Ep. 221 Christine Westhoff - Reframing the Prophetic

Covenant. Which is Jesus? Hence the reason why revelation, 1910, the Spirit of Prophecy, is the testimony of Jesus. Joshua,

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network. Tell them how much you enjoy it and let them know that they should be listening as well. If you're new, here, welcome. If you want to dig deeper, find us on social media at shifting culture podcast where I post video clips and quotes and interact with all of you. Previous guests on the show have included Pete, Gregg, Kath, livesy and Craig westoff. You can go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Christine westoff.

Christine is the author and creator of reframing the prophetic. She has a long history with the international team for 24/7 prayer and is the president and founder of Akuo missions, which is the umbrella ministry for reframing the prophetic and illuminated soul. In this episode, Christine westoff shares about reframing our understanding of the prophetic. Christine has been on a 30 year journey exploring the beautiful and the dreadful aspects of the prophetic movement, and she's here to

share some crucial insights. So we dive into the common misuses of prophecy that we've seen, especially in the political landscape, but more importantly, Christine unpacks the true purpose of the prophetic, which is to align people back to the covenant and the eternal purposes of Christ. So we discuss the distinction between prophecy and simple encouragement, the vital role of the apostolic and prophetic working together, and the importance of testing and weighing prophetic words in

community. Christine also shares her heart for the body of Christ to persevere through disillusionment and fight for the true prophetic. This is a conversation that I believe will challenge and equip you to approach the prophetic in a healthier, more biblical way. So join us as we reframe the prophetic. Here is my conversation with Christine westoff,

But they were they just I grew up in love with Jesus. There was some other things that I had to learn, like the Scripture along the way, but I grew up listening for his voice, and his voice always seemed to be a very natural. All experience for me.

And then it wasn't until years later where I really came into a different adult version saving knowledge of Jesus, and had to really face some things in my adult life that needed saving in my early 20s, and I was thrown at that point into the vineyard world, which was around the early 90s. And as you might be aware of, around the mid 90s is where the Toronto outpouring began to happen, and and the Kansas City profits and all those things that were

happening. So I was thrown into the middle of a lot of that, and so and the prophetic was really introduced to me then and in this wild way, and I've been journeying that out ever since. So I'd say a good solid 30 years in the charismatic prophetic world with deeper to the contemplative life that I'm still passionate about in there, there has been both the beautiful and the dreadful. I mean, I'm sure that's surprising, right? I've seen the

beautiful the dreadful. I've done, truth be told, I've done both the beautiful and the dreadful, like I've made all the mistakes. I've done all the wrong things. I've I just I learned at first, mostly by what everybody else just presumed was true. I swallowed and presumed it was true and and it wasn't until I don't know the, I mean, I knew it was messy, right? So I used to teach, like, how to be

nice. It's like damage control is what I would try to do, is call people getting hurt, and you're trying to put boundaries on things and but Josh, to be honest, that wasn't enough. So in recent years, I've had to dive in more deeply, afresh, into the structure and and that's been my more current work is to reframe how, what is the purpose of the prophetic anyway. I don't know how long you want me to ramble, but that's kind of my history in a nutshell.

some of this misuse? We've seen a lot of of crazy prophetic words, especially in the in the political landscape in America, we've had people jump on the power bandwagon, all sorts of different misuse for their own gain, personal gain and others. Where have you seen the misuse of the prophetic what is going on in the culture today, and where do we what are we grasping at?

And it's, it's tragic, and it's, it's not even like, if we go back, you know, four years, it's not even, did this prophet have the word wrong, or that Prophet have the word wrong or or is it right? But just not yet, like all those, it's like that's the wrong conversation around that one. The wrong conversation is, why were they entangled in

politics in the first place? And then we get into the deeper the root system of, where did we go wrong in this like and that has taken a lot of biblical work. I've I have a handful of friends that are trusted, like seminary and PhD theologians, and I'm so thankful for them, because they have helped me to unpack the root system that was harder for

me to see at the beginning. And here's what I would summarize it all in, is I would say, at this point of my life, I would say that we don't really have a gift problem within the prophetic purpose problem. Don't know the purpose of a thing. You're destined to abuse it, and so if you you understand the spiritual dynamics and how to tap into spiritual realities, to presume that that's prophetic, would be point number one as a mistake to use it to stand on a stage and call out main states and

addresses. It's more like a sideshow at a circus and entertainment value, I would say that most of the teaching that I had received early on was that the. Purpose of the prophetic would be wrapped up in First Corinthians 14, where it says, you know, all prophecy is to edify, exhort and comfort, but you take that first of all, that was not meant as as the center of gravity of the prophetic.

