Why Your Background Will Affect The Way You Prophesy

- My name's Julian Adams. I wanted to take a moment to share something quite vulnerable with you. I grew up in South Africa, under an apartheid system which separated black people from white people, people of color, and it meant that I lived with a particular mindset of subservience, particularly to white people. It meant that I felt my life's worth slightly less. It was the rhetoric that was being spoken on TV, every expression of media separated people of color from white people as less-than. And my whole life, I grew up thinking that I was slightly less-than. I went to a church that was all white, which was quite unusual. All of my friends around me seemed to have a whole lot more than I did, they seemed to just get ahead on in life in ways that I didn't, and I grew up thinking somehow that I was less. And this really impacted the way I prophesied. It impacted the way I brought a revelation of God's heart to people, because there was a grading in my understanding of people. Not only that, in the society that I grew up, women were less than men, and so there's a grading in gender, and so when I prophesied over women, sometimes I realized that I was prophesying in a particular way that cut them off from the bigger purposes of God, from stepping out into things that men could possibly step out into, because my filter was being impacted by how I grew up, it was being impacted by subtle nuances of social expectations, particular to South Africa. I wanna suggest to you that that happens for everyone, that how you grew up as a man or a woman, as a person of color or not, your background, all of that impacts the way you prophesy. And as I began to discover this, I really felt like God was challenging me to see myself through a lens of the kingdom. And I began to discover three things. The first thing I discovered was that the kingdom of God places no distinction, it places no value on gender or race or background, because we all become sons and daughters of God. We get a new history, we get a new expression of who we are. It's not that my gender, my race, my background is insignificant, no, no, God heals and redeems it. He redeems my culture, he redeems my gender, he redeems my background, but he now filters it through an understanding of being a son in the kingdom of God, and that changes the way I prophesy. I suddenly see the gold in people. I suddenly see the potential in people, not through my lens, but through a kingdom lens. The second thing I discovered around prophesying, particularly dealing with my background or how I've grown up is that actually God wants to bring freedom to people from their background. And so I get to prophesy over so many people of color, and helping break some of the subservience that I grew up with, and speaking about it. And helping discover that actually, no longer is it about white privilege or black disadvantage, but it's about kingdom breakthrough and kingdom advantage, that God gives us the unfair advantage, and as we change our identity around that, things begin to shift. Or when I prophesy over a woman and saying, "No, No," "you get to do everything" "that a man gets to do in the kingdom." "You get to express God's kingdom." And I don't simply reach for the typical prophetic examples of Esther or Deborah in scripture, but actually say, hey, God's put an anointing like that of Paul on you. You get to be an apostle. It shifts the way I prophesy when I reorientate my background, my gender, the way I've grown up through a kingdom lens. The third thing I have begun to realize as I begin to prophesy through my background, through my gender, through the things that I've done, now through a kingdom lens, is that suddenly, the barriers begin to break down, because reconciliation is the heart of the kingdom. And so my prophesying is not just to be provocative in a way that brings division, no, no, my prophesying is about reconciliation. That's the ministry that God has given everyone, the ministry of reconciliation. And so I want my prophetic not to cause division because of my background, I want it to bring reconciliation. When you live in that place of a kingdom worldview, God redeems your background, God redeems your gender, God redeems your race, God redeems your disadvantage, God redeems your advantage, in order to be all that he's called you to be, for the sake of others. So learn to prophesy through a kingdom lens. I just wanted to highlight some content that our ministry's produced, particularly by my wife, Katia Adams. She's written a book called "Equal", which explores the issues of gender equality, biblical authority, and what it means for the church today. Click on the link below, it will lead you to our website, and you can see all of the content and resource that has been created around some of these things. Also, I wanted to tell you, our podcast is pumping, I think you'll enjoy the conversations that we're having, particularly around kingdom-related issues.