Join Rick Hughes as he explores the spiritual dynamics that promote personal transformation. By adopting a faith-driven approach, listeners are encouraged to embrace a mindset akin to the teachings and life of Christ. From the role of the Holy Spirit to understanding the deeper meaning of salvation, this episode provides a pathway for finding enduring happiness, stability, and tranquility through faith.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now your host Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few minutes please stay with me. It’ll be a few minutes, 30 minutes to be precise, of motivation, some inspiration, some education. Always done without manipulation. We don’t manipulate people. We don’t con anybody. We’re not soliciting money. We’re not asking you to join anything. We’re not going to ask you to fess it up, give it up, show up. Just listen up. 30 minutes, just listen. My job is to verify and identify the plan of God for your life. And your job, if you take it, is to orient and adjust to the plan. So thank you for listening to The Flatline. Every Sunday morning you hear it here on this same radio station. As the new year approaches, some of our stations we will take off the air. We’re changing to new markets. So if you don’t hear our station in your market and you’ve been listening, you let me know. We’ll tell you how to get a hold of us. and how to find where the show actually is, but we’re gonna change several stations in the future. But that being said, our program today, we wanna talk about soul renovation. Soul renovation, renovating your soul. Now remember that everybody has a soul, and this is why we talk about having a flat line in your soul. A flat line in your soul is a main line of resistance inside of you. made up of 10 unique problem-solving devices that we will discuss today. And if you learn the Word of God and use these problem-solving devices, then you form a defensive perimeter around your thinking, around the mentality of your soul, so that the outside sources of adversity don’t invade and set off the inside source of stress. Adversity, always, always inevitable. But stress, well that’s optional. So we need a flat line. So we have a soul, everybody has a soul. Your soul is made up basically of your mentality for one. You can think, you can logic, you can reason, you can comprehend, you can choose, that’s another part of your soul. That’s called your volition. So you have mentality. God gave you the ability to think. We don’t all have the same mentality. We’re not all on the same page IQ-wise, but spiritual IQ is different than human IQ. We all have equal privilege and equal opportunity spiritually before the Lord, so we can be on the same page together with one another. That’s for sure. But the volition of the soul is your chooser, your decider. It’s where you make a decision in your soul whether or not you want to obey or whether or not you want to disobey. The Bible says in 1 John 5, 3, if you love me, you will keep my mandates, and my mandates are not grievous. So when it comes to obeying God, the motivator, the greatest motivator is personal love for God. You also have a conscience. Your conscience is where your norms and standards are housed. You say, what’s the norm and standard? Well, When you were young, your parents taught you certain norms in your life, things like pick up after yourself, don’t invade people’s privacy, don’t steal from your brothers or sister, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth, take a shower, comb your hair. You have to have certain norms to fit into society. And then hopefully if they implied or introduced you to standards from the Bible, such as the Ten Commandments, Then you have some standards, and if you have norms and standards in your life, this protects you from destroying yourself. Without norms and standards, you don’t have any options. You have no choices. You don’t know what your choices are. And so more than likely you’ll destroy yourself without norms and standards. So when you have a soul, and we’re talking about renovating your soul, we’re talking about changing the way you think in your mentality, changing the way you do things in your volition, changing how you are protected in your conscience and your self-consciousness, that’s another part of your soul. That’s your awareness of self, and you can look in a mirror and pick yourself out of 10 other people. You could figure out which one’s you. There’s 100 people in the picture. You could point to it and say, that’s me. I’m aware of myself. I’m self-conscious. Now, if you’re going to change your soul, here’s the key to this thing. Changing your actions doesn’t work. Someone says, I need to change. And I get letters like this all the time. Changing your actions won’t work. You must change your soul. You must renovate your soul. Renovate the way you think. And the Bible is clear about this in regards to having a flat line in your soul. The Bible says in Romans 12, one, two, and three, stop thinking of self in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility because God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. What does that mean, a standard of thinking from his word? Here’s what it means. Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2, 5. Think like he thought. Well, how do we know how he thought? Well, we have the New Testament. Everything he said and did was recorded for us, so we can obviously see how he thought. So when we learn the word of God, we’re learning the mind of Christ. When we have a flat line in our soul, we are thinking like he thought. There are some things he didn’t need to do, and there are some things that we must do. And so if we’re going to change the way we act, you got to remember this. If you’re worried about a child or a grandchild or a friend who’s acting irresponsibly, they cannot just change the way they act. They can say, oh, I’m going to do better, and I’m not going to do that anymore. And nine out of ten times, that doesn’t work. If you don’t change the way you think, you can’t change the way you act. Until you learn and apply the word of God into your life, you will continue to follow the same trends of your sin nature that you’ve always followed. And even with the word of God, you may still fail occasionally. You may fail. You may go back and do certain sins that you deplore and you hate yourself for doing it. But that doesn’t mean you’re not saved anymore. That doesn’t mean you’re not a child of God. It just means you failed. You became carnal. You became fleshly. And that’s why we have problem solving device number one. Rebound. You can confess your sin to God and he will be faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you. And when you take the word of God and metabolize it, I mean like food, you eat it and digest it and convert it into energy, when you metabolize the word of God, then the old patterns of the sin nature will begin to change. Thus, you will begin to fulfill the original purpose for your life to start with. And so having a main line of resistance, having a flat line in your soul is so critical. That’s what this show is built upon. That’s what this show is predicated upon. And you should be able to name those 10 problem-solving devices. Remember this, nothing gets solved until we believe in Christ. That’s the best news I could tell you, that Christ is the anointed son of God. And by his action, you and I were redeemed out of the slave market of sin. Thus, our debt to God has been paid and we are free now, free of the penalty of death and free from the power of sin if we receive Christ as our Savior. When we accept the gift that he made on our behalf, it’s a free gift, compliments of God. Listen to the Bible, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves. It’s a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should brag about it. titus 3 5-7 says not by works of righteousness we did no we can’t save ourselves but when we believe that jesus christ is the anointed son of god as john 3 16 says god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that whoever believes in him, shall not perish, but have everlasting life, believes in him, is he or is he not the uniquely born Son of God? That’s what he said in John 7, 40, I am sent that you might believe on me whom ye have sent. Who is he? Is he the Son of God? You need to ask your friends that. Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God? And if they say no, then obviously they’re not believers. They don’t believe. If they say yes, then you have a believer. And then you may say, well, have you accepted him as your savior? You can do that simply by an act of faith. The Bible says, whosoever should call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And by faith, you can simply say, Heavenly Father, I know I’m a sinner. I know I deserve hell, but I’m asking you today to receive me as your child. I believe in Jesus Christ. I want to receive him as my Savior. It’s an act of faith. The words are not even important. It’s the contrition of your heart that God’s looking at. Are you willing to accept Christ? Are you willing to say, I want my life back? I want to start over. I want to renovate my soul. I want to accept Jesus Christ as my savior. There are so many men and women in prison today that would not be there had they done this. Had they accepted Christ and learned God’s word, they would not even be there. But essentially they didn’t have much of a choice because their conscience wasn’t programmed by their parents. My conscience was not programmed by my parents. I never knew my father and my mother never took me to church. And it wasn’t until I was 22 years old that I heard the gospel clearly for the first time. And I believed in Jesus Christ and prayed to God and asked to receive him as my Savior. It worked. It definitely worked. I didn’t feel it. It didn’t knock me down or anything, but it worked. And now I’m a child of God by faith alone in Christ alone. My thinking had to be renovated. And I had to find a great pastor that would teach me the Bible, which I did. God led me to a uniquely qualified pastor who taught me God’s word. And much of what you hear me talk about on these radio shows are things I learned from him. I was a sheep and he was the shepherd. And he’s no longer with us, but there are another men that have taken the church, and they are fantastic teachers of the Word of God. And I continue to study and listen on a daily basis. And you should too, because we continue to renovate our thinking. So if you’re going to have a renovated soul, if you’re going to have that main line of resistance or a flot line inside of you, It’s critical because you can’t live the Christian life without understanding this. The Christian life is not lived by, I want to. The Christian life is not lived by, I will try to do better. The Christian life is lived by learning and applying the Word of God. That’s why the Bible says, “…study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” That’s why the Bible mandates that we grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And that’s why Christ himself said, take my yoke and learn of me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. God’s not going to ask you to do something hard. He’s not going to ask you to do something impossible. But he is going to ask you to stay in fellowship and learn and apply his word. Stay in fellowship. That’s where the first problem-solving device comes in. Once we accept Christ as Savior, we’re placed into the royal family of God. It’s an unchangeable tenure. We are born again into God’s family. And Jesus said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. He said, I give unto them eternal life, and they will never perish, neither shall any man ever pluck them out of my Father’s hand. It’s a done deal. If you’ve trusted in Christ, you received him as your savior, you are in the royal family of God. However, you might not be in fellowship with God because sin breaks fellowship. Sin quenches the Holy Spirit. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that plainly. So as a child of God, when I sin, I’m out of fellowship. I’m not out of the relationship. I’m out of fellowship, and thus I have to go and do exactly what has always been done. Name my sin to God. The Bible says if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all of our wrongdoing. It’s exactly the same thing that happened in Psalm 32, 4, and 5, the same thing David did. we must name or cite our sin. When we do that, we can regain our fellowship with God, and once we’re back in fellowship, we are, of course, again filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit indwells you at the moment of salvation. Ephesians 1.13 tells you this, that the Holy Spirit seals you at the day of salvation. He also fills you. And when you sin, he is quenched or he is grieved. But when you confess your sin, as per 1 John 1.9 and rebound problem-solving device number one, Then we’re back in fellowship. The Holy Spirit didn’t leave you. You didn’t kick him out. You just quenched him or grieved him, and you let your sin nature take over. You’ve got a sin nature. It’s always been with you since the day you were born, and it wants to control your life. That’s why the Bible tells us in Galatians, the flesh wars against the spirit. The spirit wars against the flesh, and they’re contrary one to the other, so we can’t do the things we want to do. You cannot afford to let your sin nature control you. You must operate under problem-solving device number two, the filling of the Holy Spirit. He’s called the comforter, and Jesus said in John 15, 26, when he comes… And I’m going to send him to you from the Father. He’s the Spirit of truth. And he shall testify of me. And he is called in John 14, 26, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things. bring them to your remembrance whatsoever I’ve said unto you how do you think those disciples wrote the New Testament the Holy Spirit brought to remembrance many years after Christ had been crucified the words that he said and they were canonized and put into the Bible thus we have it so the filling of the Holy Spirit I cannot operate in the Christian life in the flesh alone There are a lot of Christians that operate in the flesh, and what they’re doing is establishing a legacy of wood, hay, and stubble. It’ll all be burned up at the judgment seat of Christ because it didn’t glorify God. It wasn’t done under the filling of the Holy Spirit. Under the filling of the Holy Spirit, we must worship God. The Bible says God is a spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. When you want to worship God, you must be filled with the Holy Spirit and you must be exposed to the truth of the word of God. That’s the absolute truth. So the Holy Spirit is an amazing individual that lives in me and lives in you. When you and I sin, we quench him, we grieve him. When we rebound, then we put him back in control. I know sometimes we seem like two different people, and that’s true because there’s a battle going on inside us. And the Bible clear says, again, as I told you, the flesh wars against the spirit, spirit wars against the flesh. But if we will walk in the spirit, the Bible says, we should not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Now the Holy Spirit, when he controls your life, he can use you in spite of your abilities or even your inabilities. But if he does not control you, then the greatest talent, the greatest ability, the greatest personality, the greatest eloquence in the world are useless. Thus, maybe you’re a singer. Maybe you’re one of those people that really loves to sing and you have a tremendous voice and a tremendous repertoire of the things that you can sing. But when you are not filled with the Holy Spirit and you’re singing in the energy of the flesh, nada, void, nothing. It’s just noise, and it doesn’t glorify God. Oh, it sounded great, you did a great job of performing, but it’s wood, hay, and stubble because it was produced in the energy of the flesh. So we must stay filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s the only way we can be rewarded in eternity future. for those things that we did in God’s name. And then we come to the soul strength in the soul. Again, the Bible said 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, don’t quench the spirit. Ephesians 4, 30, don’t grieve the spirit. And so the soul strength of that believer is that invisible flat line, that invisible main line of resistance. That’s what it is. And how do you keep it strong? Your word I hid in my heart so that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119 verse 11. That’s where you get the strength. And that’s how you understand what God’s plan is. Philippians 2.13, it is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. So remember that, learn His Word, let God the Holy Spirit control your life, and that’s just the first two steps of the flat line in your soul. So there are 10 problem-solving devices. Every problem we face was known by God in eternity past, and He provided the solution for each one of these things. But it requires protocol. You must follow an absolute right thing, must be done in a right way. Or it’s all human good. It’s of the flesh. And therefore, following the protocol of God, you have to understand about faith. Problem-solving device number three. When we crack the sound barrier, I mean, you know, a pilot in a jet, it takes a lot of speed. But if you want to crack the faith barrier, you must stand absolutely still. Ephesians 4.13, Moses told the Jews, stand still. and watch what God’s about to do. The only way you can stand still with confidence is standing on the Word of God. Ephesians 6 talks about picking up the shield of faith with which we can quench the fiery darts of the wicked one. You must know the Word of God. There’s no work, no movement involved. You just believe. and you wait on the Lord to keep his word to you. If you trusted in Christ to save you, which you did, that’s the biggest event in your life, then why can you not trust him for your