Throughout the years, I’ve watched the Church distinguish between true prophets, false prophets and foolish prophets, offices of the prophets, limitations of the prophets, club meetings of the prophets, and the various revelatory graces on the prophets. I’ve even written about those definitions in my book Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power (Destiny Image, 2006). But there is one more category that begs attention. It is the category of the prophetic that includes most of us and that God invites us all to join – it’s the Back Door Prophet Club.

True back door prophets are those who cultivate a humble abandonment to the Lord, focus on basking in His love and purpose to give His love away and to give Him all the glory in the process. Giving His love away is as simple as releasing a word of encouragement, a testimony about the healing presence and power of Jesus Christ, or a prophetic word that slips in the back door of someone’s heart and releases the presence and love of Jesus.

Back door prophets often enter into revelatory encounters that baffle the mind and propel them deeper into the supernatural realms of God through dreams, visions, angelic encounters and heavenly experiences. But they don’t stop there. They realize that the spiritual experience they just had is merely the gift wrapping that hides a present that is not solely for them.

Back Door Prophets - Unwrap the gifts for others

Revelation of who He is and demonstration of His plans and purposes for the spiritual experience all too often fall by the wayside as people focus on the glitter of the package they come wrapped in. Some people have such a high need for significance and belonging that they will run around talking about the glittering image of the package they just received. It is as if the dream, vision or spiritual encounter so excites them that they run off saying to anyone who will listen, “Look what I have! Listen to what I just received! I may not understand it but isn’t it neat!”

It is imperative that you do understand the spiritual experiences God gives you. You must value the importance of revelation as well as understand what to do with that revelation. Cherish the revelation, ponder the gift wrap, and then go deeper for a look inside.

Examined under the light of God’s love and scriptural examples, many revelatory experiences are given to impart faith and the understanding that He wants you to release a demonstration of His power. In other words, a vision or a dream, a visitation or teleportation, is just the packaging that surrounds the gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12 – the word of wisdom; the word of knowledge; faith; gifts of healing; the working of miracles; prophesy; the discerning of spirits; tongues; interpretation of tongues. They are gifts that He wants to give you, first for yourself, and then to give away to a specific person or groups of people so that they too, may catch a glimpse of Jesus and enter into the fullness of salvation.

I believe that it is scriptural to say that God does not give spiritual experiences; rather, He gives spiritual gifts through revelatory experiences. He reveals a word of wisdom through a dream or vision and gives you the strategy to release that word through an action or demonstration of His power that increases the territory of the kingdom of God in another’s life. That is the creative mind of Christ at work inviting you to co-labor with Him.

The Holy Spirit releases the gifts of the spirit through whoever He wills. The responsibility to minister to others through prophetic revelation is not just the task of established prophets. The responsibility of letting people know about salvation is not relegated to pastors and evangelists and teachers. We are living in an age when the Holy Spirit gives gifts to enable us to do the work of priests and prophets. We are all invited to join the Back Door Prophets Club.

Once we receive that invitation, we realize that revelation is not strictly for our own personal growth and healing. Those who give it away are the true Back Door Prophets – releasing faith and healing, words of wisdom and understanding, knowledge and encouragement.

Back Door Prophets – Ordinary Believers Like You and Me

You don’t need a big ministry name or even need a platform of ministry to become a back door prophet. You probably already are one. If not, here is how easy it is to join the Back Door Prophets Club – it starts and ends with valuing the presence of God enough to set aside time for prayer and listening, lingering long with Him, delighting in His presence as much as He delights in yours.

Back door prophets are ones who hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, see visions and dreams, and spend time waiting on the Lord, prayerfully asking Him to reveal the gift inside the package, ask who it is for, and then joyfully, give that gift away.

Back door prophets use the servant’s entrance to the host’s house where they are received as a servant, or one who offers a professional service. In the process of going about their daily jobs, the back door prophets surprise the hosts with unexpected gifts: Gifts of prophetic words - a word of wisdom, encouragement, or conversation that supernaturally impacts the host, a word of knowledge that unlocks the secrets of another’s heart, and always, a word that releases the love of God.

Back door prophets spend long hours in worship. Longer hours listening. And nights sleeping in the presence of heaven. Their faith ignites their imagination, sanctifies it and opens them to greater revelation.

Back door prophets receive revelatory experiences that elevate their faith to new heights, and their faith enables them to release miracles that demonstrate the power of God and healings that demonstrate His love and compassion.

Back door prophets carry no titles. Expect no accolades. They are unconcerned about controversy or their own reputations. They rarely talk about where they have been, who they have influenced through the words that God gives them, or the authority they wielded that transformed various situations. They know how to keep confidences because they know that ministry is not about them. And glory is for One alone.

