Does God Still Answer Prayer Today?

Does God still answer prayer today?

Yes. And it is worth noticing how Scripture says it, because it does not say it the way someone recalls a distant event. It says it in the present tense.

When Israel came to God in Psalm 65, they did not call Him “the God who once answered.” They addressed Him by a title:

“O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.”

— Psalm 65:2 (ESV)

Behind “hear” stands the Hebrew form שֹׁמֵעַ (shomeaʿ), a participle of the verb שָׁמַע (shamaʿ), joined to the noun תְּפִלָּה (tefillah), “prayer.” A Hebrew participle does not narrate a finished act; it describes a condition — something characteristic and ongoing. In fact the only finite verb in the whole verse is the last one: “shall come.”

That is not a grammatical footnote. A title describes what someone is. God is not called there “the One who heard.” He is called the One who hears prayer. If that is His title, then ceasing to hear would not be a change of method; it would be a change of nature.

And look at the second half of the verse, because that is where the door stands open: “to you shall all flesh come.” Not one nation, not one generation, not one class of especially holy people. All flesh. That includes you, today, with the prayer you have not yet said out loud.

How can I know He hears me?

This is the honest question underneath the first one. Confessing that God hears is one thing; believing that your prayer landed somewhere is another.

John wrote to believers who needed exactly that assurance: “that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14, ESV). The word he uses at the start of the verse for “confidence” is παρρησία (parrēsia, Strong’s G3954) — literally, freedom of speech: speaking openly, frankly, without concealment or circumlocution. In the Greek world it named a citizen’s right to speak freely in the assembly. It is not the confidence of someone who feels worthy. It is the freedom of someone who has been given the right to come in and speak.

And the verb “hears” (ἀκούει, akouei) is present indicative — not “heard,” not “will hear,” but hears. Then John presses further: “we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:15, ESV) — and “have” (ἔχομεν, echomen) is present tense as well.

Notice where that assurance rests. Not on the intensity of your prayer, not on your technique, not on how many words you used or whether you felt anything. It rests on the will and the character of God. That is why a believer’s assurance survives the days when prayer feels like nothing at all.

Did miracles stop with the apostles?

There are sincere believers who think so — that the gifts of the Spirit served their purpose in the apostolic age and then ceased. We do not mock them; many love the Lord and honor His Word. But it is worth saying plainly what Scripture does and does not say: it nowhere announces an expiry date. No text says the Spirit would stop working this way when the last apostle died. That conclusion is inferred; it is not read.

And what we do read points the other way. Jesus, teaching His disciples to pray, closes with this promise:

“how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

— Luke 11:13 (ESV)

The Father gives the Spirit “to those who ask” — in the Greek, a present participle: the ones asking, now as then. Jesus attached no date to it.

Paul describes the gifts in the same present tense: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7, ESV), and the distributing belongs to no one but the Spirit Himself, “who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1 Corinthians 12:11, ESV). The gifts are not earned, not owned, and not at the disposal of any man’s ambition. They are given as He wills.

This is this ministry’s confession, formally adopted and published in our Statement of Faith: the charismata are given, active, and operating in the Church today. We impose them on no one, and they are never a measure of anyone’s standing with God.

If God answers, why is it hard to believe He did?

Here Scripture is more honest with us than we usually are with ourselves.

In Acts 12, Peter is in prison and the church is praying: “but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (Acts 12:5, ESV). God answers that same night. An angel wakes him, the chains fall off, the iron gate opens by itself, and Peter arrives at the house where the believers are gathered praying for him.

And the praying church does not believe the servant girl who announces he is at the door:

“They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she kept insisting that it was so, and they kept saying, “It is his angel!””

— Acts 12:15 (ESV)

Sit with that for a moment. They were praying for Peter. God did exactly what they asked. And when the answer knocked, they argued about whether it was real.

If you have prayed for something and afterward doubted that God had anything to do with what happened, you are in the company of the early church. Doubt does not disqualify you. God answered that prayer anyway — and the answer kept knocking until they opened the door.

What does God do today when we pray?

James is not describing an extraordinary occasion but the ordinary, continuing practice of the church: let the one who suffers pray, let the cheerful sing, and “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church,” (James 5:14, ESV) to pray over him and anoint him in the name of the Lord. Then he commands something harder than any of that: that believers confess their sins to one another and pray for one another.

And he gives the reason:

“The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

— James 5:16 (ESV)

The Greek participle behind that last phrase is ἐνεργουμένη (energoumenē), from ἐνεργέω (energeō, Strong’s G1754) — to be operative, to be effective. Scholars differ over whether the form is middle (“as it works”) or passive (“as it is energized by God”), and it is honest to say the question is not settled. But both readings share the thing that matters here, which is precisely what this page claims: the righteous person’s prayer is at work now. It is not filed away.

Healing belongs inside that ordinary practice. We believe — and we confess it formally — that God still heals today in answer to prayer, by the laying on of hands, and by the gifts of healing.

And here the same care must be taken with what we also confess, because without it everything above turns cruel: we honor and do not despise the labor of physicians, and we lay no guilt upon the sick or upon those who are not healed. The outcome rests with a sovereign and merciful God, and our confidence is in His character and not in our formula. No one goes unhealed for want of enough faith. Anyone who tells you otherwise is adding a weight Christ never laid on you.

If that is where you are — praying and waiting, with no answer yet — there is a page written for exactly that: Why Doesn’t God Answer My Prayers?

What we have seen

What follows is not proof; the proof is the Word of God. It is testimony — what we have seen in the field, told carefully and without names.

In the Orlando area we prayed in an apartment lobby for a woman whose arm was in a cast. The next day we saw her again without it, and she told us she had been healed; she said she had grown up overseas, raised in religion, and had never known this was possible. A young man who had taken part in shamanic rituals abroad was set free in the name of Jesus Christ, and a week later he surrendered his life to the Lord and was baptized.

In Colombia, at the end of a week of campaign, a young woman gave her life to Christ at two in the morning in an empty airport in Panama — and we learned afterward that her mother, a believer, had been praying for her. In Bolivia, in the hardest of four prisons, we found a church that two converted prisoners had raised inside the walls, with their own hand-made sign over it; it was those two who led us in worship, in Spanish and in Quechua.

There are more, and they are told here. We say it as we received it: what people told us, we report as their testimony, and the glory belongs to God and to no one else.

An invitation

If you have read this far wondering whether prayer is worth it, you do not need a formula or elegant words. The One who hears prayer has already said that all flesh may come to Him. You can begin like this, in your own words or in these: “Lord Jesus, I do not know whether You know about me, but I come because Your Word says You hear. Forgive me. I give myself to You. Speak to me, and teach me to know You.” If you have just prayed something like that, take the next step here: Know Him. And if you have a request, do not carry it alone — write to us and we will pray with you.

Further study: Psalm 65:2, ESV — Bible Gateway · Psalm 65:2 interlinear — BibleHub · 1 John 5:14 interlinear — BibleHub.

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