Valuing the Prophetic

Dr. Ray: Hello and welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. Very glad you're with me. This is going to be a real exciting show. Recently, I was very blessed to be in Crown Point, Indiana ministering in a three-day prophetic event at Living Stones Church pastored by Dr. Ron Johnson. What an incredible church with an amazing group of people full of the love of God. As part of this prophetic event, I was invited to be on the Ron Johnson Discipleship Podcast interviewing about the value of the prophetic gift. I really believe this is a fascinating interview and I want to play this for you today.

 

This podcast is brought to you by the International College of Ministry, an accredited, Holy Spirit-filled online college, enrolling now at icmcollege.org. Let's listen to the interview and God bless you.

 

[Music] 

 

Pastor Ron: Hey, I want to welcome you to the Ron Johnson discipleship podcast where each week we are excitedly connecting the dots between the lordship of Jesus Christ and our everyday lives and really desiring to make Him Lord of everything; and I'm especially excited once again to have a dear friend of mine, Dr Ray Self to come and be with us today as we're talking about valuing the prophetic and uh, and just gleaning uh, from his life and ministry. In fact, Ray, welcome,

 

Dr. Ray: Thank you.

 

Pastor Ron: ..and uh, appreciate you being with us. We're- if you're watching this podcast, you just missed two amazing days of prophetic impartation. Uh, we had Ray and Joe Warner, a couple of the men from our Network of Related Pastors, who came up for an event we call Week One, uh; which is an exciting uh, time, each year here at Living Stone where we just humble ourselves before the Lord we seek His face and we, we just cry out for more. But we have some of our prophetic friends come in and just minister personally to our people and it is an amazing time of encouragement, amazing time uh, really getting launched into a brand new year. So Ray, just for our guests who might not know you as well as I know you, talk a little bit about your, your background and especially as it relates to, you know, moving in the prophetic which is, which is a gift that God's blessed you with.

 

Dr. Ray: Well thank you, appreciate you having me here.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: Um, yeah, my name is Ray Self;  I'm originally born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. I was a very traditional Christian, I was a good old Southern Baptist boy, I love my Southern Baptist,

 

Pastor Ron: Absolutely.

 

Dr. Ray: …brothers and friends; and I was raised in the Southern Baptist church, went to Sunday School in church, sang my hymns, and sat in my wooden pews and uh,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: um, did all of, did the uh, Sunday School and what was it, the Royal Ambassadors Vacation Bible School, all the traditional stuff. One day, make a long story short, back in my mid 30s or so, life got very difficult for me, extremely difficult. Went through sort of a nightmarish time in my life; in the midst of all that, I met someone called the Holy Spirit.

 

Pastor Ron: Wow.

 

Both laugh.

 

Dr. Ray: And I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in an extremely significant way. I was- somebody just literally took me to the word of God and a friend of mine said hey Ray, have you ever heard of the baptism in the Holy Spirit? And being a good old Baptist, and I love my Baptist friends,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I said I'm not sure what you're talking about.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And he just opened up the book of Acts and started showing me Acts 1 and Acts chapter 8. Philip and Samaria and the apostles going up in Acts 19 and uh, something said uh, you need that, right?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. Well I think it's interesting, you know, and probably a lot of our listeners can relate, the Holy Spirit's name is the Helper, right? And it's interesting how sometimes it's not until we're at the end of our rope and really hurting and broken and, and desperate uh, that we realize hey, there's a helper out there, His name's the Holy Spirit, let me let Him introduce Himself to you, you know. Uh, and uh, it was the case certainly in your life. So that was a powerful encounter with the Lord.

 

Dr. Ray: It was a crossroads in my life, yeah. I mean, literally just looking in scripture and seeing, all of a sudden seeing things that I haven't paid attention to before; somebody laying hands on me to be baptized in the Holy Spirit literally, literally changed my life. I mean, I was, I was a saved Christian, I was definitely a saved Christian, but this baptism of the Holy Spirit changed my life. And then I’ll never forget this- when the guy, he laid his hands on me, “Lord, I baptize my brother with the Holy Spirit,” and Holy Spirit came on me in an extremely powerful way.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And then when he finished, he said Ray, “I want to tell you a few things.” What he said, “You're going to look at the word of God and see things you've never seen before.” Hmm, really? He said, “You'll lay hands on people that are sick and you'll watch them get healed right in front of your eyes.” I said okay, okay. And he said, “You might have some funny language in your mouth and uh, don't let the devil tell you it’s gibberish.” And everything he told me happened. Uh, it was an incredible, incredible time of my life. 

 

Pastor Ron: Well, and I might add everything he told you, it comes right out of the bible, 

 

Dr. Ray: Exactly, absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: Act, you know, the laying on of hands and uh, the empowering of the Holy Spirit. Of course, John the Baptist said there was One coming who was far greater than him who would baptize in the Holy Spirit and fire.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: And uh, and uh, Jesus being the one who's going to baptize us. So these are all things- it's almost like the bible became alive to you and you experienced things you've never seen before.

