This is the third post in the Prophetic Evangelism series.
What is Prophetic Prayer?
Prophetic prayer occurs when we use revelation received from the Holy Spirit in the process of praying.
The New Testament Greek word translated ‘revelation’ means ‘unveiling.’ The Holy Spirit shares knowledge that we could not know by natural means. We then reflect that supernatural insight back to God in requests, intercession and proclamation.
A revelation from God may come in the form of a prophecy, picture (vision), dream, idea, or scripture. However, there are a myriad of creative ways that the Holy Spirit can speak to us if we are open to hearing His voice.
We can also pray prophetically without it being premeditated on our part. During or after the prayer we realise that the Holy Spirit has directed us how to pray.
4 Types of Prophetic Prayer
There are four main types of prophetic prayer. These are:
1. Receiving:
The Spirit shares prophetic revelation with us as we wait on God in prayer
2. Interceding:
We use the prophetic revelation we have received to remind God of His promises
3. Warfaring:
We use prophetic revelation to wage spiritual warfare and make powerful proclamations
4. Imparting:
God uses us to pray prophetically as we minister in prayer to others
How Prophetic Prayer can help in the Process of Evangelism
1. Receiving revelation in prayer
One time, I was praying for a family in our neighbourhood in New Zealand, when I had a vision. It was like a slide show. I saw the couple getting married; I saw my husband officiating at the wedding; I saw them becoming Christians.
Many months later, the man called us to share a secret—he had asked his partner to marry him and wanted The Hunk to perform the ceremony. We were thrilled, because we knew that God was at work, drawing them to Himself.
As you pray for God’s guidance in the process of evangelism, or for someone on your heart that is not a Christian, be open to have the Holy Spirit speak to you.
We do not need to be limited to set times of prayer. As we learn to walk with God in our daily life, we can be open to revelation that the Holy Spirit shares with us as we go along.
2. Using revelation to make requests in prayer
Once God has spoken to us about His plans for a friend or loved one who is unsaved, or for people that we come across, we can use that revelation to make specific, faith-filled requests to God. (Is 62:6-7)
The date of our friends wedding was getting closer. One morning I prayed and cried out to God, reminding Him of the vision and promises for this couple. That very day several events took place that showed us—and them—that God was at work in their lives.
Scriptures can be especially powerful in this regard. I have a Bible verse that the Lord has spoken to me regarding a family member that I frequently bring back to Him in prayer.
The power of this kind of prophetic prayer can be summed up by these words from the Bible:
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15
3. Using revelation to wage spiritual warfare
Similarly, prophetic revelation can be used to wage spiritual warfare in prayer for the lives of people who do not yet have a relationship with Jesus. (Eph 6:12-18)
We can use the prophecies, scriptures, and other revelations we have received to declare God’s purposes for their lives and to pray against demonic strongholds (2 Cor 10:4-6).
Prayer helps us lead a prophetic lifestyle
In the process of prophetic evangelism, prayer can also help us in other ways:
- Prayer is where we get to know the Father’s heart and values—this helps us to respond to people the way He would.
- Prayer is the place where we commune with God. As we live out of that fellowship, we grow in sensitivity to what He is doing moment-by-moment, in our daily lives.
- Prayer helps us to stay filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to witness of His love and power to others.
Prophetic prayer is powerful because we are praying according to what is on God’s heart and in His purposes for a situation, ourselves or other people.
Just as with all prophecy, it is important that any revelation we receive in prayer be weighed up, to see if it really is from God.
In the next post, I will look at a third key to prophetic evangelism, which is ‘positioning’—being aware that God has strategically placed you alongside people who are on His heart. He is already at work in their lives, drawing them to Himself.
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Are you interested in finding out more about how to pray effectively for your unsaved family and friends?
For further information, check out the e-book,
Pray for the Lost: Impact the Eternal Destiny of Those You Love
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Related posts:
Prophetic Prayer Training Session
A Beginners Guide To Prophetic Evangelism Part 1
Pray for Those You Love and Unleash the Power of God
Need A Breakthrough? Uncover the Mysteries of Heaven
© Helen Calder Enliven Ministries: in the David McCracken Ministries Family
Loving your blogs, Helen, absolutely awesome stuff. So practical and relevant and fresh and onto it!
