Born to Prophesy

by Hakeem Collins

  We see countless scriptures on the prophetic, prophets, schools of the prophetic, seers, false prophets, prophecy, prophetic declaration, proclamations, warnings, judgments, fulfillments, and the raw power of God manifested. Sadly, in Christianity most people are more concerned about rapturing out of here instead of prophesying, advancing, and expanding the culture of the kingdom and releasing people into their divine destiny, calling, and purpose. Prophecy and the supernatural power of God were not just for those who went before us like Jeremiah and Isaiah. We have access to the same God as then; He is the same God now and He will be the same God forevermore.

  GOD’S WORD IN YOUR MOUTH

  GOD STILL WORKS miracles, and God still speaks prophetically! Just know that God is going to use your anointed lips as a vessel to speak and demonstrate His inspired words and acts through. God put His words in Jeremiah’s mouth, and He will put His words in yours if you yield to His voice. You were born to change the world. Jeremiah was called to change nations and kingdoms with the word of the Lord.

  Moreover, we can see that along with God forming Jeremiah, the Lord also begins to shape, predestine, and fashion His divine blueprint and foundation in Jeremiah’s life. God always creates the plan, purpose, assignment, and destiny of a man before He ever creates the actual person. Simply, our overall destiny is preordained and predetermined before we ever come into existence in this world. God has already preset, arranged, and ordered our steps. Like Jeremiah, many of us today need to come into that divine revelation of the prophetic call and anointing upon our life.

  Jeremiah was born into a priestly family. He was the son of Hilkiah from the village of Anathoth. The Book of Jeremiah says that Jeremiah was called by God to prophesy the destruction of Jerusalem that would occur by invaders from the north. This was because Israel had been unfaithful to the laws of God and the covenant that they forsook by worshiping and serving the Baals and foreign gods. The people of Israel had even gone as far as building high altars to Baal and other foreign deities in order to sacrifice their very own children in fire as offerings unto Baal. This nation had deviated so far from the Lord God that they had actually breached the covenant, causing God to withdraw His divine blessing, favor, and protection. Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord to proclaim, preach, publish, and prophesy that the nation of Israel would be faced with famine, desolation, and be plundered by foreigners, who would exile them to a foreign land and territory.

  Furthermore, Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry was very active from the thirteenth year of Josiah, King of Judah, (626 BC) until sometime after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 BC.7 During this period spanned the reigns and regimes of five kings and kingdoms of Judah: Josiah, Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoichin, and Zedekiah. The Lord called Jeremiah to prophetic service in about 626 BC at a very young age, about one year after Josiah, King of Judah, had turned and reformed the nation toward repentance from the widespread idolatrous practices of his forefathers.

  Ultimately, Josiah’s reformation would not be enough to preserve Judah and Jerusalem from destruction because of the sins of Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather, which had gone too far. Such was the lust and perversion of the nation for false gods that after Josiah’s death the nation would immediately return to the foreign gods of the surrounding nations. Jeremiah was appointed to prophetically address the rebellion and sin of the people, proclaiming the coming judgments and consequences of their apostasy and idolatrous ways.

  NEVER TOO YOUNG OR OLD

  In contrast to Isaiah the prophet, who eagerly and zealously embraced his prophetic call, and similar to Moses who was less than ambitious, Jeremiah resisted the prophetic call by complaining and murmuring that he was only a child and did not know how to speak due to his age. In other words, Jeremiah was basically telling the Lord that he was too inexperienced to prophesy the word of the Lord to an unrepentant nation and that he was too young to speak.

  God countered Jeremiah’s self-assessments and excuses of his inability to perform successfully and maturely in the prophetic office as young man with the fact that Jeremiah was not called and appointed by God because of chronological age and inexperience in the prophetic, but rather because he was created and born to stand in the office of an ambassadorial national prophet from his mother’s womb. To complain to the Creator that you are unable to do something that He designed and birthed you to do is an insult to the Lord. The Lord wired Jeremiah with the necessary tools to carry out this heavy assignment.

