Prophetic impressions are the most basic prophetic revelation and are usually the way that the Lord begins to speak to us. This seems to be because we are called to be His friends, and He wants us to feel what He feels, not just be automatons who do what He tells us. God created man to have fellowship with Him, and He is seeking messengers who will share His heart for the message.

     Here is the potential stumbling block—it is an ultimate presumption for a prophetic person to think that God feels the same way that he or she feels about things. For this reason, we must be careful to discern a prophetic impression and understand that when we are not specifically being shown something by God that our feelings and opinions are our own and not necessarily God’s.

     I have witnessed prophetic people who are wounded in an area and not healed, and because of this can be overly sensitive, or offended, and start proclaiming judgments that God has not proclaimed. We see an example of this with how James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume those who opposed them. Jesus rebuked them, saying they did not know what spirit they were of (see Luke 9:54-55).

     How do we get this right? Experience. Because we have as a primary devotion to know the heart of God, we must also recognize our own presumptions, prejudices, and offenses that we have not overcome. For this reason, I never trust a revelation that is negative toward anyone that I have a cause for being negative toward, even if it comes in a dream or vision. I don’t trust negative revelations others get when I can see in them a wounding toward the person or issue. I have seen some otherwise very mature prophetic people stumble in this way.

     It is critical that prophetic people learn the grace of total forgiveness and not being offended, especially by rejection. No one deserved to be rejected less than Jesus, Who was the Creator of the very ones who rejected Him and had Him tortured. Yet, on the cross He not only expressed forgiveness for them, but gave the ultimate forgiveness—He prayed for the Father to forgive them too! Often, we try hard to forgive people but with the motive that if we forgive them then God will get even with them, but Jesus prayed for even the Father to forgive them. Never had there ever been such love expressed as this.

     We must always keep in mind that the ultimate prophetic message is the message of the nature and character of God. There will never be a greater message of who He is than what was demonstrated on the cross. If we are going to represent Him as He is, we must take up our crosses, every day, and be willing to lay down our lives and our offenses to let the message of the cross be seen in us, too. Once we have it set in our hearts that representing God as He is, is our ultimate purpose, and that the cross is the ultimate demonstration of who He is, the life of the cross will likewise be our ultimate devotion. This one thing is what separates the true messengers from the pretenders. Will we live the life of the cross?