It's one sentence in a much broader context and a much more cultural, Jewish cultural understanding of what the prophetic is, what the prophets were doing and what they're still supposed to be doing, even though there's a cosmic shift between Old and New Testament, the purpose of prophecy is still remains the same from Genesis to

Revelation. So that one scripture we have taken out of its context and made everything wrap around it, so it's turned into this thing that we have filtered through our our lens, which I would say is a lens of we have an idol of comfort, like would you agree with that in our culture 100% that passage mixed with our idol of comfort, and you're you turn prophecy into this. It's just supposed to make people feel good about themselves, and that is not the

purpose of prophecy. It's not what it's supposed to be doing, but yet somehow, that's what everybody would think that it's supposed to today, and some of the big prophets are just supposed to be prophesying about presidents or nations. And I'm like, that's still not what the prophetic is supposed to be doing.

It is on a mission. And if you want to talk about the spirit of prophecy is on a specific mission, and that mission is that it is, of course, we know that it like revelation speaking for the will of God with the voice of God through many different means, but God communicating to his people for the purpose of aligning them to the covenant in The Old Testament, the covenants, the law of Moses. In the New Testament, the prophetic is to be aligning us to the new

covenant, which is Jesus? Hence, the reason why revelation, 1910, the Spirit of Prophecy, is the testimony of Jesus. And so it's the purpose of the prophetic is to be aligning us to the eternal purposes of Christ. So it has a very big picture purpose with aligning us in our relationship with God. The prophets were known. They were also called like covenant lawyers, like they were going to defend the relationship between God and His people, which is what the

covenant is right. Covenant is the relationship with God and His people and the prophetic is to be doing that is defending and fighting and living and breathing for relationship between God and His people, for the end, purpose of the eternal purposes of Christ for the Kingdom. And it's it's not to make us feel good. It's not individualistic in nature. There isn't a single moment in the New Testament where somebody is being prophesied to about their gifts and calling, right?

Christ. And so we are the ones that took these moments of encouraging one another by revelation of the Holy Spirit, and we labeled those prophetic. And sometimes it might be, I'm not saying it never is. It might be most of the time, I'd say it's probably just the Holy Spirit encountering people and what we don't even label that prophetic, because it's we don't see that being prophetic in the Scripture and in the book of Acts. We see the prophetic when Ananias opens the eyes of Saul

and he catapult. This, the Gospel through this, the most powerful man of human history, aside from Christ Himself, like we see the prophetic showing up when the Macedonian man, like shows up and waves the gospel into Europe. I mean, we see the prophetic in action all the way through the book of Acts. But it's not just speaking, love and confirmation and encouragement one to another, although that is something the Holy Spirit loves to do, right? Yes,

prophetic. The prophetic is is that the voice of God coming through the the mouth of a human being to keep them in alignment with the will of Heaven. And so you see that in the Old Testament, through the prophets, in the New Testament, it takes on for many, many reasons. But in the New Testament, everything shifts. Actually, I would say, on the day of Pentecost, everything changed in relationship to the New Testament prophetic gift. Because I'm no longer the

Prophet. Is no longer the go between, between man, where in the Old Testament, the the prophets, the kings of the priests, were the go betweens, between God and men. But that's not that way anymore. Every human has direct access to God, the go between is Jesus himself.