 

Dr. Ray: Exactly, exactly. Changed my life. And then that's when the prophetic started to flow although I didn't really know what it was, I was very immature, very inexperienced. So I go from a Baptist church which I love dearly.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: …to a full-blown, absolute charismatic church. I don’t know if you remember the Vineyard churches,

 

Pastor Ron: Oh, yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I went from a Southern Baptist to a Vineyard church.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: Sat in the church, couldn't understand why they sang so much, in fact uh, nobody wore a suit. 

 

Pastor Ron: Laughs.

 

Dr. Ray: When I couldn't find my hymnal, it was really uh…

 

Both laugh.

 

Pastor Ron: Well, and I love the two extremes you know, because we like to highlight,

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: The, the uh, the incredible contributions of the various streams of the body of Christ, but thank God for our Baptist friends, the foun-

 

Dr. Ray: Oh, absolutely.

 

Pator Ron: …foundation, the, the, uh the witnessing and salvation, foundation…

 

Dr. Ray: Salvation, absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: And thank God for the Vineyard movement. Some of you might not be familiar with, with John Wimber and the Vineyard movement but just, when I think of people who uh, really moved in the gifts of the Holy Spirit uh, he's got to be right up there at the top of the list. Just an incredible uh, anointing on his life, and came from a completely unchurched background.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: Um, the complete opposite of where many of us were raised in the church, he wasn't raised in the church and yet he encountered such a, a powerful move of the Holy Spirit in his life.

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely, absolutely. So I'm, I'm just, I'm just in love. I'm in love with the Holy Spirit.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: He glorifies Christ.

 

Pastor Ron: Amen.

 

Dr. Ray: He always glorifies Christ, but I just know what happened to me, and it's kind of like the Apostle Paul. You know, he would just, he just keep telling people, well just let me tell you what happened to me...

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I was going down this road…

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And I meet this man called Jesus. And to me, uh, what do- I think it was Oral Roberts said one time he said a man with an argument is at the complete mercy of a man with an experience.

 

Pastor Ron: Amen. Amen. Yeah. How do you, how do you argue, you know, like, like, like you said. The man that was once blind, now he sees, he doesn't have an argument for how that happened, he just knows he can see.

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: And uh, and that's really the way the Holy Spirit works. He reveals as you mentioned, he reveals Jesus to us and I always tell people you really cannot be too Holy Spirit focused. I've heard people criticize charismatic churches of being too Holy Spirit centered or focused but, and the reason you can't be is because the Holy Spirit's role is to point us to Jesus. So if you're focused on the Holy Spirit, you're going to be in love with Jesus and uh, and Jesus reveals the Father to us and so it all works together in beautiful harmony, um. But, but one of the things, you know Ray was with us last night, we had a special gathering of our, of our ministry heads and leadership and I love to bring a prophetic ministry in to just to minister to those who are on the front lines of the battle and uh, and I asked Ray just to share a little word on the prophetic and, and then to impart to us and, and, uh activate and, and then minister to our team. And, and you shared some amazing uh, simple truths but profound truths from scripture. Maybe I, I know for me it was, it was eye-opening once again; but I asked Ray just to, to highlight some of those things I think would be very helpful for our listeners because over the years, you know, here at Living Stones, I, I've come to incredibly value the Holy Spirit as you do. Um, I, I, you know, our church has been transformed by a move of God and by an, um, fresh encounters with the Holy Spirit. And um, and I always try to demystify and take the, you know, take the weirdness out of the beauty of the Holy Spirit and I felt like you, you, you did that last night. So talk to us. You know, one of the things that hit me was just that the command to uh, from the bible it is a command to pursue prophecy, um, and to pursue gifts. Talk to us a little bit about that because I've never seen, seen it in that light before.

 

Dr. Ray: Well to me, um, I think the Apostle Paul- sometimes we make him too complex. I think he was actually pretty clear and simple. He gave us uh, instructions concerning spiritual gifts,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And to me, I asked the students last night, you know, your leaders at the church. I said, do you believe the bible is the word of God? Do you believe it's true?

 

Pastor Ron: Yes.

 

Dr. Ray: Do you believe you should do what it commands?

 

Pastor Ron: Yes, yes, yes. 

 

Dr. Ray: So what do you do with First Corinthians 14:1 when it says pursue love- okay, I got that. I got, you know, love,

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: …I love you brother, I love you brother. Desire earnestly spiritual gifts.

 

Pastor Ron: Yes.

