Does God Still Speak Today? What the Bible Says About Hearing His Voice and Speaking for Him
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What if the same God who spoke through burning bushes, dreams, and still small voices hasn't gone silent and never planned to?
That question might feel uncomfortable depending on where you grew up in the church. But it is one worth sitting with honestly. Because Scripture never records a moment where God decided He was done speaking. And if Hebrews 13:8 means anything, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then the God of the Book of Acts is the same God available to every believer walking the earth right now.
This is part two of our conversation on hearing God's voice. In part one we talked about the intimacy that forms the foundation, learning to recognize His voice in the quiet, personal place of relationship. In this episode we want to go further. Because God doesn't just want to speak to you. He wants to speak through you to the world around you.
The Theological Foundation Nobody Talks About
Before we go anywhere practical, we need to lay a foundation. Because this only works if it is rooted in what Scripture actually says.
There is nowhere in the entire Bible where God's speaking and moving in power comes to an end. Not one passage that says the gifts ceased, the miracles stopped, or the voice of the Holy Spirit went quiet after the first century. What we do have is the Book of Acts, a blueprint, not just a history. A model of what the normal Christian life was always meant to look like.
And here is something worth sitting with. When the early church was navigating every major decision, choosing leaders, determining direction, going to new places, they were always in prayer, always seeking to hear from God. What is the next step? Where do we go? What are you saying God?
They didn't have a New Testament. They had the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit, and the voice of God. And if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, that same voice is available to every believer right now.
Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
He didn't write the best-selling book of all time through flawed humans and then decide He had nothing left to say.
The Framework: Love, Gifts, and Community
If you want to understand how God speaks through His people, dive into 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. Three chapters, covering three specific things.
1 Corinthians 12 covers the gifts of the Spirit. 1 Corinthians 13 defines what love actually is, not just a feeling, but as a way of living that is patient, kind, not boastful, not keeping records of wrong. And 1 Corinthians 14 is about prophecy, community, and how to grow in these gifts together.
What you have is love, gifts, and community. And the order matters. The gifts were never meant to be operated outside of love or outside of community. Think of love as the water and the gifts as the fountain, the water has to be flowing for anything to come out.
1 Corinthians 14:1 says, "Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy."
That word pursue in the Greek means to aggressively chase, like a hunter pursuing prey. Not casually desire. Aggressively pursue love. And then from that foundation of love, earnestly desire, be zealous for, the gifts of the Spirit.
What Prophecy Actually Is
Most people have a distorted picture of prophecy. Either it's someone dramatically declaring judgment in a church service or it's the exclusive domain of a handful of special people with a particular calling.
Scripture says something completely different.
1 Corinthians 14:31 says, "You can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged."
All. Not some. All can prophesy.
The Greek word for prophecy has two parts: foretelling and forthtelling. Foretelling is God telling you what He is going to do so you can position yourself, prepare your heart, and partner with Him. Forthtelling is speaking what God is saying and seeing it set into motion when it is spoken.
And 1 Corinthians 14:3 defines the purpose with three words, "The one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation."
Edification. Exhortation. Consolation. That is what prophecy is for. Not condemnation. Not calling people out publicly. Not spiritual detective work that goes around identifying everyone's sin. God is not asking you to do that. We live in the ministry of reconciliation now, not condemnation.
2 Corinthians 5:18 says He has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is our lane.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
We want to share two testimonies that show how this actually works, because theology without testimony can stay abstract.
The Dream That Came True on Our Doorstep
Early in our marriage, living in a little apartment complex in Ocean Beach, San Diego, Mayana had a very vivid dream. Two men came to our door, she could describe their faces, their tattoos, everything. In the dream, one of them got saved and the other was resistant.
A day or two later, the doorbell rang. Mayana opened the door and froze in fear. Standing there were the exact two men from her dream, tattoos on their faces, everything she had described. They were from Chicago, selling magazines for a program for troubled young men.
She was telling me to close the door. I opened it wide.
We talked to them, just normal conversation. I asked myself, God, what do you have for these guys? A few minutes in, I felt the Holy Spirit highlight my knee, a word of knowledge, information that was currently true that there was no possible way I could have known unless Holy Spirit told me. I said, hey, this might sound strange, but does one of you have a problem with your knee?
