While there is controversy about this, I believe God does speak today to those who will listen. This sounds presumptuous or risky to those who imagine our God to be too holy, distant, or busy to interact with humans today. Bible students who believe some form of this (cessationists) are convinced God stopped talking to people and doing signs and wonders when the apostles died. (1 Cor. 13:10-11) They contend the Bible is what is “perfect”, not Christ’s return.
Could it be, akin to science, the teachings of the Bible can become clearer and more substantiated through church history and present-day experiences, implying that certain interpretations of scripture were made too soon? Time has now shown that we were created to interact with God. He not only speaks to us but literally works through us, as did the Spirit through Jesus’s humanity when He walked on this earth.
Personally, I can point to hundreds of times when I intuitively knew that I knew His Spirit spoke to me. As I then collaborated with Him, things happened that only God could do. Since my wife graduated into His Heaven, I have experienced His still small voice encouraging, guiding, correcting, supporting and teaching me more about Him and His ways from the written words in the Bible. Yes, there have been times when I took my own initiative to do what I thought to be right, yet they proved to be what I only thought God might want, not God’s voice. To be candid, today, I do not trust my thinking unless it is confirmed in God’s word.
I have observed God is talking to us far more than we are hearing Him. Most everyone deeply wants to hear Him, but they don’t because they haven’t learned to recognize His voice when He does speak. It is like having several phones with multiple lines. When He is calling us, we pick up the wrong phone, one connected to audible human voices or the voice of our thoughts or emotions, instead of the still, small, intuitive voice deep within us. When we obey the wrong voice, we get confused and even blame God for giving us the wrong directions.
Interestingly, when we do happen to pick up the correct phone and hear His voice, quite often He is telling us something different from we expect, so as soon as He hangs up, we start having ‘second thoughts’. We think what He said does not make sense because it’s contrary to what we expect Him to say. Then we have third and even fourth thoughts that we think are better options.
Reality is, God has created us to for intimate fellowship with Himself. The Bible is full of times when He spoke to people. (Ex. 29:43-46, Ps. 23, John 15:11) We expect to talk with our close friends. If God wants to be close friends with us and we to Him, why would we expect Him NOT to want to speak with us? However, unlike our close friends who only want to speak warm fuzzy things with us, God wants to be a closer friend who will tell us things we need to change in our life so we can live a BETTER, more abundant life. He knows that the pursuit of glamor, wealth, power, or popularity is a dead end, so he will guide us in a more fruitful direction. Jesus said, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (context: food, drink, clothing) will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, ESV). Hearing God makes sense only in the framework of the practice of living in the will of God. He has NEVER misled me in 78 years on this earth. When He asked Connie and me to go against our desires or logic, our obedience led to transformation, abundant fruitfulness, and gratification. What has He been intuitively speaking to you?
We do have to learn to listen!