 

Dr. Ray: That's a commandment, it's not, it's not saying I wish you would desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you would prophesy. And then he goes on and he talks about the one who prophesies edifies the church, the one that speaks in the tongue edifies himself. As a matter of fact, ten times he mentions this gift. And then you go to verse 39, and in the King James I really like it, it says “do not forbid speaking in tongues but covet to prophesy.” Now he didn't say covet gifts of healing or coveting discerning of spirits. He didn't say even covet tongues, he said covet to prophesy. And to me, you know, meditating on that and actually praying about that, I was asking God, “so God, what about healing? That's a great gift. What about salvation? What about… these are incredible gifts.” And then it's like the Lord just said Ray, there's nothing more important than My voice.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: What's more important in our life than hearing God.

 

Pastor Ron: And, and, and even to backtrack a little bit here, when the bible says pursue love, that, you know that's not optional. Obviously the greatest of these is love, right? Um, but the very next words there are “eagerly desired spiritual gifts”. And then as it says here, “especially prophesy.” To be able to prophesy. So talk about that for a little bit because um, what the, the new testament nature of the prophetic really to me dovetails with the command to pursue love because it's not a judgment thing. You know, sometimes I think people look at the Old Testament prophets and many times they were delivering judgment, and rightfully so. It was, they were speaking to wicked people, wicked nations, and bringing the, the, the judgment of God's coming. But that's not the nature- you talked last night about an important principle, about the cross; and talk, talk about that a little bit, that was so helpful.

 

Dr. Ray: In the prophetic, you know… and to me, sometimes the prophetic gift is like - because we're human - it's like an old Clint Eastwood movie. Sometimes you'll see the good, the bad, and the ugly,

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: …okay. But the good part is you, we prophesy on, on the right side of the cross. We have the finished work of Jesus Christ which has defined us, which has fulfilled the law, which has done everything for us. And so prophecy has to come after the finished work of Jesus Christ and glorifying and in agreement with the finished work of Jesus Christ, where the old testament prophets didn't have the finished work of Jesus Christ yet; it was yet to come.

 

Pastor Ron: So, so the cross…

 

Dr. Ray: …so that's a big difference.

 

Pastor Ron: …represents the fact that Jesus Christ took our place, took our curse, took the judgment of God for our sin,

 

Dr. Ray: Right.

 

Pastor Ron: on Himself and so now we're going through the cross, the other side of the cross,

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: And on the other side of the cross. You know, as I'm in, and you know of course, just watching the prophetic last night with you, Joe; watching people break down and cry, watching people experience breakthrough, joy; that's because the word that's coming is a word of encouragement, it's a word of exhortation, it's a, it's a word of sometimes reading someone's heart in terms of what's, what's been going on inside of them and that's totally different than you know, you're all going to die. 

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, it's different in the Old Testament, “by the way guys, in 70 years you're all going into captivity,” you know?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: This, according to Paul, it- the prophecy edifies us and it exhorts us; it comforts us. That's- we call it the three effects of New Testament prophecy- to me the biggest thing is it builds your faith.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I mean, especially when somebody gives you a prophetic word and you know it's from God and it's confirming something God's been trying to tell you. Then your faith just goes off the Richter scale, and it glorifies Christ.

 

Pastor Ron: Now just as an example, you know, this is what I love: last night uh, my niece stayed in town, she's from Fort Wayne,

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: She and her husband, Scott, and um, and she loves the Lord - they both do - and, and uh, and she's very prophetic. Uh, she, she sees things and in fact, that's something I want to backtrack on: just what it, what does it mean we say someone's prophetic? But she, she sees things and you know, God gives her dreams and, and uh, they had just had a discussion within the last month uh, evidently when Scott was a young boy there were two things he wanted to be when he grew up. Some people wanted to be firemen, police officers, he wanted to be a roofer. Evidently he liked climbing on roofs but he also had a, in his heart, to be a pastor. Now this is interesting because he's very pastoral, he loves people, he's very gentle, he's very tender and kind, compassionate, all the things that you think of when someone's pastoral. But they just talked about what does this mean and where, where are we headed and what's God's calling on our life and of course, you didn't know any of that but the Holy Spirit inside of you knows all things, and they came up and I guess one of the things that you asked them was uh…

 

Dr. Ray: the Lord just - I just saw a pastoral call. And uh, I believe they came up, I just said “pastor” and he just, he just you know, stiffens up and then the Lord began to to show me things about the pastoral call on his life and I was just speaking the impressions that the Holy Spirit was giving me by faith,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: Amen, and then your niece, right?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And the Lord, the Lord, and I just looked at her and I said I see the prophetic, I see the prophetic, and all of a sudden she's weeping and he's weeping and uh, and the Lord, it was really, it wasn't something they'd never heard before,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: But it was confirmation. If you look in the bible, God was constantly confirming His word. How many prophecies did we get about Jesus before He even came?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. 

 

Dr. Ray: And even Jesus would keep confirming, confirming, confirming; so so many times, prophecy is a confirmation.

 

Pastor Ron: So here's a young couple, they're, they both love the Lord, they're trying to search things out, they're trying to navigate…

 

Dr. Ray: Right.

