Praying For Deliverance

Praying for Deliverance

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all. Psalm 34:19, ESV

WE LONG FOR A TROUBLE-FREE LIFE. Many of us thought that’s exactly what we would receive when we first became Christians. But it doesn’t take long to realize that even though being a Christian delivers us from eternal trouble, it lands us in a whole new set of trials. We are promised the shalom of God’s Kingdom—the wholeness, fullness, and completeness of his peace—and we can certainly have it but not in isolation, shielded from every hint of difficulty. For now, we have peace in the midst of chaos, and sometimes that chaos is threatening. As the psalmist said, many are the afflictions of the righteous.

As alarming as the first half of that verse is, the second half is profoundly comforting. God commits to delivering us from every single affliction. His definition of deliverance may differ from ours at times, but this is no ethereal promise that everything will be okay in eternity after we’ve gone through hell on earth. It is an eternal promise, to be sure, but it has practical implications now. It means that regardless of what we face, no matter how difficult and dreadful it feels, we can have rock-solid assurance that God will get us out of it or through it somehow. He is a deliverer at heart, and we can rest in the certainty that he will be true to his nature.

That’s really the aim of the gospel, isn’t it? God delivers. He frees us from sin and death, from guilt and shame, and from all the forces that have tried to deface his image within us. He goes before us and behind us and places his hand of blessing on our head (Psalm 139:5). He releases us from bondage of every kind. Even the things that seem to bind us now have no power over his Spirit within us. He promises that we will overcome. In a very real sense, we already have.

When you pray for deliverance, your prayers are in the center of God’s will. Expect to experience immediate deliverance in your spirit and eventual deliverance in your circumstances. God is on an eternal rescue mission, and he has set his sights on your freedom.

My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee.