How to Flow in Prophecy, Healing, and Miracles: A Biblical Guide to Spiritual Gifts
The Bible gives us a master key to operating in the gifts of the Spirit, and especially the gift of prophecy.
This key is simple yet profound: What are you following? What is your motivation? I can think of times when I’ve asked my mentors about the prophetic—about how they prophesy, how they hear God, how they operate in the gifts. Their response is always the same: What is your motivation? Why do you want to prophesy? What is the reason? What they are really asking is whether you are motivated by love. Paul told the church in Corinth: Follow after love. Love is the foundation. Love is the motivation. Love is the reason God moves through His people to release gifts into the lives of others. Why? Because God is love (1 John 4:8).
Love: The Fuel of the Supernatural
Faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). Prophecy works by love. Healing works by love. The reason God heals is that He loves people. The reason He speaks through prophets is that He loves people. He delivers because He loves people. Paul told the Corinthians that prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, knowledge will vanish—but love will never fail (1 Corinthians 13:8). The number-one motivation behind the gifts of the Spirit must be love. We are called to follow after love.
The Danger of a Wounded Heart
Ministry is beautiful, but it can also be painful.
Jesus said, “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will scatter” (Zechariah 13:7 NKJV). One of the occupational hazards of being a shepherd is that you will be struck. If you are not careful, you can develop what I call “stricken shepherd syndrome.” This is when you go through the motions of being a shepherd, but your love for the sheep begins to fade. You’ve been bitten by too many sheep. You’ve been kicked too many times. You’ve been stabbed in the back by too many Judases. If you’re not careful, the wounds of ministry can rob you of your love walk. And when you lose your love, you lose everything. Love is powerful. Faith works by love. The gifts of the Spirit flow through love. That’s why Paul told the Corinthians that they should follow after love.
Following the Flow of Love
My wife’s father, Pastor David Brown, wrote a small book about following the flow of love. He was a healing evangelist, and while he pastored churches, his real passion was preaching healing crusades in Honduras. He covered the nation, preaching in every major and medium-sized city. He taught that when the gifts began to operate, God would highlight people to him in the crowd. He would literally see a light rest on certain people, or he would feel an overwhelming compassion toward someone. He knew that when that supernatural love welled up within him, it was the Holy Spirit prompting him to minister to that person. Wherever the flow of love was leading, the gifts of God would begin to work.
Jessi’s Revelation
My wife, Jessi, had never read her father’s book. One day, years later, when she was 33 or 34, she picked it up and read it. She came to me and said, “I want to follow the flow of love.” That very same day, a dear friend’s father, Mr. Donahue, walked into my office. Mr. Donahue was a great man. He had been the CEO of a hospital in Kentucky. He had beaten cancer once before through medical treatment, and he was grateful for the doctors at MD Anderson in Houston. But now, the cancer had returned. He came into my office and said, “I need prayer.” Jessi happened to be there at that moment. She listened to his words, and then, suddenly, a divine flow of love came over her. She said, “We have to pray right now!” She laid her hands on Mr. Donahue, and as she prayed, she began to prophesy. She said, “Last time, you fought and overcame cancer through faith and medical treatment. But this time, you won’t have to fight. This time, God will heal you as a gift—so that no man can take the glory.”
A Miracle in the Making
A few weeks later, Mr. Donahue was scheduled for surgery. They had found a tumor on the scan, and they were preparing to remove it. Jessi and I went to the hospital that morning. We sat with his son, one of my associate pastors, and waited. One hour passed. Two hours. Three. Four. At this point, we were starting to get nervous. Jessi’s prophetic word was hanging out there, and while we believed it, we were still human.
Five hours.
Six.
Seven.
Finally, eight hours later, we got the call. The surgery was over. We walked into the hospital room, and there was Mr. Donahue, waking up from anesthesia. Tears were streaming down his face.
The first words he spoke were:
“It was a gift.”
Then he started crying and laughing at the same time. We all laughed. We all cried. Because the tumor was gone. The surgery had taken twice as long as expected because the doctors couldn’t find it. They called in other doctors. They searched and searched. But it was gone. God had healed him—just as Jessi had prophesied.
The Key to the Gifts: Follow Love
That miracle happened because Jessi chose to follow after love. Where love leads, the power of God follows. If love won’t work, nothing else will. If you want to be used in the supernatural, if you want to prophesy, if you want to see miracles, you must become a person of love.
Love is the fuel of faith. Love is the flow of the Spirit.
Love is the key to all spiritual gifts.
A Prayer for Love
I’m praying for you—that God will shed His love abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit (see Romans 5:5). I pray that you will be sensitive to the flow of love and moved with com-passion. Most of all, I pray that you will operate in the gifts of God, not out of pride or performance, but out of love—because love never fails. Follow after love, and you will flow in the gifts of God.
