Message
When you get sufficiently close to God and begin to intercede for other people, God will tell you things about them. Sometimes, you will not need to tell the people you are praying for the things God tells you about them; you can just give them instructions to guide them into God’s will. However, if God leads you to share some things with them, then you must apply wisdom, especially when the messages are negative. You must take a cue from the way Nathan delivered God’s message to David, as we read in today’s Bible reading. If Nathan had just told David, “Thus saith the Lord, because you have taken another man’s wife and killed the man, evil will befall you,” he could have lost his head that day. However, due to the way he presented the message, David got on his knees in repentance.
The purpose of prophecy is for edification, exhortation, and comfort (), not to condemn or show everyone that you can hear from God. If your prophecy does not edify, exhort, or comfort the one you are prophesying to, you are likely delivering the message wrongly. Even when Elijah was direct in passing judgment on Ahab because God specifically told him what to say (), Ahab repented because the purpose of the prophecy was not to condemn him, but to bring him to repentance, as God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked ().
Note that there will be times when, even though you deliver God’s message in the right manner, the people who receive the message might still not do the will of God. You can’t force people to do God’s will; your major responsibility is to deliver God’s message. It is up to the recipients of the message to either believe God’s prophet and prosper or not (). Sometimes, God might even allow the hearts of the recipients to be hardened as He did with Pharaoh () so that in future, others will take His word more seriously.
Beloved, tells us to speak the truth in love. This means that if God wants you to give others a message, you must allow His love to guide whatever you say. It is best to ask God to fill your heart with wisdom and love before you speak so that your words will not do more harm than good.