Physical Words of Knowledge part 2

Woman suffering from toothache tooth pain.Several weeks ago on a Sunday morning, I woke up with a horrific headache. I was a tiny bit alarmed as I lay in bed wondering what to do. It was cold and I didn’t relish the idea of getting out of bed but as I determined that this was not a normal headache, I realised I needed to get up and take some analgesia. The pain was not in a circle pressing in nature which is what I sometimes get if it is due to a demonic presence / witchcraft issue. It was not at the front like my normal headache symptoms or at the back like a neck issue. This was a boring type of pain right in the middle of my head, slightly to the right. The pain was strong and I knew I needed to deal with it. I prayed for God to take it away with no apparent effect. Thus I reluctantly hopped out of bed, went to the kitchen and swallowed the appropriate tablets.

The pain continued without relief which shocked me somewhat. I am used to neurofen taking away any headache and it was certainly not working this time. I ended up taking more tablets than is recommended as the pain was severe and didn’t ease at all with the medication. I needed to go to church that morning as hubby had only had his neck operation the previous week and was still unable to drive and our daughter was on duty in the children’s ministry. We live a 45 minute drive from church with no people nearby whom could take our daughter.

As I was standing in worship at the beginning of the service, I suddenly wondered if perhaps this headache wasn’t really ‘mine’ but a word of knowledge. Earlier this year I had prayed to God and asked if He would give me physical words of knowledge. Whilst on a mission trip to Cambodia earlier in the year, I received some physical words of knowledge but I hadn’t operated in this since then.

As soon as I realised that perhaps this may be a word of knowledge, I stopped and asked God what should I do next. Immediately two people came to mind. A close friend’s father had just been diagnosed with a tumour in his head that was positioned almost exactly where I was feeling the pain. There was also a member of the church who had been admitted to hospital with serious neurological issues and the doctors had been unable to determine the cause. Thus, since God had brought those people to my mind, I prayed for both of them there, just quietly during worship. As soon as I had prayed for them, my headache instantly disappeared. Wow – it was amazing. I must confess that I instantly wished that I had thought of that earlier and had not had to suffer the pain for over 5 hours!!

After further reading and reflection, I have come to realise that words of knowledge felt physically are quite common. We need to be able to discern, though, what ‘belongs’ to us and what doesn’t. For instance, if you normally suffer from an ear ache and you feel an ear ache whilst you are asking God to reveal words of knowledge to you, then that may well be your own ear ache and not a word of knowledge about someone else. The headache I suffered had a very unusual pain for me ie I had never experienced that sort of headache pain before.

The physical symptom will disappear immediately you ‘release’ that word of knowledge. Even if you don’t see a person healed, or no-one responds to the word of knowledge, once you have released it and done your part, then the physical symptom will usually immediately disappear from your body.

Please be aware that feeling a word of knowledge doesn’t automatically assume complete healing for the other person. It may well occur and it usually does but it may simply be that God is growing you or wanting to communicate His love to the other person through that method.

Some practical ideas to help you grow in the use of physical words of knowledge:

  • Step out in faith and try it by asking God.
  • Practice tuning in with God, asking Him to show you and catch the first thought through your mind. It may be a fleeting thought through your mind as a word or feeling and it may be easy for you to doubt due to the ‘vagueness’ of it.
  • The physical feeling may be a pain or discomfit that doesn’t go away and isn’t something that you normally experience.
  • Be as specific as you can be as the more specific you are the more it builds faith in you and in the other person.
  • Don’t add to the word of knowledge. Don’t presume that if you see a certain image then you say what you normally believe about it. Just state the facts.
  • Don’t use the words “God told me…” etc. Instead say something like “I sense that someone has a right knee pain that is on the outside of the knee…” Ask God if an injury or accident caused the physical issue, and share that if appropriate as the more specific the more it is harder to doubt.
  • Have the right character and the right attitude. If you are humble and compassionate, instead of arrogant, then even if no-one responds to the word of knowledge, it hasn’t offended anyone but God’s grace has reigned.
  • Just because no-one responds, it doesn’t mean that you have heard wrong. I can count oodles of times in the Healing Rooms situation when one of my team member’s has asked a question and the person receiving prayer has said that it doesn’t apply to them, yet I am cheering silently that my team member is spot on but the other person either doesn’t want to admit it or doesn’t realise it is true. People need a ‘way out’ gracefully so be gentle and careful with how you say words of knowledge.
  • Be accountable to someone to help you work through what is of God and what is of you.
  • God wants to give you words of knowledge because He wants you to use them. Don’t let fear rob you and also rob the receiver who might have been healed by what you could have shared.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.

1. Children / Families Activation: Have sheets of paper prepared with an outline of a human body on it. Hand a sheet out to everyone present together with a pencil/pen/crayon etc. Ask God to show everyone any body part which God wants to heal today. Ask everyone to draw on that part of the body that they feel God is showing them. Usually children are very quick at immediately getting words of knowledge. Once that is finished, then look for people whom that fits and ask that particular child to pray for that symptom.

2. Group Activation: Spend some time in worship as a group and ask God to reveal to everyone present a physical word of knowledge about a medical condition/issue relevant to someone else in the group. Take it in turns to share what you felt and ask if it relates to anyone present. If so, pray for the person it applies to.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to give you a physical word of knowledge about someone you know and to show you who it is for. Contact that person, ask them in a caring manner if it applies to them, and if so, if you can pray for them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to give you a physical word of knowledge for someone you will meet today in a shop. Be on the lookout for this person and courageously ask if it applies to them and if so, offer to pray for them.

