Activating God's Promises

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Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Can you believe it? Now, we're starting episode 226. I want to thank everyone who's been so faithful to download this show every week and listen to it. I just pray this been a blessing to you. I pray that somehow, someway, this has helped you. Be sure and share it with your friends and uh subscribe and rate, review, you know, all the good stuff. The show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry. I say that every week. You know, I founded that school in 1998. I have spent thousands of hours working for it, and we've had hundreds of graduates from all over the world. And it's been a real impactful ministry. Um, if you'd like to enroll, go to icmcollege.org. Or maybe you want to help sponsor the school because we give away thousands of dollars and scholarships to people who are hurting. That's icmcollege.org/donate. Whatever. I– but whatever you want to do, it's up to you and the Lord. I thank you for listening to Self Talk. This is your host, Dr. Ray. 

So in this show, episode 226, I'm going to talk– I've been talking about blessings and abundant life. Last week I talked about the power of letting go. But what I have also seen happen is people do these things. They let go. They trust God. God gives them an unusual blessing. Something that's greater and more than they could ever imagine, which you know the scripture promises us. Remember, we talked about how God wants to do exceedingly abundantly more than you can ever think or imagine. And so you get this blessing, and then you got it, but then it fades away, or it's gone. What happened to it? I mean, where, where'd it go? I mean, I, I thought I had this blessing. I mean, I was so excited. You know, you, you're at the church, and there was an altar call, and the anointing was, was all over you, and somebody prophesied to you a word that, that blessed your life and turned your life around, and you felt healed. You felt restored. You felt encouraged, and you knew that the, the anointing had hit you and you were blessed and, and a week later it's like, "Where'd He go? Where'd He go? What, what happened to that? 

To me, there's a number of factors I want to talk about, about sustaining your blessing. Moving and, and let the blessing remain. There are some things we can do. Now, I know a lot of blessings are strictly unconditional. No matter what you do, no matter what you did, it came. It's there. It's there for you. It's not going anywhere. But I've experienced, and you've experienced, sometimes when the, the blessings come, and God is really moving your life, and it just seems like an incredible time, but then it goes away, and things revert back to the way it was. You know, what, what do we do? What, what happened? Well, what I want to talk to you about is there are things that we can do and should do to maintain a long-term blessing.

So, I don't want the blessing to leave us. I want the blessing to remain. And it should remain. Now, one of the key things I've talked about, maybe in some previous shows, is self-sabotage. I want you to examine yourself. Do you deserve, do you believe you deserve, I know you do deserve it, but do you believe you deserve God's blessing? Do you really? Oh, yeah. I know you want it, but do you believe you deserve it? This is a key thing with Christians. I've ministered to thousands of Christians over the years. And one of the biggest problems I see is people who feel, Christians who feel unworthy because of shame or condemnation or messages from their past, which we've talked about in shows. They have a subconscious feeling of unworthiness. You know, “I'm not, I don't quite measure up. I'm not fully acceptable.” Now, this is not true. How do I know it's not true? Because I know if you're saved and Jesus Christ is your savior, you're incredibly worthy because Jesus gave His life in exchange for your life, which makes you a very valuable person and worthy. You see, your salvation and your adoption is not based on your works, your lifestyle, what you did or didn't do. It's, it's a free gift from God. It's not, it's not based on how good you've been or your successes or your failures. It's a free gift from God which makes you worthy. You are incredibly worthy because God has made you worthy. It's not about you. It's about what God has done in you by choosing you. If that makes sense. 

So when you have this feeling or this subconscious belief of unworthiness, many times what people do is they sabotage or they will, because this subconscious belief, they'll do things to sabotage or shortcircuit the blessing. Uh, I've seen men get the blessing of an incredible job and then do things to, to mess up the job or maybe to get into a really healthy relationship and not be able to continue it. Maybe have a, a financial blessing but not be able to hold on to it. And the reason is because subconsciously, there's a belief that they're undeserving of this. And so their actions play out. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. Their actions play out in their life and they start doing things to sabotage the blessing. 

