Relationship With God is More Essential Than Correct Theology

Hello, welcome to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self, the show that empowers you with the Holy Spirit and gives you the ability to overcome every scheme of the enemy so you can enter your promised land. Today you're going to get a new strategy for success in your life. 

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Welcome to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad you're with me today. Thank you so much for being a part of this. This is my 272nd episode. Can you believe it? Thank you so much for everybody who's been faithful. It means a tremendous amount to me. It keeps me going, actually. The show is brought to you by my college, International College of Ministry at icmcollege.org. And we are enrolling right now. If you'd like to help the show out, please don't forget to uh go to the website icmcollege.org/selftalk and subscribe. Give me a review. Share this with people. Let us get more downloads. Let's get into today's show.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word, for your truth, and for the fact that you have made a way for us to have a relationship with you. Amen. So again, thank you for being a part of the show. I want to read a scripture to you. I want to talk about this because it's very, very important.

In the book of Corinthians, chapter uh two, 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, Paul said, "And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of spirit and of power, so your…” “that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.” The wisdom of men. 

There is so much online right now through social media, so much arguing about theology. The Catholics are arguing that they are the original church. Peter is the pope that, that Jesus set up. And, um, Mary's the mother of God; we should pray to her. We have the church of Christ arguing that if you're not baptized, you're not saved. We have the, the Calvinists arguing about, you know, the predestination. We have people arguing the church is unbiblical and, uh, today's church has nothing to do with the Bible. It's argue, argue, argue, argue. And Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament with all his genius, he wrote the greatest theology ever written, said he did not want us, our faith, to be on his wisdom, but our faith should reside on the power of God. He said, "My message and my preaching were–” it's not about– we're– “...not in persuasive words of wisdom, but a demonstration of His Spirit and of power." You see, God has made a way for us to have a relationship with Him. He has made a way for us to have a relationship with Him. And here is my pet peeve right now. I'm, I'm on a little bit of a rant, so just kind of bear with me. I listen to all these theological arguments, and sometimes I get into them a little bit. Um, I am a theologian. I have a doctorate in theology, and I've been a Christian for a long time, and I can talk theology, but the problem is there is a deadness about this. It's, it's like these people are talking about the theology of, uh, predestination. The theology of, uh, the Church of Christ: you have to be baptized. The theology of losing your salvation or not losing your salvation, the theology of, uh, eternal security. 

And in all these arguments, one thing I found about them, and I see a consistency about it, is there is a deadness about it. It is just dead. It is lifeless. I actually wonder if many of these people arguing even know God at all. You see, they want to talk about God. They want to talk about theory. And they want to talk about arguing, what the Bible is commanding us to do, but I don't get the sense that the Author of the Bible is anointing what they say. Many of them, I, I really wonder: do you know the Author? Do, do you have an intimate relationship with God? Is God directing you to be criticizing the church? Is God directing you into this argument? Is the Holy Spirit telling you to do this argument online and to cause this stress and this tension and this frustration that goes on with all these theological bickering back and forth, back and forth? When Paul, who wrote the New Testament, said, despite his wisdom and his persuasive words, he wanted our faith to reside and to be based on the power of God. Because you see, the power of God is the reality of God. God is alive. He is here on earth, and He wants to demonstrate Himself, His power, His glory, His miracles.

God is alive. He's talking to us. He's talking to us every day. In other words, theology is important, but not when that's all you've got. And, and, I watch the, um, there's so much online, you know, the, the debates, uh, online where the, um, this person's debating this person and the, the arguments between the Calvinists and the Armenians, and the arguments between the Catholics and the evangelicals, and the consistent thing I see is this: that it is dead. It is lifeless. There's no life in it. It's interesting. It's a debate, and there's winners and losers. But the fruit of this, the result of this, there's a lot of strife. There's a lot of contention. And I'm wondering where is God in the middle of this? Where is the relationship with God? Do these people have a relationship with God? What about the commandments of Jesus? You know, to love your neighbor as yourself, to love your enemy. What I see in this is a lot of intellectualism, a lot of flesh, and no anointing. 

