Find Your Abundance

Hello, I'm Dr. Ray Self, and welcome to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. I have an important show today. I know I say that every week, but I really think this one is especially vital because I really want you and everyone to find that abundant life that Jesus promised us. But there's– some of us are not experiencing that. But Jesus made a definite promise, and we know He cannot lie. So I want to talk to you today about keys to that abundant life that Jesus promised us. Thank you so much for being a part of the show. Please go to our website for the show. The quick link to that is icmcollege.org/selftalk, and give us a review. That helps us a lot. Share this with your friends. That just, I just want to reach more people. That's all. This show does not make money. This show costs money. I'm not trying to make money. I'm trying to reach people with a message of hope. Thank you so much for being a part of my show. This is Dr. Ray, and here we go.

All right. Welcome to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. So Jesus made a promise that is a amazing promise. In the gospel of John, Jesus made this promise: “The thief comes only to steal, to kill, and destroy, but I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” So, there's a promise there that Jesus came that we may have life and have abundant life. And we know there's a, someone who resists that, and that's the thief. That's Satan. So Jesus said, "Okay, Satan's an issue. He wants to kill, and he wants to destroy, and he wants to lie and cheat and do all these sort of things." However, Jesus came to give us life and life more abundantly. Now, I think Jesus, His promise is greater than Satan's job. Satan's got a job to kill, steal, destroy, lie, slander. Okay, that's what he does. Falsely accuse, that's what he does. But Jesus has done something greater that's a thousand times more powerful than anything Satan can do. The key to promises from God is for you to have a revelation of that, to understand that promise and faith. 

Now, not just, I wouldn’t just say, “I believe, I believe”, but trust in your heart. Believe in your heart. Get it into your heart that you have a promise from Jesus Himself for abundant life. It's not just say, "Okay, there's a promise, and I'm going to go about my merry way and hope this promise comes true." You see, throughout the Bible, we have this one condition. In the new covenant, there's a condition for salvation, for redemption, for justification, for righteousness. There's a condition. And the condition is faith. To believe the promises of God, to believe He died on the cross, to believe Jesus rose from the dead, to believe that you died with Him, to believe that you rose from the dead with Him, to believe that and trust that in your heart. That's the condition that God put upon us so these promises would manifest. You understand? In other words, the promise is there. They're real. They're true. Our part is to believe the promises, trust in the promises, trust in God with all of our heart. And sometimes that takes focus, and it takes a determined effort. It doesn't always come naturally because a lot of the promises of God, they're supernatural promises. And it's not a, it's not a natural thing. It's a supernatural thing. 

Uh, you know, in Romans 10, the greatest promise of all, “If you con–” “If you confess in your–” with, “if you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart, Jesus is Lord, you shall be saved. Um, and Paul said very clearly that we're saved by grace through our faith. Paul said over and over again in Romans and Galatians, and Ephesians, we're justified, made not guilty by our faith. We're redeemed by our faith. We're given um, you know, eternal life by our faith. “For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes,” that's faith, “in Him shall not perish.” So the one primary condition that God has for us to make the Bible come alive in our life is faith to believe what it says. 

Now, a lot of people say, "Well, I have faith." But you, you ask them what they're believing, and they really can't tell you. A lot of people say, "Well, I believe in Jesus." Well, now listen. The demons know Jesus existed. A lot of people know Jesus existed. But do you believe His promise? And do you believe He died on the cross for you and rose from the dead for you, for you, a vicarious substitutionary death for you and a resurrection for you? Do you believe that? Have faith in that. That's what makes things come alive. But the purpose of this podcast is abundant life. “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” In my life, and I've told this story several times on the podcast. In my life, you know, I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee. You can still hear my accent. I went to college and um, tried out a lot of different things. I was a geology major at one point. I was an anthropology major. I had all kinds of ideas of what I was going to do with my life. I had some weird dreams and aspirations. Um, I was convinced by my family, however, to go into business after I got out of college. I was not that interested in business, but I was convinced by my family that if I'm going to have any success in life, I need to be a businessman and focus on sales. My father was a salesman. Did very well. He was an excellent salesman. So in order to please my dad and to please my family, I changed my major, went into– became a business management major,, and afterwards went into sales. I did retail sales, wholesale sales, and even had my own several companies, retail, owned a large retail factory outlet. I– it was an appliance and TV factory outlet and then I went into computer softwares and sold computer and software systems, and all this sort of time I was doing what my family wanted me to do, and I was doing what I thought,, well,, you know,, I need to make some money, and if I make enough money, I'll be happy. And so I started to make some money, I started to have some prosperity, I started to have some success. Had me a really nice, beautiful home that I bought, a brand new home that we bought and um, uh, at one time in the corporate world. I was, I had my company credit card, I had a company car and uh, I attended business meetings in Las Vegas and the Bahamas, and just lived a really, you know,, what we call American successful life. And you know, I had some struggles and ups and downs, and some things that happened to me. But the one overall thing that I want to talk about in this podcast was I was never satisfied. I never really had peace. 

And so, being like a lot of Americans, we thought peace would come with success. So I worked really hard to be more successful. More money, more businesses, more positions, you know, raises, um, managerial stuff, but I never could find that place of peace. And the reason I could not find that place of peace, which actually is related very seriously…con– connected to abundant life, was because I was not in my purpose. I was not doing what I was created to do. And therefore, no matter what I did, I never found the abundant life that Jesus promised me. To me, abundant life means I have peace in my heart. I have contentment in my heart. I have purpose. I, I, I wake up knowing that I'm making an impact. I'm doing what God called me to do. There's an internal peace, an internal satisfaction, and it is abundant life. And you know, people, “Well, abundance is money.” No, it's not. You know, I've had a lot of money. I know what it is to have money and things and cars, and I love boats, a lot of boats. I know what it is to have all that sort of stuff. I didn't have any peace with money. Now, I'm not opposed to money. Money is a good thing, you know, and if you do, you know, manage it correctly and don't let it become your god. However, I had no peace, and I wasn't living an abundant life. 

You see, before you're– the Lord says in the Bible, in the book of Jeremiah, “Before you were born, before you were in your mother's womb, I knew you and I ordained you…” to something. You were born for a reason. And our reason is about God. Jesus paid an incredible price so we could be reconciled and have a relationship with God. Because of Jesus, I can come straight to God. I don't have to go through a priest. I don't have to say my Hail Marys. I don't have to pray the rosary. No offense to any Catholics here. I can come directly to God. I can go right to Him. I don't have to have somebody standing between me and God. Jesus won that privilege for me. But in this life, we were created for a purpose. Your purpose, your purpose is…your, what I call your promised land, it's where you will find abundant life, and you will find that peace. I wrote a book, some of you are familiar with it, called Redeeming Your Past and Finding Your Promised Land. I've changed it recently to Redeem Your Past and Find Your Promised Land. It's an amazing book that talks about how to get into your promised land and overcome the schemes of the enemy trying to keep you from it. Your promised land is your place of abundance. A promised land is the place God called you to be, doing what you were created to do. And when you get into that place God called you to be, doing what He created you to do, you will find this promise. Jesus said, "I came to give you life and give it to you more abundantly." That promise is not going to work for you until you're in your promised land and fulfilling your purpose. Now listen, your purpose can be a million things. It's not always ministry because I think anything we do even as a businessman or a, a teacher or doctor, a lawyer, plumber, electrician, all can be done for the glory of God. All can be done for the glory of God. But you have to find your purpose. 

So, I teach a lot about purpose. Now me, I found my purpose late– I was a slow learner, a very slow learner. I didn't really move into my purpose till I was about 44, 45 years old. I am 74 right now. And I did not move into it. I was a slow learner. God had hit me over the head with a 2x4. Actually, He spoke to me audibly. He did. I'm driving a, my pickup truck in North Mississippi. He spoke to me. I heard a voice. I mean, you can believe it or not believe it. I heard an audible voice in the cab of the truck with me that shook me to the core. And the voice said, "Ray, I've called you into the ministry." I was a businessman. I had no thought of ministry in my heart. I was a Christian, but not a great Christian. Wasn't really walking that close with the Lord. And I heard that voice, and I knew it was God. Changed my life. It was my purpose. It was my purpose. But purpose can be a lot of things. So this is what– I want you to have abundant life. I'm telling you, your abundant life is only in your promised land. Even the Israelites, you know, if you look at them, they were in Egypt. They were in slavery. They're in bondage. Um, they had, they, they escaped Egypt. They get into the desert. They're in the desert for 40 years. But what they were looking for and what they're trying to get into is their promised land. God said, "Your promised land is flowing with milk and honey." They began to prosper and have abundant life only when they got into their promised land. 

