The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (26 page)

So how do we make the paradigm shift from being occupied with our own problems and ourselves to being occupied with Jesus?

To answer that question, let me show you how David encouraged himself in the Lord whenever he was fearful, anxious, or depressed. Let’s learn from someone whom God describes as “a man after My own heart” (Acts 13:22). God’s Word reveals to us that whenever David was in trouble, he worshiped the Lord with beautiful psalms, hymns, and praises. Instead of wallowing in his own defeat and groping in darkness, David would turn his eyes to the heavens and lift up his voice to the King of kings.

In his closing years, when Absalom, his own son, tried to usurp the throne, David could have chosen to retaliate by sending out his loyal troops against Absalom. However, he didn’t have the heart to fight against his own son. So instead of battling with Absalom, whom he loved immensely, David fled from Absalom with tears in his eyes and a broken heart. Just imagine how crushed David must have been, betrayed by his own flesh and blood.

But rather than be overwhelmed by the excruciatingly painful circumstances surrounding him, David looked to the Lord and worshiped Him with these eternal words as he ascended the Mount of Olives: “But You, O L
ORD
, are a shield for me, my glory and the
One who lifts up my head. I cried to the L
ORD
with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill” (Ps. 3:3–4).

Isn’t it wonderful to know that when we cry out to God in worship, He hears us? As David worshiped the Lord, God turned his circumstances around for his good. God allowed a person in Absalom’s camp to give him unsound advice, and as a result Absalom’s coup d’état failed.

Worship Jesus in Your Valley of Trouble

I am telling you that no matter what your trouble is today, learn to worship Jesus in your valley of trouble and praise His lovely name. See Him as your shield. See Him as the glory and lifter of your head. Be consumed with Jesus, and He will turn your circumstances around for your good. Let your heart find rest and peace in the security of His love.

Some people think that when they worship God, they are
giving
something to Him. On the contrary, I believe that as we worship Him and praise Him,
He is giving to us
, imparting His life, wisdom, and power into our lives. Our minds are being renewed, and I believe that our youth and physical bodies are being renewed as well in His sweet presence.

Think about it for a moment. God doesn’t need us to worship and praise Him. He has an entire army of angels who can sing to
Him and praise Him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And unlike you and me, these angels don’t grow weary and they never sing out of tune! God isn’t a megalomaniac, demanding worship and praise from us. Absolutely not! Whether you worship and praise Him or not, He is still God.

Worship then is a response on our part to His love for us. We don’t have to, but when we experience His love and grace in our lives, we want to. It’s a response birthed out of a revelation in our hearts of just how great, how awesome, how majestic, and how altogether lovely our Lord and Savior truly is. As we worship Him and become utterly lost in His magnificent love for us, something happens to us. We are forever changed and transformed in His presence. All fears, worries, and anxieties depart when Jesus is exalted in our worship.

The Power of Worship

Our ministry team received this letter from Emma in Germany, and I believe it will help you see just what worship can do for you:

I am sixty-two years old. Whenever the devil tries to attack me with symptoms of a disease, I would listen to
your worship albums and worship Jesus, my Lord, my Savior, and my Redeemer. I would also often partake of the Holy Communion while listening to the worship songs. After a few minutes, all the symptoms would disappear!

After experiencing these miracles, I began to take the worship songs to the home for the aged that I work in. At this home, there were a few elderly folks who would cry throughout the night. No medicine could help them, and one would hear them crying from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. I work the night shift, and one night I put the CD player in the corridor of their rooms and played your worship CD
A Touch of His Presence
. That night, none of those elderly folks cried. They were all quiet and slept peacefully through the night.

There was also a lady at the home who was suffering from schizophrenia. One night she was very restless and kept speaking loudly to herself. Her neighbor, a lady with dementia, was singing shrilly. I took my iPod and played the songs from
A Touch of His Presence
to them. After three minutes, both women fell into a deep sleep.

My two colleagues who were with me were astonished by what they had witnessed, and they asked to have a CD player in the women’s room so that the other ladies could listen to the worship songs. Up till today, these elderly patients no longer cry themselves to sleep at night.

As for me, I have been listening to the worship songs on my iPod during my break at work, and every time the glory of God would come to this home for the aged and bless the old people. All praises to Jesus!

I love this testimony. It really showcases how powerful worship can be!

The CD that Emma mentioned comes from a worship collection,
A Touch of His Presence (Volumes 1 and 2)
. This is not a regular recording of songs. The songs were compiled from live services and are all spontaneous worship songs that flowed from my spirit during intimate times of worship when we simply occupied ourselves with the person of Jesus. I would sing out what God was putting in my heart, and He would manifest His loving presence. That’s when the gifts of the Spirit would operate and healings would break out among the people in the congregation.

On the popular digital music website iTunes, which features this collection, one person shared how playing the songs in
A Touch of His Presence
as he worshiped the Lord or while he was lying in bed just ushered in the sweet presence of the Lord. These times have been so instrumental in anchoring and steadying him that he has made it part of his daily routine.

Another brother described how this worship music freed him from much fear and chronic sleep problems. Every night for a few years, a paralyzing, irrational fear would awaken him from sleep every thirty minutes or so and leave him in the throes of even greater terror. Despite praying for peace, this poor man found that he could not go to sleep with the lights off.

One day as he played the songs in his room, all of a sudden he felt the tangible presence of the Lord’s calm and peace. And as he listened to the music, for the first time in a very long time, he slept like a baby. He was so happy that all he could do was thank the
Lord and cry! He listens to the album every night now and even has it downloaded to his iPod in his car.