So No prophet is ever to be the go between anymore in the New Testament we are talking that's why the New Testament prophetic has a much lower level of authority, like hugely different level of authority in the New Testament than there is in the Old Testament, primarily for that reason that we are now told to submit, one to another, everything that comes out of our mouth. Prophetically, we are to submit for testing and weighing.

That's big difference from the Old Testament prophets who weren't submitted to anybody, right? And then we also see in the alignment with the covenant, which is Jesus, whether it's an individual like Ananias to Saul where he was. He was speaking into Saul's calling. He was catapulting him. He was correcting him. He was having this moment with Saul and God setting him on fire. It's really

what happened. And we also see like I made reference and the prophetic broke down the dividing walls of the barriers to the gospel. So we the gospel being expanded throughout the earth, almost always led by both the prophetic and the apostolic, which lay the foundations for

the gospel to advance. And so the primary work of the whole five fold ministry that we see in Ephesians, four, which includes the prophetic, is to lift the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God like that. That is what we see, the the New Testament, prophetic, doing one

the prophetic. To me, the most beautiful picture of the apostolic and prophetic working together is in the eyes of Saul, and I know it. A bit symbolic, but here, like the prophetic, which is Ananias, in that moment, he's opening up the eyes of the apostolic to then release the apostolic to go build and expand the way that the apostolic is supposed to be doing, right? And that's primarily how we see it happening, is that it's by

revelation. Would be another way that we would say it the apostolic is to be building according to Revelation and not according to their own strategy. And I think we live in a such a strategic age, and we're the the whether it's pastors or leaders or apostolic types or teachers, we are um, strategy is something that we hold highly in esteem in our culture. And I honestly think that has gotten in the way of building accordingly with the prophetic revelation, rather than by strategy.

weird. That's fine. There's a lot of weird things in the Bible, and we can embrace that, but there's a lot of misuse, uh, around that area as well.

answers. But in in general, I'd say the one of the missing puzzle pieces that I need to bring into this conversation that I think has caused the prophetic to be unmoored from its biblical purpose, is that we're not very good at testing and weighing how often is the Prophetic actually submitted and so when I say, you know, we're to build out the kingdom, we're to build out the advancement of the gospel and the The expansion of the church by with hand in hand with the prophetic that

gives the guidance to where we're supposed to build that prophecy, that part the whoever it is, or wherever that prophecy is coming from, that breaks down those barriers, the dividing walls, that can advance the gospel into the parts of the city I don't know, whatever the scenario might be. Um, that still needs to be tested and weighed. Everything needs to be

tested and weighed. And so if we have one person who's getting all the revelation that everybody else is just acting on problem that's a problem is that everything that somebody comes and says, I heard from the Lord, it needs to be tested and weighed, like rigorously. And most places that I have been in relationship with have not done that, and they don't even know

how to do it. And a lot of pastors and leaders don't even understand the prophetic themselves, and certainly haven't trained their people how to test in a way. A lot of elders that I know that our leadership teams don't even understand how to test in a way, to prophetic or the prophetic. And so that's a whole learning curve that I see throughout Body of Christ that really needs to be worked on. Is, are we testing and weighing? What does that look like? Do we know how to test in a way, and are we

equipped? Do we feel empowered? It's not just the decision by a single prophetic person I'm supposed to build, and what we're supposed to be doing it is somebody believes they've heard something from God that might give instruction for the local church, per se, on on how to build, or where to build, or what they're supposed to do in

the next season. But that needs to go through, like heavy discernment with a whole team of people that all have their eyes on it, and they're making this decision, because now we all hear the voice of God, so one then we get to test, in a way, that prophetic word with a group of discerning people that are also in leadership over a church, to decide if that is really the direction. And then we are continuing to pray to hear God's voice on the strategy, right? It's not just

the strategies of man. So

Towards. So what are we building towards?

eternal purposes of Christ? So I do think that that's an area where a lot of local churches, in our day and in our culture can lose sight of the eternal vision of where this is all headed. And I know you, everybody needs to do the work to decide what that looks like, and that could look very different from church to church.

