prophesy. It’s just that’s not always the way it works. Numbers 12:6-8 debunks that idea, saying that God speaks in dreams, visions and riddles.
Here’s another scripture on peace to consider.
Num 6:22-27 ESV The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”
This is not a prophecy as we think of prophecy. It’s more of a set of instructions to bless the people with. However, God is giving the priests a message to give to the people – so it’s prophecy. The Lord instructs Moses and the priests in the way they should pronounce a blessing on God’s people. The very last word of the blessing is peace. There are three sentences total that the priests are to speak over the people. You might think that this seems to be a complicated prophetic word, because of the length of it. It’s not really. Three sentences is about the maximum you want to speak for any simple message.
In the past when people have approached me with a word, I’ve made them summarize their message into three sentences. It’s easier on the speaker and it’s easier on the hearer. Unless the Lord gives you a word for word prophecy, it’s acceptable to speak it however you want, just as long as you get His message out. A case in point would be any message He gives that comes in the form of a vision or dream. It has to get expressed somehow. When it comes to messages that are not from dreams/visions, you want to stay as true to that as possible. If He gives you a key word like peace, or even something unusual like unprecedented, then you want to use that word. Let His Spirit guide you. Prophecy is meant to encourage and comfort. That has to be part of the message. As long as you stay true to the message He gives you and it aligns with God’s character and what God has instructed us to do with prophecy, the wording is somewhat optional. You never want to take away from or add anything to the message God gives you, but the way you express it is somewhat optional. God used a variety of different people with different backgrounds to both prophesy and to write the Bible. All of it came out as God’s word but expressed differently by different people.
A few final thoughts about peace. God really wants people to experience peace. In fact, we should be living examples of God’s peace. If we’re not, then there’s a problem. It’s not up to us to judge anyone’s lack of peace. All we need to do is be ministers of God’s peace. Peace is probably a common ongoing prophetic word for the people of God. It could be a go to prophetic word. When you think of endtimes scriptures such as famines and wars and rumors of wars – all of those things will disrupt people’s peace. You can bet as we get closer to the end that peace will be disrupted and people will need it. Get ready to prophesy it! A peace prophecy may seem simple to some and it is to a degree. To others, to prophesy peace may sound complicated but it’s not. After you do it a few times, it gets easier. On this side of it, prophesying peace is easy. However, ministering peace to someone and trying to comfort them right after you prophesied peace is sometimes more difficult than giving the prophecy. Until next week!