 

Pastor Ron: …and all of a sudden, they show up at a meeting, a man that they've never met before says you know, uh, you have a pastoral calling and by the way, you're prophetic and the response there was there was a strong response. Share that a little bit because it was-

 

Dr. Ray: well it was really, it was, it was, I want to say cute but it was really more than cute,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah, it was.

 

Dr. Ray: And so, and I will say this: in the prophetic gift, once you, you give a prophecy, if you're flowing in that gift and you release it, sometimes it's difficult to remember because the words I gave were not for me, they were for them.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah that happens a lot if you flow in a prophetic gift, sometimes - unless somebody writes it down - you may not remember what you said because you're just saying- it's just the Holy Spirit speaking through you. But interesting enough, I do remember them because when I, when I spoke um, the reaction was so strong. I mean, you could just see. It's like you could just sense the Spirit of God resting upon them, and the tears, and then they couldn't stand up, they, next thing I know they're, they're on their knees and then they're on their face and they're weeping; I mean, she's got a puddle on the carpet of tears, I'm trying to find a tissue, somebody give me a tissue, but uh, it was, it wasn't just, it wasn't flesh. It was like the Spirit of God just resting on them and it was like a holy weeping.

 

Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: It wasn't a sad weeping, it was a holy, you know, it was a prayer to- uh, my mother used to call it you know, prayerful tears,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. 

 

Dr. Ray: It was beautiful.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. And that's what happens, you know, when the Holy Spirit touches us and, and this, you know, Joe was sharing stories, you were sharing stories, they all encouraged my heart; but, but what gets me more than anything, Ray, is when uh, it reveals the compassion of the Father and the love of God, that He, that He would know exactly what's going on in your life and then He would choose through someone who doesn't even know you just to speak a word of encouragement. That just when those things come together, it's a convergence of, of the love of the Father in revelation and, and God's compassion and inside; and, and sometimes it leads you into just a, a pool of mess- messy tears and brokenness…

 

Dr. Ray: It does.

 

Pastor Ron: But it is. I love what you said, it is a holy moment uh, because it's, it's birthed out of the Holy Spirit and uh, just to watch that, to be around that, to be used by God, and maybe that's another point. You know, one of the things I, I encouraged you guys to do last night, it was so great, was to really activate the prophetic gifting and talk about that, you know, you gave a good example- of course, the bible talks about you know, if you ask for uh, you know, a, a fish you know, uh, bread, does He give you a stone or you know, you know,

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: Of course not. Why would- God's a great father. If you, “if you, as earthly fathers know how to give good gifts, how much more do I know how to give good gifts?” Talk about that though, why would God- God wouldn't encourage us to pursue something that He had no desire to bless us in. 

 

Dr. Ray: Well first you know, we have the commandment to earnestly desire to prophesy, okay? Um, Jesus said “my sheep know My voice, they follow Me,” so logical question is, how am I going to follow my shepherd if I can't hear His voice?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: How do we, and- well, we have the word of God, 

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: …that's true and He does speak through the word of God, but the author of the word is alive and He's still directing us and He's speaking to us; so to me, the gift of prophecy, just to be clear, is the Lord speaking.

 

Pastor Ron: Right, okay.

 

Dr. Ray: And something that, honestly sometimes people get in their flesh and they mix it up because we're human beings, but it's the Lord when it's given correctly it is the Lord. 

 

Pastor Ron: You made it clear, you know, and we've talked about this before uh, the word of prophecy or the gift of prophecy never replaces, contradicts the, the scriptures as the…

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: …final authority, the spoken word of the Lord. But, but, but we need, you know, like in this situation with this young couple, kind of sensing the Lord, what are you doing and what is the calling on our lives. They could read in the bible about, you know, what pastors do or they could read about what the prophetic is but if this was a now word, this was a word the Lord’s speaking to you at that moment to them at that moment and, and that is different than the, the written word. And, and it's necessary. It's a necessary compliment to the written word.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah. And it, it, it is confirmation and confirmation builds our faith and glorifies Christ, so the gift should be nothing but, but glorifying Christ and building the church. Everything points to Christ. If it doesn't, if it doesn't sound like something Jesus would say or Jesus would do, throw it out the door.

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: Jesus said apart from Me you can do nothing. But as far as imparting it, you know, so last night we were imparting it.

 

Pastor Ron: Yes.

 

Dr. Ray: You say, well that's kind of strange, imparting a gift. Well, in First Peter 4:10, it says “as each has received a gift, employ it for one another.” So there's two principles there. You receive, you give it away. You can't give away something you haven't received.

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: And then we have this in Timothy where it says that um, it's uh, Second Timothy, uh, First Timothy 4:14, “do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed through you on prophetic utterance,”

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. And so how is that, that, that might be something that people have never thought of but- so spiritual gifts can be imparted through the laying on of hands,

 

Dr. Ray: Well that’s what the bible says.