  However, the Lord insisted that Jeremiah go and declare as commanded, and He touched Jeremiah’s mouth and put His words in it. God told Jeremiah to get ready for work! The character traits and practices Jeremiah was to acquire in order to be prepared are specified in Jeremiah chapter 1, which included not being fearful of men, standing flatfooted to speak, speaking as commanded, and going where he was sent by the Lord.

  Other prophetic disciplines that contributed to the training of the young prophet and confirmation of his message are described as not turning to the people or compromising, not giving in to marriage and fathering children, not going to weddings or funerals, not feasting, and not keeping the company of fornicators and adulterers. What a miserable and boring life Jeremiah must have had. It seems like he could not do anything, as it was the grace of God on his life that he was born to endure and live a separated life unto the Lord.

  THE PROPHETIC NATURE

  Inherently, the nature of a prophet can be misunderstood to the point that prophets may feel like their lives are in total isolation, obscurity, and hiding. The reason for this is that the prophet is “in the womb” in which their call has been appointed for a set time and they are separated unto God. This place is where they are covered, concealed, and unknown until the time of their coming out as a prophet. All of this is the plan and strategy of the Lord outlined before Jeremiah was born. One thing that I have learned growing in the prophetic ministry is that God will train and cultivate one’s character and polish their personality before He uses them.

  The Lord takes prophetic people and prophets through intense boot camp to shape, humble, father, nourish, discipline, and deliver them from their own will, desires, ambitions, and agendas until the Lord gets their undivided attention and full cooperation. It can take decades to develop a fully mature, functioning prophet of God. The Father has taken me through many seasons of life lessons, experiences, and encounters, which led me into my own personal wilderness places to strengthen my ability to move in the spirit, teaching me not to depend on natural and worldly appetites and passions. God did not want me to function as a prophet in a familiar spirit, intellect, emotions, and intuitions but to obey and trust the voice of the Father. The Lord trained Jeremiah’s five natural senses to discipline his spiritual senses and to teach him not to mix them together. Likewise, the Lord had to develop my temperament, which most prophets and prophetic people must learn how to control, balance, and master.

  For example, I am the type of person who is very passionate, determined, and goal oriented when it comes to getting things done on time. Due to the fact that I am always on the go and moving forward, at times I can be very strong willed in my own plans; God allowed me to be challenged to learn how to wait and take my time with wisdom and not youthful zeal. While God was training me as a youth in the prophetic, He would cause me to go and grow through seasons of long suffering. (See Ephesians 4:2.)

  The Lord was teaching me patience and wisdom. It was a necessity for me to learn how to hear the voice of God as a young prophet as well and to heed His instructions in order for me to be an effective communicator or orator. One thing that I needed to learn was the wisdom of God, and any prophetic servant must learn the principle of fearing the Lord, which is key to the beginning of prophetic maturation.

  WISDOM AND HUMILITY IS KEY TO PROPHETIC TRAINING

  If a believer does not learn to increase in their ability to listen, hear, and obey, biblically they are considered a fool by not walking in
the fear of the Lord. God has to teach His prophets how to hear His voice, His ways, and to know Him intimately. To know God personally and prophetically is having divine access to the all-knowing one who is omniscient.

  In prophetic temperament training, God would actually train a person’s character in an opposite way. For instance, if someone is very bashful, shy, introverted, reserved, timid, and fearful, God would allow that person to go through situations and circumstances where the individual would have to be social, interactive, and interpersonal with others. Furthermore, the Lord would cause this person to be surrounded by people who are bold, candid, extroverted, confident, and risky for the purpose of causing that person to have balance and be unmovable, like a tree, in any type of situation. As another example, if a person has a problem with being on time, then God might cause people to enter the person’s life to help them to be more responsible and time conscious.

