Redeeming Your Past & Finding Your Promised Land

by Dr. Ray Self


 




Redeeming Your Past - Lesson 1

Instructions:

  1. Click the "Play" Button to start the video.
  2. Follow along on the study guide below the video window.




Finding Your Promised Land - Lesson 1

Isaiah 54:4-5 - Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth.

The purpose of this course is to honestly look at anything within your personal belief system or your personal emotional psyche that is hindering you from moving forward into what the Lord has for you. In this course we will discuss how to apply healing to yourself and any loved one who has been adversely affected by their past.

A basic premise of life is that until you are working toward your God created purpose you will not find true satisfaction or peace. Your entire life, there have been dark forces that have come against you to keep you from what God has purposed for you. They can simply be called schemes. These schemes are customized by Satan just for you. This is a counter attack against the positive plans of God in your life.

In this teaching we are going to explore truth. We are going to look at painful facts and we are going to examine truths that can set you free.

Facing the negative forces in your live has only one purpose. That is to deal with them and gain freedom to move into your purpose.

When you complete this video, click the "Go On to Next Section" button at the bottom of this page to continue with the orientation course.

As we examine truth, you will discover that truth alone will not make you free. It seems that it should, but if you do not add the other elements needed, truth will simply work to bring on condemnation.

For personal growth and healing we need God’s truth, God’s grace and acceptance, and perhaps most importantly, we need time.

God can most assuredly heal instantaneously, but most often He heals through growing processes which require a continual diet of truth, along with His grace, and time for it all to take place.

Most of the world is in a continual vain search for satisfaction.

Have you ever or are you currently experiencing an underlying personal hunger or a sense of dissatisfaction or frustration with your personal life?

Hunger according to Webster - To feel the pain or uneasiness which is occasioned by a long abstinence from food. To desire with great eagerness; to crave.

No one likes to be hungry. Hunger is caused when you are away from something or someone too long.

You are born with hunger. Hunger for food, hunger for love, hunger for acceptance, hunger for money, hunger for contentment. The list could go on and on.

Hunger drives the world system and even though much hunger is legitimate it will never be satisfied through what modern society offers.

The question is what are you hungry for? The world offers a continual menu of items to desire - fame, power, money, alcohol, drugs, and material pleasures of every description. The problem, that so many find out too late, is that nothing the world offers will bring satisfaction. The world system creates a continuous ongoing hunger for more and more. The search is endless, this trying to find satisfaction for the hunger within a man’s soul.

      This is the Trap of Never Enough:


  • Never enough money
  • Never enough clothes
  • Never enough stuff – man toys, etc.


The search for satisfaction from hunger goes on and on, driving mankind deeper and deeper into the debt of materialism.

This hunger goes deeper than just material goods; it actually drives man to try in vain to find his value, identity and self-worth through an amazingly faulty world view. Finding self value through success, money, power, position, etc. are all illegitimate attempts by man to legitimize himself through the worlds system. Ultimately, it can never succeed.

This continual sense of dissatisfaction fuels the search for contentment.

Have you ever wondered why people with a lot of money never seem to have enough money?

Have you ever wondered why successful people, according to the world’s standards, never seem to have enough?

The world system that we have all grown up with offers a continual menu of never enough. The fact that we can never get enough causes us to be continually striving for enough. It is an impossible task.

The perpetual hunger of all of mankind can only be satisfied through God.

The underlying issue is the search for fulfillment, happiness, peace, and accomplishment.

You will develop a hunger when you are missing something that you need or something that you desire. What you need may not always be what you desire.

When your hunger is for the right thing Jesus promised that you would be blessed – Matthew 5:6 - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

John 4:14 - But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

Some people who have hungered for a long time just get depressed and live under a very miserable dark cloud of sadness that sometimes leads into the pit of despair.

Some people who have become so frustrated with their continual hunger pains for what they are missing in their lives that they just choose to escape.

Methods of escape can be varied but they include the obvious, such as drugs and alcohol. Escape can also come through food, sex, shopping, work, sleep, and some people even thrive on crisis. If there is no immediate crisis they will create one. Church can even be an escape.

Denial can be a powerful escape mechanism also.

Projection is an escape also, wherein a person projects his or her faults onto someone else. This is commonly called blame shifting.

Not all escapes are bad, such as vacations and rest, but when escaping causes the issues to fester and grow worse, then escape is a serious problem.

We all naturally want our hunger to be satisfied; when it’s not we look for a way to escape.

It is natural to desire or be hungry for what you want. The problem lies in the fact that the world system offers a continual menu of strong temptations which cause desire for its offerings.

These temptations are intended to make you hungry and to create desires for what the world offers. It is a never ending cycle that causes people to work hard all of their lives trying to achieve the unachievable.

Hunger can be directed. It is literately what you set your minds on that will determine your hunger.

Romans 8:6 - For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life & peace.

When your hunger and desire equals God’s design and purpose for you; success and fulfillment are on the way.

An interesting thing is that when you are on the road to what God has in store for you, satisfaction can be found in every step of the journey.

Study Questions:

  1. How does this promise apply to your life? Isaiah 54:4-5 - Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the shame of your youth
  2. In the context of this lesson what is a scheme?
  3. Explain how hunger can be a powerful motivator.
  4. How does Jesus satisfy hunger?