The Power of Right Believing: 7 Keys to Freedom from Fear, Guilt, and Addiction (4 page)

But don’t go by those negative feelings and emotions, my friend. Live by the truth of God’s Word, which encourages you to “be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic… For the L
ORD
your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you” (Deut. 31:6
NLT
). Our God is a personal and loving God who is with you in your boat. He knows what storms are ahead and how to lead you to victory every time. He cannot fail you!

The Good Shepherd Goes Ahead of You

Jenny, a lady in my church, shared that she went on a golfing holiday with her husband up in a mountainous area. That morning as they stood at the first tee, there was a light mist overhanging the beautiful and serene green golf course. She had been meditating on the Lord being her shepherd in Psalm 23 and felt so loved by Him as she took in the picturesque, pastoral landscape and the cool, clean mountain air. She pictured herself being led by the good Shepherd, Jesus, who makes her lie down in tender green pastures and leads her beside still waters.

Even though Jenny had never played on that course before, she
ended up playing her best round of golf. How did that happen? It was because they had an experienced caddy with them, and she had benefitted from every bit of observation and advice that he had offered her. She wasn’t a regular golfer and had been a little anxious about the challenges ahead, but the caddy had assured her confidently, saying, “Don’t worry, I have thirty years of experience on this golf course. I have been all over this course, and I am familiar with every hazard and every trap that is ahead of you. I will show you what to avoid and where to aim.” And by just heeding his guidance, her golf ball landed on every fairway and she played the best round of golf in her life!

My friend, you have more than just an experienced caddy in your life. You have the One who created the universe as the shepherd of your life! This shepherd has been to your future. He knows every hazard and every trap that is ahead, and He has laid out a path for you that is filled with His favor. And even when you make a mistake or take a wrong turn in life, He is still
with you
to
help
and
rescue
you. Look at what the psalmist says:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

—Psalm 23:4

The Door of Hope in Your Valley of Trouble

Notice from the verse that it was not the good shepherd who led the psalmist into the valley of trouble, as the psalmist says, “Yea,
though
I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death…” Yet the Bible is so clear in stating that even if your trouble is due to your own willfulness, God is still with you. He has never left you, and He never will. He will never forsake you. You are precious in His eyes. Can you imagine living life with that kind of confidence, assurance, and peace? Then believe in no uncertain terms that God will
never
abandon you and leave you in the lurch!

In fact, the Bible says that God will turn the Valley of Achor into a door of hope for you (see Hosea 2:15). In the Hebrew, “Achor” means “trouble.”
¹
So even if you find yourself in the valley of trouble, you will not remain there for long. You will walk through it and not remain or camp there. God is opening a door of hope in your life today for you to step out of your darkness and into His marvelous light (see 1 Pet. 2:9). Things are going to get better. The breakthroughs that you have been waiting for are coming your way. Step through the door of hope and out of your valley of trouble today. Jesus is your door of hope! Believe in His love for you and allow Him to lead you to freedom.

Some people think that when they fail, God leaves them and only returns when they get their act together. They think that they must clean up their lives and overcome all their struggles on their own before they can come before the presence of God. Well, I have a simple question for them: Do you clean yourself before you take a bath? Of course not!

God wants us to come to Him just as we are, with all our weaknesses, idiosyncrasies, wrong beliefs, hang-ups, and all our bondages, fears, and addictions.
He
is the bath! So don’t try to clean yourself up before you come to Him. In the presence of His love, joy, and grace, you will find restoration, healing, and forgiveness. He will mend your life and transform you from the inside out. Right now, He is extending His hand of grace, love, and help to you. There is no shame in coming to Jesus just as you are. He who knows you perfectly loves you perfectly!

To Know the Truth, Go to the Source

But Pastor Prince, isn’t God disappointed and angry with me for all my failings, mistakes, and sins? I’m too embarrassed to go to Him. I feel that I should sort out all this mess in my life before I can go back to church, read the Bible, and pray.

I understand how you feel. And I can tell you that you are not alone in those sentiments. Many believers that I have personally counseled feel exactly the same way. But the most effective way to address our problems and wrong beliefs is to go to God and find out the truth from His Word. In order to get our believing right, we need to first discover what the “right beliefs” are, based on the solid foundation of God’s Word. We can’t base our beliefs on feelings, circumstances, human conjectures, or what we may have heard someone say about God. We have to go to the source!

If you heard a rumor that someone you knew was saying horrible and negative things about you, don’t believe it immediately. Go to the source first. Ask this person if this is what he or she really said or if this is what he or she really meant. Many people allow precious friendships and relationships to become fractured because they believe the rumors. They become bitter, angry, and disappointed without ever verifying with the person if he or she had actually said those nasty things.

In the same way, in the world we live in, there are all kinds of wrong beliefs perpetuated about God: “God is angry at you.” “He is disappointed with you.” “God is allowing all these negative things to happen to you because He’s punishing you for your past sins.”

Please do NOT believe all this baseless gossip about God! Such impressions of God have damaged many people’s relationships with Him, and they live with a distorted perspective of who God really is. Instead of receiving His love, grace, and forgiveness, they become afraid, distant, and fearful of Him. Instead of allowing Jesus to come into their situations, they live their life running away, avoiding and hiding from Him. Come on, let’s honor God and go to the source.