Now, the way to counter that is to know that God wants to bless you and you are deserving of this. You are His child. He loves you unconditionally, not based on what you did or didn't do. He wants to bless you, and He wants the blessings to remain. The Bible talks about the blessings should remain. So ask yourself, have you self-sabotaged? What do you believe about yourself? Challenge yourself. When you were born again, you became a new creation. You became a child of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. Do you really believe this? Are you living the identity you had before salvation? You got to drop that old identity. That's not who you are anymore. You're a different person now. Know who you are. Know that when you were born again, you became a different person. Do you know this person? Do you have a strong identity in this person? Do you understand who this person is? Or are you just living your old self? You see, if you don't understand who you are and how much you deserve and your, your identity in Christ, the only identity you have left is the identity you've had ever since you were born. And that's not who you are. When you got born again, you became another person. 

Look at the Apostle Paul. Who was he? He was a Pharisee. He was a persecutor of Christians, a vile man. I mean a vi– today we call him a terrorist. He would– he did horrible things to Christians. Had them arrested, had families separated, um, helped in the murder of Stephen. I mean, he was a bad dude. But he was born again, met Christ, and became a different person. He became the author of two-thirds of the New Testament. The Apostle Paul, who still– planted church– and is still affecting the churches today. An amazing person. He's not who he was. He's not that man before Jesus. He's the man after Jesus. And you are the man and woman after Jesus. So knowing that and living in that will help you keep your blessing. 

Now, the other thing to keep your blessing I want to talk about is your faith. Believe and trust God. So you trusted God to get the blessing. Continue to trust Him. That means trust Him with things you don't understand. Trust Him with things that you have no control over. Continually, continually surrender your life to Him and continually try to be a good steward of the blessing. Now, sometimes God will give you a blessing, and He wants to see what you do with it. Are you going to manage it well? Are you going to squander it and not be faithful with it? Remember, Jesus talked about the good and faithful servant? So remember this that we're stewards of the king. Now, a king which is Jesus owns everything, including our house, our finances, our money, our life, our family, our marriage. He owns it all. Our job is to manage what He has blessed us with. Now, if we are faithful with the blessing, no matter how small the promise is, He gives us more. If we're unfaithful with and maybe ignore the blessing or not be, not show integrity with the blessing, then we'll, we'll lose it. We'll lose the blessing. Maybe God blessed you with um, a new ministry idea, and you started off in this ministry and it, it was going great, and then all of a sudden you lost interest, and you stopped being faithful to it. Well, God's blessing was there, but your faithfulness to the blessing caused it to be short-circuited.

You see, we have to have integrity, which means we are going to be faithful and show integrity with the blessings that have been given us. We're going to be good stewards of the blessing that has been given us. Maybe God gave us a financial blessing. So, what should we do with that? We should seek the Lord with what He wants us to do with that, how He wants to spend that money. And I'll tell you this, many times we, we get a blessing so we can be, be a blessing. Maybe you were supposed to give to a particular ministry or particular person, or particular somebody in stress, but you didn't do it, and you weren't faithful with the reason for your blessing. Maybe, you know, you received a blessing in a relationship. I, I will tell you this. I just, you, you know, I'm very transparent. Looking back in my life, I remember godly people that were sent into my life that were to be a blessing for me, healthy, normal, godly people. And when I was younger, I was very drawn to dysfunctional people. And so when I was around somebody who was healthy and supportive and wonderful, I tend to lose that relationship. I tend to, to leave that relationship and go find somebody dysfunctional because I was comfortable with dysfunction. I had a low self-esteem. I didn't realize who I was in Christ. I didn't feel worthy of the great relationships that God had sent me. So, I go back into unhealthy relationships. Are you following me with that? Because I, I did not feel worthy and I was not faithful with the healthy. I was more comfortable with unhealthy. So, go back into that. If I realized who I was and understood what God was trying to do for me, I'd have been faithful in those relationships and kept those relationships for years. Amen. Amen. 

