Brothers and sisters, I wish that when you got together you would prophesy. I wish that you would get together expecting that God would move. That when two or more of you are gathered together you would know that God is there too and that He can do something powerful and amazing and unexpected. I wish that you would expect the Lord to come among you and change you for the better and show you powerful things.
I wish that you would speak the words of the Lord in encouragement. I wish that you would speak His words of comfort to one another. I wish that you would sit and listen to God and wait, even through the awkward silences, until He says what He wants to say to you. And then I wish that you would tell everyone else in the room what He says, even if you aren't certain that it is what He said. I wish that you would say it and let it stand of it's own accord or let it fall to the wayside, and that you would be content to have tried.
I wish that you would not consider only a few to be prophets, to believe that only a few can prophesy. I want you to practice speaking the word of God to each other with conviction, knowing that there is power in His words, and knowing that each one of you as a believer can be a messenger of those powerful words. If you would only give it a shot and expect God to show up in your midst I know you would be encouraged. I know that you'd be hooked once you experienced His presence, the way He uses us to build each other up, the way He reveals truth to us through our own words. I know that you would never be the same.
If you could grasp that the Spirit of Jesus lives in you I don't know how you could keep from prophesying. You would spend your hours mulling over the words of God - what you have read in the Bible, what you have heard preached, and what He has spoken directly to you - and you would spend your days sharing His truths. I wish that you would prophesy because the Body of Christ, the Church around the world, and your little groups of fellow Christians all need to hear the word of God. Your brothers and sisters need to be encouraged, they need to be comforted, then need to be urged to pursue the Lord. And they need to hear it from someone who loves them and is close to them, not just from a preacher or a teacher or a Prophet or someone who stands in a position of authority, but from the humble mouth of a friend.
I wish that you would prophesy, more than any other powerful work of God that you could do through the Holy Spirit. Don't get me wrong, I wish that you would share the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all of them. But above all I wish that you would prophesy and build up the church. The church needs to be built up. The church can be a fragile thing, composed as it is of so many broken people. Your fellow believers are not all perfectly content. Many of them are sad or depressed, discouraged, full of fear, confused, uncertain and unsure, or just plain screwed up. Do you know what they need? They need a friend to speak the word of God in truth to build them up, encourage them, comfort them. This is why I wish that you prophesied above all other gifts: because prophecy brings healing. Because the Body needs healing and truth and freedom, and the Word of God can deliver.
