Awakening Your Prophetic Voice by Betsy Jacobs
This book would be great for you if you were fairly early on in your journey with the prophetic. If you have a pretty good grasp of where you are in Christ then it may leave you wanting for more.
There are 2 parts to this book. In the first section Betsy shares about her journey and when she was at her lowest point in her marriage, crazy with children and she called out to God, wanting to divorce him. A voice from behind her said “Seek Holy Spirit”. In that moment she was in the presence of God and she let go of it all. She was clothed in shame and felt that God would be offended at her turmoil and conflict and sin. He was instead “Calling a shamed humanity out of hiding” and it is “a God thing” (Pages 6 &7). He was loving Betsy regardless of what she felt she had done, how she was feeling about herself and even Him. Betsy calls us to find our identity in Him. “Being called out of hiding and being met with mercy instead of judgement, I felt the shame melt off of me and the fear disarmed. I stood in the presence of God and soaked in His satisfaction with me. Religion had taught me to identity more with Adam hiding in the bushes than I did with Jesus…” (Page 17)
She also warns that you can’t just prophesy without inviting Jesus. “Any experience that doesn’t reflect the heart of Jesus needs to be examined closer or tossed out completely. Jesus is our scale on which everything is measured.” (Page 67) This is an excellent tip. Having the gift of Prophecy is not to be a status symbol, something we do, a gift to gain, it is to be spoken with the love of Jesus. This is huge, a He loved us so much that he died on the cross for us.
Betsy also discusses how to discern the things we hear are from God. “True discernment begins with believing that God trusts us enough that He shares not only secrets with us—He shares His confidence, so that we may discern ways His perfect love can operate in our lives or the lives of others”. (Page 80)
The second part is a devotional and activations. These can be done on your own, with a partner or even in small groups. If you are new in faith or only just getting to know the Holy Spirit Betsy goes through very helpful steps to take back your identity and she gives activations to start practising listening the Father what he has to say to you and about you. These could be really helpful if your group is ready to go through this together.