The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (32 page)

But Pastor Prince, how long do I spend doing this? You don’t know how crazy things get in the morning! How much must I read, listen, or pray?

My friend, the key is not to be legalistic about it. If morning doesn’t work for you, then find a time that best suits your schedule. It could be during your lunch break or just before you go to bed. The key principle here is to be satisfied daily with His grace. Feed on Him until your heart is full and satisfied with His grace. Some days it could be longer and other days shorter. It’s really not about the duration, but your level of satisfaction.

There are days when my heart is troubled, and just being in the Lord’s presence and thinking about His love for me fills my heart with inexplicable peace and joy. At such times, it takes only a few seconds for my heart to be satisfied with His grace. On other days, I feel like the Lord wants to show me something in His Word, and I end up studying it for a long time until I feel a release. This means that you and I can’t be legalistic about our relationship with God. God doesn’t want us to have rigid rituals with Him. In the new covenant, He is more interested in having a relationship with us.
So enjoy His presence daily—that’s how you redeem the time you have lost and never waste another day in bondage, fear, guilt, or addiction.

The psalmist says, “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Ps. 84:10). In other words, a day spent in God’s presence satisfied by His grace is better than a thousand spent elsewhere.

Think about this for a moment. There are 365 days in a year, so a thousand days is almost three years of your life. What this means is no matter how much time you think you have lost to being in bondage to fear or being trapped in an addiction, God can redeem those days for you by His grace. One day in God’s grace is equivalent to a thousand days of striving by your own efforts. Begin every day therefore satisfied in His grace, and God will restore to you all the years the locusts have eaten and stolen from you (see Joel 2:25).

Have a joyful, positive, and confident expectation of good because there are many good days ahead of you—days of blessings, days of favor, and days of great grace. Overcome every wrong believing by plugging in and hearing about the good news of Jesus. Hope will come flooding in even when everything around you seems hopeless. When you hear right, you will start to believe right!

H
e sat at the front porch every day, scanning the horizon for any sign of movement. He did this faithfully, even as the days rolled painfully into weeks and then months. When his friends came by to persuade him to give up and move on, he would simply smile and wave them on and persist unflinchingly. Keeping his gaze on the surrounding hills, he waited unwaveringly and patiently for the return of his son. As he waited, he rehearsed in his mind over and over again what he would do the moment he saw his son. And every day, as he looked earnestly across the fields, he wondered if that day would be the day.

One evening the familiar silhouette of a lone figure appeared in the distance. Recognizing his son, he enacted without hesitation what he had done a thousand times before in his mind: he pulled up his robes, cast aside all dignity, and ran toward his son with all his might. He could feel his heart pumping wildly and his lungs expanding and contracting as his feet tried to outdo each other across the field. Tears streamed down his face as his son grew larger in his sight with each pace. And before any words could be traded,
he had leaped forward, embraced the young man, and rained kisses on him.

This unexpected, joyous reception from the father overwhelmed the young man. He had expected to be disowned and even had a rehearsed speech to tell his father to make him one of his hired servants. How could he have known that his father had a rehearsed plan of his own? Without waiting to hear the son’s rehearsed speech, his father commanded the servants to bring out the best robe for him, to place a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. The young man thought he had lost the right to be called a son because of the bad choices he had made that resulted in shame and loss to the family. But his father made it clear that wasn’t so and even called for a party to celebrate the homecoming of his beloved son.

What an amazing and moving story. Jesus shared this parable, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful parables in the Bible. It’s a parable that Jesus used to skillfully unveil to us the true heart of our gracious and loving heavenly Father.

Bible commentators call this the parable of the prodigal son, but the real hero of this story isn’t the son, but the father. This is a story about the father and his love for his two sons. You may already have heard this parable shared a hundred times, but I want you to look at it again to see how this parable exposes the wrong beliefs that many believers today still have toward their Father in heaven.

Consider this for a moment: What is your opinion of God, especially when you’ve made a mistake? Do you see Him as an all-powerful, distant, and unfeeling judge who is angry whenever you fail and who constantly has to be appeased? Or do you know Him as your Daddy, your Abba Father whom you can run to anytime, even when you have fallen short?

As I was studying the Word, the Lord revealed to me that many believers have come to a place where they have forgotten their heavenly Father. They have forgotten about His love, His grace, and His loving-kindness. They relate to God in a judicial and transactional fashion.

Today many believers come before Him with apprehension and trepidation, presenting their failings to Him and quickly leaving before they get the punishment and condemnation
they think
they rightly deserve from Him. They perceive Him
exclusively
as a God of holiness, judgment, and justice—His face steely and stern, His mighty arms folded in dissatisfaction and disapproval. They see a God who is easily displeased, quick to anger, perpetually disappointed with them, and waiting impatiently to be placated.

This wrong belief of who God really is has driven many into fear, guilt, depression, and insecurity. And that is why it’s so vital we see the heart of the Father as unveiled by Jesus in this timeless parable.

Not too long ago, Lydia, a sister from South Africa, wrote to me. I believe that many of you would be able to identify with what she shared about her struggles in relating to God as her Father:

Do you feel the same way Lydia did about God?

Do you feel as though you are never good enough, can never do enough and be obedient enough for God to love and accept you?

Do you feel like you are always living under perpetual condemnation?

Perhaps you can’t relate to God as a loving Father because you’ve never experienced the love of your earthly father or because your own father has hurt you terribly.

My friend, I pray that as we study the Word of God together, you will supernaturally experience the intimate love of your heavenly Father in a deep and personal way like never before. I pray that this experience will heal, renew, restore, and transform you in a spectacular way because His love for you is nothing less than spectacular.

There is a vacuum in our hearts that can only be filled by the Father’s love. So stop trying to find love and approval in all the
wrong places and getting entangled with all kinds of fears, insecurities, and addictions. I believe that if you would allow the Father to come into your heart today and fill you up with His perfect love, you will find the joy, confidence, fulfillment, and freedom that you have been looking for in life.

God’s precious Word declares, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:18–19).

Today, under the new covenant of His amazing grace, our Father in heaven isn’t looking to judge you for your failings because He has already judged your every failing, mistake, and sin in the body of His own Son, Jesus Christ. The name that Jesus came to reveal in the new covenant of grace is “Father.” Today God wants to reach out to you as a caring and loving Father.

Do you know His heart of love toward you?

Do you know that it was His idea to send Jesus to be punished at the cross for you?

Read the most famous passage in the Bible and personalize it so that you can see God’s heart for
you
: “For God so loved
you
that He gave His only begotten Son, that
you
who believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn
you
, but that
you
through Him might be
saved” (John 3:16–17). Know beyond the shadow of a doubt today that your Father loves
you
and sent His own Son to save
you
.