Jack Deere > Quotes

“Sometimes, when you have spent a long time rejecting the gifts of the Spirit and come to believe in them, you almost feel as if you are being born again. You feel as if you have a whole new Bible. By that latter statement I mean that the Gospels and Acts come alive for you in a way that they never have before. Things that you had relegated to the first century now become a possibility for today's church.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today

“If you ever make it in the Christian life, it won’t be because you are a good follower. It will be because my Son is a good leader. Put your confidence in his ability to lead you, not in your ability to follow.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today

“And no one can keep us from fulfilling our destinies. No gossip, slander, betrayal, tragedy, not even the devil himself, can steal it. I’m the only one who can throw away my crown.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God: How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions

“His presence was a pressure instead of a pleasure. Jesus was in her home, but Martha was bothered not blessed. That’s what distraction does.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God: How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions

“A person who has wrong doctrine and humility can be corrected. A person with mostly right doctrines and no humility will be resisted by the Lord he professes to serve.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit: Discovering How God Speaks and Heals Today

“The sternest rebukes Jesus ever delivered were not given to the sexually impure but to the spiritually proud.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God: How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions

“If we are foolish enough, we will always be able to find something in the Bible to justify wrong or weird behavior or corruption in our hearts.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“Humility, not intelligence, has always been the heart quality that moves God to speak to us and enables us to hear Him clearly.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“Conversing with the One who gave us the symbols is the best way to discover their meaning. [...] there is no manual of symbols that will give us ready-made interpretations of the nonliteral elements in our dreams and visions. This is because symbols can have different meanings in different contexts.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“I should have asked the Lord what the word about blood pressure meant and how it applied to this lady. Suppose I had done that, but the Lord had not answered me. Then I could have asked the lady to help me with the interpretation. I could have said, “Just a moment ago, I was looking at you and the words ‘blood pressure’ came to my mind. Do those words mean anything to you?” Had I done this, she would have said, “Oh, my! They certainly do mean something. My husband has low blood pressure, and he even passes out from it!”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“in our church we have three expressions of prophetic ministry on Sunday morning. Two or three prophets will address the whole church from the stage. We have about six to eight people who can do this well, but only two or three do it during the service. At the next level, we have ministry teams that pray over people at the end of each service. Finally, a number of our people will give prophetic words one on one informally. This procedure eliminates some of the craziness unstructured prophetic ministry allows”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“when God commanded the prophets of the Bible to do something weird, He did it with such clarity that they did not wonder whether the command came from Him or from their emotions.”
― Jack Deere, The Power of the Prophetic: A Practical Guide to Discovering and Growing in Your Gift

“Anyone who is ores the Bible is inviting deception and disaster to be his intimate companions in the journey of life.”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God

“(Isa. 66:2). There are actually people that God Himself esteems. This is an amazing fact in itself, but who He esteems is even more amazing. He does not esteem the rich, the beautiful or the intelligent; He esteems the humble.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy

“We have to be careful not to say more than God has said.

If we add anything, we should distinguish between the revelation and our own opinions regarding its meaning and application. Our opinion may be valuable, but if we carelessly lead our hearers to believe it is what God has said, it will probably be deceptive.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“we can have a true revelation and give it a wrong interpretation. Furthermore, we can have a true revelation, a correct interpretation and a wrong application. We have to be right at all three stages if the message from the Lord is going to benefit someone.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“We can have the most vivid dream and think we will never forget it, but if we do not write it down within 5 to 10 minutes after waking, most likely we will forget the dream within the hour.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“Before we use the prophets of the Bible to justify some unorthodox action on our part, we should remember that they had the highest levels of discernment and character.

When God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac or Hosea to marry Gomer, the issue was not whether or not they were discerning accurately the voice of God. They heard His voice clearly. The issue was obedience. We should also expect God’s voice to be that clear before doing something strange, especially when we could hurt someone.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“We also need the Lord to show us how to apply the revelation [...] People are different, and therefore the same truth may need to be applied in different ways if it is going to benefit the hearer. An application that would needlessly provoke one person may be just right for another.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“the problem with allowing anyone to prophesy to the whole church on Sunday morning—it is just not that helpful to the whole church. Most of the people who speak are not really prophesying, nor do they have authority to address the whole church. I have watched churches try to do prophetic ministry in this way for years and have never seen it build a strong prophetic ministry in the church. This method teaches people to ignore—or worse—despise prophetic ministry.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“All prophetic people I know are subject to tormenting dreams, which only seem to be revelatory. They tell a very real and coherent story, but it’s a bad story, usually the thing the prophetic person fears most.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“The only way to derive comfort here is to assume that God does not speak anymore except in the pages of the Bible, or that He has given up His strange ways. But you probably would not be reading this book if you believed that. It is much more likely that you believe God still speaks today and that He might even ask you to do something strange.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“The discipline to be silent when God is silent or when He has withheld permission to speak is a sign of prophetic maturity. [...] No one gets to the highest level of prophetic ministry without mastering the skill of prophetic restraint. These are the prophets who can be trusted with revelation that is not yet ripe for sharing, that must be “sealed” for a later use (see Isa. 8:16; 29:11; Dan. 8:26; 12:4,9). These are the prophets to whom God can show great secrets, then trust them never to repeat what they heard or saw to anyone (see 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 10:4).”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“The Greeks and Romans thought the message about the cross was utter nonsense. Crucifixion was reserved for the lowest criminal; it was illegal to crucify a Roman citizen, no matter what his crime. There was no example either in Greek or in Roman mythology of a crucified god. A crucified god was a contradiction in terms. What god would ever submit to such humiliation? The Jews could not accept the message of the cross, because one who hung on a cross was cursed according to Deuteronomy 21:22-23. They thought it was impossible for God to bring Himself under a curse. The cross of Jesus contradicted human wisdom and experience”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy

“the most common mistake made in interpreting dreams and visions is to take something literally that was intended to be taken symbolically.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“[...] if we want to be prophets, we must pay close attention to the thoughts that come to us out of nowhere with a message that contradicts our normal ways of thinking or acting.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy

“great prophets have always been great interceders.

If we truly want our prophetic word to draw our hearers to God, then we should pray for them after we deliver the message.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“What is humility? My favorite definition is found in Samuel’s rebuke of Saul. Samuel said, “You were once small in your own eyes…” (1 Sam. 15:17).”
― Jack Deere, Surprised by the Voice of God: How God Speaks Today Through Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions

“Paul talked a lot more about the Lord than he did about his strange experiences with the Lord.”
― Jack Deere, The Beginner's Guide to the Gift of Prophecy by Jack Deere

“In those years, I was also learning that when the worst day of your life comes, it is only the beginning of bad. Suddenly, it seemed like everybody had a better story than mine. Then my story got worse. God took away just about everything I used to fuel my self-esteem until there was nothing left except his love. And for the first time, I felt his love apart from anything I could offer him. And then I no longer needed a better story.”
― Jack Deere, Even in Our Darkness: A Story of Beauty in a Broken Life