Prophesy Over the New Year: Prophetic Acts That Release Supernatural Breakthroughs
Ask and prophesy.
It’s the beginning of a New Year.
Ask: “Lord, what is it that You are asking me to be aware of this month and possibly for the entire year?” Write down what you hear from Him. Write it in the form of a letter from God to you.
Prophetic Acts
In the upcoming month, we’re not just going to choose a word for ourselves; we will also seek God’s guidance for a prophetic act that we can do in February. Before diving into the specifics of what a prophetic act entails and its scriptural references, there’s one important point I want to emphasize—approach this aspect of the prophetic with a childlike spirit. Will you feel silly doing this act? Possibly. Will something happen because you did a prophetic act?
Only Heaven knows.
There is a saying that I like: “Physical obedience brings about a spiritual release.” I encourage you to move forward with this prophetic act, stepping into it with the joy and curiosity of a child, making it more playful than mechanical. Revel in His presence and the conversations that unfold as you engage in it!
Prophetic acts are just as their name suggests—symbolic actions that mirror what God is orchestrating in the spiritual realm. By performing these acts, we are physically manifesting God’s directions to us.
Let’s look at some biblical examples of prophetic acts:
In 2 Kings 13:14-20, Elisha instructs Joash to shoot an arrow eastward from an open window, symbolizing Israel’s divine deliverance from Syria.
In Ezekiel 4, Ezekiel, in a vivid display, bakes bread over cow dung to symbolize the dire situation in Jerusalem, where food scarcity forces people to ration their intake.
You can see that they are using symbolic actions to prophesy without words. Ezekiel, in his time, could be considered the pioneer of performance art, akin to a biblical Banksy. Scripture is full of such fascinating instances.
You may be wondering how to know what prophetic act to do, and the answer is to ask the Lord what He would have you do. Prophetic acts are usually simple and straightforward. Here are a few examples of prophetic acts that I, my friends, students, and mentors, have done:
Acted out the breaking of handcuffs as we prayed for imprisoned missionaries to be freed.
Used an imaginary key to unlock an imaginary door, symbolizing the unlocking needed for a door to open.
Hopped from one point to another to symbolize jumping over fear and into faith.
My encouragement to you regarding prophetic acts is to engage with them through a lens of childlike curiosity and wonder.
Testimony
For January 2024, I asked the Lord to tell me what He wanted me to be aware of for 2024. I wrote this after hearing from Him:
Prophetic Word: “I want you to prepare your home and get things in order. I am doing a new thing in you! I am organizing your thoughts and giving you a new discipline. I want to put a new heart in you. I want you to find joy in what you are doing.”
At the moment it felt a little silly to write something so general. Little did I know what was coming. I spent January working on different organizational projects around the house, and on January 31 was unexpectedly diagnosed with severe heart disease. On February 20 I had a life-saving, open-heart surgery. This surgery has literally given my heart an upgrade (a new heart and a new energy to enjoy life).
What I learned from this experience is that sometimes we need to ask the Lord if He is speaking metaphorically or literally. Because, sometimes, it’s literally. When I was in the hospital it gave me the comfort of believing that I was going to be okay. —Russell H.
