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Because prophetic song is often spontaneous, it can be confused with jamming.  But the two have little in common, as I found when a neighbor visited a few days ago.  He stepped into my house and I must have recalled seeing him playing guitar at a neighborhood Bible study, so I asked if he'd like to play mine.  He got it out of the case and began to play.  "Do you ever sing from the heart to the Lord with a new song?" I asked.  "Yes," he replied.

So I listened for a moment, and soon he handed the guitar back to me.  We passed the guitar back and forth and both played and sang.  But we never got past our music, and neither of us got into a flow that released the manifest presence of God.

My neighbor and I never got there. For all our spontaneity, we never got past jamming.  If you're assembling a prophetic worship team, it won't be enough if you merely find a few people who jam well together.  They may be spontaneous and they may sound good together.  But it doesn't turn prophetic until we stop expressing our hearts, our sound, or our style.  Only when we express God's heart do we step into prophetic song.

Over the years, I've found two good ways to start.  First, sing in tongues for a while, and ask God for the interpretation.  Second, sing Bible truth about Jesus.  But then, invite the Holy Spirit to pour a song of worship through our lips, a song that will release the manifest presence of God.

Often, the prophetic song arrives not with a lot of musical virtuosity, but with sounds I suspect I could play in my sleep.

Prophetic activity doesn't spill off the top of our heads.  Jesus said (John 7:37-38) "Out of your belly - out of your deepest parts - will flow rivers of living waters."

If your deepest parts are thinking about music, your spontaneous songs will be little more than jamming.  But if your deepest parts are communing with Jesus, you are likely to get into a prophetic flow.

I don't think John the Baptist ever picked up a guitar, but he had the recipe:  "I, [the musician] must decrease, but He, The Word of God must increase."

To cultivate this, it's good to seek the flow of the Spirit and the manifest presence of God as we worship Him in secret.  That's what Jesus taught; if we seek the Father in secret, He will reward us openly.

Go into the prophetic flow.  Don't be satisfied just to jam.

Stan Smith

www.GospelSmith.com

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