A Catholic Church is going to see that differently than a charismatic, than a Pentecostal and a Baptist, and I'm not going to get into that debate, but it's it's tied to the eternal vision, whatever that eternal vision, whatever how you interpret the scripture to be the eternal purposes of Christ, May every local church be tied into that and not their own personal vision of their own

individual local church. Our individualism is both a blessing and a curse, but we are the most individualistic culture that has ever existed on the planet, and we're growing more and more individualistic, and our churches have taken on their individualistic purposes that sometimes can be devoid of the

eternal purposes of Christ. And so if you are in a church leadership, I'd say you should probably do some work in eschatology to decide where you think this is headed, and then the prophetic should be aligned with that, so you all know where you're going.

purposes. But as you saw the five folds, right the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. It's a holistic thing. They need to actually come together. There's five different lenses right there that people view things like, I'm motivated because apostolic is my number one gifting. I'm motivated in the apostolic. So though, whenever there's a word, I want to see the kingdom of God exists in places where I don't

see it yet, right? And so I want to start something new, but the prophetic is going to have something else. Is this actually aligned to the covenant of God? So how do we then recognize our own things in the testing and weighing process, and how does that work in community when we are all focused on our own individualistic ideas and lenses? Well,

individualism. So you you're just putting your figure on the head of everything. So I'm going to read three scriptures, um, one, first, Corinthians, 1429, is two or three. Prophets should speak and the others plural should weigh carefully what is said first, Thessalonians, 519, to 22 Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances, but examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good. Abstain

from every form of evil. It's in the context of the church that the local bot the body of Christ. It's not this is not written to an individual. This is written to the church. And then, of course, First John, four, one, beloved, beloved. Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. So those are the

three primary scriptures. The one that I'm leaning into right now is the one that's obviously, they're all plural, by the way, they're all to the church, not to an individual. So number one, we need to read the Bible accordingly to how like the author's intent. So those are written to the corporate body of Christ, not just to individuals. We do individual testing and

weighing if some. He comes up to you and says, Hey, Josh, I think you should end your podcast and move to you know, Singapore, there's going to be a lot of testing and weighing in that, and hopefully you would add to community. But at the end of the day, it's just to you

personally. When it comes to the local church, the prophetic, I think we need to have some structure in place just to pull on people that have gifts of discerning of spirits to have there's people the body of Christ that have gifts of discernment, and they really don't know what to do with their gift, usually, and I think we we

need to utilize them. In fact, a lot of people, several theologians, question whether the the gift of discerning of spirits is primarily meant for testing prophecy, which is an interesting but um, so it is vital that we test in a way, especially big directive words or corrective or whatever it might be, in community. And we have in our church, we've got a system set up where, you know prophetic words, people know

where to give them. They go through a discernment team that's going to pray and give feedback. They go to the elders, and they all spend, you know, a time praying together over these words. They weigh it according to scripture. They've got a a way to weigh things out together. And I think there needs to be some organization behind it, to be honest, just to uphold the practices, because without that, we just don't do it, you know? Yeah,

the future. And I know that sometimes people make make, uh, prognostications of what's going to happen, and it turns out to be true, and they have seen it, but sometimes that people see it, but they're not aligned to Christ. And so how do we know that, if something has actually come to pass, and we've seen a future reality. Somebody has talked about it. How do we know if that is not aligned, and it's just a shiny example to throw us off, what our main purpose of the church is?

first say it. But I mean honestly, psychics are accurate like it's accuracy has nothing to do with whether it was truly from God and biblically, I can tell you at 16, if you remember the story of the girl who has a spirit of divination that was quite like powerful in her area and making her masters a lot of money. She was following after Paul or Peter and John. Wait a minute, following after Paul and us, is what it says. I just pulled it up by fortune telling.

And she kept crying out, these men are bond servants of the Most High God who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. I mean, she's accurately proclaiming who these men are and what they're doing by a spirit of divination. So in one sense, we're like, Well, of course that could be prophetic, but then we know now, like, if you can picture the scene, everybody knew she was a slave girl with the spirit of divination. They knew who she

was. So, like, I don't think anybody there present was swayed that she was a prophet, right? Just because she was accurate, you know. And and Paul took several days and eventually cast the demon out of her because he was annoyed. And I think that's important, because I think when there's an A bad spirit, it's when somebody is saying something by a bad spirit. I think many of us can feel it. You can like Paul was annoyed.

