Integration - The Key to Personal Peace

Dr. Ray: Hello, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. In today's episode, I want to talk to you about something called integration. What does that have to do with you? Well, the failure to be able to integrate causes you a lot of conflict, a lot of frustration, and actually as a Christian, you will never live in perfect peace and be able to accept yourself until you're able to integrate the two sides of your personality; of your being. This is an interesting show, I think you're going to like it and I think it will help you in your personal growth. This is Dr. Ray Self, thank you for listening. Don't forget to go to our, our website at icmcollege.org/selftalk; and there you can get all my episodes, you can subscribe, you can get on the email list. Give us a review. When– every time you do a review or we get a review, it really helps us reach people. And all I want to do is heal the brokenhearted and set at liberty those that are captive. That's actually what the show's about. I'm Dr. Ray Self; God bless you and thank you for listening to another episode of Self Talk with me.

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Okay, here we go. Dr. Ray Self here with Self Talk. First things first, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for each person listening to this podcast. I pray, Father, this show would be a blessing to them. Holy Spirit, touch them right now. Come right now. I ask you just to saturate this show. Saturate our hearts and our ears to hear what you would have us hear and know what you would have us know. I thank you for each person listening and I ask that right now, even at the sound of my voice, every person listening will feel a touch of the Holy Spirit; that supernatural peace that only you can give, Father. And we ask you for this and believe this in Jesus’ name. Amen, amen. 

All right, folks. Well, thank you for being here today. I want to talk to you about something called integration. I think, I think this is going to help you a lot. Matter of fact, I know this will help you. So what does the word integrate mean? And what does this have to do with you? It has a lot to do with you. So definition of integrate according to Miriam Webster, means “to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole; or unite.” I like this word, this term, “functioning or unified whole.” What's this have to do with you? Well, here we go. As Christians, we have a lot of expectations on ourselves. We're born again, we become a new creation, right? We're saved and, and, and salvation changes us, does it not? If you're truly saved, you've become a different person. Then you get filled with the Holy Spirit and, and things– the game ups even more. So here we are as Christians and we, we, we're expected to– and we want to live this holy, righteous life. You know, as Christians there’re expectations. Especially, especially if you are a minister. There are expectations upon your life. You know, you, you don't cuss, you don't drink, you don't gamble uh, you don't uh… you know, you, you don't do, things that are inappropriate, you're careful of how you dress, you're careful where you go… You know, things like this. You, you understand. You're careful with your words… And there's all these expectations to live this holy, consecrated, set apart life as a Christian. And, and these are good things; these are very good things, to live this, you know, special set apart life. Uh, sanctified, you know? Set apart. That's what it– sanctified means.

But then we have this other side of ourself. The side that messes up; the side of ourself that failed. Maybe a little word slips out of your mouth that shouldn't have slipped out of your mouth, maybe you have a, a thought that uh, shouldn't be there. Maybe you, you gave into to a particular temptation. In other words, your flesh took over. The Bible refers to our flesh. It refers to those who are led by the Spirit, in Romans 8, you know, “have life and peace.” Those that are led by the flesh… well, not so good. So you can see in scripture the Apostle Paul had the same problem I want to talk about today. Now, this scripture is controversial. Some people say he's talking about his past, some people say he's talking about his present, some people say he's talking to the Jews, to the unredeemed, some people say “No, he's just being real.” Paul said in Romans 7:18- 19 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want to do, I do not do; and I practice the very evil that I do not want.” So according to the scripture, Paul's having a struggle between good and evil. He, he, he finds himself doing things he know– he, he knows he shouldn't do; but he did them anyway. But he knows that he has good within him. 

Now, the point I'm trying to make is, is that maybe, maybe… let’s refer to something Dr. Henry Cloud says. He says, “We all have good and bad living within us simultaneously, but can you integrate that?” Um, the problem that so many Christians have is when we, we are walking– you know, we, we… what they call it– we're prayed up, we're in church, we're reading our Bible, we're listening to our praise and worship music. You know, we've got all this perfect peace. Then all of a sudden, something happens and we're in our flesh; our other side. Our old man kicks in and we say things, we do things we– that, that we shouldn't have done. And then we get all convicted and then we try to go back and live this holy, sanctified life and we do it pretty good for a while, and next thing you know, we slip up and we do, we do something else that’s kind of fleshly. And so then, we get into this dynamic  - a lot of people get into this and I want you to hear me carefully. There is… The reality of us– See, we are integrated. I've got good and bad in me simultaneously, you have good and bad in you simultaneously. And I think this is what Paul was saying in Romans 7. He says um he says, “The willing is present in me but the doing of the good is not,” all right? So he had good and bad. And then you see in Romans chapter 8, you see again he talked about this same particular problem. Let me look this up real quick again. He said, “the…” …the mind set on the flesh is death,” Romans 8:6. “...the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.” So apparently, he said, “Well, wait a minute. We have flesh and we have Spirit all within us, depends on how we set our mind.” What we focus on, what we focus on controls us. 

