The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (28 page)

Say it out loud right now: “It’s not over!”

God is working behind the scenes on your behalf, and He is turning the situation around for your good (see Rom. 8:28). He is preparing a table before you in the presence of your enemies (see Ps. 23:5). All His abundant heavenly resources, His power, His healing, His restoration, His deliverance, His provision, His favor, His help, His comfort, and His love are with you and on your side, waiting to be unleashed upon you. The Lord your God will open up the windows of heaven over your life and pour out for you such a blessing that there won’t be room enough to receive it! When our entire hope and trust is in Him, we can count on His promises toward us. He will rebuke the devourer for our sakes and not allow the enemy to take what rightfully belongs to us.

Unfortunately, the word “hope” as used in our modern vernacular is completely different and sometimes even antithetical to the way the Bible defines it. When we use the word “hope” today, we say things like, “I hope that I will get the job” and “I hope that it will not rain tomorrow.” Our use of the word connotes uncertainty, doubt, and ambivalence. Many times we even use the word “hope” in a negative sense, as if expecting the worst. For instance, we might say, “I hope that the medical report is not going to be bad,” in tones full of fear, apprehension, and insecurity. This is not Bible hope.

Hope That Doesn’t Disappoint

The Word of God declares that “this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us” (Rom. 5:5
NLT
). In the English Standard Version, it says that “hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” We can have true hope—a certain, joyful, confident expectation of good—when we rightly believe how dearly God loves us! There is a direct and proportionate correlation between hope and rightly believing in God’s love for you. Hope springs in your heart when you believe that God loves you. You can have a confident expectation of good because you have a good God who will never leave you in the lurch!

No matter how adverse your circumstances may seem today, put your trust in the Lord. Man may disappoint and fail us, but God never fails. Psalm 118:8–9 spells this out for us when it says, “It is better to trust in the L
ORD
than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the L
ORD
than to put confidence in princes.” Just look at the results when we do so—despite being attacked on all fronts, the psalmist is able to boldly declare, “All nations surrounded me, but in the name of the L
ORD
I will destroy them” (Ps. 118:10).

Do you want to know why the psalmist could put his trust in
the Lord instead of man? The secret is revealed in how this psalm begins and ends. The very first verse begins with an emphatic, “Oh, give thanks to the L
ORD
, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever,” and the psalm ends with the identical refrain, “Oh, give thanks to the L
ORD
, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (v. 29).

My friend, hope in the Lord for
He is
good, and His love for you endures forever! No matter how difficult, impossible, or dire your current situation may be, you can have a positive, optimistic, and confident expectation of good. And it’s because you know and believe that your God is good and that His love for you endures for all eternity. You are the apple of His eye! This hope never disappoints, which means that your greatest victories are ahead of you.

Stand Still

After Jehoshaphat set himself to seek the Lord and prayed before all the assembly of Judah, the spirit of the Lord came upon Jahaziel and he spoke the words of the Lord:

“Listen, all you of Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem, and you, King Jehoshaphat! Thus says the L
ORD
to you: ‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great
multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s… You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the L
ORD
, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the L
ORD
is with you.”

—2 Chronicles 20:15, 17

On hearing these words of hope, all Judah humbled themselves before the Lord, bowing before Him and worshiping Him.

Today the Lord is saying the same words to you in your situation. Hope in Him for He loves you! You don’t have to live in fear and discouragement when you know that the battle is not yours, but the Lord’s. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The battle is His, and you will not need to fight in it.

What do you do when you don’t know what do? The best thing you can do is to
stand still.

Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord in your situation.

But Pastor Prince, if I stand still, nothing will happen!

My friend, standing still is not inactivity or doing nothing. It’s a posture of hope, and it involves keeping your hope anchored on the person of Jesus and having a sure and confident expectation of good. When the marauding armies of Pharaoh were charging toward the children of Israel, hell-bent on annihilating them, Moses simply declared to the terrified Israelites, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the L
ORD
” (Exod. 14:13). The Hebrew word for salvation is
yeshua
, which is actually the name of Jesus. So salvation is the person of Jesus, and He is with you.

When you are caught in a hopeless situation, learn to position
yourself—stand still and see the saving power of Jesus work on your behalf. He will never leave you nor forsake you (see Heb. 13:5). And as you center yourself, your thoughts, your beliefs, and your hopes on Him, He will lead you concerning what to do, just as He led Jehoshaphat to a triumphant victory over his enemies.

Believe in the Lord

We are about to come to the climax of the story. Are you ready to read about Jehoshaphat’s battle?

The Bible tells us that “they rose early in the morning and went out into the Wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, ‘Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the L
ORD
your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper’ ” (2 Chron. 20:20).

I want to encourage you to commit this simple and powerful Scripture to memory. I call this the 20/20 vision because this verse is found in chapter 20, verse 20. To have 20/20 vision is to have what eye doctors consider healthy visual acuity. This means that you are not suffering from myopia or shortsightedness and are able to see with clarity when you stand 20 feet away from the eye chart.

If you desire to have spiritual visual acuity and a 20/20 vision
of the good that God has for you in your future, then believe in the Lord and the words of His prophets (the pastors and preachers whom God has placed in your life)! That is the power of right believing. Don’t be myopic and be caught up with your current challenges, running around like a headless chicken, trying to solve your problems in your own strength. God doesn’t want you to live in a perpetual state of uncertainty, anxiety, stress, and fear.

Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established.

Believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.

Believe that the battles you are facing belong to the Lord.

When you believe right, you will experience true Bible hope and start living with a certain, joyful, confident expectation of good regardless of your current circumstances.

Many are struggling because they don’t believe in the Lord. They don’t believe in His Word, and they don’t believe in His prophets. Their crisis is a crisis of belief! That’s why it’s so essential to understand the power of right believing. Right believing will always produce right living. If you can change what you believe, you can most definitely change your life and begin living with hope, joy, and confidence.

Jehoshaphat’s Unusual Military Strategy

Just before the army of Judah marched out to the battlefield, Jehoshaphat consulted with the people. Then he did a very unusual
thing. He appointed worshipers who would sing praises to the Lord to go before the army! This was a very peculiar military strategy, to say the least. Ask any warfare expert. No one would advise you to send your musicians to the battlefield, much less position them right in front—unless you had a death wish for them.

From the little that I know about military warfare, you need to send in your elite forces first, such as your commandos or Navy Seals, to gather intelligence or strike at key targets. And they are supposed to operate in stealth mode to gain tactical advantage against your enemy. A band of worshipers praising God at the top of their voices and giving away their very position to the enemy sounds more like a suicide mission than a good military strategy.

But remember, this was no ordinary battle. The battle belonged to the Lord, and the Word records for us that the moment “they began to sing and to praise, the L
ORD
set ambushes against the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah; and they were defeated” (2 Chron. 20:22).

God caused confusion among the enemies’ camps and instead of coming against Judah, the soldiers of Ammon and Moab formed an alliance to “utterly kill and destroy” the inhabitants of Mount Seir. Then, when they had completely annihilated them, they turned against each other and began destroying one another until everyone was killed (see 2 Chron. 20:23).

All this while, as their enemies were destroying one another, the worshipers of Judah were praising God, oblivious to what was going on among their enemies. So when they arrived at the place that overlooked the battlefield, they braced themselves for an all-out attack by the combined forces of three different enemies.

Imagine their faces when the sight of the dead bodies of their would-be executioners sprawled across the valley greeted them instead. The destruction of their enemies was so complete that the Bible records, “No one had escaped” (2 Chron. 20:24).

Praise the Lord for He Is Good

Judah did not draw a single sword that day, but the battle was won. In fact, it was won before Judah’s troops even arrived at the scene.

Did you notice
when
the Lord began to set ambushes against their enemies? It was when they
began
to sing praises to God. When I hear this story being taught over the pulpit, the emphasis is usually on how praise defeats our enemies. That’s a great teaching. But today I want to take you one step deeper. I want to show you that the words of praise used are just as important, if not even more important. You can praise the Lord for different things, but in seasons when pressures, challenges, and problems come at you on all fronts, what do you do when you don’t know what to do? In times of great adversity, how do you maintain a confident expectation of good and continue to hope in the Lord?

You should know by now that one of my favorite phrases is, “There are no insignificant details in the Bible.” God deliberately records for us the words that the people of Judah praised Him with as they marched into battle. And that is why we know that they were singing, “Praise the L
ORD
, for His mercy endures forever” (2 Chron 20:21). Sounds familiar? We talked about this earlier in this chapter when we were studying how Psalm 118 begins and ends
with this same refrain. But this phrase doesn’t only appear in the book of Psalms. In fact, this refrain is so close to God’s heart that it features very prominently in many key moments in Israel’s history.

For instance, the Bible chronicles that on the very day that David finally brought the ark of the covenant back to Jerusalem, he delivered a psalm into the hand of Asaph that contained this refrain: “Oh, give thanks to the L
ORD
, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever” (see 1 Chron. 16:7, 34). Then on the day of the dedication of the temple that David’s son, Solomon, built for God, the Bible also notes that all the children of Israel worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever” (2 Chron. 7:3). Again, we hear this powerful refrain.

My friend, I think it’s obvious that there is something very special about these two simple lines of praise. I believe God wants us to meditate upon and praise Him with these simple words even when we are feeling down, overwhelmed, or fearful. In such times, we can still praise Him because He is good and His mercy endures forevermore. Do you believe that today? Praise Him with these words until you believe it in your heart, and I promise you that hope will spring forth from within you.

Many are struggling today because they don’t believe that God is good and that His mercy endures forever. The word for “mercy” here is the very potent Hebrew word
hesed,
which speaks of God’s grace, love, tender mercies, and loving-kindness.
²
No matter how many times you have failed and fallen short, and even if the troubles that surround you are a consequence of your own actions, would you turn to the Lord today and praise Him for His goodness and His
hesed
(His grace)?

I have experienced His goodness and His
hesed
(His grace) in this way myself. Some years ago when I was going through a challenging time in my life, God gave me a heavenly tune and these words just flowed out of my spirit: “Praise the Lord for He is so good, and His love endures forever. Praise the Lord for He is so good, and His mercy endures forevermore.” It was a very simple, pure, and uncomplicated tune, and I just sang it over and over again until all my fears, anxieties, and worries disappeared and I felt completely free.