There is an inspection coming. Jesus is the inspector. Your life will be tested. The reward you receive will not be based on how much money you had, how popular you were, or how holy people thought you were. It will be based on what you built according to God's code.

God's Code Is Clear

Throughout Scripture, God has always been clear about His requirements. To Adam and Eve He said, "Don't eat from the tree of knowledge." To Noah, He gave instructions on how to build the ark. To Abraham, "Get out of your father's house." To Samson's mother, "Abstain from wine and unclean food." Even at the wedding of Cana, Mary told the servants, "Whatever He tells you to do, just do it."

God doesn't keep His code secret. He wants to tell you how to build. He wants to tell you what He wants you to spend your time doing. He wants to tell you how to spend your money.

But here's the question: How did Old Testament people know what God wanted when most of them didn't have the Holy Spirit or a prophet to tell them?

The Hall of Faith

Hebrews 11 is called the hall of faith. Ordinary people did incredible things because they found a way to hear God's voice.

"By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice."

How did he know that's what God wanted?

Enoch pleased God so much that God took him to be with Him. How did Enoch know what would please God? The Bible says he walked with God and had this testimony: he pleased God (Hebrews 11:5-6).

When God told Noah to build the ark, it had never rained before. Noah had no reference point. But he built anyway. How did he know? The Bible says Noah was "divinely warned of things not seen."

When Moses led Israel, his father-in-law asked what he was doing. Moses said, "When they have a difficulty, they come to me and I judge between them. I make known to them the statutes of God and his laws." But there were no written laws yet! How did Moses know what God's statutes were?

Finding God's Voice

The answer is in Exodus 15:26:

"If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians for I am the Lord who heals you."

These men and women found a way to hear God. They somehow understood the importance of God's voice.

Think about a phone call where the network breaks up. You have two choices. If you don't really want to talk to that person, you drop the call: "I can't hear you, man. Can you call me back later?" But if you want to hear what they're saying, you stand up and hunt for a signal. You move around asking, "Where? Where? What did you say?"

Most of us have lived our lives with very poor spiritual signals. It's almost as if we don't care what God has to say. We treat God's word as unimportant, then wonder why we don't pass His tests. How do you expect to build to code if you don't know what the inspector is looking for?

Digging Deep for the Foundation

The man in Jesus' parable had to dig deeper than the other man. It probably cost him more to build. It probably took longer. He probably saw the other man move into his house before him because they built faster—they didn't go as low as he did.

But that's the danger of comparison. If you compare your building with mine, you don't know what foundation I'm built on. You don't know if I dug. We can't see foundations. That's why it's good to be faithful to your own foundation and dig as far as you need to until you hit your own rock.

The wise man "dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose and the stream beats vehemently upon that house, it could not shake it for it was founded on the rock." Both houses were tested. Both were put under stress. The question is: Will your building withstand the challenges that are coming?

We think when someone has a "sweatless victory" they'll have a year of sweatless victory. But that's not how it works. Someone can run up stairs and get winded, gasping for air. Another person runs the same stairs and doesn't break a sweat. How did they get to the sweatless part? They worked out by sweating. They sweated in a season to ensure they don't sweat in the next.

Your Life's Stress Test

There's something in medicine called a cardiac stress test—a test to see how the heart responds to external stimuli in a controlled environment. We face life's stress test: how you respond to external stimulus in an uncontrolled world.

How you behave when there is a challenge reveals what foundation your life is built on. You lose some money—your reaction shows how your life is built. You lose some friends—your reaction shows whether you're too dependent on them. Somebody says something bad about you—your reaction shows whether your reputation is too important to you.

The way you react, believe, and behave in a storm reveals what foundation your life is built on. Will you cuss people out, or will you shut your mouth and sleep? It shows where your life is constructed.

The Word That Guides

The wise man "comes to me and hears the sayings of mine." The Greek word for "sayings" is logos—words uttered by a living voice that embody a concept, an idea, reason, or plan.

This wise man came to Jesus, heard His words, and went and built his life according to those words. He went to the inspector, got what the inspector would be looking for, and made sure his building satisfied the inspector's requirements.

"Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path."

The entrance—the unfolding of God's word—gives light first, and then it gives understanding. It shows you what you're supposed to do, and as you begin to walk in it, it gives you understanding.

Our success in 2023 is going to be activated by immediate obedience to God's voice. But how will you obey God immediately if you cannot hear Him clearly? There must be a system for you to hear God clearly.

