100 Days of Right Believing: Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing (2 page)

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hether you are aware of it or not, what you believe affects how you live your life. What you believe determines how you think, how you perceive a situation, and, ultimately, what course of action you take.

I’ve said this time and time again, and time and time again, I’ve also seen this principle borne out in people’s lives: Right believing always produces right living. This means that if you want to see right living in your life, you need to understand the importance of believing right. When you believe right, you can’t help but live right.

You see, people are struggling to control their behaviors and actions because they don’t have control over their emotions and feelings. They don’t have control over their emotions and feelings because they don’t have control over their thoughts. And they don’t have control over their thoughts because they are not controlling what they believe.

The converse is true. When you begin to believe right about God and in His love for you, you begin to change the way you see yourself and your situation. You’ll stop feeling hopeless. You’ll begin to lose your fears. And you’ll respond differently to negative people and situations.

This is why God wants you anchored in the powerful truths of His Word to believe in His love for you. Your heavenly Father wants you to believe that He is for you and not against you. He wants you to know and believe that He is on your side, rooting for your success and propelling you toward your breakthrough with His love and tender mercies. He wants you to open your eyes to see what He sees when He looks at you—His beloved child.

My friend, I encourage you to take time to meditate on the truths in each of these daily readings. I believe that as you do, you’ll see old defeatist thinking habits falling away. You’ll find the most stubborn of addictions supernaturally annihilated. And you’ll find a confident expectation of good for your
future and destiny in Christ strengthening your heart and creating amazing days ahead for you!

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ho do you think you are? Have you forgotten all the mistakes you’ve made?

Things will never get better. You should just accept your lot.

It’s not going to work—you are just going to fail again!

Nobody loves you. You are all alone.

Have you been at the receiving end of these words of discouragement, accusation, and dismissal?

I’ve seen these tactics of deception, loaded with condemning judgment, used too many times by the adversary. I’ve seen too many people, who have tried to move out from under the shadow of their past or break free from their addictions, end up succumbing to these lies about themselves, their identity, and their future and their destiny. As a result, they are unable to break free, and day after day, they simply live to perpetuate the pain, fears, and addictions to which they’re bound.

That’s the power of
wrong
believing.

Wrong believing puts people in a prison—a prison where its inmates behave as though they are incarcerated in a maximum-security penitentiary. They march inexorably to their dank cells of self-doubt and addictions. They allow themselves to be led into dungeons of destructive behaviors. They have convinced themselves never to dream of a better place, believing that they have no choice but to live in despair, frustration, and defeat.

If that describes you, it’s time for a prison break, my friend. It’s time to break free from the crippling grip of all that has held you back. How? Through right believing—the light that illuminates the path of freedom out of this prison.

Know and believe that God does not want you to live imprisoned by fears, guilt, and addictions. Open your heart to believe His plan for you is to live
with joy overflowing, peace that surpasses understanding, and an unshakable confidence in what He has done for you. Through the cross, Jesus has paid for you to have His abundant life—a life marked by His liberty, His power, and His blessings.

It’s time to let go of the life of defeat and step into a life full of victory, security, and God’s abundant grace!

I
f we’re honest, we all have some measure of wrong believing in our lives. Just ask yourself, “Have I often felt anxious, worried, or fearful that the worst would happen to me and my loved ones?” These negative, exhausting emotions are merely flags that indicate what we truly believe about ourselves, our lives, and God.

When we are fearful and worried all the time, we are living as if we don’t believe that we have a strong and able Shepherd who is tenderhearted toward us, who leads us to good places, who protects us and lovingly watches over us. So if worrying or being fearful seems to be your natural default mode, what you need to do is to keep hearing and learning about how much God loves you, and how precious you are to Him.

That is why the way out of constant worrying is not a matter of just thinking positively; it’s birthed out of knowing you have a personal and intimate relationship with a loving Savior who watches over your needs and tends to you as a loving Shepherd. The more strongly you believe that He is taking care of you, the more it will change your thoughts and feelings, and the less you will fall victim to unhealthy emotions and behaviors.

Today, if you need freedom from a bad situation, see Jesus, your good Shepherd, leading you out of it by His Word that brings life and illumination. The psalmist says it this way: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my
path” (Ps. 119:105). In The Message translation, it says, “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.”

My friend, the Lord wants to throw a beam of light on your path today. Whatever you are struggling with presently, no matter how insurmountable your challenges appear, when you start believing right, things are going to start turning around for your good!