 

Pastor Ron: So if you had a gift uh, and if the Lord was wanting to release that in somebody else, that's where we, we literally touch someone, lay hands on someone, there's a transference of, of gifting and anointing, and that's really what we were practicing last night is just increasing, stirring up the gifts that God's placed within us.

 

Dr. Ray: Right. And it was amazing, I mean, so many people heard from God. It was amazing. So the principle is, uh, God wants us to receive spiritual gifts and use spiritual gifts because the bible says, and Paul said, the manifestation of Spirit is for the common good. And so it's actually selfish not to receive and use a spiritual gift. So the prophetic gift that I have is not for Ray Self, it's for you.

 

Pastor Ron: It's not so you can put a title after your name,

 

Dr. Ray: No.

 

Pastor Ron: …or build a big platform about how awesome you are, it's really about blessing and encouraging the body of Christ, it's…

 

Dr. Ray: Right, well even last night it wasn't for me, it was for your leaders.

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: That's what the gift was for. It wasn't for Ray, it was, was for them.

 

Pasto Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And that's why we're to pursue it because Paul was all about the church, the benefit of the church as a whole.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And not to be self-centered. That's why “he who speaks in the tongue edifies himself,”

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: “but he who prophesies edifies the church.”

 

Pasotr Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: He said well, it's good to edify yourself but it's even better to edify the church. 

Pastor Ron: That's good, yeah. And that was wonderful and even as you said, we paused and “okay, who received a word from, from somebody that prayed for you that you thought was right on” and we heard just amazing testimonies.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah. 

 

Pastor Ron: And, and the goal of every- everyone was, you know, if you ask somebody “Are you encouraged? Are you are you strengthened? Has this been a good experience?” 

Dr. Ray: Yes.

 

Pastor Ron: Everybody felt encouraged and their faith was built up and so that's powerful. Now, you know, one of the questions people have you know, when it comes to well, what is it? What does it look like or feel like or sound like to hear the voice of God? And you know, the Holy Spirit speaks in a lot of different ways. Talk about that a little bit um… you know, like when you're, when you're getting ready to pray, say you're going to pray over, over me or there's a- tonight we're going to be ministering to people, there will be a line of people, so they’ll come walking up, you've never met them before. Walk us through that process. What, what are you doing? How do you hear from the Lord? How do you release what, what you feel like God's saying?

 

Dr. Ray: Well, the, the key for me has been just years of practice. It's, it's when you, you practice it, hearing- and I even tell my students you can practice hearing the voice of God. There will be times you think it's God speaking and it's not; just your imagination. I've always said you have three people talking to you all the time. You talk to yourself, demons will try to talk to you, and the Holy Spirit is talking to you. And I pretty much believe, not pretty much, I do. I believe that God's broadcasting, we just don't tune in right.

 

Pastor Ron: Getting on the right frequency.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, yeah. It’s- so, to me, I pay very close attention to this script- the scripture that said in Isaiah “My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways,” so I pay very close attention to thoughts that are just- would not, would not come into my mind. Who was the couple that has the business called Integrity, uh, last night? There was a, I was, I was talking to a couple and I kept hearing the word integrity. I said I believe you're moving in integrity, you're, you're flowing in integrity, and the Lord- you're people, you're, you're, you know, you're, you're working in integrity. I heard this word. Then, when I finished, they looked at me and they said “you don't understand, we have a business, a family business and it's called Integrity.”

 

Pastor Ron: Oh wow.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, and it was like wow. But that word…

 

Pastor Ron: So again- that was a key word.

 

Dr. Ray: It, it came out of nowhere. 

 

Pastor Ron: It meant a lot to them because that's the name of their business.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: And that's, that; again, they leave going wow, you know, God, God is recognizing what we're doing. God is pleased with what we're doing and God pointed that out just to encourage us, to keep doing the same.

 

Dr. Ray: So, well, the key- the thing to me was, it was a thought that came out of nowhere. Another thing I try to do is I pay very close attention to first impressions because if I wait and I try to figure it out, I just get into analysis paralysis,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: …and it becomes flesh. 

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: So you have to go with it and let it flow. You have to gamble sometimes, you have to take a risk.

 

Pastor Ron: And that's faith on our part.

 

Dr. Ray: It is, right.

 

Pastor Ron: Because we're wondering what if this is wrong or whatever, now was just gonna, you know, I don't want to embarrass myself or whatever. But, but you talk about the, the way, sometimes you said it's it's a word. Uh, like the word integrity. Sometimes it's a picture. 

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah. 

