CONTENTS

- PART 1: The Prophetic Preparation
1 Removing the Flesh
2 Stages of Preparation
3 Preparation of Spirit, Soul and Body
4 Don’t Accept Mediocrity

- PART 2: Templates and Triggers
5 Programming From Birth
6 Parental Role in Forming Templates
7 Rearranging Templates
8 Ministering Spiritually

- PART 3: Resurrection is a Choice
9 Victory Over Death
10 Resurrect in Power!
11 Move on to Victory!

- PART 4: Prophetic Training
12 Introduction to Elijah
13 Learn at His Feet
14 Tests and Trials

- PART 5: Prophetic Mentoring
15 Principles of Discipleship
16 The Cost of Discipleship
17 Elisha’s Training

Prophetic Training.
Excerpt from: The Preparation of a Prophet

The Spirit is the Source

What is it that stands in the way of a person being effective as a prophet of God, and as God's spokesman to speak forth His Word into the earth? Well, when God speaks through and in His prophet, He is going to impart by His Holy Spirit into that person's spirit, His Word, His decree, declaration or revelation. Whatever God is to do He will impart into the spirit of the person. God works that way in all of us. Whatever He does in us and through us is done through the Spirit. We have looked at it in a lot of detail in our Way of Blessing series. It is imparted in the spirit, and what comes out has to come out of the spirit. In order for it to come out of the spirit, it has to come out via the soul. And then via the soul, it must come out via the body and be expressed into the earth.

Releasing In Actions and Words

There are only two ways that information can come out of a person's spirit and pass into this world. That is through physical bodily action and spoken words. If a person stands still and does not speak you cannot tell by looking at them or the natural senses what is going on in their spirits. You can only tell it by the gift of discerning of spirits and gifts of revelation. Until a person speaks forth and acts out what is in their spirits, what is in their spirits cannot be communicated outwards.

If you go back into the Old Testament and see how God worked and moved in the Old Testament prophets they always did two things – they acted and they spoke. Aren't you glad that the New Testament prophets do not seem to act as much? Some of the prophets in the Acts of the Apostles still did the same. We read of Agabus, how he came and he took Paul's girdle off, tied himself up with it and said, "Thus says the Holy Spirit, this is what's going to happen to the guy who owns this."

The Old Testament prophets very often had to act things out. They would put a yoke on their backs and walk around and walk around until people said, "What are you doing?" Then they would say, "Okay, this is a picture of what God wants to say." God would tell the guy to go and lie on his side with a brick in front of him. They had to do some silly things at times, but they had to communicate outwardly what was in their spirits, and that is done by action and by words.

The prophet of God will have to be open to do both. He will have to be open to go where God tells him to go, to do what God tells him to do, and to speak what God tells him to speak. If anything stands in the way of that then he cannot be effective as God's prophet, because all of those things have to be involved in effectively discharging the duties of a prophet.

Dealings With the Soul

So God has to deal with the things that stand in the way. And what stands in the way? Firstly, what stand in the way are the natural faculties of the soul. Unless the soul is fully submitted to the spirit, the spirit cannot flow out through the body. And unless the body is fully submitted and under the control of the soul, which is under the control of the spirit, there cannot be an outward communication from the spirit, into the soul, into the body, and into the earth, in order that God's Word may go forth. And until God's Word goes forth into the earth through human lips and action, through the human body, His Word cannot accomplish anything. 

In Isaiah 55:11 God said:

11 So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish what I desire, and it shall succeed [in the thing] for which I sent it.

God has to send His Word into the earth, but in order for Him to do it, He needs to have a human channel to send it through, because God sends His Word into the earth through human agency. Now when the prophets spoke the Word of God, they were sending the very decree of God into the earth. It was not their words. It was not God giving them a little idea and them giving their opinion. It was God imparting something into their spirit, and that which was placed into their spirit flowed out into their soul, it flowed out into their body, and it passed out into the earth. It was the very voice, the very words, the very influence and essence of God that was going forth via those words into the earth.

God's Order of Spirit, Soul, Body

What is it that stands in the way? Well the soul has three main functions. Everybody should know it by now. It has been taught for so long. The three functions are the mind, the emotions and the will. That means that the mind, the emotions and the will, are going to have to all learn to be subject to the spirit within, because God's order is always spirit, soul, body. Paul writing in Thessalonians says, "I pray God that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, be preserved blameless unto the coming of the Lord." We usually get it back to front and you hear people praying, "Lord bless him, body, soul and spirit."

