The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (3 page)

My friend, that is the power of right believing!

God’s Truth Triggers Your Deliverance

The moment Kate and Frank began to hear and believe the right things about God, it triggered their deliverance in an accelerated fashion. Knowing the truth was the catalyst. Contrast this with those who focus on living right without paying attention to believing right. Sadly, they only experience transient breakthroughs to the extent their willpower, self-control, or discipline persists. But those who focus on and believe the truth about God experience lasting freedom effortlessly. Jesus certainly wasn’t kidding or exaggerating when He said that knowing the truth sets you free.

Jesus has the truth that you need, that you’ve been searching for. He is
the
way,
the
truth, and
the
life (see John 14:6). In love, He willingly laid down His life at the cross to set you free. That’s what this book is all about—transforming what you believe through the power of His sacrificial love and eternal truths. I’ve endeavored to make these truths as accessible and plain to see as possible for you. As you read the words, Scriptures, and stories of real people who have been set free by simply believing these truths about God and what He says about them, I pray that you will encounter God’s grace like never before. And as you meditate on these truths, I am confident that you will be walking in freedom sooner than you think. Your liberation is at hand!

With God There Is Always Hope

Dear reader, I don’t know what your hurt is today, and I don’t know what exactly you are struggling with. I just want you to know that God loves you. No matter how many mistakes you have made in your life, no matter how dark, how dire, and how desperate the circumstances seem, I have a message for you: It’s not over. Don’t throw in the towel!

Maybe you are struggling with some dark thoughts right now. Perhaps even thoughts of suicide have crossed your mind. Well, I can tell you it isn’t over. There is hope. There is help. God loves you so much. He wants to throw a beam of light on your path today, just like He did for Kate who was enslaved by alcohol for years. The mistakes of your past need not determine your future. God can give you a new beginning, a fresh start, and cause all things to work out for your good!

Pastor Prince, you don’t understand. How can I expect God to help me since I’m not a “religious” person?

That makes two of us!

There is not a religious bone in my body. I’m not here to talk to you about a religion. I’m here to show you a God who is alive, who cares, who breathes, who loves, who in many ways has been misrepresented and misunderstood. There is so much wrong believing about who God is.

Presenting the Real God

I want you to put aside whatever you may have believed about God, whatever you may have heard about Him or seen about Him. Allow me, through this book, to introduce the real Jesus to you, for this is where it all begins. Not the religious Jesus you may have heard about growing up, but the real Jesus who walked along the dusty streets of Jerusalem and upon the raging waters of the Galilee.

He was the one whom the sick, the poor, the sinful, the down-and-out, and the outcast instinctively gravitated to and felt at ease with. He was God in the flesh, and He manifested God’s tangible love. In His presence, those who were imperfect didn’t feel fearful of Him or sense judgment or condemnation from Him. A far cry from what many of us have been taught about God.

Jesus kept His harshest words only for those who were perfect in their own estimation. If you look carefully at all the biblical accounts of Jesus, He really didn’t get along well with the religious folks of His day, who were known as Pharisees. They paraded around, their noses in the air with a holier-than-thou attitude. Although they would never admit it, they were extremely arrogant and cruelly judgmental.

The Pharisees were critical, faultfinding, legalistic, pretentious, bigoted, and most of all, ignorant. They made loud claims about their piousness for God. Yet when they stood in the very presence of God Himself, they were too self-occupied to recognize Him. God was with them in the flesh, but they did not worship Him. Instead, they scorned Him and on many occasions even plotted to kill Him.

Unfortunately, their “descendants” are still around today! Perhaps you’ve encountered them and have felt the heat of their scorn, condemnation, and judgment.

But the God they speak of is not the God whom I personally know. You don’t have to be “religious” to have access to the God whom I know. In fact, the less “religious” you are, the better. So I am asking you to throw out every idea, concept, and picture that you may have of a “religious” Jesus. The real Jesus didn’t come to bring a new religion. He didn’t come to be served and waited upon. No, He came to serve, and serve He did.

The real Jesus created the universe with one command and orchestrated the paths of each planet so that none would collide. He had every right to demand service from those He created, yet He supplied service. He kneeled down and with His own hands washed the grime and filth from His disciples’ feet. Those same hands would later be pierced with coarse nails at the cross, and He would, with His own blood, wash us of the grime and filth of all our sins by taking them upon His own body. What a far cry from the condemning, judgmental, faultfinding God that many have portrayed Him to be!

Believe in a God of Grace

Many today believe in a “religious” God. They believe that God is against them when they fall short, that He is angry with them when
they fail, that fellowship with Him is cut off when they make mistakes. They believe that God is perpetually unsatisfied with them, waiting impatiently to be appeased. They imagine a God who is constantly judging them for their weaknesses, shaking His head in abject disappointment at their mediocrity or never-ending failures. They believe that they are not good enough for God and will never be good enough for Him.

It’s no wonder then that instead of running to the one true solution, they run in the opposite direction when they are hurting. So there is a great deception, a powerful, wrong belief about God that has trapped many in the vicious cycle of condemnation, guilt, fear, defeat, and addiction.

My friend, the God I know is a God of infinite grace. He is repugnant to the “religious,” but gracious and irresistible to those who are hurting.