Hi Annette and thank you so much! Having enthusiastic readers helps encourage me to keep on going! May Jesus increasingly anoint your life and ministry. Stay in touch 🙂
hi helen,
i’m so thankful for your blog. God has been really using this blog to teach me more about the prophetic ministry. i posted on here before about having a dream that i thought was from God but it turned out to be a curse i received. through your blog i learned how to recognize the sipritual warfare that is going on and i am now free from that curse. God delivered me by directing me to this site and giving me the words that He was not done with me yet. He allowed me to go through that period of darkness to put me where He wanted me to be, a place of complete brokenness and dependence on Him. He transformed me from that moment on and revealed to me who He made me to be. the curiosity i once had about the “prophetics” became a passion He put on my heart. He started speaking to me so clearly and directed me to say things to certain people. I guess you call that prophetic prayer based on this posting. i’ve been dreaming about random people and praying for them as i wake up as a result and the Lord would put insights in my mind and cause me to pray. i started to impart the words i received and for the first few times people would be in complete amazement because it was something only the Lord would know and not someone else. all of these experiences are really exciting and i’m finding myself so in love with God, more than ever in my life. God is so real and i feel so alive. recently i dreamt about one of my pastors and when i woke up i started to pray for him. as i prayed the Lord gave me words. i struggled with whether or not to share the words with that pastor since all of this prophetic thing is so new to me. in the end i felt like i had to obey and share those words. up until that point, everything i had imparted to people were right on and the timing was also right. about a week later, that pastor actually pulled me aside and said that what i shared was something he had gone through and that he had already given it up to God so he felt that what i had shared wasn’t timely. that was a little discouraging to hear because i thought i was obeying God in sharing those words so i became a little bit confused and now am a little hesitant to explore more in that area. my biggest fear is i don’t want to impart something not from the Lord but how do I know? i had been hearing that same voice and had been sharing out of obedience. thank you so much Helen for you blog. it has helped me a great deal and it has “mentored” me in this area of prophecy.
Hi Tola,
this is a great question and one that I cover in our prophetic training. The key for growing in this area in a safe way is in how you present a prophetic insight you have received to someone.
It is important to share in a way that gives the person receiving an opportunity to weigh it up.
This means, not quoting God (‘God said..’ or ‘Thus saith the Lord’) but offering it as something you sensed or believe you heard. So if it relates to a dream, share the dream with the pastor and say, ‘I felt this from it…’ but offer it in such a way that gives him or her grace to consider it, and you grace to not have it completely right too.
It’s ok to be in a learning process and not always get it right… for example, you are getting a picture or dream from God, but stumble over the interpretation for a while, during the learning process. That’s why it is great to have a pastor/leader to run things past.
John Paul Jackson specialises in prophetic dreams and he said something that rings true. If you are involved in the dream, it is about you, but if you are not involved and looking on as a spectator, that could be a prophetic dream about someone else. I like that distinction and have seen it work.
Hope this helps 🙂
Thank you, Helen for your comments. Because I had read everything on here, I learned about how to go about sharing these revelations. I never say, “God says this…or the Lord told me this…” I always say that as I was praying this is what I felt or heard and I try to say, “maybe you can see if this is something from the Lord or not…” This specific incident confused me a little because the content was right on but only if I had shared it with the person a year earlier it would have been perfect timing. The content had to do with issues the pastor was dealing with. As a result of this error or at least it’s an error in timing based on the feedback, I started to feel a little insecure imparting other things the Lord revealed to me. I asked God, could it be that God revealed those things to me just so that I could pray for him and not share it? Is it also possible that the hearer wants to save face because they think I know more than what the Lord revealed to me and wants to assure me that they don’t struggle anymore even though they may still be dealing with those issues? Those were some of my thoughts. Thanks for listening. 🙂
hi Helen May God richly bless you. u have opened my eyes to certain truths and is like a scale that blinded my eyes from certain truths have been removed . I dnt kw dat dreams were forms of revelation bcos of dat i dnt take some of my dreams serious. buh today i have gotten a new insite and i am feeling more hungry for God. Tnk you