needs and your problems and your difficulties that arise in everyday life? Are there real answers for all the heartaches? Yep. Real answers for all the problems and the adversities and the frustrations? Yep. In John 16, 33, these things I spoke unto you, Jesus said, that in me you might have peace. In the world you’ll have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I overcame the world. There is peace in Jesus Christ. Salvation not only means you’re going to heaven, but that you now have the means to renovate your thinking and stabilize your soul. so you can meet every problem, every difficulty with tranquility and faith. That’s the only way you can live in a place of hopelessness. It’s the only way you can exist in a helpless situation. And we can then see the extraordinary power and grace of God. If there’s no human solution, when you are numb from the shock or the pressure, then you’re obviously in trouble, and sometimes you can’t even pray. So it’s only in the desperate situation that you can avail yourself to God’s perfect provision, faith, and put yourself in his perfect place. Wait, and you’ll have peace. Wait on the Lord. And so the faith rest drill is incredibly important. important to you, problem solving device number three. You must operate under the faithless drill. The faithless drill is you standing upon the word of God in your soul and using the word of God. And the Lord said in Isaiah 41 10, fear not, I’m with you. don’t be dismayed i am your god i will strengthen you and yea i will help you i will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness peter wrote in first peter 5 7 cast all your cares on him because he cares for you and psalm 55 22 cast your burdens upon the lord and he shall sustain you he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved thus proverbs 3 5 and 6 trust in the lord with all of your heart lean not to your own understanding in all things and all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path that’s the faithless drill standing on the promises of god that’s the strength in the christian life you mix god’s promises with your faith and you stand hebrews 4 2 the word they heard did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith See, if you know what the Bible says and yet you don’t use the faith to believe it, then it did you no good at all. So the only way the promises 7,000 to be explicit in the Bible, the only way it can profit you is if you mix it with faith. And that includes knowing them and believing them. Hebrews 4.3, for we who have believed do enter into rest. Well, many believers spend their whole lives seeking that elusive thing called happiness. Don’t you know that? They spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress those weirdos they don’t even like them. So we’re trying to find something that will give us some stimulation, something that will give us some satisfaction, some sort of peace and blessing. The more we search for it under our own power, the more we reject what God has provided for us. So if you’re going to live by faith, you must, number one, claim the promises of God by faith. You must lean on him. Those promises are designed to give you stability, strength, and the ability to face situations. I mean, you can have some sort of relative fleeting happiness in your life, from your family, or some things and some positions in life. But for you, the believer in Jesus Christ, in order to have that perfect peace, that permanent happiness, it must come through faith rest, not depending on human factors. There’s only one way to do it, his way. The thy way highway, as a friend wrote to me and said, not the my way highway, thy way highway. God give you his resources. He’s made it easy for you. That’s why Jesus said, come to me and I will give you rest. What a great promise that is. You know that? Through all of our stability, we can handle two of life’s toughest tests. One of them is prosperity, being prosperous. That’s a very tough test. And yet there are a lot of preachers that preach the prosperity gospel. They want you to be prosperous. Most people fail the prosperity test because it distracts them from the plan of God for their life. And then there’s the approbation test, and that’s people promoting you beyond your ability to handle it. And so through stability, we become a blessing to others because God’s peace magnetizes us, makes us a magnet, and people begin to be drawn to us to find out what makes you so different. And that’s a big paradox in life because we often have to become completely miserable before we become completely happy. God seems to take away all of our crutches, doesn’t he? So that we will lean on him and learn from him. So faith rest means claim a promise from God. Claim a promise from God. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. Psalm 119.11, that’s where it starts. And we use those promises with a biblical rationale. What’s a rationale? It is an underlying reason which justifies or explains why you’re doing what you do. God would never bail on you. God will never let you down. So if you have a biblical rationale, it’s a logistical process of moving towards a biblical conclusion. If God be for us, who could be against us? Romans 8, 31, what shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? There you go. Rebound, the filling of the Holy Spirit, faith rest drill, just three of the problem-solving devices making up the main line of resistance in your soul called your flotline. When you build a flotline, you renovate your thinking, and that’s what this show is about. We’ll continue this show. We’ve got a lot more to say about it. We’ve only been through three problem-solving devices, and there are 10 we’ve got to review. So I hope you’ll hang around, stick with me. We’ll be back next Sunday, same time, same place. If you miss any shows, you can always go to our website at rickhughesministries.org and listen on the Internet. Thank you for being here. We’ll talk again next week.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