  God creates people, places, and things to cause us to become more like His Son Christ Jesus so that we can walk in godly character and integrity. There are people who use excuses and statements such as, “This is the way I am,” or, “This is how I was raised,” or, “I have always been like this and you have to just deal with it.” But in reality the person cowardly does not want to change, grow, and increase in godly wisdom and understanding. We must understand that this process of character development does not change your personality, but He does changes areas of our character that may be contrary to His nature. If an emerging prophet has pride, rebellion, or stubbornness in their heart, then God will break and work on those character traits, taking the student through severe training to purge from them those negative attributes so that the prophet can operate in humility, love, submission, and obedience.

  There are character patterns, flaws, and personalities that we have received from birth that were inherited from our natural parents, and these traits can be good or bad. There are people in our families that can identify ways in which we are like our father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, cousins, friends, etc. In the same way that in the natural people can recognize certain character traits and personalities, there are also ways of the Father that we must adopt and take ownership of when we are born again by the Spirit.

  The culture of the kingdom is the way and spiritual lifestyle of a believer and citizen of the kingdom of God. Paul the apostle in the Book of Galatians talked about Christ being formed in you. He would compare himself to a mother in travail and in labor at childbirth until Christ is formed in them—in other words, so that Christ’s character, fruit, and that paradigm shift is evident in the life of every born-again believer.

  The word formed is from the Greek words morphoo (mor-fah-oh) and morphe, which mean “1. the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; 2. external appearance.”8 Galatians 4:19 speaks of a change in character, becoming conformed to the character traits of Christ Jesus in actuality, not merely in semblance. Prophets and prophetic people must have Christ formed in them, and when they prophesy the hearer of the prophetic word can feel the weight of glory and love of Christ. Believers alike should want to be more like Christ in word and in deed. It is a spiritual transformation that takes place on the inside first and manifests secondly on the outside of a believer. Jeremiah had to overcome personal inadequacies and false perceptions of his calling by learning through one-on-one encounters with the Father to understand his prophetic future role as a prophet called to the nations.

  THE INITIAL CALL OF THE PROPHET

  Furthermore, as I was learning how to hear the voice of God at a very young age, I did not know like Jeremiah how to speak or prophesy because I grew up in the Baptist denomination. Their paradigm and belief system of contemporary prophets and the prophetic ministry were only limited to the prophets of the old covenant. Even today in the twenty-first century, there are many religious denominations and ecclesiastical structures within the church that do not support, operate, embrace, understand, recognize, ordain, set, and commission fivefold ministry gifts given to the body of Christ.

  I truly believe that spiritual reformation is coming in a whole new way to the body of Christ, and God is birthing karios moves of His Spirit around the world. Nations and many religious cultures are coming into present-day truth of the prophetic and the supernatural power of God. However, in spite of being a part of a Baptist church as a child, I would have many personal divine and demonic encounters, visitations by angels and demonic spirits. I remember several times having a visitation of Christ in my dreams and in my prayer time with Him. Regardless of my Baptist foundation, which gave me little understanding of modern-day prophets and the role of prophets in the local church, God encountered me as I pursued what I was born to become. It was the Lord who sovereignly called me to the prophetic ministry office before my birth—not by man or through the Baptist denomination did this calling occur.

  These personal, one-on-one dialogues that I had with God at the age of seven in prayer confirmed and validated that it was in fact the Lord who said that I was His and that I would do a mighty work for Him in due season. I could remember one time I was praying to the Lord in the closet of my bedroom at the age of twelve. I went on a three-day extreme fast without water and food, and on the first day of the fast I had a vision of the Lord.

  On the second day and third day the Lord spoke to me in a loud, thunder-like voice saying, “Hakeem, Hakeem!” I can remember being in awe and in fear, running under the covers of my bed. I was so frightened that I heard the voice of the Father calling me a second time in my bed, “Hakeem, Hakeem.” This time the Father’s voice sounded like the voice of my very own mother calling me out loud. I answered Him by saying, “Yes, Mommy,” and the Lord said, “It is I, Christ Jesus, who is calling you, Hakeem, and I have called you from your mother’s belly. I love you, and I am your Father. I will use you to speak for Me one day.”