Desire Spiritual Gifts: The Gateway to the Supernatural
Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy (1 Corinthians 14:1 NKJV).
Love must be our foundation—our motivation in all things. But desire is what opens the door for the gifts of the Spirit to flow in our lives. It’s a good thing to desire to see God move through you. We should long to see the supernatural, to wit-ness the power of the Holy Spirit at work, and to be vessels through whom He speaks and moves. We don’t serve a dead God. We serve the God of the resurrection. He is alive, active, and still performing miracles today. His Spirit still moves through prophecy, healing, and words of knowledge. But for His gifts to operate through us, there must be a hunger—a desire—for them.
The Religious Mindset That Rejects the Gifts
Many people in religious circles claim they only want the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23). While these are essential, they were never meant to stand apart from the gifts of the Spirit. Jessi and I were once on the mission field, preaching to a very hungry group of people. The gifts of the Spirit were flowing powerfully, especially prophecy and words of knowledge. The Spirit of God began revealing details about people’s lives—things no one else could have known. Words came forth about family members who were being attacked by cancer. A young man received supernatural knowledge about the exact college courses he was taking. The atmosphere was charged with faith. But there was a woman on the trip who wasn’t from our church. She came from a more traditional Pentecostal back-ground, one that leaned heavily on religious mindsets. After watching the gifts of the Spirit operate, she approached me and said, “Well, you know, I don’t really care if I flow in the gifts of the Spirit. I just want to have the fruit of the Spirit.”
I could hear the false sense of holiness in her tone, the religious pride disguised as spirituality. I wanted to bite my tongue, but I couldn’t. I looked at her and said, “Do you know what 1 Corinthians 14 says? It says to follow after love and desire spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. You are commanded to desire them!” You can’t say you’ll focus on the fruit of the Spirit while ignoring the gifts of the Spirit. That’s not biblical. The Spirit of God was never meant to be quenched. Yet that is exactly what people do when they dismiss the gifts and refuse to desire them.
The High Priest’s Garment: A Picture of Balance
A powerful illustration of this truth can be found in the attire of the Old Testament high priest. At the hem of his robe, there was an ornamental pomegranate followed by a bell, then another pomegranate, and another bell.
The pomegranate represents the fruit of the Spirit—character, maturity, and righteousness.
The bell represents the gifts of the Spirit—the supernatural manifestations of God’s presence.
If you only have the fruit, you can become religious and lack supernatural power. If you only have the gifts, you can become loud and flashy, making noise but lacking depth. The high priest’s robe reminds us that God intends for both to be in operation—character and power, fruit and gifts, love and miracles.
Desire Unlocks the Supernatural
Desire is what leads to manifestation. Show me what someone desires, and I’ll show you the direction their life is moving. If you desire spiritual gifts, they will begin to flow. I remember when I was a younger man and first began wanting to move in the gifts of the Spirit. I had a strong desire, though my motivations may not have been entirely pure at the time. But that desire positioned me for encounters with the supernatural. One such encounter happened when a close friend and his wife, new believers in the faith, received a devastating report. His wife had gone in for an ultrasound, excited to find out their baby’s gender and health status. Instead, the doctors delivered a grim diagnosis.
The child had Down syndrome.
The baby’s heart chambers were not developing properly.
If the baby survived birth, it would likely have severe medical complications.
The doctors even suggested abortion. The atmosphere in their home became one of sorrow and mourning, as if they were already grieving a loss. We went to pray with them, standing in faith. While praying, the Spirit of God moved, and prophecy came forth:
“It is well.”
The word referenced the faith of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4. She had received a miracle son through the prophetic word of Elisha, only for the child to die in her arms. Instead of accepting the situation, she saddled her donkey and rode straight to the prophet. When people asked what was wrong, she only said, “It is well.” She refused to speak death over the situation.
The Lord spoke and said, “This child will live, and it is well.” The couple grabbed hold of that word. They took it and worked it. Every time doubt crept in, they declared, “It is well.” They stood by the prophecy, believing in God’s supernatural power. Months later, the baby was born. The Down syndrome diagnosis was completely reversed. The doctors were in shock. The child still had a heart condition that required surgeries, but she was alive, healthy, strong, and filled with purpose. I remember visiting her in the NICU in Dallas, where wires and machines surrounded her. As I stood there, the Spirit of God spoke to me clearly:
“This is why people need My gifts.”
Without a prophetic word, without the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit, that baby might not have made it. But the word of the Lord ignited faith in their hearts. They stood, they fought, and now—years later—that baby girl is a beautiful, thriving 20-year-old woman with an incredible future ahead of her.