 

Pastor Ron: Uh, talk about that. Or an image, or God will show you a, a picture of a certain thing.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah. Really funny story was, we were, my wife, we were sitting with a group of uh, people from our church one time and my wife was sitting next to me and she taps me on the shoulder and she goes “Ray, I have a word.” So I’m thinking oh wow, my wife's got a prophetic word, this sounds really great. And so I said “Christie, you have a word?” “Yeah, I got a word.” So I said, “Well, give it, Christie.” She goes “Yellow.” I’m going “...” and She goes…

 

Pastor Ron: Hahah. Elaborate!

 

Dr. Ray: And that's all she said. She said “I just heard yellow.” And then all of a sudden, another person in the, in the group said “I see a flashing light like a, a caution light,” and somebody else said “You're, you're getting ready to make a decision. The Lord is saying be cautious,” and the lady began to weep and cry. And sometimes we know in part, we prophesy in part, in First Corinthians 13. So sometimes we just get a part of it,

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: And so it, it's…

 

Pastor Ron: Yes. The word yellow by itself…

 

Dr. Ray: [Laughs]

 

Pastor Ron: …didn't…

 

Dr. Ray: [laughs]

 

Pastor Ron: but then okay, now we got caution, now I got somebody else that gets a little more. That's what the yellow obviously means, it's a stoplight, traffic light, uh, it all comes together. But sometimes there's a foolishness. I, I remember we were praying for a gal when I was in college and the Lord just gave me a simple number and it was the number four and I thought, Lord, you know, that's all you got, four? And uh, and I literally heard the Holy Spirit say “that's fine, you can go ahead and pray your religious prayer and watch nothing happen or you can trust Me.”

 

Dr. Ray: Right.

 

Pastor Ron: And when I shared the number four, it was like the cork went off of this gal. But the number four was significant. She said “that's my number, that's my number, that's my number.” She kept saying that she had been sexually abused at the age of four, she had never shared publicly what had happened and that brought about an incredible healing in her life because all it was was a nudge that meant nothing to me- the Holy Spirit didn't tell me what happened, He just gave me a number.

 

Dr. Ray: Right.

 

Pastor Ron: And then I had to share that number which seems so, so foolish. Uh, and yet God uses the foolishness to demonstrate His wisdom. 

 

Dr. Ray: You, and that's a good point, you can train yourself to hear the voice of God. Um, a mother will train herself to hear her child, I mean, a mom can hear her baby whimper in three rooms over in the house and nobody else can hear. There can be a hundred children on a playground and her one, her child begins to cry and she can hear that voice, okay? You can train yourself to hear the voice of God with practice. Again, so many people are afraid of being embarrassed which actually is pride,

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: that's pride, that they won't release the word.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: But even if you were to give a word that maybe was not good, the person receiving it, he's got the word of God, he's got the Holy Spirit. He can judge that word.

 

Pastor Ron: Right our job is just to be the delivery boys and girls…

 

Dr. Ray: To the best of our ability and it does, it is a gamble sometimes, it's a risk, but I found out God is so faithful if you're willing to step out almost, I mean, I would say over 90% of the time it's going to be the Lord.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. And what do we, what do we do in practical terms to cultivate uh, you know, like Joe shared with me one time: “Hey, I'd like to do prophetic activation,” it was for a large group meeting I said no don't do prophetic activation because I'm gonna have to clean up all these messes uh, because some people don't need to be prophetically activated, they need, they need a lot of other work in their life before that. In other words, in other words, this isn't like a toy we run around and play with,

 

Dr. Ray: It's not.

 

Pastor Ron: What would you say to somebody who's really wanting to cultivate uh, a listening ear? I mean, a lot of that has to do with our lifestyle, our character, I mean, what, what are some practical helps you would give us to, to working on us so that we can be conduits?

 

Dr. Ray: I actually encourage… start small and simple. Ask God questions, and this is, don't laugh, but literally, “God, will you please tell me where my car keys are? Just tell me where I put my car keys,” and just be still and pay attention to an impression and literally, you'll, you ask Him and if you get still, He'll tell you where your car keys are.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

 

Dr. Ray: And I know that's minor, but little things like this in practice; and then practice praying for people and as you're praying, have, you know, be speaking but be listening at the same time. That's what I encourage people to do, um…

 

Pastor Ron: I love to minister in teams because like you said, while you're praying, I'm listening and God's giving me a download.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah.

 

Pastor Ron: Then while I'm praying, you're listening and it's just a good way to flow back and forth. 

 

Dr. Ray: And you can pray in the natural until the supernatural kicks in.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And that's the way to do it. To me, it was just simple things, um, just simple things. I remember when I was a kid, I was like 12 years old, I love to play baseball and I had- if you remember when you're a kid, you have your baseball glove?

 

Pastor Ron: Yep. 

 

Dr. Ray: And that's precious. That baseball glove, you got it molded to your hand, you oil it, and all this sort of stuff and you- and I remember carrying that baseball glove wherever I went; you know, that was my thing when I was a kid and one day I lost it. And I lost my baseball glove and I was crushed. And so my mother said Ray, let's pray and ask God where your baseball glove is. “Really, mom?” “Yeah.”