You see, understanding and being, and being brilliant on the Bible and all its commandments and, and understanding justification and redemption and propitiation and predestination and the tribulation, pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib, understanding salvation, eternal security, understanding uh, ecclesiology, understanding eschatology, understanding pnem– pneumatology, I did mispronounce it, study of the Holy Spirit, all These things are good, but not at the expense of, of, of, a relationship with the Lord. The Lord is alive. He's here. He's, He's present. He's with us. He's talking to us. He's guiding us. He's directing us. In other words, what I'm seeing with all these arguments, and sometimes I get involved in it a little bit, but there's just- it's just dead. It's dead, dead as a doornail because it is all flesh. It is flesh arguing against flesh. It's the natural man arguing against another natural man. And the Lord– Paul said very clearly, “the mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” I don't sense the Spirit of God in 98% of these arguments online. I don't sense the anointing. I don't sense the love of God, the concern of God, the compassion of God in all these arguments. Is it important to have sound fundamental theology? Absolutely. I'm the founder of a Bible college. I teach theology, but not at the sacrifice of a relationship. 

The Author of the Bible, who wrote the theology, the Author wants a relationship with us. The Author of the Bible has made a way through the sacrifice of His Son so we can have an intimate one-on-one relationship with Him. Jesus died and paid the price for our sins, which made a way for us to have a relationship with God. And I'm talking about a relationship with God that we can speak to God, we can hear God speaking back to us. We can ask God questions. We can communicate with God. He communicates with us. And there is a, a, a wonderful life in it. And He's directing us. He's anointing us. And He wants to do signs, wonders, and miracles through us. Paul said, "I don't want your faith to rest on the wisdom of men." And you see, this is stopped right here. That's what's going on online with all these arguing. People are literally trying to get your faith to rest on their intellectual theological argument.

Paul said, "Our faith should not rest on the wisdom of man, but on the power of God." Because you see, the power of God is God expressing Himself in very real and intimate ways. Our faith is not to be based on a theological argument. Our faith is to be based on the reality of God. Now, I'm not saying we should not seek to have sound theology. But what I am saying is what I am seeing over and over again is all these theological debates online that I see almost every day. There just seems to be no Spirit of God involved in it. There's no love. There's no concern. It's just an intellectual debate where one person is trying to prove another person wrong. Or one person said, "I'm going to show that my denomination is right and your denomination is wrong. I'm going to prove that I am correct according to the Bible and you are incorrect according to the Bible." And it is just dead, dead, dead, dead. It is lifeless. 

Now, are there arguments worthy of consideration? Sure, a lot of them are. But you cannot spend your time - or you can, if you want to - I advise you not to. If you want to spend your time arguing and debating. But that's not what God wants. What God wants is a relationship with us. He wants to– His power to flow through us. He wants, He– we have the anointing; the Holy Spirit is within us. He wants the Spirit of God that's living within us to demonstrate Himself through power. Paul said, again, he said, “my preaching and my persuasive words…” Now, as he's preaching he's writing the Bible, “...persuasive words.” But he said he wanted everything he wrote, and he did; he said it– that's not the important thing. It's the demonstration of the Spirit and the power. He said, "I don't want your faith to rest on everything I wrote down on paper. I want your faith to rest on the power of God because the power of God is God's reality.”

God is alive. God is here. God is speaking. God's trying to have a relationship with us. God made an incredible way for us to come right directly to Him, to talk to Him, to fellowship with Him, to sit at His feet, so to speak. Matter of fact, my wife, and sometime– I would, when I first met my wife, I was, I was talking to her about what she felt the call of God was on her life. She said, “I just want to sit at God's feet.” You see, that's not theology. That's not an argument. That's not arguing about, um, eternal security or, or predestination or, uh, the fallacies of Catholicism. That is a relationship with God. So is it important to rightly discern the Bible? Absolutely it is. But don't be so focused. My encouragement is, don't be so focused on the theology that you for– forfeit your relationship with the Author, the one who wrote the theology. The one who wrote the Bible wants you to have an intimate relationship with Him. And that's what I think is missing in all these arguments. The intimate relationship with God, the love of God. There's so many teachers and preachers that, and I, I get it. We need good teaching. We need good preaching, but not at the sacrifice of that intimate relationship. We need to be encouraging people into that intimate relationship with God that Jesus gave His life so we could have this, this intimacy, this fellowship, this communion with the Lord Himself. Let the anointing of the Holy Spirit lead our lives. The presence of God, the power of God, laying hands on the sick and watching them being healed, casting out demons, giving prophetic words, the reality of God, demonstrating through his power. You see, when you see the power of God and you experience the power of God, it makes God real to you. It makes God more than a theological argument. And that's what Paul, I think, is saying here. Because when you see a miracle right in front of your eyes, you're not worried about eternal security or predestination or pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, or, you know, the, the rapture or Arminianism or Catholicism. You, you're just focused on God Himself.

God just showed up and showed Himself powerful. The power of God makes God real for us. And our faith is resting on God Himself. Now, because of that faith that we're resting, you know, the faith that, see, when, when the power of God– let me maybe explain it a little bit better. When you see the power of God, it creates faith. You know, when I, when I saw the woman healed with a blind eye, when I saw the woman in a car wreck thrown out of a car get raised from the dead, uh, when I saw that young man in, in uh, Guatemala with a broken leg, get up and walk. Uh, uh, I prayed for a woman with a…who couldn't breathe, had shortness of breath, terrible shortness of breath because of COVID. This was just a couple of weeks ago, and all of a sudden, she begins to breathe freely. That's my faith. That's where my faith is, goes off the Richter scale. The power of God. Lets us understand and know the reality of God. The power of God. Again, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 5, Paul: “That your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men,” arguments, because He's a great arguing person. Uh, but on the power of God. My faith is not on, no matter how wise this man is, and how good his argument is, and how well he proved that the Catholics are false, and how well he proved that, that you have to be baptized to be saved, or whatever he's trying to prove. I don't agree with all that stuff, by the way. Well, I think the Catholics do have a lot of false teaching. However, the faith that God wants for us is to let our faith rest on the power of God. That's what Paul said. That your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but your faith on the power of God. Because the power of God is the reality of God.

It's the Author of all theology demonstrating Himself and how real He is. God is real. He is alive. Don't get so caught up in theology that you forget to have a relationship with the author of theology. You know the word of God. Great. Fantastic. Have you met and are you having a relationship with the Author of the word of God, God Himself, through the Holy Spirit? Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Don't quench Him with– on nothing but intellectual debate. And that's what's going on. He's being quenched with a bunch of intellectual debate. Don't quench Him with that. But allow the Holy Spirit to touch you, to lead you, to anoint you, to work through you, to work in you, to come upon you, in you, and through you. Allow the reality of God to manifest in your life. Know how real God is. I know it. That's what it is. That's what Paul's trying to tell us. Now, he was a theologian. And he wrote the best theology ever written, but he said, "I don't want your wisdom to rest on my theology. I want your, your faith…I want your faith to rest on the power of God, not on theology." And the people are online right now are trying to get your faith to rest upon their argument, their theology, instead on the reality of God and His power.

Phew, I know this is kind of heavy stuff, you know, don't want to be too heavy, but I just know God is real. God is alive. He's more than a theological argument. He is God of the universe. I want to pray for you. Heavenly Father, make yourself…I ask, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show yourself real to every person listening to this podcast. Let your reality be known, Father. Yes, Lord, we need to, to, to know your word and to know it correctly. But, Father, we need to know you even more. Father, show yourself. Manifest yourself. Show yourself to each person listening to this podcast. Holy Spirit, touch them now with your reality. Let them know you're here. You're with us. You're talking to us. You're communing with us. You are here now in the room with us, in our hearts, in our minds, in our spirits. We are surrounded by you, Father. Let us not argue so much that we ignore you, yourself. I thank you for everyone listening to this podcast. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. 

Phew, that was kind of a mouthful today, wasn't it? Thanks, everyone, for being a part of the show. Uh, it's been great. Uh, the downloads are increasing. I really just want to get this message out to as many people as possible, and I need your help with that. Please share it, download it, you know, all the good stuff. I'm not trying to do this for me. I have not made a penny off of this show. This show is just…cost me every week. And so it's not about money. It's about a message that I'm hoping people are listening to and that I can get this message out to more. Thank you so much for helping me. God bless you. Thanks for being a part of the show. See you next week. Same time, same channel. Amen. Bye-bye.

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