Does God speak to kids? Emphatically, YES! God spoke to kids and teens in the Bible and He still speaks to kids today. As parents and leaders, we need to teach our kids how to hear the voice of God for themselves.


Three Parts of Man
Before we can teach children how to hear the voice of God, we need to teach on the three-fold nature of man. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, we see the three parts of man: spirit, soul, and body. I like to put it this way: I am a spirit; I have a soul; I live in a body.

It's important for kids to know that God speaks to us through our spirit. If I told a group of children, "God spoke to me," they would think I heard an audible voice. (Sometimes God does speak in an audible voice, but most of the time He talks to your spirit with a still small voice.)

There are four ways that God speaks to us through our spirit:

Number One: The Inward Witness
The most frequent way that God leads all of His children is when the Holy Spirit "bears witness"  with our spirit (Rom. 8:16).

With the inward witness, you don't hear anything. It is a "spiritual feeling" that you have in your gut. It's a red light or green light. You may be watching a TV show and you get a yucky feeling on the inside. That's the red light, the inward witness, telling you to turn it off.

Sometimes you'll hear people say, "I've got peace about that." What they are saying is, "I have a green light; the inward witness is telling me to go for it."

Spiritual Exercise
Here is a tangible way to communicate what the inward witness is to your kids. Lead them in a worship song, then have them worship in tongues for a few minutes. Next ask the kids to bow their heads, close their eyes, and just be still and listen. Then make positive statements that agree with God's Word like, "Jesus is your healer." Also say things that disagree with God's Word like, "God put this terrible sickness on you to teach you a lesson."

Then ask the children, "What did it feel like inside when I said, "Jesus is your healer?"

"A good feeling," they will say.

Then ask, "What kind of a feeling did you get when I said, 'God put this sickness on you to teach you a lesson.'"

They will say, "A bad feeling" or "A yucky feeling."

Tell them that's the inward witness. It's the same inward witness that will help you decide who to be friends with, who to marry, and what you're going to do when you grow up. The inward witness is not as spectacular as a dream or a vision, but it is supernatural.

Number Two: The Voice of Your Spirit
The second most frequent way that God speaks to you is by the voice of your own spirit, which is your conscience. Your conscience comes as a still small voice (1 Kings 19:12).

If you have been born again, your conscience is a safe guide. If you're not born again, your conscience is not a safe guide. The inward voice is a little different than the inward witness in that you actually hear words on the inside of you - you hear a still small voice.

I've taught kids to listen to the voice of their spirit by putting them in real-life situations. "How many of you have ever been tempted to steal a candy bar at a grocery store, but you heard a voice say, 'No'?" Or, "How many of you have ever walked past your bedroom, and seeing it all messy, you heard a voice say, 'Remember, Mom told you to clean up your room'"? That is your conscience—the voice of your spirit—sometimes called the inward voice.

Spiritual Exercise
To teach children about the inward voice, have everyone worship for about five minutes, then ask everyone to bow their heads and close their eyes. Say, "Listen to your heart." Wait about 60 seconds and just listen. Then ask, "Did anybody hear anything?" As children raise their hand, have them come forward and tell what they heard. (This helps give the children confidence to stand up and give out a word or a prophecy if the Holy Spirit gives them one.)

Children often say things like:
"Jesus loves me."
"He told me to tell my friends about Him."
"He told me to be nice to my sister."

Tell them, "That is the voice of your spirit, your conscience talking to you. Your body has a voice. It tells you when it's hungry. Your mind has a voice, the voice of reason. Your spirit has a voice too, your conscience." (This same exercise can be used at home during devotions.)

As your spirit talks to you, sometimes you will hear words that Jesus wants you to share with everyone. That's what we call a prophecy. If the Holy Spirit gives you a prophecy, then He will also anoint you to share it with others.

Most people who miss it with prophecy do so because they try to prophesy something that was just for them. (For example, you would never stand up and give out a prophecy like, "Thus saith the Lord, clean your room." No, that was message was just for you.)

Learning To Listen
It is very important that children learn how to listen to their conscience and obey God in the small things. First Timothy 4:1-2 tells of those who have had their conscience "seared with a hot iron." These people once were believers, but now they'e "departed from the faith."

If you disobey your conscience repeatedly, eventually your conscience will become seared to where you can't hear God and you don't know right from wrong. I've met so-called Christians who have no problem lying; in fact they believe their own lies. Proverbs 20:27 says, "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." When your conscience becomes seared, the light goes out.

Even very young children can learn to listen to their heart.

Children can how to listen to their heart - even as yound as four years old! It's good for children to obey their parents, but it's better if they learn how to hear God's voice and obey God on their own. Mom and Dad won't always be around, especially when they grow up and one of their friends says to them, "How would you like to try one of these little green pills?"

Sometimes Christian kids grow up and never disobey their parents, but then backslide when they get to college because they don't know how to make decisions. Mom and Dad always told them what to do, and they don't know how to hear from God for themselves.

You still hold veto power, Mom and Dad, but begin to let your children make some decisions on their own. Teach them how to pray about things and listen to their heart.

Number Three: The Voice of the Spirit of God
Another way that God speaks to us is through the voice of the Spirit of God. This voice is also an inner voice, but it is much stronger and more authoritative than the voice of your spirit.

When God spoke to the child Samuel, I do not believe that it was an audible voice. If it were an audible voice, Eli would have heard it too. Yet, the voice was so strong inside Samuel that it seemed audible to him. This is the voice of the Spirit of God. You will hear this voice much less frequently than the voice of your own spirit.

Number Four: Visions (Seeing And Knowing)
Another way God speaks to us is through pictures or visions. Many times God will show us a picture of something in your spirit.

For example, once during worship, I saw a picture of a bicycle in my spirit. I wasn't sure what that meant so I asked, "Is anybody here praying for a bicycle?"

I found a boy who had been praying for a bicycle for some time, and I encouraged him to keep believing in God. The next day, the church office got a phone call from a little boy in my class who had bought a new bike about two weeks earlier, and then won another new bike in a sweepstakes.

He wanted to give the sweepstakes bike to the boy who had been praying for a bike. Praise God! I didn't know that the boy with the two bikes was in Super Church that day, but the Holy Ghost did!

After you have taught your children to hear God speak to them, it is really important that you teach them to obey His voice and do whatever it is He has told them to do. Whether it is to give out a word of prophecy, to share the gospel with someone, to lay hands on the sick, or to forgive a person who has wronged them, it pays to obey. God's way is always best!