The leader looked at me with a very peculiar face. Yeah, he said. Why?
I said, well, I just love God and he loves people. And I felt like he was telling me one of you has an issue with your knee. Can I pray for you?
He said yes. I got down, put my hand on his knee, and Jesus healed it right there on the spot. He started freaking out. What is this? What's happening?
When the power of God shows up, people listen. So I shared my testimony, 13 years as a drug addict and alcoholic, and Jesus set me free through His work on the cross. That same power healed your knee because He knows you and He loves you.
We prayed for both of them. Mayana joined us, the woman who had been ready to get a knife from the kitchen to protect herself was now prophesying over strangers on our doorstep. God was leading the guys and simultaneously teaching her.
Just like in the dream, one got saved right there. The other was resistant. We told him, just know that Jesus loves you and He is after you. There is no way you are going to forget this.
The dream was foretelling. What we did on the doorstep was forthtelling. And one man received salvation that afternoon.
Prophesying Identity Over Sin
At a meeting once, God highlighted to me a man in the audience who was struggling with pornography. Remember: we don't live in the ministry of condemnation, we live in the ministry of reconciliation.
Could you see Jesus embarrassing someone publicly? He didn't do it with the woman caught in adultery in John 8. He didn't do it with the woman at the well in John 4. He knew exactly what was going on with both of them and He spoke right to the heart of the issue, not with shame, with truth and love.
So I looked right at this man and I began to prophesy his true identity over him. I said, in this next season God is going to bring a purity over your vision. How you see women is going to dramatically change. He is going to show you your true identity and set you free.
The man was weeping. He knew that I knew. He knew God knew.
That is what the prophetic does at its best. It speaks truth where lies have been living. It plants the seed of identity where shame has been growing. Proverbs 18:21 says, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits." Our words are planting seeds. We get to choose whether we plant life or death.
The enemy is not intimidated by your decibel level. He is intimidated when you know who God is in you and who you are in Him, and you speak from that place.
Practical Steps to Get Started
If this is new to you, if you have never operated in this and you are not sure where to begin, here is what we tell people.
Start with love. Study 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. Understand that agape love is not a feeling, it is a pursuit. Aggressively chase it. Ask God to develop it in you. Everything flows from the unconditional love we have already received from Our Father.
Seek His presence without an agenda. Not a shopping list of requests, just worship, meditate on His Word, be still. The more you know the Word, the more you recognize how He speaks. It starts with intimacy, never performance.
Start encouraging people. Not flattery, Godly encouragement. There is a difference. Flattery is telling people what they want to hear. Encouragement is stirring up the courage in someone to step into who God made them to be. Start doing that with the people already in your life.
Learn by doing. You do not learn to speak a language by studying alone. You learn by speaking. Start with friends and family. Start with the cashier at the grocery store. Ask God, what do you have for this person? And then start listening. You learn and are encouraged at the same time, and so are they.
Pray for community. Find people who are pursuing this together. It is hard to grow in the gifts in isolation. The church was always meant to be the environment where these things develop, together, in love, in accountability.
Matthew 7:11 says, "How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?" Ask Him. Ask Him to lead you to the right people, the right community, the right next step. He is not withholding this from you.
You Are Not Too Far Behind
Maybe you are reading this and thinking, I have never heard a prophecy, I have never prayed for someone and seen them healed, I have no grid for any of this.
That is exactly where Erik was when he started. The prayer was just, God, can you help me get through a day without drinking myself to death? And God set him free and took him on a journey of showing him who He really is.
Once you really encounter Him, once you experience His voice and His love and look back at everything He has already done in your life, you are going to want that to happen in someone else's life. It is not something you have to manufacture. It overflows. Like a water bottle that is 100% full, not when the water is at the brim, but when it is spilling over the top.
That is what you were made for. Not to contain it. To overflow.
Listen to the full episode here: Episode 207 — Hearing God Part 2: God Speaking To Us and Through Us
If this resonated with you and you are ready to go deeper in your walk with God and your identity in Christ, we would love to connect.
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