This broadcast goes into all the world teaching the principles of the Kingdom of God. The Covenant Living broadcast is about covenant. That is what it is all about. And a part of your covenant is this. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice.” So this week we are talking about hearing the voice of God.

It is one thing when you have it written down. “By His stripes you were healed.” It is right there on the page. You can see it. You know that is God, and you can take a stand on it. But you also need to be able to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd on the inside, and recognize that His voice is just as real as the written Word. Then you step out in confidence.

The Lord built safety measures into this for us if we will pay attention to them. One safety measure is simple. If you hear something that does not agree with the written Word, you do not act on it. That does not matter how spiritual it sounded. The Spirit of God and the Word of God do not contradict each other. But if what you heard agrees with the Word, even if it is not written out in that exact sentence, you have credibility and you can move forward with faith.

We will give you a personal example. Years ago, we let too much stress and pressure affect our bodies. It started showing up in our heart rhythm. So we went to the Lord and asked Him what we needed to do. We knew the first step was obedience to the basics. We had to cast our care like the Word tells us. But we also needed healing and we needed our heart steady and right.

The Lord took us to Psalm 112:7. The verse says, “He shall not be afraid of evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. His heart is established.” The Lord reminded us that there was no punctuation in the original text. He told us to read it like this. “My heart is fixed trusting in the Lord. My heart is established.” Now, that passage is not primarily talking about the physical heart. It is talking about your spirit and how you respond to a bad report. But the Lord told us to apply that truth to our physical heart. We asked ourselves the safety-net question. Does that go against the Word. No. God is for healing. He is not against it.

Then the Lord had us add Matthew 11:28–30. We are going to be clear here. We read it from The Message, and that is a paraphrase, not a translation. We are careful with paraphrases. We do not build doctrine on them. But the phrase that stood out was “the unforced rhythms of grace.” We knew exactly why the Lord highlighted it. Our issue was rhythm. Our heart was not in rhythm. That phrase gave language to what we were believing God for. Again we asked. Does that go against the Word. No. It lines up with rest, peace, and grace. It agrees with God’s will.

Then the third scripture the Lord tied in was 1 Timothy 6:17. It says God “gives us richly all things to enjoy.” That brought balance. The Lord was not only fixing something physical. He was correcting the lifestyle that helped create the pressure in the first place.

So this is what the Lord told us to put in our mouth. “Father, I thank You that my heart is fixed, trusting in You. It is firmly established. It beats with the unforced rhythms of grace. As we learn to live lightly in You, we enjoy all things You have so richly blessed us with.”

That is the voice leading us to the written Word, then telling us how to apply it in a way that agrees with the Word. And we can testify that it worked. Lynn asked us to go get a full workup. We did the stress tests, scans, echo, EKG, and the full set of evaluations. And the report came back clean. Not one thing wrong. The voice and the written Word worked exactly the way the Lord said it would.

Now we also have to say this. The safety nets matter because Satan can masquerade as an angel of light. That is 2 Corinthians 11:14. The enemy will try to tack something onto what God is saying, just enough to pull you off course. That is why we do not rush. If we hear something and we cannot find agreement with the Word, we put it on the shelf. We do not force it. God is not offended by caution when your heart is to obey Him. That simple check has protected many people, including ministers, from getting off track.

And there is another safety net that we love. The Lord looks on the heart. That is 1 Samuel 16:7. When you step out on what you believe the Lord is saying, He is not waiting to strike you for missing it. He is looking at your heart. Then we keep one hand on love, always. 1 Peter 4:8 says love covers a multitude of sins, and that word is missing the mark. Love covers you while you are learning. Love keeps you steady while you grow.

So we want to encourage you. Step out. Do not let fear keep you from obeying God. The biggest mistake is never stepping into it. You will never grow in hearing if you refuse to practice. But practice with the bumpers in place. The Spirit and the Word agree. You check what you hear against Scripture. You keep one hand on love. And you will get to the place where you operate with just as much confidence in the voice of God in your spirit as you do in the written Word on the page. That is part of living at the next level.