I have heard that so many times. We are so taken up with our bodies we always put that first. You will find that people most frequently, when they refer to the three parts of man, give it in that order – body, soul, spirit. God's order is always spirit, soul and body, because the spirit is the most important. That is the part that is united with God. It is the part that came from God. The soul is the next most important because it is your control tower. The body is the least important, so that must always come last.

So, if God is to deal with you in order to prepare you to be an effective prophet, He will deal with it in that order. He is going to start with your spirit, work with your soul, and finally deal with your body. He is going to restore His order of spirit, and soul, and body. And when that order is restored then the spirit, which is under God's control, will be the highest part of your being. It will be the part of you that is in control, that is dominating, that is influencing. The soul will then be in subjection to the spirit, and therefore the soul will do what the spirit says. When that happens the body is also then brought into subjection. And it will be like the pecking order in the army where the General barks, and in the end the Private jumps, because it goes right down the line.

Getting the Spirit to Dominate

So God will speak into your spirit. Your spirit will say, "Attention, soul!" And your soul will say, "Sir! Pass the order down." The soul will pass the order down and say, "Body!" And the body will say, "Sergeant, do this!" Poor Private. That is the correct order. It will have to be established. It has to be that way. That is what the preparation of a prophet is about, and that is what God is trying to accomplish in your life. He is trying to bring you to a place where you learn to walk in the Spirit. That is all that walking in the Spirit is. It is learning to let your spirit dominate your life and control it so that it flows outwards in an even flow. And so here in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says:

8 [We are] troubled (hard pressed) on every side...

Crunch No 1 - The Emotions

Have you ever been hard-pressed on every side? I shared in my testimony on the Prophetic Ministry how when God first led us to move into another country south of us, that everything went wrong in our lives. I sat down the one day and made a list of everything that went wrong and everything that went right. I made two columns on a page: Things That Have Gone Wrong Since We Got Here, and Things That Have Gone Right Since We Got Here. And the one column was empty. There was nothing in it! Nothing had gone right. Nothing! I could not find one thing that had gone right for us since we had arrived. It had all gone wrong.

You know what it is like when everything goes wrong and everybody is against you; when your family is against you? You get up in the morning and your spouse is against you, and your kids are against you. You go to work and the traffic cops are against you. And at work your boss is against you. Oh boy, it does not matter where you go, everybody is against you! You go to church finally on the weekend and the church people are against you.

Troubled on every side! Things start to go wrong. Finances start to go wrong. In fact, anything that can go wrong goes wrong. You know that feeling? Troubled on every side, hard-pressed on every side. I will tell you what happens when you get hard-pressed on every side. You start to feel very low, discouraged and depressed. Your emotions go totally out of control. You cannot rely on your feelings anymore. Your desires are thwarted. Everything about your emotions comes to a grinding halt. You feel so low and so heavy that you just do not feel like doing anything anymore. God has put your emotions out of action. It is a wonderful situation to be in, isn't it? Paul says:

4 ...we are perplexed,

Crunch No 2 - The Mind

What happens when you are perplexed? Perplexed means, "I can't figure it out. I don't know the solution to this problem." Now if you are one of those analytical people who always likes to know the answers, that has to have the whole picture and wants to gather all the facts first before making a move and making a decision, then perplexed is hell on earth. For all of us perplexed is not a nice situation to be in, because we like to come to a solution. When problems come our way we are trying to figure it out. If there is less money at the end of the month, you are taking out your calculator and working out your budget, saying, "Who's going into the hat this month?"

When situations arrive that you have to make a decision about, you have to use your mind and your thinking capability to figure it out, to try and solve the problem, to try and organize how you are going to get out of the situation. But God is going to bring you to a place where nothing works. The solutions that worked before will not work anymore. The thing that you are trying to figure out will no longer work or make sense. No matter how you try, you will be caught in a maze, and whichever route you take through the maze, it does not matter, you end up at Dead End Street. There is just no way out of this maze. You are caught, you are perplexed. Your mind has become absolutely no use at all.

Crunch No 3 ...