 

Pastor Ron: Well God cares about the lost baseball mit.

 

Dr. Ray: So we prayed and I got a picture of my glove laying in the front yard of my neighbor's house and I just, I said, “Okay, mom.” And I walked over to my neighbors’ really quick and there it was.

 

Pastor Ron: Wow.

 

Dr. Ray: And I think, “That's so simple,” but God, God cares about the small things.

 

Pastor Ron: And what I love is here, here your mom, a godly woman, directing your attention toward the Lord you, and a, a young boy like molded clay, you know and you still remember that experience.

 

Dr. Ray: I still remember this, I'll never forget it.

 

Pastor Ron: So you're like, you know, well why would God do that? Well, because He's trying to touch a young boy's heart and show him that baseball mits matter to God too but more importantly, that was a, that was a formative moment really for your calling because, because now that's something that you've been able to move in and bless people- the Lord, allow the Lord to bless people through you all over the world.

 

Dr. Ray: But I want to encourage, back to the question, practice listening. And one of the ways you can do it, maybe with, with your husband or your wife or whatever, just lay hands on them and pray for them.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And then, as you're praying, get still.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And say honey, I believe we're hearing- the Lord's saying, blah, blah, blah, blah and see, or see, or find a friend or somebody you don't know so well. What's really cool is when you pray and you speak the impression or the feeling that you have and they say wow, how did you know that, it really builds you up and it increases your gift. And so you practice by just praying for people and um, and then as you, as you, as you get more and more and more and you get better at it, you'll find yourself prophesying to strangers, and I love to give prophetic words to servers at restaurants.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah, that was what you were saying too, you know, sometimes we, we tend to, to view the local church as the, the center of attention but really, the local church is an equipping place to launch people out into the world, which the world's really the center of attention where people are lost and far from the Lord and need, and need to know the love of God; and what a powerful thing when these gifts are used,

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: to reveal God's heart, so, that's awesome. So again, I love what you said, it’s for the common good. And then when you think of even the common good in the local church, now we're going to take it outside; so it's for the common good of planet earth, this longing to hear about God's heart and God's love for them. 

 

Dr. Ray: And uh, and when you, if when you give a prophetic word to somebody who doesn't know the Lord, so many times they'll say well how did you know that?

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah, yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: What an open door.

 

Pastor Ron: Oh yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: What an open door to share His love…

 

Pastor Ron: God loves you, He knows you…

 

Dr. Ray: Oh yeah. 

 

Pastor Ron: …He's- I don't know you but He knows you and He's getting your attention here, and I love all of that.

 

Dr. Ray: Absolutely.

 

Pastor Ron: So maybe, in the time we have left, I, I- you have a couple of amazing books that you brought with you. One interesting enough, this answers the question I just asked you, uh, Hear His Voice Be His Voice, uh, on recognizing and obeying God. The other book by Dr. Ray Self is called Redeeming Your Past, Finding Your Promised Land, uh, talk a little bit about those and then how do, how do people get a copy? 

 

Dr. Ray: This book, Redeeming Your Past and Finding Your Promised Land is, it's based a little bit off my life. I was a, a corporate businessman, uh, owned over six different companies, worked for some major corporations, owned some companies, owned a software development firm, and um, owned a big national appliance and electronics outlet store and did some amazing jobs. Set up an inventory control system for Graceland.

 

Pastor Ron: Okay. I did some stuff, I did some stuff but I was never, I was always a square peg in a round hole. I kept thinking if I make more money, I buy a better car, get a bigger boat - I love boats - if I get a bigger boat, I'd be happy. I never could find it because I was not in my call.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And when I finally accepted and realized that I was called into the ministry, I began to move into my promised land and I believe God's got a promised land for all of us. It's the place you're created to be doing the thing you're created to do, and that's where your happiness is. That's where your fulfillment is and that's where people around you are truly blessed. You have to get in there but the problem is we have issues from our past that are still manifesting in our present that are keeping us from our future,

 

Pastor Ron: Right.

 

Dr. Ray: And we have to deal with this.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I don't want to go back but I want to deal with it because it's keeping me, up, the- Satan doesn't care about you but he does care about your purpose. He attacks your plan.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah. He hates you and he attacks the plan of God…

 

Dr. Ray: He doesn't want the plan of God working through you. 

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: But this is about how to get through that and get into your promised land. And then of course, this one is uh, about God's voice and the prophetic; not just a prophetic gift but just hearing Him every day.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: I even got some cool chapters in there like how not to be weird…

 

Pastor Ron: [laughs]

 

Dr. Ray: Because some people with the prophetic get weird…

 

Pastor Ron: [continues to laugh]

 

Dr. Ray: I mean, I mean, they do. And there's some practical stuff and they're- both of these are on amazon.