He was adjuated in his spirit, is what that word means and but we've just normally learned to ignore those moments of discernment when we're feeling like, ah, there's something wrong here. Even though they're saying a good thing, there's something wrong. I can feel it in my gut. We don't pay attention to it. And so I think there's some growth areas all

the way through that. Story about it's not accuracy that we weigh by because even you know, dividers dividends, however you say, can be accurate, we need to be able to test it away the spirit behind the prophecy, like we read in first John. So

righteousness and justice. And for all people, is there a role? What is that? That role between the the vertical and the horizontal in the prophetic? Do they play a part together?

that in Scripture. We see the isaiahs and ezekiels and and like, Oh, they're doing both. They rebuke the people, or even New Testament. They're rebuked for not feeding the widows and the orphans and taking care of them. And at the same time, they're, you know, calling forth to send the gospel, you know, or and to raise money for this area, because, um, they're going by some prophetic word. They knew that a famine was coming. Like, it's, it's all of the

above. It's like, if you can picture in your marriage, sometimes you're horizontal and sometimes you're vertical. Sometimes it's about God. Once it's about each other. Some of the other language I'm heard is like, sometimes it's side by side, sometimes it's face to face, like it the prophetic does all of it. And I, I don't I understand what Ellen Hirsch is doing, and I agree, but I, I would want to blend those, because all it's all the same

thing. I mean, reaching out to the margins is aligning us to the covenant.

it drive? What is the purpose of the prophetic the covenant, aligning to the covenant, what does it drive the entire church towards?

between God and man. So Jesus, it's not just the the aligning people to say a prayer and get saved. When I say it's aligning to Jesus. He embodies the kingdom. He embodies the meeting place between God and man, the the temple, living temple on the earth, which he then says, extends to us as the body of Christ on the earth. So it's it's profound. So it a lot.

Anything that aligns us to Jesus and and is pointing in the same direction that Jesus was pointed would fit within that description, not me, the way that Jesus lived in, caring for the people on the margins, going to the Samaritan woman and hanging out by the well and igniting her that to change her entire village. Like that's that's just as prophetic as as when he rebuked. Everything Jesus did was prophetic, right?

I mean, he was the prophet, like capital T, H, E, he was the prophet that the Old Testament prophet. It's we're pointing to. So we have to look at all New Testament prophetic in the way that it was lived out in the life of Christ, and that includes radical, reaching out to the margins. Because in our religiosity, we just we don't do that in some circles, but then in other circles, they're so justice oriented, they've stopped being gospel centric, and then like so there's error

on all sides. Humans are prone to ditches, right? But Jesus himself was the the perfect representation of the prophetic call.

I couldn't answer that on behalf of anybody else, but I would also want to say, Please cover it in grace, because the reality is, is that God, he loves, somehow he loves the fact that we are frail, messed up human beings, trying our best to live according to the Spirit, by the life of the Spirit led by the person of Christ, And then he has entrusted us to do this thing, to to build on his kingdom like i It doesn't make any sense to me, but somehow he trusts us and wants to work with

us in that. And it's messy, and we're gonna screw it up, and we're gonna do it wrong for years at a time, and then we're gonna learn and turn and get it right. There's just a dynamic there that I think we have to give ourselves a lot of room for. You know,

see as the church, right? We want to see Jesus as Lord, and we're walking into the kingdom of God. And so in in politics, we're actually seeing a false view of of on both sides, yes. And so how does the prophetic cut through the noise? And because there's also a lot of false prophecy, a lot of false prophetic happening within politics. So how does the prophetic cut through the noise so that we could recognize the king and the kingdom and what we're headed towards as the

church? How do we recognize those things?