I wanted to share these testimonies with you because I believe that some of you want to worship God, but you may not know where to begin when you are alone at home. If that sounds like you, then start by getting ahold of anointed Christian music that can fill your room with the presence of the Lord. Allow the music to simply wash over you like rivers of living waters. Let His presence flush out every fear and every anxiety. Let His love take away the cares that burden you. Let Jesus be magnified and glorified, and watch Him turn all things around for your good!

Learn from the Sweet Psalmist

Long before the enemy can steal your victory, he steals your song. Long before he can steal your joy, he steals your praise. Before you know it, you start becoming critical, pessimistic, moody, and depressed. Don’t allow him to do that. Let praises be continually on your lips and always be conscious of the Lord’s presence, His favor, His goodness, and His blessings in your life.

Don’t know what to sing? There is no one better for us to learn from than the sweet psalmist of Israel, David. There was a king after David named Hezekiah, who did just that. Take a look at how the Bible describes this king in 2 Kings 18:5, 7: “He trusted in the L
ORD
God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him… The L
ORD
was with him; he prospered wherever he went.”

King Hezekiah brought revival to his people and restored praise and worship to the house of God. He also brought back sovereignty to his nation after his father, King Ahaz, plunged the kingdom into pagan worship and brought the nation under the curse (see 2 Kings 16, 18–19).

In 2 Chronicles 29:25–26, 30, it records that Hezekiah “stationed the Levites in the house of the L
ORD
with cymbals, with stringed instruments, and with harps, according to the commandment of David… The Levites stood with the instruments of David… Moreover King Hezekiah and the leaders commanded the Levites to sing praise to the L
ORD
with the words of David…”

Aren’t you glad that God gave us the book of Psalms in the Bible so that like King Hezekiah, we can worship the Lord with the words of David? David wrote a large number of the psalms, and God is unveiled in a special way when we sing with the words of David. He gave David a special gift to write songs that unveil His love and heart.

We certainly can’t improve on the words that David wrote, so let’s join David in exalting the name of the Lord and allow Him to become our rock and fortress when we feel besieged by the issues of life. Let’s magnify the Lord and watch Him deliver us. Let’s follow after Him and let Him be our shepherd. Let Him bring us to rest in green pastures and lead us beside still waters.

How Jesus Defined the Fear of God

Something happens when you sing with the words of David. Your fears will begin to melt away. You cannot psych yourself out of
fear. Maybe even as you are reading this right now, your mind is besieged with fear about your future, or a fear of lack or of losing your youth. Perhaps you are afraid of some disease or of losing your loved ones to some sickness. Maybe you are tormented daily by the fear of rejection. My friend, the only fear God wants you to have is a wholesome fear of the Lord, which Jesus Himself defines as the
worship
of God.

When the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he said, “All these things [all the kingdoms of the world and their glory] I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Jesus, quoting from the book of Deuteronomy, replied, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the L
ORD
your God, and Him only you shall serve’ ” (Matt. 4:9–10).

Now, if you do a quick check on what Jesus quoted in the book of Deuteronomy, it actually says, “You shall fear the L
ORD
your God…” (Deut. 6:13). So Jesus defined the “fear” of God as the “worship” of God. In other words, the only “fear” that you should have in your life is the
worship
of God. Worship Him and all your fears will fade away in the light of His glory and grace.

The Shepherd’s Psalm

The most quoted psalm in the Bible, Psalm 23, was written by David. You might be familiar with these words that God has
preserved in His Word for us to learn about His love and goodness toward us: “The L
ORD
is my shepherd; I shall not want” (v. 1). Psalm 23 is an amazing psalm for you to memorize and meditate on every time you face a challenge.

A brother in Maryland wrote me to share how he was healed of chronic pain in his shoulder simply by meditating on Psalm 23. John had read one of my daily devotionals on meditating on God’s Word, where I demonstrated how to do this with Psalm 23. On his way home from work that very day, John began to meditate on “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” He focused on how kind the Lord is to want to be our shepherd and how He has truly provided for all our needs. John saw the Lord protecting him on the road, healing him of his pain, and giving him favor at work. By the time he reached home, he discovered that the pain, which had plagued him for two years and restricted his movements, had completely left!

My friend, I want you to know that the power to heal you right where you are is found in God’s Word. There is healing power in the psalms! They are not just songs written to fill up pages in your Bible. Something happens to your physical body and external circumstances when you memorize, meditate on, and worship with the words of David.

Psalm 34—Choose to Bless the Lord

Another beautiful psalm is Psalm 34, which was written by David in the cave of Adullam. I find it really interesting that David wrote
one of the most powerful psalms during one of the most challenging seasons in his life. The introduction to the psalm in some Bible translations, such as the New King James Version, describes Psalm 34 as “A Psalm of David when he pretended madness before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he departed.”

It’s by no stretch of the imagination for us to see that this was one of the lowest points in David’s life. David was on the run from King Saul and sought refuge with the king of Gath (referred to as “Abimelech” in the introduction to the psalm). Remember Gath? Goliath, the giant who had terrorized the children of Israel, was from Gath. And now David was in such a state of disarray that he was seeking asylum from Goliath’s king! Oh, how the mighty had fallen!

When David was in Gath, the servants of the king of Gath recognized him and said, “Is this not David the king of the land?” They probably recognized him as the one who slew their champion Goliath and severed his head. It was, after all, a major defeat that would not be easily erased from their minds. So they reminded their king, “Did they not sing of him… ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands’?” (1 Sam. 21:11).