So, a lot of what we need to do to keep the blessing is to be faithful for the blessing, to look at the reason for the blessing, and remain steadfast in that promise and not waste it away. You know, we, we've had financial blessings before that we'd waste on stuff, you know, that we'd waste on things and didn't spend it wisely. You see, when we get a blessing, we need to use it wisely and be faithful with it and be a good steward with it. That's our part of the blessing and, and know that you deserve the blessing and know that it is for yours, and God wants you to remain. So, God may test you with a blessing to see if you're faithful with it, to see if you're going to be that good and faithful servant. Remember the promise. Maybe it's a small blessing, but if you're faithful with the small blessing, God will give you a big blessing. But if you're not faithful with a small blessing, He will not give you a big blessing. I remember, I'll tell you a quick story to illustrate this. So many years ago, I was at Memphis Bible College many years ago. And uh, I was so excited. I graduated, and I got an invitation to teach for the Bible college. That was a blessing, was it? Wow, I get to be a teacher at the Bible college. That was a blessing. So I go to the classroom and uh, back in that day, we had to set up the classroom. We had to set up a recorder. So, I set up a recording system. I set up the classroom. I set up my whiteboard, my chairs, the desk, and the microphone. Everything was all set up. I was so prepared. I think it was a Tuesday morning class. And I was so excited about this class. And one person showed up. One student showed up. So, I thought, well, maybe I should cancel it. Just have one student. And then it hit my spirit. Wait a minute. I was blessed with the opportunity to teach. Am I going to be faithful? And I was faithful. And I taught that one guy for eight weeks every single Tuesday morning. I think it was a Tuesday morning. Hard to remember that far back. But I remember thinking, if I'm not faithful with this promise, will He give me more? And I was faithful with it. 

And then, you know, since that time, I've taught to classes with over a hundred people in it. I've preached to churches with over 6,000. I have ministered on TV and radio, and podcast all over the world. But I remember, now I'm not saying that I'm anything special. I'm not, I'm not bragging on me, I'm bragging on God here, that there was a, a promise that was fulfilled, a blessing, and I had to be faithful with it. So whatever the blessing is in your life, could be relationship, could be financial, could be with your health, maybe He blessed you with health, maybe you were healed of some particular disease, maybe you were healed of diabetes. Well, what what what are you supposed to do there? Well, maybe you stopped eating unhealthy. You know, that's part of you, you got the blessing of the healing, but then you were not a good steward of your blessing because you started eating unhealthy and you didn't exercise. You didn't do what was right. You see, stewardship and faithfulness and integrity and faith…is the key to maintaining your blessing. If you're not faithful with your blessing, you can lose it. Not because of God, but because of you. 

So ask God in your life right now, where is it? What blessing do I need to be faithful with? Maybe God blessed you with a gift or a talent. Are you being faithful with that? Maybe it's not just physical things. Maybe it's a spiritual blessing. Maybe He blessed you with the gift of prophecy. Are you prophesying? Maybe He blessed you with the gift of healing. Are you laying hands on the sick on a regular basis? Maybe He gave you a talent for music. Are you playing? Are you singing praise songs? Maybe He gave you a skill to, to be an author to write books. Are you writing? Are you doing these things? Are you being faithful? Are you being a good steward with your blessing? Are you trusting God with it? Are you activating it? That's how you hold on to your blessing. Amen. 

So, I hope this show’s made good sense to you. I pray that, that it did. This is Dr. Ray Self, and uh, thanks for listening. Heavenly Father– I want to pray one more time. I thank you, Lord, for your incredible blessings you've given us. Holy Spirit, I ask you to convict us of any area where we need to be faithful, we need to trust you, and we need to…area that maybe we have neglected a blessing that we have neglected uh, an area that we have not shown integrity in, whatever it is. Holy Spirit, just convict us, Father, of that in Jesus’ name. Help us to be the good and faithful servants. I thank you, Father, for your promise that when we're faithful in little things you make us ruler of much. Thank you for that, Father I thank you for everyone listening. Holy Spirit, touch them now, touch us with your anointing, touch us with your, your power and your Spirit, and show us any area where we need to make a move and we need to make adjustments. Lord, I praise you, Father, for your incredible blessings. We surrender to you. We trust you. We let go. And Father, as the blessings come, help us through your might and your power to be faithful in those blessings. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. 

Thank you for listening to episode 226. I'm Dr. Ray. Don't forget to subscribe to the show, rate the show, review the show, please share it with people, tell people about it, just get some more, more downloads. Thank you for listening. If you'd like to donate to help me with this, uh easiest way is the PayPal account, icmcollege.org/donate. That's up to you and God. Uh, I appreciate you for listening, and this is Dr. Ray with Self Talk with me. God bless you. Amen.