David Diga Hernandez - 4 Keys to Activating a Prophetic Word

Sometimes, you receive a prophetic word and then feel discouraged because it doesn’t seem to come to pass right away. I want to show you from Scripture how to activate a prophetic word that has been spoken over you. Maybe you’ve heard something and you’re wondering, «Was that a word from God or was that just the individual making it up out of their imagination? What am I doing wrong?» So, what do you do when you receive a prophetic word? How do you cultivate that word? How do you steward that word? How do you treat that word with honor and reverence, ultimately bringing it to pass in your life?

Number one: The first step is to weigh it. 1 Thessalonians 5:20–21 says, «Do not scoff at prophecies, but test everything that is said; hold on to what is good.» Here, we see the Scripture presenting to us a balance: do not scoff at prophecies, but also test them. So, don’t despise the prophetic; don’t be cynical regarding the prophetic; don’t be filled with doubt concerning the prophetic. But at the same time, don’t be gullible—don’t receive every word that comes in what seems to be the prophetic. Instead, weigh each word with discernment. Compare each word to the Word of God; compare every prophecy to what the Holy Spirit has spoken to you, and then receive it if you know it’s the Lord.

However, on the other extreme, while weighing prophecy, we ought not to mock the prophetic. We ought not to be skeptical when it comes to the prophetic—at least not in an unhealthy way. Don’t obsess over prophetic words, but also don’t be dismissive. Sometimes, believers become obsessed with prophetic words that were spoken over them that made no sense. They hear something—maybe a prophet spoke something to you—and you don’t quite know where that fits; you don’t quite know how that connects with what God is doing with your calling. You’re not sure how that applies to your everyday life. Maybe the prophet said, «I don’t know what this means, but I’m just going to say it.» Then, the prophet speaks to you, and you’re saying, «Well, I don’t know what it means either.» That happens sometimes.

There are seasons in life when God will speak clearly, and there are other seasons where, because of matters of the flesh or emotions, someone may speak out of turn and say something that wasn’t the Lord, leading believers to confusion. They then obsess over things wondering, «God, was that You? Am I going to miss this? Did I do something wrong?» It becomes unhealthy in their lives. They start to fill with fear because they don’t know what the prophecy meant; they start to fill with doubt because they’re wondering what they are doing wrong. Then it becomes a focal point instead of them focusing on their relationship with the Lord, Jesus, or the Word of God, or prayer—these things that are spiritual foundations. Now they become fixated on a word that maybe wasn’t from God; perhaps they didn’t really hear from God, and they just said something they thought was the Lord. Maybe they spoke out of their imagination, understanding, or emotion of the moment, and that’s something we need to accept as reality.

There are times when people speak out of turn. So how do you know when a word is truly from God? If you’re weighing it and trying to balance your approach to prophetic words spoken over you biblically, remember that you don’t want to be cynical and have unhealthy skepticism, but you also don’t want to be gullible and take everything that everyone tells you, obsessing over it when you have no understanding and it causes confusion.

You can ask yourself these three questions:

Number one: Does this align with God’s Word? The Holy Spirit will never contradict Himself; He will never speak something that goes against the truth that He spoke in Scripture. That is the more sure word of prophecy. The written Word of God is the foundation of our understanding of the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Number two: Does it align with what God has spoken to me personally? Sometimes, prophets will speak something to you that comes out of left field, completely surprising you and catching you off guard. However, the Lord will confirm that to you personally, often through other prophetic voices speaking to you. In my life, when the Lord wanted me to go in a certain direction that seemed out of left field, He would use various prophetic voices to confirm it to me. More often than not, prophecies confirm what the Holy Spirit has already been speaking, though there are instances when prophets speak something that is a completely new direction for your life.

Number three: Does this align with other confirmed words from the Lord? Sometimes, the Lord will speak something that seems like a new direction for your life. Other times, He will confirm that word through various prophets, at least in my life personally. It doesn’t have to be the same for you. Usually, the Lord confirms something to me three times through three separate people on three separate occasions, and these three people usually don’t even speak to each other. This is in addition to Him having spoken it to me personally.