No matter what you are going through today, whatever addictions may be binding you, right believing can and will set you free. Start with believing this powerful truth:

God is a God of grace and forgiveness. He loves you very much, and He doesn’t hold your mistakes against you.

Begin to believe in His love for you and your entire life will be transformed. Right believing always leads to right living. If you can change what you believe, you can change your life!

S
he waited patiently until the coast was clear. She didn’t want to run into any of the other women who had made it painfully clear to her that her presence was repugnant to them. She could no longer stand the gossip, snide remarks, and disapproving eyes. Several weeks ago as she was nearing the well to draw water, the other women, fully aware that she was within earshot, began warning one another to keep their husbands far away from her.

“She’s a seductress!” one had whispered loudly. “Do you know that she has had five husbands from other villages?”

Another woman had chimed in: “And the man whom she’s living with now is not even her husband.”

Nursing each other’s insecurities, they began to make all kinds of baseless accusations about her.

“She’s a loose woman!”

“She’ll steal your husband in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t you be taken in by her innocent doe eyes and beguiling smile!”

Juicy variations of her “husband stealing” prowess had soon
spread throughout the village where she lived like a swarm of locusts, devouring every remaining shred of her dignity.

She had quickly become an outcast in the village. No one dared to befriend her. Since moving there, she had tried everything to keep her past under wraps. However, once the news broke, no one cared to hear her side of the story. She was pigeonholed as the woman with a shady past. The verdict was already in—she was a home wrecker! What else was there to know?

It had been weeks since she had spoken to anyone. Wild stories about why she had had five husbands spread virally through the village grapevine. To insulate herself and avoid further contact with the other ladies, she had devised a system. Since all the women would be at the well replenishing their water supply in the cool early morning, she would only make her daily visit to the well when the sun was at its apex. She would much rather bear the punishing blaze of the midday sun than the heat of their scorn and ridicule. Every day since then, she had come quietly to the well, meeting no one at all, and faded back into nonexistence after getting her fill of water.

Unbeknownst to her, on this day, as she was waiting patiently for the sun to rise to its peak, the Sun of righteousness was already by the well waiting for her.

A Savior Who Reaches Out to the Imperfect

You can actually read about this woman in the Gospel of John (see John 4:1–42). When you read her story or any story in the Bible, I encourage you to activate your imagination—not to change the
meaning of the biblical accounts, but to draw out the essence of the details and gems that God has for your benefit. Put yourself in the narrative. These characters are not part of a fictional story. They are real people, with real challenges and a very real Savior!

There are no insignificant details in the Bible. It tells us specifically that it was about noon when Jesus was at the well waiting for the woman. It also records that Jesus was traveling from Judea to Galilee and that “He
had
to go through Samaria” (John 4:4
NLT
, emphasis mine). The New King James Version says that “He
needed
to go through Samaria,” and the King James Version puts it this way: “He
must
needs go through Samaria.”

Had to. Needed to. Must. Words that speak not just of necessity, but underscore a steady resolve and even urgency!

Jesus’ disciples must have been surprised when He said that He needed to go through Samaria. They had never taken that route before to Galilee. It was the custom of the Jews of that day to avoid any contact with the Samaritans, whom they perceived to be spiritually inferior. Jesus’ disciples didn’t know that He had deliberately scheduled a divine appointment with the woman at the well.

We know from the account found in John chapter 4 that this ostracized, lonely woman had a life-transforming conversation with Jesus at the well. But make no mistake—it wasn’t she who sought out Jesus to talk to Him. It was the Savior who pursued the one whom others shunned. Do you know that He is still doing that today?

Do you have a past that you are ashamed of? Are you struggling to overcome something that you know is destroying you? Do you feel all alone and that no one understands the pain you are going through?

I want you to know that Jesus hasn’t changed. As He was for
the Samaritan woman, the loving Savior is still your very present help in your time of need (see Ps. 46:1). He knows the suffering, shame, and struggles you are going through right now. And even if what you are going through is a consequence of bad life choices and mistakes of your own doing, He doesn’t abandon and forsake you. No—a thousand times, no! He goes out of the way, just like He did for this woman in Samaria, to have a personal appointment with you, to restore and rescue you. The fact that you are reading this right now is a confirmation that Jesus is reaching out to you with His love, grace, and forgiveness. My friend, this is who Jesus is!

He Comes to You in the Midst of Your Storm

The loving Savior comes to you at your point of need. When His disciples were out at sea, caught in a turbulent tempest and tossed by the waves, who came to them in their darkest hour? It was Jesus Himself. Jesus came in style, walking on the raging waters.

What does this tell you? That He is above the storms. He walks above—He is greater than—every adversity and opposition that you may be facing right now, and He comes to you to rescue you!

With the billowing waves beneath His feet, His first words to His disciples were, “Don’t be afraid. Take courage. I am here!” (Matt. 14:27
NLT
).

What comfort those words must have brought to the disciples
who were exhausted and shaking with fear. Storms are good at doing that to you. They overwhelm you. Wave after wave of relentless battering that knocks you off your feet till you don’t know which side is up. Till every ounce of energy is used up and you feel so weak, abandoned, and lonely.