1 Kings 20:23 Then the servants of the king of Syria said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we, but if we fight against them in the plain, surely we will be stronger than they.
What is happening here is the Syrian army was just defeated by the armies of Israel. So the Syrian advisors explained to the king the reason for their defeat – it was because they fought Israel in the mountains. And they thought because Israel’s God is a God of the mountains, that was why they lost.
The truth is, the God of Israel was a God of the mountains because that’s where God often met with Moses, but what foolish advice the Syrians gave to their king. Now we often do use mountains in reference to “good times” and valleys to “tough times” and thus we too can also carry this same mind-set that the Syrian advisors carried.
Let me explain how:
When things are going well in life, we credit it to God, but then we think He has deserted us when we go through tough times. We start thinking to ourselves “what am I doing wrong?”, “what is causing all this trouble in my life?”
But the truth is the Lord your God is with you up there on the mountains and down there in the valleys. This is called right believing. It’s important to believe right and we do that every time we believe the gospel.
The gospel (good news) is about grace, mercy, and peace. Wealth, health, and good works are just “by-products” of this good news. At the very core of the gospel is Christ and the Cross. Jesus purchased your “salvation” upon that cross which means: Deliverance from sin, sickness and death and provision of health, wholeness, preservation, prosperity and everlasting life!
To receive all this deliverance and provision, you don’t focus on the “by-product” – the wealth, the health, the good works… you just need to focus on the Deliverer and Provider - Jesus.
Too many Christians focus on the “by-product” of the good news and they end up becoming distracted away from the gospel and towards the “by-product”. This only produces dead works and deadness in your life – it comes through wrong believing.
But when you focus on the good news – right believing - which is Christ and what He did for you on the cross, that’s when you are focusing on the source of life, and that life begins to flow.
Don’t become deceived like the Syrians, whose wrong believing was based on what did or didn’t happen, or what they did or didn’t have.
Be a solid, stable, secure, strong believer in the gospel of grace which is the good news of Jesus!