So, here's the thing I want to emphasize to you. There are three steps, three keys to getting into your promised land and finding your abundant life. First key is to discover what and where. Discover what your promised land is your purpose, and where it is. Now, God has been trying to talk to you your whole life. He's been trying to show you your purpose, your whole life. You can determine your purpose by things that you did that didn't work out. Things that you did that felt extremely uncomfortable and just turned out to be, “this is not me.” And you can look back in your past and look at some things you were doing where you felt like, “this feels natural to me. This feels like me. This feels like something that I– is easy for me. I feel good when I'm doing this.” See, God's trying to show you these things and give you hints and messages throughout your life. Your past is a prophetic message from God. Let me say it again. Your past is a prophetic message from God. Your past, in the– when you make a mistake, there's a message there, right? When you do something right, there's a feeling there. There's a message there. Okay? You go through things. You see, you, you see the failures, the successes, the good times, the bad times. Everything is teaching you a lesson, is, is showing you something from God. 

So what is it you do naturally? Well, what is it that when you're doing this thing, you feel a lie? Let's say your name is, your name is Mary. When you do this thing, Mary, you feel more like Mary than any other time. Sometimes, one way to determine this thing is to ask your friends and say, "What is it? What do you– what am I doing when I seem to be more me than any other type?" And your friends can say, "You know what? Whenever you're, you're trying to help somebody on the phone, trying to counsel somebody, you just seem to come alive." You see, when we're doing what God created us to do, there's life in it. There– It feels alive. There's a peace in it. And it, and it feels natural. And we're naturally good at it. And it's not to mean that we don't have to learn more, but it becomes alive. It becomes natural. It's fulfilling. And sometimes it's just a hint. Like, you know, I was, I remember, you know, I love to pr–. I'm called to preach the word of God. I remember when I was in sales, and we would have um, business meetings and we'd be at a hotel, and a lot of um, our customers would come to the hotel, and I, maybe several hundred people,, and I would get up on stage and make a presentation. Now, unfortunately, my presentation was usually about a new line of refrigerators that was coming out. I was working for a company called Frigid Air, and which was, you know, even when I think about it, I want to go to sleep. However, when I got up on stage and started making a presentation, for some reason, it felt good to me. It, it, it felt good. And then when I was um, later, I, I would go into businesses, and I would train people on the art of selling appliances. And when I was training people, it felt, it felt good. And now, I wasn't called this is not what I was called to do. What I was called to do was preach and teach. And God was trying to show me something even when I was in the appliance business. And uh, which I didn't like by the way. I thought the appliance business was terribly boring. But you made good money at it. And I was doing what I should do, you know, because this is the proper thing to do. But He was showing me something along the way. In your past, God is trying to show you something by the things you do, the things that become easy and natural, fulfilling for you,, and the things that don't. Because your purpose is natural, fulfilling, there's contentment in it. Why? Because this is what you were created to do. 

Now, one, one important point I want to make right now and, and this is one of my pet peeves, and I see it over and over and over again. I see young people coming out of high school or in college, and we go up to them and say, "Hey, what do you want to do?" It's a terrible question. Terrible question. What do you want to do? Because when you ask a young person what they want to do, probably 75% of the time, what they want to do is not what God created them to do. And that was my thing coming out of college. It's not what you want to do. It's, do you want to do what God created you to do? Because that's where you'll find abundance. Now, you can go do whatever you want to do, but if it's not God's created purpose for you, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to feel like, I used to call it, a square peg in a round hole. Uh, you can make it work, but you'll never find fulfillment because you're just doing what you want to do instead of what God created you to do. Now, the good point of that is when you, when your desire equals God's plans for your life, there's where you find abundance, the abundant life Jesus promised. Now, God doesn't call you to do something that's not good that you won't enjoy. You will enjoy this a lot. It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of, it, it, it feels great doing what you're created to do. But the question is, is what you're wanting to do what God created you to do? All right. All right. Now, that's a better question to ask young people. 

So, here's the three keys. First thing is to get into the abundant life, discover your purpose. And I've already given you some hints. Pray. Ask God. Look at your life. What is it you do that makes you feel alive? What is it that um, floats your boat? Where is your wheelhouse? You get what I'm talking about? Where is it that give– What are you doing when you feel that peace, and you, you feel vibrant? What is that thing? Find it. Then number two, you got to fight for it. Because you see, Satan attacks you because of your purpose. Satan does not attack you because he hates you. What he hates is you doing something for God. And every pastor, every minister, um, on the planet will tell you about this. Satan will resist you coming into your purpose. Now, your purpose may be the world's best electrician or landscape artist, whatever. You can do it all for the glory of God. But Satan will resist that. But greater is He that's in us than he that's in the world. Amen. We submit to God. Resist the devil. He will flee for you. Flee from you. 

So Paul said, "Do not be ignorant of Satan's schemes.” Satan will scheme against you to stop you from finding and entering into your purpose. Okay. Now, uh, I talk a lot about schemes. What is a scheme? A scheme is a systematic plot against you to stop you from getting into your promised land. Typical schemes are rejection, fear, anxiety. The biggest one is a scheme of illegitimacy. Illegitimacy is, it's a, it's a spirit that makes you question your worth, your value, your capability, your identity. Our identity is we're children of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. The legitimate spirit makes people live a whole life of feeling inadequate. Therefore, they have to prove themselves over and over again. They become super competitive, always trying to prove your worth instead of accepting what Jesus has done for you. Um, spirit of betrayal, rejection, all these spirits. You can tell what the scheme is. And I believe everybody has a scheme, uh,, against them. Unfortunately, that's the truth, though. 

How do you know what your scheme is? Because this scheme, this, this message has repeated itself your whole life. A scheme is like a broken record. It goes on and on and on. My scheme that I fought for so many years, was that I don't matter. I don't count. I, I mean, I don't even exist. It was serious. I struggled with that feeling of uh, Ray doesn't matter. I, I I'm not valuable. I'm not important. My opinions don't matter. My feelings don't matter. I just don't matter. I fought that from the time I was a young man all the way to I finally got the revelation of who I am in Christ. That, that I'm the one and only Ray Self in the whole world. There's nobody greater than me, nobody less than me. I'm the only me. That kind of got me free. But maybe your scheme is rejection or fear, or abandonment. That's another one, illegitimacy. But remember, Paul said in Corinthians, "Do not be ignorant of Satan's schemes." He also said in Ephesians, "Put on the full armor of God. You'll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the enemy." So, first step is discover your purpose. Second step is defeat the scheme. Pray, do spiritual warfare, take authority, resist the devil. He will flee from you. You got to resist the devil because he will try to stop you from this. Good news is you can beat him. You've got victory. You just got to fight. You have victory over Satan. You just have to fight. That's your step two. Step three is, and a lot of people miss this one: You, you found your purpose. You have been fighting for it. You move into it. And people don't commit to it. You have to settle into your purpose. You have to make a firm commitment. “This is what I'm going to do. I'm not going to be swayed. I'm not going to stop. I'm going to commit. I'm going to grow roots. I'm going to be like a, a tree in Psalms 1, planted by the river. I'm going to bear fruit. I am 100% committed to this. I'm not going to be flaky. I'm not going to move in and out of this. This is what I'm called to do. I'm going to do whatever it takes to do this.” And God will help you. And then what you're going to experience is what Jesus said, “I came to give you life and life more abundantly.” 

I want to say this. Your promised land and your purpose will always, it'll make you happy. It'll make you content. It'll make you fulfilled. Okay? It will also benefit other people. God, you know, purpose is not selfish. Your purpose will always have a benefit to those around you. That's just the way God works. So, three keys. Discover your purpose, fight for your purpose, and settle in and commit to your purpose. And if you do that, you'll have this promise, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” You know, to me, abundant life is a fulfilled life. You know, money's great, cars are great, clothes are great, that's not fulfilling. Things don't make you happy. What makes you happy is what's going on inside of you. When you're moving and doing what God created you to do, you will find your peace and happiness. 

Hope this show has been a blessing to you. This is Dr. Ray. If I can help you or answer some questions, email me. I mean, I'm old-fashioned. Just email me. Um, drrayself@gmail.com. D r r a y s e l f @gmail.com. D r r a y s e l f @gmail.com. I'd be glad to answer questions for you. Thank you for listening to my 240th episode of Self Talk. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Share. Share this, as many people as you can. I thank you so very, very much. This is the day the Lord has made, and we're going to rejoice, and we're going to be glad in it. Amen. And amen.