  After that encounter from the Lord, all I wanted to be at twelve years old was a judge, police officer, doctor, singer, and preacher. I did not know fully what the Lord was calling me to be because I was too young to comprehend at the time what a prophet was and his function. All I knew was that I wanted to be a judge, police officer, doctor, singer, and preacher, but God knew that He was going to use those unsure occupations of mine as a child to cultivate and shape me into the prophetic future vessel that He promised.

  Like Jeremiah, I doubted my ability to speak for Him because of age and inexperience in the prophetic. In God’s timing, the Lord would come to me and share with me His will and intentions and assist me through the process of becoming what I was born to be. Those words from God echoed in my spirit for many years as a teenager, as well as at the time of receiving them. God confirmed His word over and over again until I knew without a shadow of a doubt that in fact He called me from and before birth.

  By the age of fourteen I had received dozens of prophecies confirming the call of a prophet on my life. At the same time my prophetic gift was working mightily. I was able to see, sense, feel, know, dream, and encounter things in the spirit without any prior knowledge of them or insight. I would share things with my peers, and they would not understand how I knew what I knew. But, like Jeremiah, my childhood was not so bright. I would find myself in a place of deep anxiety, depression, lamentation, and sadness.

  OVERCOMING PERSONAL OBSTACLES

  There were times as a child that I had to confront and challenge a lot of injustices that would go on in my family and personal life; in those cases I would suffer internally until I spoke out against it. But when I finally spoke up for myself and what was not right as a child I would be punished severely by authority figures in my life. It was the process and making of a prophet. God would use those life circumstances and issues to be the training tool and vehicle for me as a prophet to address, like Jeremiah, ungodly practices, injustices, and corruptions in my generation.

  There were times growing up that I didn’t want to live anymore due to the fact that I experienced treme
ndous rejection from those whom I loved the most. There were seasons in my life when I felt like a loner and isolated from the world, even though I had a large, close-knit family. My father was not in my life growing up. I was raised by a single mother and other strong women, such as my grandmother, Ruth Collins, who was the bedrock and matriarch of the Collins family. In addition to that I was raised in one of the roughest communities in the city of Wilmington, Delaware, called the Southbridge and Riverside Projects, where drug dealing, prostitution, murders, gang banging, and poverty was the culture.

  There were times that I found myself fist fighting other kids in the neighborhood just about every other day to gain respect. As a prophet in training, as I call it, my life was riddled with brokenness, suffering, and humility. Living in those types of demonic and worldly environments and atmospheres, it was hard for one at the age of seven to remain righteous and holy before God. The only outlet and peace that I found was in Jesus Christ.

  Interestingly, those places became fertile grounds for cultivation, grooming, budding, purging, and training for me. I have learned to establish an intimate relationship with Daddy God and know Christ as Lord and King over my life. As a child I would face challenging moments and life-altering circumstances, but through it all I came to the realization that Jesus the Prophet was my ultimate source, provider, and protector. It was Jesus the Prophet who was speaking to the prophet on the inside of me. We must understand that Jesus Christ the Prophet dwells on the inside of the believer by the Holy Spirit. He is always speaking.

  As I was faithful, transparent, and obedient to the Lord, He would make His voice so clear to me. The Lord’s voice echoed in my spirit even when I was living in sin or disobedient at times. His voice became more real as I prayed and studied the Word more. The Bible says, “My sheep listen to my voice” (John 10:27), and the voice of “a stranger they will not follow” (John 10:5, KJV). Daddy God would put me on His lap in the spirit and share secret things concerning His will for my life. Likewise, Jeremiah had to find who he was born to be, which was found in Daddy God, the Creator of all things. God would be his Father.