But the problem we have– have here as Christians is within us, we have our flesh and, and a sin tendency which has been forgiven and redeemed; and then we have our new creation full of the Holy Spirit, perfect in obedience to God. But there's two sides of us. There's a war, there's a conflict within. Two sides of us. So the Christian we think we should be gets into a a serious conflict with the person we are. The, the failures that we have, the slip-ups that we have. And we can't integrate the two sides of us. The truth of the matter is it is us. Within all of us listening, there's good and there's bad. There's the flesh and there's the Holy Spirit. And that's who we are. We are imperfect. You are imperfect. But if you– when you integrate, you're able to accept the fact that you're imperfect. And, and sometimes you're, you're living the way you should live. You're thinking the right thoughts, you're doing the right things; and other times you mess up and you make mistakes, and you do things you regret. And the problem that so many people have is, who cannot integrate this part of themselves, cannot unify this part of themselves, is they get into self-hatred and self-conflict. They have a conflict. The person they think they should be despises the person that they are because the person that you are - listen to me - is imperfect. Who fails, who messes up, who does things they shouldn't do. We all have these issues and we all mess up.

Paul said, “if you say you're without sin, such a man is a liar.” In other words, can we– can you integrate and love yourself as you are with your quote, “holy, sanctified, consecrated self” and your fleshly self living in the same body and in the same mind? Because see, that's who we are. That's who we are. Now, our flesh is, is… we're working on that. I'm trying to subdue my flesh more and more and more. I, I'm trying to, to let– set my mind more on the Holy Spirit. Let the Holy Spirit control, control my life. And Paul encourages us to do that but at the same time, what I do not want to get into and I don't want you to get into is this self-hatred because you have weaknesses and your weaknesses take over; because you have a flesh who has some bad tendencies. And sometimes that flesh rises up. Well yeah, I mean, we should be convicted over it, we should be you know, we should be thinking you know, I really want to work on that. Lord, help me. Let the Holy Spirit take over. That's true, those are areas. But in the meantime, it's important to be able to integrate, integrate that you have weaknesses, you have failures, you have a flesh, and you have the Holy Spirit at the same time. Again, as Henry Cloud said, “We're good and bad simultaneously, and when you can integrate that about your–” ...yourself and accept that about yourself, then you can understand the love of God has for you; because God knows this about you. 

God knows your other side, He knows you have a hidden side, He knows you have weaknesses. God knows you've messed up, you failed, um; you've said something you shouldn't have said, you thought something you shouldn't think, you looked at something you shouldn't have looked at. He knows all that. And I'm not saying… I'm not excusing it but I'm saying is… we all have failures and we have successes; and we have the Holy Spirit-led life and we have a fleshly life. And we have Holy Spirit-led thoughts and we have flesh-led thoughts. We have Holy Spirit-inspired words and we have fleshly-inspired words, but I'm the same person. And I do all these things but I'm still Ray, and God still accepts me and He still sent Christ to die for me and He still loves me despite my failures. He loves me unconditional. Unconditionally. And He loves you unconditionally. Despite the fact that yeah, you have a flesh and you do mess up. And you fail and you have issues that you're working on, but you also have the Holy Spirit and you have the power of God and you have the authority of God and you have the covering of the blood of Christ and you've been adopted and you've been made into the member of the royal priesthood. You've been born again; a new creation. You've been adopted by God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ. This is the truth about you. And the also truth about you is you've got flesh that rises up. Can you integrate that? Can you accept yourself? 

I mean, accepting myself doesn't mean I don't want to work on it. Yeah, I'm not going to approve of my weaknesses, we don't need to approve of them. But we also need to understand how to love ourselves with our flesh and our spirit operating in the same body at the same time. I hope that makes sense to you. That's called integration. It's being able to love ourselves with the love of God. Don't you know God sees your heart? He knows your weaknesses, He knows your failures, He knows your temptations. But He also hears your prayers. He hears your praise, He hears you when you sing at church, and when you're, you're preaching and you're teaching and He loves all that about you. But he also sees another part of you that rises up periodically. When you do the things you would not do as Paul said. He sees you when your flesh takes control, He sees you when you, when you don't do what you know you should do and you, you, you misheard His voice or you didn't pay attention to His voice, He sees all that and He still loves you.

The problem we have because we cannot integrate is that we get into a conflict and we do not love and accept ourselves completely. We only love and accept ourselves when we think we're living and doing what we're supposed to be doing according to the will and the word of God - which is a good thing - and we love ourselves when we're doing that and then we hate ourselves when we fail and do something or say something that we shouldn't have said. Now listen, I, I don't like it when I do that stuff but what I'm learning how to do, is how to integrate that Ray Self has a flesh that’s still being redeemed and worked on, and I have the Holy Spirit. And there's times I'm 100% led by the Holy Spirit and I know it and there's times I'm 100% led by my flesh. And you know what? If I integrate that, I'm not rejecting myself, I'm not angry with myself, I'm not In conflict with myself. See, you have this ideal person. I call it the perfect Christian you think you should be, who is hating the person you actually are. The perfect Christian– I, I, I love to do this: “Yeah, I am Dr. Ray Self. I have a doctorate in theology and, and I live in holiness and I preach the word of God and, and I prophesy and I lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and, and I speak in tongues–” yeah, I do. Don't get upset with me, I do, “...and, and I flow in the gifts of the Spirit. And, and, and I am Dr. Ray Self, minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” And then there's Ray Self who um, gets really upset on the golf course when he hits his ball out of bounds and there's Ray who was acci– he got rude, said something rude, inappropriate to his own wife, and there's Ray Self who um, you know, a little word popped out of his mouth that shouldn't have done there and there’s Ray Self who sometimes mishears God and doesn't pay attention like he should. But then I got Ray Self, man of God.

In other words, I'm all of that. I'm all of that. At the same time, simultaneously. Now, these weaknesses in my life, the... these failures in my life, I'm working on it. And I get convicted. And I ask God to forgive me a lot and He needs to forgive me a lot. But at the same time, I am a whole person. I have weaknesses, I have strengths, I have flesh, I have the Holy Spirit. You understand? I have– and all in the same body. God loves me unconditionally but do you love yourself unconditionally? Because if you cannot integrate yourself with your strengths and your weaknesses, with your spirit and your flesh, you live in internal conflict. Some people who are so… let me put it this way. Some people are extremely religious; and very strict. And because of this religious, strict spirit, anytime they fail, they immediately get into self-rejection, self-hatred, and self-condemnation. And the enemy has a field day with this stuff. The enemy loves that stuff. You see, when I fail, what I should have is a conviction by the Holy Spirit, not condemnation, not shame. Jesus took all that to the cross. The Holy Spirit does put that on you, but I have a conviction of the Holy Spirit that I need to ask forgiveness. I need the Lord's help. I'm convicted but what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to get into self-reproach, self-hatred, self-condemnation. I'm going to be convicted and I'm going to try to do better with God's help. And I'm going to ask forgiveness. And this– therefore, I can live in peace. And I can accept myself and love myself. 

You see, the issue of self-love is critical. It's critical to your health, to your well-being, and even to, to finding and fulfilling your purpose and call of God on your life. Self-love means you love yourself unconditionally. God loves you unconditionally. God sees all this stuff and He still loves you and He still sent Christ to die on the cross for you. But can you accept yourself unconditionally? 

You know, we have a commandment to love unconditionally, no strings attached. But somehow we miss that commandment when it comes to us. We love ourself with conditions. When I'm doing right and I'm, and I'm praising right and I'm praying right and I'm reading my Bible correctly and I'm doing everything right, yeah, I love myself. But then when I mess up, oh, I hate myself. That's failure to integrate, to be whole. I will encourage you today. Ask the Lord to help you to love yourself, no strings attached. And I want to tell you something really cool. When you begin to love yourself with no strings attached, you begin to grow because a s– person who loves himself is a strong person;  is a healthy person. And you can grow out of that. But when you get into the self-condemnation, uh, un– unforgiveness, self-unforgiveness, um, self-hatred, self, you know, self-rejection, all this kind of stuff, what happens is you don't grow out of that. You get stagnant. But when you can accept yourself and love yourself, knowing that you failed, knowing that you messed up, but knowing that you still have a savior and you're still growing and you're still a pain– painting that God has not finished painting yet, you can grow out of that and you can, you can move out of that. Lord, help us to accept ourselves, no strings attached. Now listen, I'm not telling you there's an excuse for sin, I'm telling you you're going to sin. We all sin. I'm telling you you're going to mess up, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to do things, say things, think things, live things that you shouldn't have done. You're never going to be perfect like Jesus however, you don't hate yourself for it. You love yourself through it, you encourage yourself through it. And you ask the Lord to help you grow and help you mature and you get filled more and more and more with the Holy Spirit and you're gradually, continually being transformed and you're improving. 

But every time you fail, you're not incriminating yourself, you're getting convicted and you're moving on and you're learning your lesson. That's what maturity is. And this is what I want to tell you today. Can you integrate your good side and your bad side? Your strengths and your weaknesses? Your anointing and your flesh? It's who you are. Don't divide yourself. Don't be a divided person, be a whole person. Know that you have the Holy Spirit and know that you're continually being transformed into the image of Christ. And you still have work to do, but don't hate yourself in the process. Love yourself through it and you will come through it a lot faster, a lot quicker because God loves you in the middle of it. God sees all your fails, God sees your weaknesses– weaknesses, and He still loves you and He's not going to forsake you. But can you love yourself and see yourself through the eyes of God? That's what I wanted to tell you today on this episode of Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Let me pray for you. Heavenly Father, I thank you for each person listening to this show. Help us, Father, to integrate and to be whole and to see ourselves and love ourselves unconditionally. Lord, we don't want to mess up but we do. Lord, we don't want to sin but we do. Lord, I thank you that we have a savior who forgives us; we have the Holy Spirit who's still transforming us. Father, help us to set our minds on the Spirit and get our minds off the flesh. But Lord, when we do fail, help us not get into self-incrimination and self-rejection and self-hatred. Help us, Father. Forgive us for even thinking those thoughts about ourselves, Father. Help us to learn to accept ourselves and love ourselves, no strings attached. Not, not, not approving of our failures, Father, but knowing that we will fail but we're going to learn from those, and we're going to continually grow in your strength because we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. I thank you for each– I thank you, Lord, for each person listening to the show. Help us to grow, help us to mature, Lord. Help us to become more like you, but help us, Father, to forgive ourselves and still love ourselves when we fail. But out of that, Father, get stronger and stronger and stronger in you. In Jesus' name, thank you, Father.

Thank you for listening. I pray this show's been a blessing to you. I appreciate you very much. Uh, please, please help us with this show. If you can go to the uh, podcast website, icmcollege.org/selfttalk, and subscribe and rate, that helps us a lot. Also, if you have ever thought about finishing a college degree, I'm very blessed to be president of the International College of Ministry. Check us out. You can get a free evaluation which will tell you what it takes to get a degree at icmcollege.org. Maybe the only completely Holy Spirit-filled, accredited seminary on the web. I don't know, but check us out. I love you much. Thank you for listening. This has been Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self himself. Amen.

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Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed the show. Pretty heavy show today, being able to integrate and uh, love yourself wholly even with all your stuff; your good points, your bad points. Like the old Clint Eastwood movie; we got the good, bad, and the ugly in us but we love ourselves unconditionally the way Christ loved us. Again, thank you for listening to the show. Hey, if you need to get more information or have questions for me, don't forget to email me. Um, email me at drrayself@gmail.com. d-r- r- a- y-s-e-l-f at gmail.com. Maybe you have an idea for the show; some way that I can help you. Again, my heart and my passion is our Holy Spirit-filled, online college. Listen, if you've– if you've never finished your college education or maybe you have a bachelor, like to get your master’s… maybe you're a leader in church and you've never graduated from a seminary. We're online, we're affordable, you work on your own schedule. We're anointed uh, we're… I don't know. I can't tell you enough about it. But that's icmcollege.org. You can get a free evaluation when you go there. The evaluation will tell you how many credits we can give you. We give a lot of advanced placement for people coming in. We can give up to 30 credit hours for life and ministry experience, we can give you credit for other, other colleges. We'll set you up a program that's affordable and you work your own schedule. Your own schedule. You say– people say, “When's your semester start?” We run 24 hours a day. The courses are just waiting for you. Love to have you. Again, don't forget uh, the podcast website icmcollege.org/selftalk. Anyway, I appreciate you very, very much. If anything I can do to bless you with any questions or pray for you, please let me know. This is Dr. Ray Self. Again, thanks for listening to my show. May the Lord richly bless you. Amen.