 

Pastor Ron: Well, that's what I appreciate about you, appreciate about Joe, and others. You know, I think we've all, we've all seen uh, bad ex- bad prophetic or carnal or fleshly or whatever the mixture, where things just seem to be weird or bizarre, but I love that about the Holy Spirit, He's he's not weird and bizarre. Sometimes He is different, He surprises us, His ways are not our ways,

 

Dr. Ray: Right.

 

Pastor Ron: …His thoughts are not our thoughts, uh, and His power encounters us in ways that sometimes blow our mind. But He's, He's a dove, He's uh, He's fire, He's wind, those are the, the images of the Holy Spirit. He's gentle, uh, and He just reveals the heart of the Father and that's really what we want to see. You know, I can't wait for tonight because I know there's going to be just dozens and dozens of people who are going to be impacted uh, by the love of the Father and uh, and it's always one of the highlights of my year so thank you for coming and being a part of that,

 

Dr. Ray: Thank you for having me.

 

Pastor Ron: Thanks for being a part of this podcast. How can people, I know you have a podcast uh, that is well received, and tell us how people can find out about that.

 

Dr. Ray: Well, I have a podcast named Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self as part of the Charisma Podcast Network, um, cpn.com, but you can also just- if you google uh, Self Talk with Dr. Ray Self it’ll come up. It's on, you know, Audible and Apple and all those, all those places and would appreciate that. And um, my primary website actually is my college website that I was very blessed to found, and that's International College of Ministry and that's uh, the website is icmcollege.org. There's a lot of free stuff on there by the way.

 

Pastor Ron: ICM College, and I just want, I want Dr. Ray to share a little bit because part of his focus is really equipping Christians in the local church, uh, from ministry and being more effective, and talk a little bit about that, some of the degree offerings uh, from ICM.

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, I've always just, I've always felt like we should have a Holy Spirit-filled seminary online; and I wanted to be a church without walls and so we developed a completely online college, over 1600 page website, and it's called International College of Ministry, icmcollege.org. We have degrees, we have associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees . We are accredited - they're ecclesiastical degrees but we are accredited - they're Holy Spirit-filled, we have, you can major in ministry, theology, uh, Christian Counseling has been a very popular degree, and even prophetic ministry.

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah.

 

Dr. Ray: And you can do it all online on your own schedule, your own time frame,

 

Pastor Ron: Yeah, that's awesome. So-

 

Dr. Ray: We have scholarships for people who have a financial hardship,

 

Pastor Ron: Oh wow, fantastic. And we have one of our ladies from our church, she's doing that right now. She absolutely loves it and she's feeling energized and charged and better equipped so I encourage you to check that out. It is the beginning of a new year, this is a time to focus on growth, uh, in fact, our series, uh, here at Living Stones uh, is focusing on how we grow in the Lord. I encourage you to check that out uh, online as well, here at lstones.org. I hope this has been helpful to you for you today and I just want to pray for you in closing. Maybe you're dealing with something right now by way of a need of breakthrough or just an encounter with the Lord and Father, we just, as Ray and I've been talking about these gifts of the Holy Spirit, Lord we just pause right now to pray for people that are listening. We believe that You've set up divine appointments that even this topic today is right where somebody needed to hear. And Father, even now just speak uh, to those who, who need a breakthrough. I just pray Lord, You'd help us to hear Your voice better; tune our ear to Your voice. And Lord, for those who maybe are listening that are, that are far from You or maybe have never encountered You, I pray that today if you're hearing the sound of our voices, that the day is for you and it's the Lord wooing you and He loves you and He wants a relationship with you. And so if we can help you in any way, just get in touch with us here at Living Stones at (219) - 663 - pray. That's (219) - 663 - pray and we would be glad to pray with you. There's people waiting to help you in any way uh, that you need help. So Father, bless our folks today. May You crown this year and with Your blessing and favor. And Lord, may we truly move into the fullness of this prophetic anointing and calling that You've uh, designed for us and called us into. We give You the praise and the glory now, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

 

Thanks for tuning in today. Make sure you follow Dr. Ray on his podcast, check that out, and get a copy of this book. In fact, how do they get these books? Are they available?

 

Dr. Ray: Yeah, this is uh, Redeeming Your Past, Finding Your Promised Land, Dr. Ray Self and Hear His Voice, Be His Voice, amazon.com.

 

Pastor Ron: Amazon, sweet.

 

Dr. Ray: That's the best way to get it. 

 

Pastor Ron: All right, check it out. Until we meet again, have a great week.

 

[Music]

 

Narrator: Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review our show on iTunes, YouTube, Spotify, Charisma Podcast Network, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps our show reach more people and spread the gospel. You can purchase Dr. Self's latest book, Hear His Voice, Be His Voice on amazon.com. Please visit Dr. Self's webpage at icmcollege.org for more information and free downloads.