And I feel seen by John and his brother. They know by the Sons of Thunder, I can relate, but I am but Jesus himself didn't cut through all the noise, but he had moments where he confronted the powers of the day, and that's what you're talking about. Politics is another power. Money is power. Politics is power. They all have. I think they had a. Spiritual power. And there is a like a spiritual, political spirit power that is functioning within politics.

Same thing with money, same thing with all different kinds of powers and and we don't want to become entangled to them, and we want the Spirit of Christ to to speak to him, but that's up to him. It's not, we can't do that at will. You know, I can't just decide I'm going to prophesy something that's going to cut through the noise we are. It's this is utterly dependent

on the Spirit of God. And I don't know, like, I want him to move at times where he doesn't move and when he does move, I wish it was in this way, like, you know what I mean, and so, but the one thing I will This is totally my opinion, Josh, but you're you asked, so now you're going to get my opinion. I am. I don't think it's on Facebook. I don't think it's going to be on social media. I really doubt

right. I don't think that's going to be the platform where the prophetic breaks through, because what we do see in the New Testament is that it is in that context of relationship, and it's in the context of true community, not a make believe community on social media. And so I would, yeah, that would be the only thing I would add. So in the I'm a firm believer in the local church. And I think the hand of the Lord is in and upon the local church. It's Plan A, and there is no plan B. Is

the big C church. Is the mission of the church, right? And so whatever that looks like the church in all of its shapes and sizes and all of places around the world, it's by the Spirit of God, amongst a people who are listening for the Lord. Are we listening for the Lord? In the midst of all the political noise, like to me, the choices that we have are, how are we listening? Are we what are we listening to? You know, do watching for him to break

through the noise? Are we clear minds of the noise, or do are we feeling helpless in it? I don't know. Those are some of my random thoughts and questions. I

much. So what? What does that look like for people to grow in listening for the Lord and then sharing it with others? Well, right

that we as a human race. I could be so bold, that's pretty bold, but I think especially through covid, what we have discovered is we're really bad at listening, and there's a lot of reasons for that, you already named several, with the noise and social media and and on top of that, we people have a general distrust for almost everybody, that is growing because we can't trust our news.

We can't trust telling us the truth, and who's a conspiracy theorist like the people are so confused and they lack trust. Trust is being demolished in the midst of our polarized world that's being fueled by hatred from it's it's a confusing space, and so growing in discernment, of learning how to listen for God, I would just want to encourage everyone to just continue to lean in to the Lord. And I'm not saying in a

striving way. It's a big conversation that could be unpacked on many levels, but as we learn to listen to one another, we will grow in listening Lord like there it's all connected, right? I grow in paying attention to the Holy Spirit's movement inside of me.

I won't grow in confidence and then the idea of testing and weighing in community with others, I think is is crucial, because if I'm not going to share because I feel insecure about it, would I feel more confident if I'm submitting this to a group of people that I trust? We could actually pray and do it together and see if it is the Lord that this is a communal act, not just an individual act. So. There's so much to talk about there.

what the prophetic is. What is your hope for people that would take this course would read your book?

would grow into maturity. And so empowerment and health and maturity is my greatest hope.

give up, go all the way. The disillusionment is a part of what should bring us to health and to fight for the true and not to just be disillusioned and throw it all away. It's the whole proverbial baby with the bathwater. Let's we cannot live our faith without the Holy Spirit. We cannot grow. I firmly believe that we cannot grow as a church and until we discover and learn what the true and give the

true prophetic a place. And we don't even really know what that looks like anymore, but I feel it is so vital, and it's so crucial, and we want to grow with the growth that is from God, as Paul said. So just I say, I want to bless the disillusionment, because I think it's right that we would feel that way. And then I just want to say, go all the way through the disillusionment, and let it lead you to health and not give up

Like I'm leaning into those kinds of places to explore all of our senses and how we perceive the holy, how we perceive God's story in our midst and so and any contemplative writings, David Benner is one of my favorite authors. He's a contemplative psychologist, and he he's got some great books out that I always recommend, including one called opening to God, which is. On prayer, which I would recommend everybody, but all books on prayer.

movie. So you should watch sound of metal. Really, really good.

conversation. I loved it.