A true prophet is not a Charismatic witch/warlock who curses those he disagrees with; not a charismatic fortune teller that will tell you some generic and nebulous word for your money; nor is he a charismatic magician who has to use deception and charm to pull a rabbit out of his hat to please the onlooking crowd that is out in the audience.

A true prophet will not have to rely on cliches such as “a new thing”, or “the next level” to bring forth what God has to say. Nor does he get so influenced by trends that the trend works itself into the prophecy. For example, I received in my e-mail a word sent forth by a major Christian media group where the ‘Colorado Springs Crazies’ went to Washington DC and while there, the floods hit and they took the floods that took place in WASHINGton D.C. and implied that the ‘flooding of the Spirit’ was upon this nation and is washing the evil and sin away from WASHINGton D.C. to where God’s Official Party (the Republicans) could change things.

A true prophet will bring forth his word when God tells him to whether the word is bad or not. It does not matter to him that the doom and gloom people have extremed prophetics to the point where church will purposely refuse bad words instead only allowing the ‘positive prophecies’ to be brought forth. In fact, many churches today will not allow someone to speak a word. Instead they have to approach the pastor with the word before speaking or they have to submit it before it’s even recognized which gives way to the ‘positive prophecy syndrome’. If the prophecy giver interrupts the service, an elder will usually ask an usher to escort them out no matter if the prophecy is true or false.

I’m afraid that we have already swung the extreme from the ‘doom and gloom’ to the equal but opposite extreme of ‘positive prophecy’ that we may go back to the ‘doom and gloom’ extreme and fail to catch the balance again.

What is more important, the word, the messenger of the word, or the creator of the Word (God Almighty)? In the long run, it better be true while pointing our focus back to God and giving Him glory and edifying the saints at the same time.

True prophets do not have to announce themselves, have business cards, or hire marketeers to promote themselves as Prophet so-and-so. A true prophet will be called ‘prophet’ by the ones who discern and recognize the anointing on his life even though the prophet feels that :

In his humanity he is too flawed, imperfect, or unworthy to bear the name ‘prophet’ because the Bible gives the appearance of prophets being perfect people.

He sees the shame and crap that calls itself a prophet/prophetic that he despises the name for the purpose of trying to be as seperate, distant, and apart as possible from those false prophets who dare call themselves prophet when the big wig church leaders think the crap prophets/prophetic (like the majority of stuff on the Elijah List) is the real prophetic realm.

True prophets can be accounted for and not blame people’s sin, doubt, misinterpretation, or actions a people took as a reason from keeping a prophecy from happening.

Most importantly, true prophets walk in a ‘holy fear’ of disgracing God that they will not treat any issues flippantly.