A back door prophet may be the plumber under your sink, the painter in your living room, the day care worker holding your child, the contractor working on your house, the barrista in a café, your dental assistant, your counselor, or even, you.

So, step into the creative mind of Christ and begin exploring His revelatory world, the land beyond reason. In fact, you, too, may discover that you have joined the club and become a back door prophet in your pursuit of the intimate presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

For more info see: www.julialoren.net

This article was published in the March 2007 edition of Elijah Rain.

Looking for the Greatest Sign and Wonder
By Julia C. Loren

Signs and wonders have been breaking out all over the world. Miracles of healing and power encounters are happening not just to a select few in meetings, but overtaking the hundreds and thousands in attendance – en masse! Clouds of rain and glory, gold dust sparkling on people’s hands and faces, angelic visitations, throne room experiences and fourth dimension miracles that transcend laws of physics – they are all signs of God’s presence appearing on the earth and in the lives of individuals across the world. They are signs to make you wonder and listen for the sound of the abundance of rain, the heavens opening and a worldwide downpour of revelation and power that has not been seen ever before. It is a downpour that God is inviting you to experience.

The move of God marches on and we are still in for some manifestations of the Holy Spirit that will seem foreign to many in the church. Some Christians will reject what they do not understand or become jealous of others’ experiences – especially when they see great power released through new Christians who have just walked in from the shadows and been hit with the light. Some will say that those manifestations came about as a result of occult power, or prophetic words as a result of divination. Others will reject them outright.

As supernatural manifestations increase in the years to come must take care not to call evil “good” or good “evil”. We must take care to not to interpret the manifestations as heaven’s endorsements of any one minister or meeting. And we must keep looking for the greatest sign and wonder of them all – the manifest presence of Jesus Christ increasing in our personal lives and welcomed into corporate worship.

Bill Johnson, pastor of Bethel Church in Redding and author of several books that catapult people into higher levels of faith resulting in an increase in supernatural signs and wonders, is a man stirring the nation to tap into their spiritual DNA and walk into the purposes of God for this generation.

According to Johnson, in his book When Heaven Invades Earth:

Every believer has written into his or her spiritual DNA the desire for the supernatural. It is our predetermined sense of destiny. This God-born passion dissipates when it has been taught or reasoned away, when it’s not been exercised, or when it’s been buried under disappointment.

We all have a desire for the supernatural. But what are we really looking for? Is the greatest sign and wonder a manifestation of God’s presence, or is it the manifest Presence of God? The greatest sign and wonder of all still eludes most of us. It is a sign and wonder that cannot be controlled, taught into existence or reasoned away. Once experienced, you are delightfully hooked forever.

Tangible signs of God’s world breaking into ours – through dreams, visions, angelic appearances, glory clouds, nature miracles, gold dust and gems suddenly appearing, and others – are wonderful to experience. Yet, our spiritual DNA created a longing for the greatest sign and wonder of all - the manifest Presence of Jesus Christ, overwhelming us with His love, peace, and joy. It is a manifestation that comes like a smothering kiss causing the beloved to swoon and fall or laugh and dance with joy. It is this sign and wonder that inflames the passion for Christ and His kingdom come, more than any other sign or wonder.

When the church experiences the manifest Presence of Christ, the power is undeniable. The shifting shadows of doubt and unbelief are blown away by the kiss of God. Healing and deliverance comes as a natural byproduct during meetings such as the ones described in the book Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power (by Bill Johnson, Mahesh Chavda, and Julia Loren). The Presence releases a revelatory atmosphere of heaven that often imparts to individuals a sense of calling and personal destiny, visions of things to come, angelic visitations and experiences of the revelatory realms of heaven. It is this sense of God’s Presence that delights the senses more than external manifestations of gold, glory clouds and others signs that make people wonder.

No one who has experienced such intimacy of encounter with the tangible, sensory awareness of the Presence of God can deny that He exists and that He is the God who is love. All other gods pale in comparison to Him. All other shadows flee. When His Presence manifests more fully, no one will be lost in darkness or stand gazing at supernatural signs. Instead, they will be on their faces in worship and burning with love as they see the greatest sign and wonder enveloping them all - Jesus.

For more info see: www.julialoren.net

Every author loves it when others' promote their books.

I heard it through the grapevine that John Arnott held up my Shifting Shadows of Supernatural Power book and promoted it at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship Pastor's conference held mid-January. I also heard that James Goll promoted the book during the Sunday night service at Harvest Rock's Prophetic Conference held late-January.

Thank you guys!

Apparently, the book, which was released last July, is selling fairly well and has gone through a couple of print runs. The first run release of 10,000 copies sold within the first quarter!

If you think the Supernatural Power book is thought-provoking and edgy, wait until the next book on Spiritual Experiences appears. It will take you out of this world!