You Can Hear God's Voice

When you become a Christian, you are innately given the ability to hear God's voice.

"My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. I know them. I call them by name."

You have the ability to hear the voice of God. You don't need to go to another person to tell you what God has for you. God leads us with His voice. We follow Him with our ears, not with our minds. You don't have to understand to obey. You have to hear.

Most of us recognize the voice of men more than we recognize the voice of God. You know what WebMD is saying about your symptoms more than what God is saying about your healing. You know what TikTok, Instagram, the news, and your friends are saying more than what God is saying about your circumstance.

Not because He's not talking, but because you can't recognize that it's God. The only way you build recognition is through relationship. Whoever you relate with the most, you recognize the easiest.

Other than medical depression and anxiety, many anxieties come from recognizing every other voice but the voice of Jesus. You believe something that is putting you in despair—hopelessness. Jesus is not a hopeless God. When He speaks to you, there is hope. He paints a picture of a future more beautiful than you could ever imagine.

There's nobody in the Bible that God talked to who was sad afterward. The woman at the well met Jesus, didn't even understand half of what He was saying, and she ran back excited.

Three Steps to Building on the Rock

Number One: Develop a Relationship with God

Relationship breeds recognition. Think about a baby who hears your voice. Because you engage with that child, they know your voice. They can be playing, but when they hear you, they recognize it immediately.

The only way you can recognize something is if you have a relationship with it. You can come and tell me something Pastor Amby said, and if it's not something she would say, I'll know. Why? Because I've spent time with her. I know her voice so well that even in a whisper, I'll pick it up.

Number Two: Develop a Routine of Hearing God's Voice

Routine strengthens recognition. Routine builds a stronger relationship. You will not fall in love with someone except through frequent engagement. How do banks know what's fake money? Not by engaging with fake money—by intimate knowledge of authentic money. They handle authentic currency so much that when they touch counterfeit, something is immediately wrong.

You cannot recognize the spoken word of God if you're not intimately conversant with the written word of God. The written word is the blueprint.

"Let this word dwell in you richly."

Psalms 1 says:

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands on the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the word of God."

This is how you counteract other opinions—through delight in God's word.

"He shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots into the water and will not fear when the heat comes. Its leaves will be green and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will it cease from yielding fruit."

Just as the wise man who built on a foundation was not scared of the storm, this tree planted by the water is not scared of the year of drought. There is a challenge coming. When I say challenge, understand that challenge is fire. What does fire do to gold? It purifies it. It makes it better.

Challenges come to make you better, to help you grow to the next place, to help you realize and unveil deeper dimensions of God in you. If you build with wood and fire is coming, you will freak out. But if you build your life according to code, you're not scared of whatever comes.

Number Three: Develop a Response to God's Voice

It's not enough to hear. Luke 6:47 says:

"Whoever comes to me, hears my sayings and does them, shall be likened unto a man who built his house on a foundation."

Exodus 15:26 says:

"If you listen carefully to the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees..."

In Old Testament language, there was no real differentiation between hearing and doing. Most definitions of hearing meant hearing with the intent to obey. When you tell your child to clean their room and they say, "I heard you," you assume their hearing means they will obey. When they don't do it, you ask, "Did you hear me?" Because if they heard you, they would be doing something different.

God's question to you today is: Did you hear Him? Because you would not be acting the way you're acting if you heard Him. You would not be wasting your time if you heard Him.

In Isaiah 1:19:

"If you're willing and obedient, you will eat of the fruit of the good of the land."

That word "obedience" actually means "to hear." Our success in 2023 is going to be activated by immediate obedience to the voice of God.

Be a Doer, Not Just a Hearer

James 1:22-25 says:

"Be doers of the word and not hearers only. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. He observes himself, goes away immediately, and forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but is a doer of the work—this one will be blessed in what he does."

God wants to bless what you're going to do in 2023. But He also wants you to do what He wants you to do. He's not going to bless what you do when you write your own check. He's going to cash the check He's asked you to write.

If you want to live a life free of frustration this year, find a way to hear God. God only blesses what He wants done. God does not sponsor your agenda. His responsibility is not to fulfill your list. His responsibility is to sponsor your obedience.

If you obey, He will foot the bill. He will foot the bill to the extent of your obedience. If you cannot hear, you cannot obey.