So what does the Bible—God’s own Word—say about Him? Let me quote from one of my favorite psalms of David:

The L
ORD
is
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy… He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our
iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west,
so
far has He removed our transgressions from us.

—Psalm 103:8, 10–12

Isn’t this a beautiful psalm? Don’t be thrown off by the phrase, “toward those who fear Him.” Jesus defined the word “fear” as “worship” (see Deut. 6:13 and Matt. 4:10). So “those who fear Him” speaks of those who reverence and honor God in their lives. It is
not
the practice of being fearful or afraid of God. The whole context of this passage is about who and what God really is—gracious and merciful. And I strongly encourage you to memorize verse 10 if you can: “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.”

God Abounds in Mercy toward You

Let’s get back to your earlier question: Is God disappointed and angry with you for your failures, mistakes, and sins? No! Read the above Scriptures again. The point here is that as a child of God, all your failures, mistakes, and sins have
already
been judged and punished on the body of Jesus at the cross! That’s why God is no longer angry with you for your sins and He doesn’t deal with you according to your sins. No, because of the cross, He deals with you according to His bountiful mercy and grace.

Just in case you missed it, the psalm repeatedly stresses that
God is merciful. It tells us that “the L
ORD
is merciful” and goes on, almost immediately, to say again that He is “abounding in mercy.” In the King James Version of the Bible, it says that God is “plenteous in mercy.” I like the word “plenteous.” It speaks of abundance, excess, and lavishness. His mercy toward you and me is plenteous. He abounds in mercy toward us!

My friend, God has exhausted His anger toward all your sins at the cross. The cross is an act of His love. If you ever doubt or question God’s love for you, just turn your eyes to the cross. If God wants to deal with us and punish us according to our sins, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to be scourged, beaten, and crucified, but He did! This is the good news of the gospel of grace. God sent His only beloved and precious Son to redeem us from the penalty and punishment of sin.

Now, can you imagine how far the east is from the west? You cannot think just in terms of the geographical boundaries of the earth. God is the Creator of the universe. So let me ask you again, how far is the east from the west? Are you getting this? The human mind cannot fathom the distance between the east and the west. There are frontiers in the cosmos and galaxies beyond our own that our most advanced telescopes cannot see. God thinks in infinite terms that our finite minds cannot wrap around. And this God of the infinite universe declares in the psalm that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us!”

Let us reason together. How can God still be judging and punishing you for your transgressions if He Himself has removed them? I can hear the chains of your wrong beliefs about God falling to the ground as you read this! This is what I call the power of right believing. You start to believe right when you start to believe in His
love for you. The truth is, we can’t go further if you don’t first begin to believe that God is for you and not against you. The first key to right believing is to be established in His grace, anchored in His love, and secure in His mercy toward you.

From Self-Conscious to Savior-Conscious

Let’s return to the story of the woman of Samaria, the one whom Jesus went deliberately to meet. This woman had a past that she was terribly ashamed of, which is why she came at noontime to draw water. She didn’t want to meet anybody. What she didn’t know was that Jesus was there and He wanted to meet
her
. He hadn’t come all that way to embarrass, judge, or mock her. Read the account in John chapter 4 for yourself. Jesus drew her in with His love, grace, and compassion. She never felt exposed or ill at ease in His presence.

When she said that she had no husband, Jesus didn’t call her out and humiliate her. Instead, knowing that she was self-conscious and insecure about her background, He commended her twice by saying, “
You have well said
, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that
you spoke truly
” (John 4:17–18, emphasis mine). He sandwiched what He already knew about her between two compliments! Jesus must have spoken to her with so much compassion and love
in His eyes, and with no judgment or sarcasm in His voice, that it caused this woman to let down her defenses and open up to Him.

By the time she left His presence, this self-conscious lady who once feared meeting people was so occupied with Jesus’ love and acceptance that she became an evangelist of Jesus and His grace. She went back to the village and testified about Jesus (to the very people she had been terrified of before), and the Bible records that “many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all that I ever did’ ” (John 4:39).

In the same way, my friend, Jesus is not out to embarrass you today. He is here to meet you right where you are. He knows all that you have ever done and loves you with an everlasting love. Allow His love to change and transform you from within, just like it did for the woman at the well.

Perhaps like the Samaritan woman, you know what it’s like to look for love in all the wrong places. Today Jesus offers you true intimacy that fully satisfies every aching need. He offers you a deep sense of rest that can only be found in His perfect and unconditional love. Perhaps you’ve had a past that has imprisoned you in shame and self-loathing. Perhaps you’ve allowed the things that you have done to convince you that you’ll never have God’s acceptance or love. If you’ve always only known or heard of a hard and judgmental God, a God who holds every misdeed you’ve committed against you, then I challenge you to encounter the real Savior who has already forgiven you and invites you to discover, taste, and experience His unfailing love.

It doesn’t matter how ugly a mess your life may have spiraled
down into. If you will open your heart to Jesus and allow His love to heal you, He can change the trajectory of your life and give you a fresh start and fulfilling future. Everything can change for the better when you begin to believe right about His love for you and learn to draw upon it!