5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to show you a prevalent current medical condition in your culture eg here in Australia, chronic fatigue syndrome plus also food intolerances and allergies are prolific. Ask God to reveal to you the root cause or background to this. Spend some time seeking God’s heart as to what He would have you do as a result of what He has revealed to you.

Words of Knowledge part 1

litlle cute blond  boy tired sad isolatedThe definition from Wikipedia is often defined as “the ability of one person to know what God is currently doing or intends to do in the life of another person. It can also be defined as knowing the secrets of another person’s heart.” In other words, it is a  supernatural revelation of information from the Holy Spirit.

The Bible talks about this in 1 Cor. 2:12-13 where Paul writes, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches”. Also in 1 Corinthians 12:8 “For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit”.

There are numerous occasions in the Bible when people received a supernatural revelation of information about another person or their situation. A couple of examples include: John 1:47 where Jesus saw Nathaniel approaching him and received a word of knowledge. Acts 5:1-11 with Ananias and Sapphira. 1 Samuel 9-10 with Samuel and the donkeys. I Kings 14:2-3 Ahijah’s prophecy against Jeroboam. 2 Kings 5:20-27 Gehazi’s deceit with Naaman.

An example of this is several years ago, our family was driving to church for our Saturday morning’s Healing Rooms. We had been encouraged to ask God to reveal to us any conditions or names of people whom God wanted to heal. Usually when we do this, we come up with a whole list of at least 10-12 conditions. My son, who would have been about 7 years old at the time said diabetes, hospital and a certain boy’s name. We wrote it down and pondered that perhaps someone was on the way to hospital or had just been discharged from hospital etc. At the end of the morning, we reviewed the conditions and realised that we had not seen this person. It was easy to dismiss this as he ‘got it wrong’. However several days later we heard that a friend’s son (with the exact name that my son had said) had been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with diabetes on that day. Thus, we made a visit to this boy in hospital. He wasn’t healed from our prayer. I do believe though that it communicated that God was caring for him and tried to show His love to him by this.

Words of knowledge are often used for healing but it is not an absolute for healing. In other words, when words of knowledge about a physical condition are given, you can expect that God wants to heal the person but it is not always the case. Usually a word of knowledge builds faith in the person who needs the healing and also in the person who received the word of knowledge. It is usually very comforting to the person with the physical complaint and communicates that God is aware of them and their need. It doesn’t always translate that this person will be healed then, but most likely. If the person is not healed then, it is no one’s fault. Please never start questioning whose lack of faith it was etc. Sometimes God just wants to communicate His love to this person and that He knows this person’s situation.

Words of knowledge don’t always have to relate to healing. It may be about a certain situation, or to travel to a certain area, or about a specific situation that a church is facing and the breakthrough required etc. God cannot be limited and will use whatever means He likes to communicate so as to achieve His purpose.

When a Christian receives a word of knowledge about someone who is not a christian who needs a certain healing and then sees that person, shares what God has shown them and prays for them on the spot and that person experiences healing, it often results in that person responding to Jesus. It is hard to dispute a physical demonstration of the power of God in the name of Jesus. It is an amazing demonstration that Jesus is concerned about them.

The more specific the word of knowledge is, the more faith it tends to build in the people involved. If the word of knowledge is received through feeling something physical eg pain, it is helpful if the kind of pain and its exact location is stated. The person receiving the word should be careful not to change it, not to add to it, and not to dismiss any little detail about it that may seem insignificant.

God can communicate words of knowledge to us in several different ways. There is never one prescription with God. He is supreme and can use whatever method He chooses. Several of those ways are:

  • Physical eg pain in a part of your body that is not yours. A sudden left knee pain when you have never had left knee pain before just before you pray for someone etc.
  • Empathetic feeling – feeling a strong emotion eg fear, suicide, loneliness which you know is not from you or how you feel.
  • Mental picture or see an image – eg a body part, a car accident, a picture of someone getting hurt or in a particular situation. You may read a word written (invisibly to everyone else) over someone’s head or see a newspaper headline.
  • An impression or just ‘know’ that you know – a sense in your mind that someone has a particular condition or is feeling a particular way.
  • A dream or vision of someone with a health problem or you with a new health problem which you don’t have etc.
  • Automatically the words tumble out of your mouth as if by the Holy Spirit whilst chatting or praying with someone about something you were totally unaware of.

In next week’s blog (part 2), I will be sharing more specifically about physical words of knowledge and how to recognise these.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Hand out blank cards to everyone and explain that as a group you will ask God to give you encouraging words and things from Him to write or draw on the cards. Ask God to show everyone what sort of car the person is driving to whom this picture/words are for eg blue station wagon, silver Ford, red Toyota etc. You will then go to a car park and find the cars you were shown or told about and put these cards on the windscreens of those cars.

2. Group Activation: As a group quieten before God and spend a few moments asking God to reveal words of knowledge to everyone in the group and listening to what He is saying and showing. Take it in turns to share what you felt/saw/perceived etc and ask if it relates to anyone present.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to give you a word of knowledge for someone at church or a Bible study group next time you meet. It may be a physical pain, an encouraging comment, a word of wisdom etc in relation to something someone is going through of which you have no knowledge of their situation etc.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to give you a word of knowledge about someone today and to show you who it is for. When you see that person, ask them in a caring manner if it applies to them, and if so, if you can pray for them.

5. Advanced Activation: As you are about to buy something today, ask God to give you a word of knowledge about the shop assistant. Then in a caring manner ask the shop assistant if it applies to them and then take the necessary steps required as a follow-on.