The Gift of a Word of Knowledge: Be Obedient
I was involved in a prophetic experience that I think has some great lessons. It happened when I was flying our ministry plane to Nashville with some of our musicians to do some recording. After taxiing to the General Aviation ramp, a line woman directed us to a parking spot. After we deplaned, the wife of one of our musicians said to the line woman as she walked past her, "You get along with animals better than you do people – you should have been a vet." The line woman looked stunned, and I couldn't help wondering if this had insulted her.
Our team left with their ride, which had been waiting to take them to the recording studio. Before I left, I gave my fuel order at the service desk when the line woman came in and blurted out, "Was that woman with you a psychic?" I said, "No, but why do you ask?" She told me that when she was parking our plane she was thinking about how she gets along better with animals than she does people and that she should have become a vet. That's when the musician's wife spoke to her.
It was just a small terminal, and this conversation was so loud that everyone in the terminal looked intently at us. I explained how this lady was a Christian, and how Christ loves all people and has a plan for their lives, and sometimes He gives His servants information like this about them to confirm His will for their life. The line woman was deeply moved and resolved to take seriously that she was "called" to be a vet and to pursue it.
Then the other employees and passengers in the terminal started asking if this woman was coming back, and could they get a message like this? This led to a lot of ministry in the terminal over the next few months as we went back and forth for this recording. At that time, we had not set up prophetic ministry teams, but if we had, I would have sent a team over to park in that terminal for as long as there was an opening for ministry. This helped us see the need for this, and now we can be more responsive.
The Holy Spirit Is the "Helper," Not the "Doer"
Almost every such opening that has led to a lot of fruit was the result of someone just stepping out and taking initiative. We must keep in mind that the Holy Spirit is the "Helper," not the "Doer." He will not do anything without us, and we should not want to do anything without Him. Faith is basically the willingness to take initiative even when you may not know the exact outcome. This is why true faith is not faith in an outcome, but in the Person we put our trust in. We must seek to simply do the will of the Lord, and not just seek results, because results can be very different than we're expecting. The same miracle that has a great impact in one place may not have any in another place, just as we see in the Lord's own ministry.
You may be thinking that you would love to be able to hear that clearly from the Lord and touch other people like this young lady did. The truth is you can, and you possibly already do but just don't realize it. We get impressions from the Lord but think they are our own imagination, or something else, and don't act on them. Many who come to our Prophetic Equipping Conferences who leave hearing from the Lord realize they have been hearing from Him for a long time but did not recognize Him. We can't give people prophetic gifts, but we can help them recognize and stir up the gifts that they've been given. Every Christian has the ability to know the voice of the Lord.
Stirring a city with a word of knowledge like Jesus did through the woman at the well, or like Philip the evangelist in Acts 8, would be wonderful. It is obvious that Philip was using the gift of a word of knowledge because we're told in Acts 8 that the people gave attention to him because of the miracles that they "heard and saw."
Then Philip was commanded by the Spirit to leave such a great revival and go into the desert to share the Gospel with just one man – the Ethiopian eunuch. That an evangelist, who all seem to thrive on crowds, would be this obedient is almost as much of a miracle as him being translated afterward. However, hundreds of years later when explorers first entered Ethiopia they were astonished to find that the Christian faith had preceded them. We won't know until eternity how many were led to salvation by Philip's obedience and neither could Philip.
The point is that we cannot judge the fruit here – we must just focus on obedience to the Holy Spirit. A single word of knowledge might stir a city, a general aviation terminal, or just one person, and the one person could bring more fruit than the others combined. Be obedient.
Rick Joyner is the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries and is the Senior Pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church. He is the author of more than forty books, including The Final Quest, A Prophetic History, and Church History. He is also the president of The OAK Initiative, an interdenominational movement that is mobilizing thousands of Christians to be engaged in the great issues of our times, being the salt and light that they are called to be. Rick and his wife, Julie, have five children: Anna, Aaryn, Amber, Ben, and Sam.
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